Anonymous said…

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Enabling anonymous comments in my blog was an attempt to bring people to talk about issues they feel near to them without disclosing their names and identities. Of course, it included the threat of spomments and spiteful bites. I realized lately that initiating a talk was worth the effort. So is the change. 

Here is the result of this attempt. I received a wonderful comment, anonymously. Mr. Anonymous made this comment on the sports article titled “S. Sreesanth will come out?”

Mr. Anonymous, you finally spared me the blame of commenting at my own posts anonymously.

Here is the comment; don’t forget to put yours too.

"I may agree with the conclusion and enjoyed the bitter satire also. But I have some differences with some ideas expressed, and also how Malayalies responded. Except Shashi Tharoor, and Srishanth's family, nobody openely or indirectly supported him during his bad days, because it is in the blood of malayalies to feel jealous in the success of others. We never encourage individual success, whether it is Srisanth, or Prithviraj or Ranjini Haridas. These are the common targets of the virtual malayali, see FB posts about them. What they did wrong? They know what they are, what they want, how they can get it and that they have the ability to get it. It means Confidence, but Mallus (of course not Malayalis) consider it arrogance. I didn't react to the arrest od Sreesanth in the beginning time, but had doubt. Still I had doubt. I don't know whether he is engaged in the crime. If yes, hang him, no objection. But criticising him for conducting Thulabhara in Guruvayour, for wearing some "sacred threads" in the hand, and criticising his mother for conducting poojas when he played in the matches are irrelevant things to be talked about. As if, none of the Malayalis go to Guruvayur and do Thulabhara. Those who come to Guruvayur are from other planets. As if those who visit Shabari Mala are not at all Mallus. As is the one who conduct Poomoodal is not a Progressive Politician, as if the Mosque which is built for honouring the hair of the prophet is not in Kerala. If these things are done by the virtual Mallu alone, it can be forgiven, but the so called "revamped" police also doing the same thing. Evidences given to the press: Condom (as if having safe sex is bad), Ladies were with him (as if it is a punishable crime to be with ladies), laptop ( as if only Sreesanth is having it), Smartphone (as if he is the one who invented it), money (he is a beggar arrested from the street), and hotel rooms allegedly booked in metros (oh my god) and he is said to have connections with the all powerful Davood (The Maharastrian Messiah of Indian cricket Almighty Sarath Pawar haven't even heard of Davood), and that too without evidence. So, Sreesanth is arrested, and then "evidences" are found, not in the other way, that too the Police have been observing Sreesanth and his company from the beginning of the IPL (and now they got condoms, so what, you may say). And tell me, if I feel Sreesanth is a scapegoat, is it wrong?" 

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Sreesanth; Is He the Guy?

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Yes, he is the one, who did the below mentioned.

S. Sreesanth had undeniably inflamed my curiosity in news channels and the print media. I do not entertain browsing much through the internet merely because it is one large sea of fake information, well mostly. If you see a title like “Sreesanth; Is He the Guy?” you might expect a shrewd piece of investigative journalism on the screen, but apparently, what you find is only a below average, pathetic blog post. I am not talking about prejudices about news heading lines here. When such a matter is under scrutiny, as spot fixing in cricket, undoubtedly, this question comes alive, though. Who prejudiced you and me towards headlines? Such and such headline must be some sort of an investigation. Such and such headline would mean the person in the news has damned himself. Who did this to our semi-hypocritical sense of judgment?

I have the answer. Satan.

In fact, it is time for me to confess that I digressed from the topic and pushed you over the rails into the chaos of “intellectual conundrum.” Let me be more practical, here. Confessions are the best way to be practical in front of the law enforcement as well as the social system. So I confess; I never paid much attention to the mass media. I was, well, I am, internet savvy. Nevertheless, I kept my distance with news channels and print media, mostly on the grounds of lack of trust and concern for my own healthy psychological environment.

Murder.

Rape.

Murder.

Election.

Rape again, this time, a child of three years of age.

Murder again.

No, I am not completely out of my sanity, yet. The above-mentioned list is how our lives ‘are governed’, if we believe in spending much of our time with mass media. I am not playing Craig Fergusson. I swear. I am not saying the world is much better without any of the media out there. A certain sense of normalcy still reins my system. My disagreement springs from the fact that when I do not want to hear bad stuff, or when I am actually depressed and want to hear some good ‘news’, they stuff my ears with some creepy gruesome news of murder or rape or both. Yeah, I know these are not the only bad things out there.

Being the softhearted person, I have already proven myself to be; I would jump off from my sofa and go to my room for some silent contemplation, whenever they switched to news channels at home. I never had much to ‘know’. There was always the same thing, but in different details and colours, each time.

Suddenly, one day, Sreesanth came.

He came, I saw, and he conquered.

I felt bad about Sreesanth’s current situation. That very reason made me watch more and more TV. Surveying every news channel, I made mental notes of every new turn and twist in Sreesanth issue. Rather than spot fixing and the future of Indian cricket, I was interested in the tragedy of the young man, a Keralite. Come on, you must admit. See, I am not the only one here with a voyeuristic gene. Everyone likes to peep into the neighbor’s miseries, don’t they? I am a Keralite too and that is the allusion here.

Vindu Dara Singh
Image Courtesy: CNN IBN

Sreesanth is the one; I can say who brought me back to watching news on TV. The paradox still stands like the stumps of masculinity on the cricket ground—how can an already corrupted system incarcerate and judge another corrupted man, provided whatever the police are saying is true? Again paradox!

Did you see how Vindu Dara Singh was taken to custody, yesterday? No black face-covers like how they took Sreesanth and other players the previous week! What does this mean?

Anyway, there is something we all should give some attention to—handkerchiefs. Desdemona dropped it, Sreesanth held it. Both were guilty of something (jealously, may be) and made to suffer mortally.  

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S. Sreesanth will come out?

Image Courtesy: Guardian.co.uk

Is it publicity that follow people of people follow publicity? In both cases, it seems publicity is a hard pet to keep. The latest controversy regarding betting in Indian cricket validates this assumption. Heavy betting!

It is shocking how some of the unsuspecting faces appeared on the scene as quite unsuspecting souls and trapped themselves. The labyrinth of law is tightening its grip around their necks. This controversy is unsettling for most of the Keralites, because of the involvement of the fast bowler S. Sreesanth.

Santakumaran Srisant, is born on 6^thFebruary, 1983 in Kothamangalam, Kerala, South India. Even though, Sreesanth was involved in cases of emotional outbursts in the field, including showing aggressive gestures to senior players, for every Keralite, he was a next-door young man, with a slightly twisted mentality. Prodigal sons do return home, don’t they?

However, when the noose of the law tightened, we felt it was impossible for our boy to come back home again. We thought it be better to blame the North Indian lobby for all the trouble Sreesanth was facing, and did the same. Nevertheless, it did not work, as each day new evidences popped up. It seemed the police system in India had a sudden revamp and the law had a revelation. Let a thousand criminals escape, not a single innocent should be punished.

If you don’t feel the pun, show me your back. Here! Take the kick!

Finally, the police had found clues about the involvement of the underworld and each day is witnessing surprising arrests. There are those in Kerala, though, who always had a bad opinion about the prodigal son. They could not stand his hairstyle, or dance, or gestures, or that pair of prominent openings just above his mouth. They celebrated the arrest and are in euphoria about his not coming back.

Image Courtesy: Mid-day.com

We, ordinary Keralites, though hopeless of the situation, often look at whether our prodigal son’s advocates are able to pull some strings. We often forget to ask if he is actually involved in the underhand dealings or not. Never mind the simpleton manner with which we hope for the best. We still could not determine, for whom we should keep our hopes high, for Indian cricket or for our dear prodigal son.

We are content in some ways though; everywhere, our lad known, now, though he is having a bad time with fame.   

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The Fire from Within

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Much like a woodpecker, I was on my incessant attempt to penetrate the outer bark of reality and to reach into the soul of the Cosmos. It was a sunny day and I was in the city. Something in the mind and a tickling sensation on my skin was undoubtedly the signs indicating the presence of a portal opening into the world of Awareness.

The usual process to tackle such a sensation is to walk aimlessly, which in turn is the best way to locate the portal to Awareness as well.

As I was taking the left turn on the road to the Beach of Solace, a familiar face greeted me. On the right side of the road, there was a shawarma shop. He was standing in front of it. Not eating, of course, but having a chat with someone in the shop. Subhashin, has a lot of friends in the city, both cooks and eaters.

It is not always that I meet Subhashin on the road. Perhaps, the opening of the portal and the psychomotor impulses I felt had some relation with the appearance of Subhashin, an old friend of mine, and in fact a guru.

“We must talk about this!” He stated off as I went near him, as if it was part of what he had been talking about to the cook in the shawarma shop. Confused, I stood there for a second, silent. Comprehending from the lack of acknowledgement to his suggestion, he delivered one more sentence; “You know, the situation, the unholy relationship between the politicians and writers, in India?”

I shook my head as if I knew everything he meant by that question whereas actually, I was clueless. We started walking towards the city. “Could you please fill me in on the discourse that you were about to begin?” I asked.

After this prodding, he was silent. Then after a moment, which I failed to measure in seconds or in minutes and so let us simply call, a moment, he said; “I was thinking about these contemporary Indian English writers. Some of them are eager for politicians to endorse their books. Nevertheless, think about those old writers in India. They never maintained a cover for their book with a politician’s quote on it, but always secretly, supported and at the same time admired by political parties and ideologies.”

The topic seemed to catch fire at any moment, so I tried to dissuade him from pursuing the topic further. Because it was politics and because politics was a very sensitive issue around here, I thought it best to cool the conversation off. He continued, though; “some of those old writers wrote for political parties and ideologies, in an attempt to populate literature with enough propaganda literature. They never had an existence of the true artiste.”

“You should not forget there are others who always stood by art.” I said intervening.

He conceded.

Subhashin was a short person, about five feet, two, but had enough fat to balance his figure and to give him the moderate shape. His neck was short, but thick and he kept his hairs trimmed to spikes. Perhaps, due to these features, his head always gave me an impression of being round, like a football. He shook his head, on that thick, small neck of his, wildly, conceding to my point. “There were writers, cherished by both the capitalists and the proletarians, disregarding the mortal differences. Great writers!”

Subhashin had a great point there, I thought. On the left side of the road, I found the board of the city library. That the library was about three kilometers away from the sea, and I was about two kilometers away from this place, when I met Subhashin, instilled wonder in me. How did I reach here in such a short span of time?

Perhaps, the reason for this amazing slippage in time was the pull of the contents of the conversation Subhashin delivered. Suddenly, I felt that I should go into the library and check some books out. I turned to look at Subhashin. He was not there. He did not say good-bye; neither did I hear him talk about anything else, while I was pondering over the slippage in time. They say time is a fabric. I did not know what made the fabric of my life.

Subhashin seemed capable of creating magnificent warps in time and dimensions. I always felt this way about this young man. He must have appeared from the portal that felt opening somewhere in the city, bridging different worlds.  

I went inside the library. After spending about one hour, found Carols Castaneda’s The Fire from Within. The book started speaking to me, then. Glued to the spot where I was, inside the library hall, among the bookshelves, I listened. It said, “Seeing is a peculiar feeling of knowing, of knowing something without a shadow of doubt.”

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For me, the book’s words were hard to grasp, mostly because in order to understand something we need two poles of sensation: the feet and the head. Our feet should be on the ground and head should be in the sky or vice versa. If you bring both together, that is, if you are aware of only one side of knowing, you know nothing. I thought I should ask Subhashin next time when I meet him. But when? The truth is I did not know where Subhashin came from or where he went.  

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Snow White and the Huntsman

Kristen Stewart
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Which one the new queen Snow White would choose as her groom, William or Eric, the huntsman? Snow White and the Huntsman ends and I ask this question myself.

Eric and Snow White
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Beautiful people, beautiful story, beautiful graphics, beautiful screenplay and beautiful performance. This is an entertaining movie. Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, and Hossein Amini worked in the writing department.

They do not experiment too much with anything, but a slight twist in the Snow White’s story by making her a warrior queen. Released in 2012, the movie shows the Snow White story, in the Brothers Grimm collection, for the younger generation, with our very own Bella Swan, Kristen Stewart as Snow White, the daughter of King Magnus.

Charlize Theron
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Charlize Theron adorns the negative role of Queen Ravenna, with her beauty and skills. Chris Hemsworth is Eric the Huntsman, a resurrection for the Thor star. I do not think Avengers gave him much space on the stage. Tony Stark stole much of the gleam from anyone else in Avengers. However, in Snow White and the Huntsman, Chris is remarkable.

Rupert Sanders is the director and his job is evident in how much the movie reminds and connects us with the tradition and invokes nostalgia. There are areas in the movie in which if you find yourself at the end of your seats holding tightly onto the hand rest, do not blame anyone. It is just that the movie is powerful. No wonder this movie won awards for best costume design and best visual effects.

 

The Queen
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A special notice for those who reside near the Dark Forest and the Kingdom of Snow White, Queen Ravenna, just before the pure Snow White stabbed her, had mentioned something like, she had unfathomable powers that “were given” to her. The questions remain; who gave it to her? What were those powers?

So be careful folks. The Dark Force might be out there, looking for a right opportunity to barge in; serving us horror, much like in that scene where the queen’s rider shoots the magical white deer.

As usual, you may find no stars here fellow traveler. So clip your own. 

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The Magus

Image Courtesy: Paulo Coelho

The Fifth Mountainwas the first book that came to me from a local library, written by Paulo Coelho. I do believe that we do not choose books, but they choose us. The Fifth Mountain came to me with a purpose—it told me that it is not a shameful thing to be afraid of something. Fear is just a part of life, like courage and laughter.

The preface of the book had a quote from Paulo Coelho’s legendary work, The Alchemist. It said, “If you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve your desire.” I was awestruck by the possibility of this statement and it was so authentic that believing in it came naturally. It was a new world, I invented through Paulo Coelho. I did not know until then, that writing could be so simple and direct. Magic was another world that opened its doors in front of me, through Paulo’s works.

His books opened me to the possibility of how a human being can communicate with the entire universe and learn from it. Athena in The Witch of Portobello dances and through this dance realizes her connection with the mysterious and the sacred. Brida came to me at a time when I was pondering connections beyond the physical realm. Later, in my life, I found a person above whose shoulder I found the light of the soul mate.  

The Zahirwas about the obsession that one should overcome. I learnt that the mountains could speak to you in a language that you must learn through your journeys. The Devil and Miss Prym was a story that taught me even if I have a good story that looks like a traditional folktale, I can tell it well and successfully, if I believe in it. The atmosphere of this story is remarkable and brings out Coelho’s craftsmanship in full potential. Eleven Minutes and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, brought forth two different faces of love. Eleven Minutes took me to ecstasy and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept brought tears of the sacred soul bound with love.    

I must confess that I could not read The Pilgrimage and Veronika Decides to Die, yet. These books must yet find me. Perhaps the time has not come. All these days, while I was reading all these books, The Alchemist, kept its distance. I knew I should be reading this one. However, the time came through one of my friends. A friend of mine loaned me a pirated copy of the paperback. It was during my student days and I could not support buying an original copy of the book.

When I got a job and that was months later, I bought an original paperback copy of The Alchemist and kept it in my home library. I still remember thinking; I could pass on this book to my next generation. Later, I bought a copy of The Aleph too and found that the spring of words has deeper wisdom that one has ever thought.  

This post is a thanksgiving to Paulo Coelho, who I consider my guru, for writing these wonderful books and for following his dream. I just found a wonderful post in his blog—fifty books that changed the world. Along with many stalwarts like The republic, and The Bible, you can also see The Alchemist.  

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Odd Man Out

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Bloggingmight be a very personal and individual affair. However, with its impact, it is not. Every word one writes and sends out to the world to judge, caress, feel and hope from, holds an unavoidable energy, a spirit, be these words in the form of blog posts or Facebook comments or a printed book. A writer’s first duty is to be respectful towards this state of being. The cosmos works the way.

I consider myself fortunate for having you here, reading with your eyes and mind, these words I typed down so affectionately and carefully. This holds me responsible for the impact of each word I write about, by default.

Whenever, I cross my path across an irresponsible blog post or comment, I think about this stand I myself took and consider myself lucky of being able to keep it in mind, all the way here. Where is the threshold of responsibility?

A lie is not relative, unlike what they teach in Universities. Holding on to a position that the writer knows untrue, but only for the comfort of someone else, is what I call an irresponsible stand. For example, if you write a sponsored review about a brand of alcohol and say that it is a very good health drink for people of every age, in order to boost the sales, you are not being responsible. As a result, your credibility as a writer is doubtful. Of course, if such a review happens to appear in a blog and people bought the alcohol brand, they would not come back to your page again. There are chances that you will receive some caustic comments. The worst is that you will forever lose your readers by telling lies and marketing products using lies. This is because your readers trusted you and you betrayed them.

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It is easy to be flowed away by the deluge of illusions. Still, I should say that there is a risk in shouting the truth aloud from the top of your terrace. The immensity of this risk, sometimes, keeps some people at bay from engaging themselves in the movement with truth. In order to satisfy some invisible gains, they often hold hands with lies and keep their façade foppish.

After all, writing is all about courage and going beyond inhibitions. I could see a major meltdown in such blogs and magazines in India that spread only fake truths and lies.

What did you say? What do I think about books?

I know there are many quasi-artistic writers rising in India. However, as the saying goes, not all that glitters is gold.      

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