A haiku or something similar to it.

When I stood there with two heavy suitcases in my two limbs,
the airport door opened itself upon my sensation.
The breeze splashed on my face the sweet smell of coffee beans,
I knew it was a world unseen but not unheard of.

Frowned faces by some, raised eyebrows by some more
"The Great, Old English Empire had me waiting to saunter on its soil"
and when I declared the same to those 'some & some more' back home,
those were the expressions that greeted me with unrequited hostility.

I took the chance like a fish took to water
with a seemingly giant hope that oughtn't falter.

The entry happened with no predetermined date of exit.
It's only the bouts of hope for a better future coupled with merciless English winds that drove me.

I did not know what was in store for me;
for I was a naif at life filled with post-teenage looniness.
One thing was for sure that it marked a new journey
on which I embarked with unconditional love perpetuated by the loneliness.

Now it all goes down from the racks of my brain into the stomach
with aging memorabilia in my sight.
That surge of anxiety entwined with curiosity seems so alien now;
for aging is not just for things but for their creators as well
And that is why art suffers a crushing death as their artists disappear.

Film Festival in the land of Internet

Ever experienced the power of internet? It lies in the download rate of media files for a technical naif like me. At least for me, that's how its power can be substantiated. All thanks to the much powerful internet, I've been able to watch some stunning films from their respective genres. Every weekend puts me through a list of films to watch. The list usually concludes on a Sunday night.

The Oscar nominations have had their due run-time at my film festival. I take this with apprehensive fingers as this is the first time I am going to brief about the films I've covered recently. I brace up with the quote - "there's a first time for everything."


The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (2013): This American-Romanian thriller took me by surprise. Like they say that the Universe at times talks to you, it talked to me about Love on Valentine's day and fittingly, did I happen to watch this love story cum thriller. Fredrick Bond as the debutante director delivers with cooperation from the well-chosen and well-enacted cast. If you're in for a tightly packed thriller with elements of love, rebuttal and abuse smudged here and there, The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman is a Necessary Watch.

Bethlehem (2012): This flick took me by a ride of changing loyalties so sensibly narrated on screen. If war's ongoings & aftermath naturally intrigue you, I recommend it, indeed strongly.

Boyhood (2014): I have been waiting for R. Linklater to take me by a surprise but seems like the wait ensues. The same old on-screen portrayal of a boy's passage through his boyhood, adolescence & the early times of post-adolescence. If you patiently sat through the director's Before Trilogy which of course is a scintillating experience for many, I personally think Boyhood hasn't got much more to offer you. Patricia Arquette stole my heart with her stunning performance though.

Birdman (2014): Who isn't talking about Birdman? I see the frowned foreheads of counter-cultured films buffs as they the read the seven lettered title. Tinge of superficiality smudged to the perpetual faith of the protagonist in his underwhelming yet close-to-his-heart play. Felt Edward Norton was wasted.

Lakshmi (2014): Yet  another parallel (wonder if it can be called one) film by Nagesh Kukunoor. If tears won't well up in your eyes watching Lakshmi, I would have second thoughts about you being human.

Midnight After (2014): this film from Hong Kong shot in Cantonese language was directed by Fruit Chan. Relatively an older film dating back to the early days of 2014. Such complex, post modern ethics debated apocryphally on screen. A thrilling film & it suppresses your apprehension to watch it despite its macabre virtue.



More to follow.

He finally got it right.

The freshly whitewashed fence reminisced an unsullied spring;
although it was only a delayed monsoon in the offing.

That sickened him & pinned him to the floor in a room full of pallor;
yesteryear's wall-posters surprisingly came to his rescue that were full of splendor.

A sturdy fix with a hero's eye took him back into the times of glory;
only to let it all occur to him that it is all a part of the great grand story.

He sprang back to his feet to reestablish the squandered gaunt;
to go behind the self-inflicted misery to kill the spurious daunt.

He held the pen & it stroked the pristine white sheet
and the fears passed onto it in vain only to become beaten meat.

Ink dwindled in the pen to transpose into grids of letters;
he went on to impel with a hope that it'd mark him as a Man of Letters.

Writing continued.
Voices dissolved.
Purpose under progress.
Insult in digress.

Thousands of unwritten words & phrases in the making;
Millions of unseen plebeian faces in the baking.

To live was to write,
He finally got it right.

Indulgence, Triumphalism and Art amidst them.

Bourgeoisie people: Sky high ambitions; grounded reality. Few look at education as a bridging gulf but it ain't in all cases. Social media platforms do their truculent part in capturing the brightest parts of people's lives as thumbnails to keep their bourgeoisie nature alive  & perpetually in despair & an inexplicable angst. With outrunning incidents on a kaleidoscope called life, each frame that passes by leaves a fresh scar which already is old & sluggish as the next frame passes by. Humans get stomped with memories: killing, befitting & forgettable.

Few envision to possess houses to their names; few want their passports' leaves to be stamped with G8 nations' immigration stamps. Everything constitutes to indulgence. The former one treads the path of ownership. The latter - enlightenment.

Life & Meaning are two distinct entities that comprise the two elongated corrugated bars of iron of a railway track running into infinity; they never intersect. If meaninglessness comes any closer to the convincing meaning of Indulgence, then it's on the periphery of a sphere called Life.

People sport khakis which let unfitting shifts half into them & they call it Fashion. However, I sweetly despise it for its nature of taking away unchangeable gloom from one's mind for a minute or two. Or am I supposed to welcome it with no indignation because of the virtual redemption it offers from the enduring ennui? Gadgets, films, automobiles imitate Fashion while inadvertently comprising it with an unapologetic & unacknowledged enthusiasm.

Triumphalism, as a failed destitute & a theater dilettante in New York remarked with a sour spirit on a celebrated, indigenous website of New York, is (and it always has been) the wave this world follows. They are taking pride in participating in clearance deals while experts are endlessly yet unsuccessfully advocating the cascade of consumerism into abyss. Possession is gradually replacing the core essence of triumphalism. The sold middle-class is infesting the unsafe harbours of oceans filled with indulgence, philistinism and organized chaos.

While the optimists rejoice in the rise of entrepreneurial souls from working class coterie, realists see the faltering nobility behind the failing enterprises.

Amid all this, there is art, as it always has been. Silently noting down the squander. It is one for which people like Evelyn Waugh lived, chasing purpose (if discovered) in utter despair & boredom. They give a glimpse of what awaits. (Here's what happened to the genius who wrote The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold - Mr. Evelyn Waugh)


And yet again, art is a sweet, beguiling epicarp on the face of indulgence, what we call Life.

A quick peep and gone again.

It has been more than 2 months I've written something here. I don't think the 70 odd days have fed me with any longing to actually write. I think this part's dead. I feel sad a day might come when this blog dies an unforeseen death. Death, unlike for the living, can be predicted for blog at the least. But this may as well die an uninformed death with no mourners.

If there is anything that I've been doing if we can call that 'consistently', then it is Reading. There's nothing apart from reading which seeks some place here; in the next sentence.

So, I call it a piece.

The Song of Sparrows

"You bought them to let them free" - this line ran across my mind until the end titles of The Song of Sparrows rolled up. I treated myself to this classic film recently only to discover the traces of middle east cinema. 

The opening line takes me back to that scene where a school of goldfish is bought by the protagonist's 8 year old son to cultivate his dream fishery so that they can be "millionaires" - the term the boy dreams  of with sparkling eyes, quite often in the film. 

Ill fate comes in to break the drum carrying the purchased horde of goldfish. When that drum is finally brought onto the ground from the vehicle to think of Plan B, no Plan B is apparent. The fishes are on the ground suffocating due to lack of water. The kids get onto their knees with watery eyes & with no resort around, they will sway away the fishes into a passing drainage canal nearby. Goldfish from fresh water into sewage water. 

I can't remember the lines that follow except I remember our hero singing tunes of hope to his son on their way back home; because that self-coined opening line was ringing in my ears. I found myself huskily saying that line to myself. 

When I look back at it after 24 hours, it's a great metaphor I realize. Assimilating it to our existence, we all acquire things to let them elude us. Don't we?

We buy education & let it elude us while we keep ourselves busy complaining how lame our education is. We acquire freedom at the cost of people & relationships only to let that freedom crush us due to its unsolicited exploitation. It leaves us behind in desperation & ruckus and eludes away. 

The movie finely depicted human greed at the cost of our feet rising above the ground beneath; which my friend is potent enough to challenge our existence. 

2000 Iranian Tomans. That's what it took for our hero in the movie to forget where he belonged to. And to run behind the flashiness of fast money. Tehran played the stage for all the drama. While ostrich eggs that he brought home from the ostrich farm he earlier worked at, made good omelettes, Tomans won over the deliciousness of the ostrich egg omelettes. 

Many of you may argue that he was just advancing in his life. Although he was a walking example of an under-privileged lower middle class man, he had his ideals to walk on. None beats this film in gradually shaping his character to walk away towards money & that walk, I say, is on the broken rose petals we call Morals. 

If that's what it takes to be rich, do you want the riches? If it costs you your soul, wouldn't you bother being sold out? 

My Fiza

Will I ever find my Fiza? She has always remained an illusion for me. Too good to be real. As ethereal as a soap bubble. As ephemeral as the bubble's life.

They say people are imperfect. The only way seemed out was to make peace with the imperfections. Trying perpetually to derive a meaning out of a meaningless collage of random people. While loving the perplexity of meaninglessness. Embracing the nothingness while digging deep with clasped nails & gritty jaws to find something out of the nothing.

Days roll by. Events take place. Significant ones. Not so significant ones. Blasphemies condemned & eventually embraced out of choicelessness. It has always been a choice to be endlessly panicked by the darkness or to come to terms with the surprises I might grope in the darkness. Something that might prick in the dark can only be a thorn of a rose waiting to be cherished for its beauty. Post-adolescent rebellion that ran its course without a cause rooted for the silent indignation against the dark but aging is irresistibly obsequious to fondle the gropings of the dark.

Along with the events, people came. Few memorable ones. Many forgettable ones. It's ironic only the memorable ones caused the irony but is it just the vice? Are they remembered only for the irony they induced?

But because of inherited penchant for the darkness, the memorable ones remained back in the darkened backstreets of life. They jauntily walk around to create a fear in me - the horde in which my Fiza tactfully escapes my sight?

But my Fiza would never leave me. She knows I will be lost without her. She'll wait through the darkened alleys, blackened faces & obfuscating & wicked grins of the 'many forgettable ones'.

I have embraced the darkness for life & she'll embrace me for that.