The politics of being nobel.

Those were the days (Nostalghic moments of a guy with no big memorable moments)

Place: Bharathidasan University Men's Hostel.
Year: 1999-2003


Hostel..
Hostel remains the most memorable place for anyone who has studied staying in a hostel.
In hostel a guy sees the big big world in a colorful panorama.
Me? Is it the same for me. I dont have big colorful moments or tear jerking dramas in my hostel.

I was a lazy bug those times. I always wanted to go home. I never had style and pretended had lot of substance.
But hostel is the place where youth displays itself in its full form. There was Love,Rivalry,Jealousy,Petty fights, Strikes, Sex, Exams, Movies, Tears,Fear, Show-offs, Religion, Teases everything.
Take my hostel.. It fits as any hostel of tamilnadu.
I had few major moments for my life in hostel
I  got introduced to Ashokamitran,Puthumaippithan, Tolstoi, Kalachuvadu only at this time.
I felt life as meaningless at this time. But I know I was enjoying it. I never thought if life is so meaningless how can I enjoy it so much? How can I fear my exams so much (Even now I get dreams that I keep arrears and feel so scared).
Karmugil Lending Library was my source for books those days. Seeing a new book in their always made me feel so happy.
 I never had big moments..No big loves Small loves, No big travels (Inever traveled more than tanjore), No big parties, No big problems too..
My life in college or hostel never was a piece of a Student's life in Tamilnadu.
But still it have so many small beads of memories rolling down my memory lane.
The sodium vapour lamps,
The long walks with friends,
The terrace moon,
The peacocks' mysterious voices,
The Philips tape recorder and the Shakti FM,
The Bard Fest
Everything makes it special.. More than anything it was the 'no responsibilties' feel that was underlying behind each and every moment makes those days more special..
Hmm.. Those were the days.....

Ganapathi Pappa Give me More ya..

In Mumbai, they know to celebrate.. And you have more than enough number of people to bring the
joy,colors and life in its full.
Yesterday I went to the procession in my area (Koparkhairane,Navi Mumbai)
Hundreds of people.. (And its a speck of the main mumbai's crowd).. Colors crackers,fire shows,dance and what more..
crackers were loud enough to frighten dogs,babies and of-course me  (But those who burnt the crackers were not more than 5-8 yr old kids)..
A mother tightly closed her baby's ear squatting on the the middle of the road (yeh.. and the traffic was not diverted.. ) Everyone were sitting on the partition of the road.
BIG idols, Big idols, big idols.... (Again, if in navi mumbai the idols are garden lizards in main mumbai they are 'god'zilla lizards..)
bhel,sugar candies,sev free!!! Free food always tastes a bit more...An Indian never argues on that I say..
Every one danced. Not only kids and young people-from 7-70 everyone. And thats what I like in Mumbaikars. They celebrate.

Ganapathi didnt save a poor bachelor who's too lazy to wash his shirt from the holi colors (arre yaar.. I was not aware colors are not only for holi in mumbai).. Well still I dont have plans to wash that...

Me and Kiruthika had corn. She hand picked the corn proudly declaring she's a girl from the roots of India.. Hmm the corns were tasty.. But I doubt the other corns were tastier....

Anyways on the whole, Ganapathi bappa did gave me more  for the day ya..

The answer is blowing in the wind..

I have heard of Bob Dylan before .They say he is a legend.
I have seen him in tshirts of guys in Mumbai. (And Che,Metallica,Madonna,Rock, Skulls,snakes,fire--
you name it, and sure it is in the tshirt of a mumbai guy) .
Today I thought of giving his music a try.
I felt wow! His music is minimalistic and it flows.
When you feel lonely Bob's music wont help you but make it more intense.
You feel happy. Bob's music will file it,remove the bubbly part of it and make it more lucid.
Thats what I felt after hearing Bob
What adds to this, is his lyrics. Infact I feel his lyrics excel his music at times. The lyrics of the song 'blowing in the wind' made me think of the Shelly's  poem 'Ozymandias'.

'How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, n how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before theyre forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, n how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, n how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before its washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before theyre allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesnt see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.'

Tweet my rating

Tweet my rating

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/9703/image001rbr.jpg (I found it through stumbleupon.com)

Today after stumbling upon sites, found this cartoon. Interesting. With today's internet and technology I dont think the cartoon is in anyway exaggeration.Even a novice can do this I believe. A social site might already have started such services!
Yes it might infringe the privacy.
But then there are privacy settings and you opt in or out. So what is your option? :)

Who's Who

 
Who's Who

Nathuram Godse killed M.K. Gandhi
M.K.Gandhi killed Nathuram Godse
Indira killed Sikhs
Sikhs killed Indira
Indira killed Sikhs
Japan killed America
America killed Japan
Hindu kills Muslim
Muslim kills Hindu
White kills Black
Black kills White
hanif killed people
people will kill hanif
I killed you
You killed Me

----------------I am myself; Am I?--------------------

Birds can fly and Turtles can swim

Birds can fly and Turtles can swim

Innocence.. Does this word has any meaning in our times? I usually wonder..

War Greed Survival and so much more.. Still innocence exists? When I see a child smile in a crowded metro train in Mumbai I think it does exist. But where is my innocence. Did I lose it Or has it faded in the days that I have lived so far. Innocence is still there when I smile at someone in my office thinking he will smile back at me. It is not there when the smiles exchanged doesnt have any meaning more than stamping a corporate affair.

But still children still have the innocence. In the way they hold their hands with their elders. When they chase a dog, when they spill a icecream, or look at white elephants flying in sky.

The movie 'Turtles can fly' says a strong "NO" to this statement. It says it with war.

Children are raped and have children of their own
They collect unexploded mines for their money needs
They kill themselves and their child
They buy bargain sell and practice weapons
They sleep under big iron tanks
They dream a different culture totally different from what they are.

This is how the movie establishes its statement.
Be it kurdistan or sri lanka the statement remains the same.
What are we doing? Killing children (If innocence is killed do you expect a child to be a child anymore?)
War is there not only in Kurdistan. It is there in our living rooms. A kid sees Mumbai terror attacks and it looks like a hollywood movie to him Not only to children;Many of our adults watched it the same way like a cricket match ('Arre yaar.. Why cant the soldier go and attack in the other way.. ')
Yes they remove our innocence.. Innocence is to cry when it pains to someone or atleast to yourself. They are removing it the way salt erodes spoon.

But the movie also says there are traces of it.
When the boy smiles when he standing amidst mines innocence is still there.
With puppy love.
The young guy saves the boy in the mines.
Dreams for red fishes in ponds (But the fishes lose color)

Hope. Still humanity believes in this word. It has and it will. It has to.

No Saddam No America. The Children have nothing left in the land of mines.
They dream of red fishes that lose colors always.

You know?
Children can play.
Turtles can swim and Birds can fly.

Life in a wheelchair

Life in a wheelchair.

When you sit in a wheel chair how do you feel?
have you ever did that? I have never thought of it. But I fear it. I fear that someday I my sit on it and watch the mumbai rains over my window. What a gloomy thought.I get this thought when I see a limping dog near my house. We are actually born with luxuries. Should we thank for it.
I remember one tamil poem.
'I see a limp man
I feel lucky...
How Cruel?'
(Thats a very bad translation)
But life is cruel . It gives you something and not your friend. vice versa. Some lose more some less.
Say it luck or probability. It is how the design is.
But some dont think it as a loss. or atleast dont want to. or pretend to. I envy them at times. They try to flex the system for them.
I read about a cancer patient who is going to die in 6 months probably. He is a tamil assistant director (Working with K.S.Ravikumar). He is now in plans of directing his first film .
He has said to his friend that 'yes, after six months, You wont get a ringtone or my voice in my mobile. But a lady will answer you saying 'the subscriber is not reachable'; I will be the meaning for those words"
He says this, but he is rushing to complete the meaning he has given for his life. A Movie of his own. It is so stupid in one way. But so meaningful in another way.

Infact the whole concept of human life is so meaningful in one way and so stupid the other way.

-- You hope and you live. But you hope and still you die. I am not trying to be cynical here. But I find, with hope or without, the end is same. Still a travel is not always done for a destiny. Intuitively I can feel, the end is not the point. Nor the start. Not even the travel. It is being a part of it, that matters.

I strongly feel this at times. But still the questions are there and will always be. I dont want to reach anywhere. I strongly believe no one can. I simply wish myself to be a part of something that makes me feel that I am a Meaning. That I feel I am not in a wheelchair.

Is it workable for me?????????

----------------I am myself; Am I?--------------------

Scent of a Dry Lotus

Arundathi roy’s ‘God of small things’

There are great books which you do not like. There are ones which you like and love and show you your world, and still need not be great. When you flip through the pages you start living somewhere else. Where you are not supposed to live. You start knowing the worst secrets of others which you ought not to know. Like dripping water out of a leaky pipe some one’s tears trickle into your eyes. Someone’s kiss may wet your lips. Somewhere between the pages you see yourself sitting there and smiling back at you. When you finish reading the book’s last page, the book actually begins. Somewhere when you are buying a railway ticket or when you are drinking water after walking in hot sun, or when you are not sure how to react to the sudden death of your old school friend or your daughter’s love, the book unfolds.

‘God of small things’ unfolded when I saw penguin shaped dust bins in my school (They always eat garbage with their big rusty beaks). Ammu died with the moth inside her when I was sitting along with my loneliness between the faded yellow walls of the Rasipuram lodge. The oil soaked paper smell of paradise pickle labels is still there in our kitchen’s Ruchi lime pickle’s red label. The novel dissected my life into slices of time and embedded its eyes everywhere in it. A good book like a cockroach hides somewhere in the dark holes but comes out and crawl around everywhere in the dark when you switch of your lights for your dreams. God of Small things did that to me and hence it’s a good book.

The novel’s pattern is like that of a fly in a sweet shop, not sitting quietly anywhere but moving greedily and restlessly between various moments. At the end the circle closes with a love that happens as it has to happen and yes, the ripples the love creates, slowly travels in the river (with its dry lotuses and dead fishes) like a leaf witnessing the changes-huge changes (and not so huge changes) and small changes (and not so small changes).

The novel surely is not a great novel. It cheats us carefully. But I liked the way it cheated me. It cheated me with words. I love to get cheated like that. It never wanted me to look into serious things seriously and easier things easily. I loved it.

In one kamalahassan movie (pesum padam), the hero (or protagonist or call him whatever) beautifully packs with gift wrapper a guy’s shit and disposes it. When I first read God of Small things I felt it said beautifully that life smells shit.


You Said it...
. But Ms. Roy's shape-shifting narrative is also tremendously nourishing, crammed not only with remonstrances but also with inside jokes, metaphors, rogue capital letters, nonsense rhymes and unexpected elaborations. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/25/reviews/970525.25truaxt.html

the bottom line is that one is left largely unmoved by the tragedy that unfolds. But perhaps that doesn't matter and the style's the thing. http://www.indiastar.com/roy.htm

The story circles around its core like a ball in a rigged roulette wheel. Hypnotic, repetitive. Finding its centre only at the end, completing a pattern that never had anything to do with chance. Originally published in Aaj Magazine , January/February, 1998.Reviewed by Michael Brockingtonhttp://www.sfu.ca/~brocking/writing/smallgod2.html

Still, a unique voice and a twisty language is not enough on its own to make me enjoy a book - they have to be have a worthwhile story to hang on, a structure to decorate and make beautiful. When it’s the other way around, when the language seems to be primary and the plot secondary,http://fyreflybooks.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/arundhati-roy-the-god-of-small-things/

one more example of William Faulkner's powerful influence upon Third World writers, his method of torturing a story, mangling it, coming at it roundabout after pretentious detours and delays.
(The New Yorker 159)http://www.humanitiesretooled.org/index.php?sm=hrt_articles.php&modCMS_cidd=72

Who am I?

Simple question.. I am answering what I know (and dont ask more .. I am afraid to )

Rajarathnam.S - My name.
Mumbai - Living here now.
Tolstoi - Still remains to be my fav author
Puliyotharai - Give me Chicken and Puliyotharai and I Prefer the latter.
Andrei - the rolling black horse in Andrei Rublev.. Who can forget that after seeing it..
Table Tennis - Gopikrishnan's best erotic literature (and that says my interest in sports too )
Amma Appa Anna - My family the ones with whom i am always I am.
To forgive and forget -- My friends have to do the first and me the next :(
Sowmya,Zeba,Kiruthika - somehow they tolerate me
Raju,Ravi,Gmk,Savin,Roche,Rathna,Nadeem,Ranji,Ram,ji,Nilesh,Rafi,Vengal - No I am not dedicating any song here... :)


And finally Sisyphus :
A greek king punished by Gods to to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down again, forcing him to begin again.