Dwarfed by Arzee

I have always believed that when a character is created, the inspiration comes from someone real. It could be a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbor or it could be the self.
After reading Arzee the Dwarf written by Chandrahas Choudhury, I am sure that there exists a real Arzee….has to… how can anyone describe a fictional character so real…that if you turn your head, you can actually see him walking past your window, head bowed low muttering to himself. You almost leave your book and start following to hear what he is muttering about… is he making excuses to give to Deepakbhai … that quintessential honcho from the slums …or is he planning to trick Phiroz into playing the Babur himself.
Arzee’s dilemma is as real as the character… no saving the world or becoming a superhero…but getting a raise and marrying a decent girl …that’s all what Arzee wants… but does he get it… is it a happy ending… we will never know…like we don’t know in real life… Chandrahas weaves the plot as gently as he could …never going far from the main character… always seeing things from his perspective.
How many times we are subjected to prose that talks to us through other characters to take the story forward and we all believe that it is essential so that the reader is not bored and there can be some variety …but who needs variety when the central character is so strong. We don’t miss seeing the secondary characters perspective …but we would have liked to know a little bit more about Mobin, Arzee’s brother and Shireen.
No one makes such profound statements anymore...at least in writing...sample this "Love is the true home of the imagination. Requited love is the paradise raised from nothing but a pair of synchronized imaginations!". This sentence defines what the book is.
From the way Arzee the Dwarf was written, I am but waiting for the next book by the author. However, I do believe that this debut novel is not the only piece of published work. If I am not mistaken, a collection of middles was published by the same author and the famous Grandfather and Cronies were created. I’m sure if I search through my haphazardly arranged piles of books I will be able to trace a copy out; which goes to show that the initial days of writing which was greatly influenced by the great P. G. Wodehouse has metamorphosed into a prose full of humour, pathos and delightful vocabulary.

Labour Pains!

Ever wondered about the mysteries of life and death and how various cultures deal with it. Some cultures celebrate death and give the departed soul the best party ever. Others are thoughtful enough to pack all the essential items with the corpse for their last journey. For the wondrous moment of new life, people donate their fortune to the less fortunate ones, some light up the newborn’s life with Cigars; others do elaborate rituals to please their Gods.
Such various customs and culture specific rituals must have been duly noticed and noted down by some anthropologist for their research/thesis work which the common junta ignores generally ignores… imagine reading about such useless info when the antics of our cricketers, movie stars and wannabe reality stars are much more juicer…but I digress.
If someone is an avid Bollywood fan and has grown up in the eighties where Bollywood followed the tried and tested formula of revenge, then they might have inkling to the ambiguous meandering of my mind. Sample this…
The father has been killed (or confined) by the bad guys and the wife who somehow escapes from the den of the bad guys and runs away not because she can’t bear the torture (or lecherous stares of the extras) but she has to give birth to the hero of the film so that he can avenge the family and have a happy ending. Regular fare…some even went on to become hits …but that one scene…where the hero is actually born….it’s supposed to be a very dramatic one… and is often depicted as dark… with rain and thunderstorm and the wails of the pregnant mother who thrashes about so much that the art director must have a standby set ready just in case. The ‘mother’ is drenched in sweat and tears roll down her eyes and the scene seems so long that you automatically start praying for the baby to come out so that the movie can go on…
But why do our filmmakers depict childbirth in such morbid and melancholy way… why is the beginning of child birth always associated with the mother wishing that she was a monk?
In comparison, American film and TV (which is so cool…not to be ignored) rarely projects child birth in such dejected and macabre way unless the plot requires it. It will then be an exception, not the norm.
Is it something to do with the healthcare policies of both the nations… one is developed where all its citizens have basic rights to medical facilities and do not view the process of childbirth as that big a deal, while the other is still struggling to provide basic facilities for the expectant mother. Girls grow up dreading the process of childbirth and with convoluted theories of sex … Agreed schools nowadays have sex education, but imagine how many years of viewing the agony of childbirth in popular cinema is etched in a girls mind….can a textbook with 100 marks of test marks erase that imagery from the easily impressionable mind?
For a nation with more than a billion headcount…that’s a lot of labour pain.

The number 9

Ever realized that we are in Kalyug which is the 9th era of civilization, or that there are 9 celestial bodies in Indian Astrology or that Navratri is festival which lasts for 9 days, or that there are 36 chromosomes in an individual which when divided by 9 yields 4 which in turn is the different stages of one’s life as defined by the Manu Smriti.

Apparently the number 9 is quite the mystery number in Indian mythology but not only so… it has equal claim to fame in Chinese (The Chinese Netherworld supposedly has nine rivers in a nine-headed dragon. Also, ancient Chinese believed that the sky consisted of nine parts, the earth had nine separate countries, and each of those countries had nine mountain ranges), Greek (there were 9 muses, responsible for creation of the arts by way of inspiration. They were the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods), Egyptian (the Ennead was a group of nine gods and goddesses. Before passing onto the afterlife, a person had to be judged as worthy by the Ennead) mythology to name a few.

This mystery number plays an equal amount of significance in mathematics as well… it is the last digit before the start of double-digit numbers. This feature is the reason the number nine has certain unique mathematical properties, such as the digits of every multiple of 9 adding up to 9 or another multiple thereof. For e.g – 2x9 = 18…1+8=9; 3x9=27…2+7=9.

In the Natyashastra, there are 9 bhavas or emotions Love, Mirth, Pity, Anger or Wrath, Heroism, Terror or Fear, Astonishment or Surprise, Tranquility or Peace and Disgust collectively called as the Navras.

Seeing the importance of this heavenly number, I tried my best to fit it into my life….so here goes some possible (read lame) connections
1. When I was 9 years old, something important happened that changed my entire life….maybe …just couldn’t think of any dramatic event…it was too long ago…

2. When I turned 18 (1+8=9), I got my driver’s license and voters ID…as did other 18 year olds…hmmm

3. I have 9 close friends (if I don’t count the rest 11)

4. I worked for an organization called tv 9!!

5. I can prepare chicken in 9 different ways (really I can…lemon chicken, pepper chicken, chicken pot roast with red wine, chicken chilly, garlic chicken, ginger chicken, goan chicken curry, chicken do pyaza and chicken butter masala)

6. I stand tall at 5 feet 9 inches (if my heels are 5 inches)

7. It’s been 9 years since I have stayed on my own.

8. My first big purchase out of my own hard earned money was a watch for dad which cost me Rs. 3,600…the numbers adds up to 9!

9. Ok last try….A chance remark by a friend who was just explaining how I have managed to build walls around me and that it becomes extremely difficult for anyone interested in me to get to know me. He further elucidated that one has to unlock 8 doors to get to the 9th and last door and only then would I really be relaxed and comfortable. Please note, not 5 not 15 not 10 but 9 doors!

Even though I probably need regular psychiatric treatment or possibly the Chinese torture for subjecting a fellow human being to such rambling of the mind….but I think the last or the 9th point does make some sense.

Can I expect 9 comments???

Tears!

Slowly silently they flow, traversing through various layers of makeup and emotions. They have a mission too… they need to know if they are the real McCoy’s or cheap replicas found at the click of a reality camera crew.
Like everything under the sun, they also have a fixed rate of growth and undergo yearly appraisals. Nowadays with high level of stress, they are also frequently under the scanner of a shrink who will analyze them and rate them and label them. Some of them are starting a union against such random commercialization of the humble fluid. So they have put together a list of the various forms that they can manifest itself and hereby declare that all others are fake!
1. The Silent Trickle – Associated with the strong and silent types, this happens under extreme emotions, usually in public…often without the help of any other bodily movements as the entire nervous system concentrates to stop the trickle.

2. The Unstoppable Gush-These ones always come with loud sound effects which some may call crying but is actually a lot of incoherence. It is always advisable to have someone nearby to hold and comfort otherwise it dies it’s naturally death in 6-7 sec.

3. The Slow Drip or the Chinese Drip – This is usually reserved for people who have a huge load to carry and have no time to express their real self so caught up they are in day to day existence. Like the Chinese water torture, they torture they come to haunt in regular intervals.

4. The Treacherous Torrent – This is somewhat similar to the Unstoppable Gush but is much greater in magnitude, it can cause the heartbeats to completely stop.

5. Crocodile Ooze – This is the common variant that everyone is exposed to. It is easily acceptable and identified. However, it is only effective in getting attention, for real catharsis one has to try the above four.

Of course various permutations and combination of the five can always happen and each of the five sects have their own level of intensities.
These Socio-chemical fluids which emotions bring forth are a rather strange breed. One never knows when they will strike and when they will fade. The anticipation is enough to reduce one to tears. But like most emotions, they are just looking for an outlet …to escape …to breakout from the confines of these so called emotions… coz once they reach the atmospheric world they can either sublime into vapor or seep right back into the folds of the epidermis. It is their choice.
Unlike humans, who cannot choose which way to shed them… when one really wants to go full throttle, the silent’s trickle out…when one wants to hush the trickles, the torrents are unleashed. It’s like they have a mind of their own. Only the crocodile is submissive. It listens and does exactly as it is told. But then who wants a crocodile anyways.
Just for that one torrent to wash away all the worries, just for that one gush to unclog all the memories… so that new ones can be stored… so that happy ones can be displayed … so that one be free.

The End is Near

Yeah the end…not only is it here…but also near… no no I am not trying my hand at some cheap alliteration. It’s just a fallout of a long conversation with a friend who goes long back and is far away…a long way off the pacific so to speak.
Well, over ISD calls arguing the case of networking and or the need for small talk, we touched the topic whether the end is what matters or is it the journey? Quoting management theories my friend just reinforced the fact that all such theories are actually bullshit pointers filled with jargons and only serve the purpose of confusing the other person. The person at the receiving end, not making head or tail out of it ends up buying the theory often at an exorbitant cost (cash or kind) and falls into the trap of success, chaos and rat race.
But I digress; I am not here to do some MBA bashing (which incidentally is my favorite sport ;)) but to acknowledge the fact that this time it does make some sense.
Yes, in a way the ‘END’ is what everyone or say most people have in mind when they start a venture be it business, social or artistic in nature. But it’s not always the end that makes most people strive towards making the venture a success…sometime success lies in completing the journey, sometime the journey/process is so exciting that the end doesn’t matter.
We are all born with one certain thing… death… we know that it will happen, but does one fling himself off the 31st floor of a high-rise or sleep on railway tracks or send a personal invitation to the likes of Kasab to reach the end. No, we traverse each day learning new things, experiencing various emotions so that when we reach death we can find some other end. The journey towards death is what matters most, more than death itself.
When anything is given life, the end of that life is death…but the blooming of the flower, to the chirp of a bird, to the gush of a waterfall, to the roll of the sea, to the stoic silence of the mountains, to the bounding jump of the hare, to the rat race of the humans, is but only the by-product of that end. And if the flower attracts the pollen carrying bee to pass on the emotions along with the pollen, if the bird chirps forth a tune to the hearts of a lovelorn poet, if the waterfall excites the fish to swim in dangerous water, if the sea calls out to the surfers, if the mountains beckon the hermit…then they do so with the hope that their emotions, their intrinsic nature, their being doesn’t end with their physical death… that someday there will be some flower, some bird, some water fall, some sea, some mountain, some animal, some human somewhere which will not dwell on the impending death but will carry their legacy forward thereby making them mortal… thereby rubbishing the fear of the end.
Because, the end is always near…. but with each end comes a beginning as well.