You noticed how I faked like a woman...

I wish you had noticed the breaking down like a little girl...

Chitrangada rajkumaari...kaman na jaani...

I want a daughter. My own daughter. Conceived and nurtured in my own flesh and blood, in my womb.
But it is not enough for me to wish and desire and crave her. I need a man.
Somebody who might be kind enough to consent to parent her. Suiting his time, will, whim and fancy.
The irony!
I feel mad at such despondence, such helplessness.

I can adopt, I am told. I can, of course. But I don't want to! I do not want to be robbed of that beautiful experience of being a mother. Of becoming one. Biologically. Physically. Emotionally.

I do not wish to create her using someone's jerked-off expendable, either. I want to create her with the man I love, whom I choose to create her with. But why do I have to wait for when he may graciously do me that 'favour'?

Isn't there a third option?

I think there is. It is called having a love-child.
But do I have the guts to do what I want, defying what 10,000 other people don't? Do I want my Chitrangada badly enough?
...

Wishlist

1. Camera
2. Trip to Himachal/ Arunachal/ Nabadweep
3. Home.
My home. With white walls. And one red wall with a black and white Picasso mounted on it.
4. Daughter.
And a doggy. Same age. Piku-Jhoru will be there as supervising, overseeing, seniors.

Madhumaash!

Naam Nawborrha.

Boyesh, chobbish theke tirish er moddhye.

Thhikana, kolkata shahore natun khaat-paalonko-dressing table ey shajano, nichu ceiling er chhotto jhawkjhawke mosaic floor er flat!

Singapore, Malaysia, Bangkok-Pattaya ancholei, gawdogawdo 'showamir' haat ey jhuley porey, 'sight-seeing dekhte' ebawng 'shopping kinte'i shesh dyakha gechhilo.

Haariye jaowaar shamaye pawrone chhilo 'jeans er pant', ebawng khnaaje khnaje bhnaaje bhnaaje lepte thaaka "top", shorire shohager spawsto chinho jaate spawstotawro hoe phute othhe. Shnithite chhilo bhawra shnidur, dui haat bhorti shnaakha-pawla-ityaadi, ebawng gawlay kaalojirer mato jhilmil kawra mongol-shutro.

Niruddesshyo shamparke ghoshona ti shamapto holo.

Cacophony of discordant notes...mile sur mera tumhara

Many many years ago, they made a 'video' called 'Mile sur mera tumhara' for public broadcast on Doordarshan channel. Back then, in 1988, the concept of a video, or an audio-visual/song-n-dance, disembodied from a movie, was practically unheard of. Not surprisingly, of course, since the medium on which it was to be published, that of the television, itself was fairly new in India. By 1988, though, television sets had stopped being considered a one-off, a luxury that only a few could afford, and most houses had a set each. The middle-class, most certainly did!
The initiative for this video was taken by the Ministry of Infromation of India as part of an attempt to highlight the "Unity in Diversity" fact(or fiction) of India; A notion that the nation-state follows up in theory with an obsessive frenzy almost. A fanaticism with secularism, but a fanaticism, nonetheless. Something that had started with Bankim's Bandemataram, this idea seemed to catch on gradually and has, since then, become fairly popular and convenient-the idea of trying to highlight the fact of unity inspite of a mind-baffling range of diversities that make the nation India. From text-books to public messages, this is a point that has been driven home deftly. Or atleast such attempts have been indefatigable.
This video was obviously created towards that same end, of forging a sense of unity, of integrity among a people as different from each other as different could be. The medium chosen was the clincher, the secret behind its huge success then, and its lingering appeal today. Televison, for the first time, was carrying the same message across homes throughout the length and breadth of the subcontinent. Things were made even simpler since DD was then the only channel. How far the actual message was understood, is suspect, but what is undeniable, is that, it created a mass fan-following that did infact create a virtual unity, a sense of one-ness, that was new and sparklingly bright.
A whole lot of memories surround that one video. With time, it came to be representative of a certain time, a certain way of life, the beginning of the process of cinestars, so far unattainable, becoming more approachable, coming closer home. Beautifully orchestrated and coordinated, it is something that may safely be called a masterpiece, in that, any attempt to copy or 'remake' it (the current fad among a generation that is bending over backwards to prove their own lack of ingenuity), is to be considered nothing short of blasphemy.
I watched the new video for 'Mile sur mera tumhara' today. And I was aghast! What was the need for this? Except to prove, by holding in sharp relief, the extreme contrasts in quality of the two videos? It is crass, disjointed, adhoc, haphazard and necessarily therfore has the three "iconic" figures of India today- the three Bachchhans, who MUST appear in all videos clinging together, batting disgustingly fake eyelashes in oh-so-repulsive coyness. Yes, it also brings into frame starkids, from that side of the television screen to this; kids, for whom, this video was an integral part of growing up, now feature in its morphed version. And who on earth gave the singers the liberty to twist and turn the original tune to suit the whims of their vocal chords? I can never understand why people need to distort a perfectly neat tune with unneccessary undulations, in an effort to prove their scale and versatility. One trait that single-handedly mars most live performances, and makes me yearn for the original rendition.
Coming back to the basic question-what was the need for this remake? One can perhaps understand the need for the original when placed in the context of the time it was created in; but this? What excuse is there for such colossal wastage of money, insult of sensibilities, tarnishing of memories and mockery of people's intelligence? I think its a farce, peopled with new-age smart-alecs like that semi-punk semi-hippy semi-god-knows-what Shankar Mahadevan.
In a way, however unfortunate may it sound, it does actually mirror India's condition today. Haplessly in search of an identity, any identity, fissured and falling apart, and efforts to hold it together being damnably contrived and palpable.

Kolkatar Elektra

Buddhadeb Basu’s ‘Kolkatar Elektra’ is a dark and grim portrayal of a woman’s obsessive love for her dead father, an obsession that leads her to nurse a rabid hatred for her mother and the man she remarried.
Convinced beyond conviction about their role in the death, 12 long years have not been able to efface either the scar or the love for the only man she has ever had in her life-her father. I could at various points, personally relate to Shampa-the Elektra of the play-and her predicament. The disgust she feels for her remorseless mother, the antipathy towards her mother’s new husband, the nauseating repulsion at the casual, unhindered flow of daily life, are all familiar and easily identifiable emotions. Of all things however, the feeling that most touched a raw nerve, was Shampa’s ever-increasing distance with her mother, concurring with her mother’s increasing closeness and dependence on her new husband.
In that sense, Shampa is a true Elektra, or rather, best exemplifies the ‘Elektra complex’. Since Freud never spoke of such a complex and it was only his student Jung who came up with the female version of the Oedipal complex, it may auger well to judge Shampa by Jung’s definition alone. In his scheme, the complex-i.e., the sense of acute possessiveness leading to deep insecurities and paroxysms of jealousy- may not necessarily be directed towards the parent of the opposite sex. More so, in the case of the girl-child, who latches on to the mother with the same intensity as with the father, even eyeing her mother’s chores-whether at home or outside it-with hostility, distance as it does, her mother from her.
Buddhadeb Basu’s Elektra, Shampa, is that. Just that. And it is difficult to put a finger on Shampa’s object of wrath, precisely for this reason. That a deep sense of betrayal gnaws her hollow is amply established. But for whom and why, are questions, that perhaps require a far greater level of personal empathy to figure out, than may be ordinarily expected.
Shampa misses her father, yes. Loves him, yes. In a manner ‘unbecoming’ of a ward, yes. With an intensity that was tantamount to frenzied obsession, yes. May even be clinically labelled a schizophrenic for all this, yes. But beyond everything, what is it that made life un-livable for her, every waking hour a torture? What, I wonder, agonised her more? The fact that Ajen-her mother’s lover- took away her father’s life, ensuring she could never see him again; or the fact that he took away her mother from her, ensuring this time, that she saw her everyday, every minute and every second, and reduced her to a constant witness to the celebration of a life of which she was not, and would never again be, a part of. Raising an expensive toast to his successful design, Ajen seemed to have had the last laugh. Sinister, no doubt.
Even then however, for all the spite she felt for him, Ajen was not Shampa’s ultimate foe. He was, but an outsider. An outsider from whom no sympathy can or should be expected. It was her mother. She was the one who had let Shampa down. A letdown so abject and complete that she never recovered from it. Shampa’s is the classic predicament of an unvanquished hero succumbing only to the blow dealt by the loved one. And for Shampa it was a double-blow. Not only had her mother aided in the murder of her father, she had allowed a third man, a complete stranger the right over her own life, her children’s’ lives and their lives together. Ajen therefore was the ‘other man’ who came in between not only her father and mother, but far more importantly, between herself and her mother. And that leeway was given to him by Manorama, her own mother. I could almost breathe with Shampa the same stifling fury, the same bitter anguish, and the same muffled venom, every time Manorama turned to Ajen in oh-so-fragile helplessness, let him decide the fate of her own children, in her own house, and sought permissions and offered explanations when none was necessary. The referral to Ajen as that man and Manorama as that lady whom our father had married, rings like a refrain throughout the play amply bearing out the deeply-entrenched odium/spite.
But it is to the credit of the author, that ‘Kolkatar Elektra’ never relapses into predictable monochromatic binaries, infact swinging the grey zone with mischievous infidelity. Shampa’s hero therefore is not a pristine, untainted figure who makes it almost obvious for the reader/audience to lay all their love on him! An alpha-male from the word go, he wasn’t, to cut a long story short, the best man to have a family with, spin dreams around or expect their fruition from. His character is etched out mostly from Manorama’s version, but then, it is corroborated by Shampa, albeit with ready justifications for every slip of his. This part-the dialogue between mother and daughter, Rashomon-esque in its spirit-I think is the high point of the play. And it is from here, that I believe, the sympathies that Shampa had so far hogged, begin to fade away. One begins to see Manorama’s point of view, learns to ache with her for conjugal bliss at the prime of her youth and pine for the little things that maketh a house a home. I was reminded, repeatedly at this point, of a movie made not very many years ago-Unishey April, by Rituparno Ghosh, exploring the complex dynamics of a mother and her estranged daughter. The ‘influence’(to be polite) of the play on the film, from content to exact dialogues, is hard to miss; particularly the manner in which, over the course of the play/the film, the object of vilification slips from oh-so-obvious to not-so-sure-anymore. And I do not remember having seen any acknowledgements where they were due.

The Householder

"The Householder" is one of my favourite movies. Bearing the stamp of Merchant-Ivory movies in its uncluttered narrative simplicity, it is a tale that tugs at the strings of the heart with delicate, unpretentious poignancy.

It deals with the plight of a young man, caught in the crossfire of the mutually antagonistic figures of his mother and his newly wed wife. His predicament is worsened by the abysmally paltry salary that he earns as a junior professor in a college, hardly enough to make ends meet. Diffident, he decides to leave it all, and seek solace in renunciation, in sannyas. But a chance encounter with a spiritual figure makes him see the inherent wisdom of the ancient Indian idea of chaturashram; Till such time that he is required to renounce the material world, he should relish and appreciate it, instead of resorting to escapism. For that is the task of the greehi, the householder.