Quarter life crisis!!!

In 2001, two great people in the world, Abby Wilner and Alexandra Robbins, identified the issue thar I am suffering from currently, Quarterlife Crisis.

Well, till sometime back I didn’t know the name of my “problem”. But then I was very happy to discover that I suffer from a totally cool psychological disease.

Basically, I tried to make a transition from writing to being an assistant to a director (That’s called DA in the direction lingo!). And honestly, it’s an experiment/sabbatical phase for me. I am trying something out and taking a break. That’s all.

I am in a phase where I just can’t seem to go back to a fixed routine. I am just in my own world. Thinking of new ideas...Financially, it’s a big risk. But leaving that aside, it’s a really great time of my life. My thoughts are just all over the place and I really like it this way. I don’t want them to follow a given fixed boring stream.


PS: Soon you will see a new version of this blog with some really interesting stuff!! Watch this space for more. (Journalism cliché!)

Blind Alley

Lights and lights everywhere
I walk down a blind alley
Blind as the sea in the dark
Blind as the moon in the day
A stream of colors light the sky
Sparkling brilliance all over the world
I look down and smile
At the irony of fact and fiction
Force myself to climb up the wall
Can’t be locked here forever
I sit amidst strangers
Smile sheepishly at everything said
While secretly listening to the music of colors
I am lost as lost can be
I criticize myself and the world sometimes
It rains heavily in the dark
The cab driver takes his last passenger of the night
He drives up the blind alley and soon finds himself at home
His wife, his children, his mother and his furniture
The city moans, cries, laughs and complains
It is so dark that one can’t find home
Yet they all sleep in homes
I think this and a lot more
And doze off at a nice cozy corner of the blind alley

Amu

When I was a kid I was extremely argumentative and my grandfather joked that she was born right after Indira Gandhi died and she is the prime minister of our home. I was born in 1984, so were most of my friends. We were born this year and Indira Gandhi died this year were the only two facts about the history that were revealed to me. I have never been much of a history enthusiast but I thought that I know most of the important highlights of the India history through the textbooks that I mugged up in school. Today I watched this documentary by Shonali Basu ‘Amu’ and I realised like the protagonist in the movie even our parents and our country haven’t educated us properly about the history of our country.

The movie was extremely enlightening. I had no idea that there were mass murders of Sikhs and there were such brutal killings. The movie subtly shows that this was in cold blood, meticulously planned by the beurocrats.

It is a must watch. It is an extremely well made film too. A lot of detailing has gone in the film in terms of everything. Everyone has done a wonderful job and especially Konkona Sensharma.

Melting Pot

It ain’t for no reason that Bombay is called a melting pot. I walked into the city almost four years back from a city where the massive part of population was Punjabis. Punjabis outnumber other whatever “communities” in Delhi in such a way that Delhi got represented by them. So, since childhood the only typical community I had known was Punjabi- they were supposed to be rich, loud, little dumb and ironically very clever too.

When I came to Mumbai and stationed myself in a rickety wooden PG with eight rooms and about 17 girls, it was a whole new world of “communities” that opened up in front of me. The main ones include Marathis (ofcourse!), Gujjus, Bong and Catholics. I was amused (still am to some extent) to see that how each of these communities was neatly classified with various descriptions and definitions attached to them.

OK before anyone comes running after me, these are not my views and I am really not much of a “community” person.

My first roomie in Bombay was Bong so I was introduced to Bong community quite early. I love their language. It is one of the most lyrical Indian language. Anyway, some of the common characteristics associated with them are quick wit, well-read, intelligent and very sectoral (which basically means when one Bong meets other Bong, they go nuts!). Hmm...I would say most of it is definitely true (here, I am only thinking about handful of Bong friends that I have). But that’s not the end of it. Bong guys are said to be rather pseudo intellectual (again, not my view!). I think they are rather cute ... There is this one incident that comes to mind. It was one of my very early jobs at an ad agency and on my first day this really sweet Bong guy made me feel at home and in one of the very first conversations we had he proudly told me that he has an incestues relationship with his cousin. (I wasn’t surprised...I am a big Amitav Ghosh fan)

Gujjus, I was often warned, are very stingy...... Long pause......Well, that’s the only thing that comes to mind that I was told about gujjus.

Marathis, I was told, are sweet, down to earth and accommodating people. Ofcourse, I am presuming that this description did not refer to the whole Shiv Sena gang. Just one interesting fact that I have noticed. In most of the ad agencies, the copy department is full of non-Marathis and the art department is loaded with Marathis!...That’s it...I don’t have any inference out of this!!!!

What is left now? Ya....Catholics. Here I was told that the majority is the “Yeah man! what man!” community but the rest are “classy and cool”. Again, they are supposed to be highly sectoral. Quite friendly and creative too. Well, the catholic friends that I have are some of the sweetest and friendly people I have known. And yes most of them are highly creative!

Anyway, the whole point of this rather long post was to kill some time !!!!

I am bored of this pattern now
Of being in love with you
It was a beautiful kaliedoscope from which I had seen hues
But now its broken
Its not even black
Its transparent
Makes me see the world as it is
I hate it

My muse is lost
I am no longer a poet

I dive deep in blue and wash away purple
I run round and round to come back to your words
Now I am looking for a point that joins the semicircles
I want to break it, break it forever
Go back to the Eden alone

I am no longer thinking about you
Its just the thoughts that keep coming back to you

Mr Obama

Well, alomost all of us knew that there is something special about this man...His campaigns before elections infused energy in the gloomy recession era..Somewhere, people had the gut feeling that this man is THE change that USA and in turn, the rest of the world needs..His eclectic and charming personality won him the US elections and hearts of lot of crazy Americans and I am sure, many Indians too.

Anyways what triggered this flow of adulation for him right now is Mr Obama's presence in David Letterman show on STAR World. He had made an appearnce on the show while he was campaigning and had "promised" to come back if he wins the election. I had never seen that episode. David just mentioned it on this particular episode. Well, here he was, super down-to-earth yet very firm-in-his-beliefs president of USA talking about economy, job scene in US, Afganistan, Iraq amidst cheers and claps and some nice and some cheeky jokes of Mr Letterman.

I was just really impressed to see the President so relaxed and soooo close to the public. He just seemed soo accessible. There is just something about him.....

I like!

Nothingness

I can have the privilege of calling myself ‘jobless’ these days. I like the term (so far). There is some kind of ‘return to innocence’ feeling in this state. I am kind of sandwiched between past and future work but I am still making the most of this present. I am discovering ‘nothingness’. For me, nothingness does not equate to being blank. That’s a state which is too ideal to be true. However, it is about (how Jim Morrison puts it) a state of travelling to subconscious.
Started with reading Shadow Lines again (for the sixth time now). I am reliving it in words, in pictures and in my imagination. What better way to start nothingness than reading ‘A place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one’s imagination’. ‘One could never know anything except through desire, real desire, which was not the same thing as greed o lust, a pure painful and primitive desire, a longing for everything that was not in oneself, a torment of the flesh, that carried one beyond the limits of one’s mind to other times and other places, and even, if one was lucky, to a place where there was no border between oneself and one’s image in the mirror.
Followed with a movie called ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’. Inane, open-ended and find-your-own-meaning conversations over, yes, coffee and cigarettes (well, most of them!). Amazingly beautiful overhead shots of the banal cups filled with stimulating coffee and an ash-tray filled with the butts of often claimed-to-be pacifier. I could feel nothingness throughout.
Followed with real conversation over real (and badly made) coffee. Good conversation though. Minus the cigarettes this time.
Walk through the bustling street. Lights and traffic whizzing past. Looking and yet not looking anywhere. Eyes on the blocks of foot-path. Counting a number of things and making patterns.
Sleep. Dreams. Forgettable good dreams.
Stumbled on a page on Charles Dickens. A question was once asked (to this effect): How do you create these characters? Charles: That’s a mystery unfathomable’.
More movies: Water Lilie. Journey into the psyches of two adolescent girls, grappling with their sexualities. A very well clicked picture of a complex subject. Disturbing and beautiful. Water becomes their freedom in the end.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Puzzling till the end. Tribute to imagination. Wild imagination. Create-your-own-world imagination.
Nothingness is short-lived. Have work tomorrow. And I am excited as hell.