The Uglies ( A review)

I made the mistake of reading the reviews of the movie ‘Uglies’ that I saw on Netflix and was shocked to come across hugely negitive ones. It was disheartening. How could we miss out on the deeply layered message that was meant to safeguard us from the soon to be incorporated doom into our lives? 

Doesn’t the movie talk about the essential sense of ugliness that we inherit from our collective unconscious and the environment that locks us into feeling that way about us. I was a “pretty” kid and grown up but never really knew that I was, and had a serious lack of self esteem because of that. So if the director here has chosen Joey King as the protagonist who sees herself as ugly, what makes it so difficult to miss that point that is being conveyed here? In a society where even the so-called good looking are infected with the virus, what to talk of those who are not so, so-called-endowed externally?

Uglies (based on the popular dystopian young adult novel by Scott Westerfeld) is set in a futuristic world where everyone undergoes extreme cosmetic surgery at the age of 16 to become "Pretties." This surgery enhances their physical features to a standard of flawless beauty, following the society's rigid ideals. Before the surgery, individuals are addressed "Uglies" and live in designated areas away from the perfect "Pretties."

This society values conformity and beauty above all, seeing physical imperfections as something to be fixed, even at the cost of individual identity and freedom.

The story follows Tally Youngblood, a teenage girl who is eagerly awaiting her own transformation and how she eventually undergoes the paradigm shift. 

In the movie we see that the moment people undergo these “procedures” they are shown as having been rendered desensitized, which to me is such a profound metaphor. I wonder if that has been missed out on by most of the people who care to put out their scathing criticism, without using the faculty of correct critical thinking! Don't we see that happening around us all the time? The class consciousness that we all have; the superiority and inferiority thing that hounds us all our lives for all these factors: money; beauty; intelligence; talent…everything here is a resource to climb the social ladder to prove that we are somebody…the traps that are laid all around us and the propensity with which we allow ourselves to be imprisoned by them. And how this blind clinging to such ideas is so depriving us of the real sensitivity towards life and our fellow mates that we miss out on totally. 

A few months after my young, intelligent and “pretty” elder daughter had flown to the US for her further studies, one of the pictures that she shared, I was a little crestfallen to see her resembling the newbies: that blondish adapted look: with those golden streaks in her hair. A look that had filled me with a sense of despondency to the choices that mostly we the female gender were making inadvertently to offer ourselves as the most well packaged and glamorous consumable items. The latest and most dreadful casualty in the growing trend of new age consumerism.

My younger one had fallen into the trap in a more alarming way.Tall, intelligent and “beautiful”, yet having acquired the need to push the envelope further into some unrealistic standards of beauty, disseminated by the nasty fashion and cosmetic industry (which is far more lethal than it looks). After trying all the possible ways, we as parents were watching with muffled breaths her gradual but adamant steps into the precarious precipice of size zero mold. She could have fallen on the other side from that ledge any time… Can’t be thankful enough to the universe for having visited her brain with a sharp lightning like streak of wisdom, one fine day when she fell unconscious due to prolonged deprivation of food. With none of us at home, she having to deal with that situation on her own geting to confront what she was doing to herself, somehow propelled her into a conclusive clarity of the havoc this was doing to her system. She decided to take a u turn from there, for it was now or never as i believe she saw it then. 

Then there was this show I saw recently on Netflex: The Perfect Couple; wherein the famous and talented actress Nocole Kidman is such a manicured mannequin version of herself. Throughout the show there's not a single place we see her beam a full smile (which i wonder is more a demand of the character or the botox that she has in the lips and the chin, with a compulsive pout pasted on them most disquietingly. Why? For it is imposing those fake ideals upon the more impressionable minds, to buy these as the standards of real beauty, when actually it is the farthest cry from being authentic/ beautiful) It scares me to imagine the world we are heading…Hardly any of the actresses out there who have not been a victim to this going under the scapell to come back with a synthetic look that they compel themselves to believe is a better version of themselves! 

To me it is against this backdrop that this movie comes as a bolt of fresh whiff of replenishing oxygen. There are certain sane voices that are ranting the truth away at most affordable and nominal prices in this noisy bazaar of the overbearing false and the fake, masquerading as the true! Irony is that we opt for the fake and more exorbitantly priced alternatives. I feel very inspired by the likes of Julia Roberts’ who I am sure is managing without botox and beams that widest of the smiles most unabashedly, which is what I believe makes her more beautiful than what is seen as beautiful. 

Scott Westerfield in his novel ‘Uglies’, talks about these very developments through a poignantly impactful metaphor. 

I recall that around the 1990’s corrective teeth procedures were already quite an in thing. My teeth which were in that category needed that, but my father didn't see it as important. I spent a lifetime staying quite conscious of my teeths slight protrusion. Another cousin of mine who was quite pretty otherwise had her teeth definitely demanding the corrective procedure,  more than mine, but missed out on hers as her parents couldn’t afford it, and we were still in the middle middle class upbringing where things like these weren't and couldn’t have been a priority. I always felt it was so unfair on that girl to have been left the way she was and not been awarded the procedure so she could be such an amazing version of herself. Now put all these real life examples of the likes of us: such ordinary mortals who are stuck with one or the other body part being way out of their acceptance levels. I am sure the data shall prove to be nearly 100%. Now if I had the clarity of the facade not being as important as we have been made to believe it is, I wouldn’t have spent a lifetime seeing myself as anything lesser than anybody else around me.  

In today's society when almost 50-80 % of our bodies are alterable, is it sane to go for it or know that the buck never stops! It shall be a never ending ordeal, once trapped inside the bubble that promises the utopian possibility to one’s vulnerable mind. Those doll-like superimposed thick lips pasted hanging upon old ones is a most deplorable replication of God’s expertise. And the escapism that it sneakily offers to the scared mindsets, who want to prolong their innings here are being the most ruthlessly exploited by the new age consumerism that is most voraciously feeding upon them. As long as we are falling victim to the hands of that science which has always been thoroughly misused to play God, we shall be the most pathetic guinea pigs in the race to sustain that which is universally most fleeting: the idea of external beauty; young age.   

It may be easier to intellectualize upon it than to avoid the temptation of going for it if one has the means to, like Dr Faustus asking for the extension of 25 years of young age with all the extreme pleasures at his disposal in exchange of his soul! People needed to get the multi layered metaphor to go back satiated from a wonderful piece of art like this. We need some evolution at the hands of literature. No wonder I always felt that exposure to classic literature was as imperative as the daily food that we need to consume for the upkeep of our bodies. For a healthy body cannot be shielded for long with a mind not up to safeguarding itself against wrong  influences.  

We got to be using our critical thinking skills effectively

 

Had an interaction with this theatre person who also writes some interesting shayari. One statement that he made about himself was how Bolliwood was a major influence upon his mind in his growing up years. How he grew up internalising the flimsy superficial values that are absorbed from there. My mind quickly connected this to an interaction with another so called intellectual who had the honesty to admit that his world view was formed by the movies of his generation, which is at least 3.5 decades behind! Wasn't this data enough for me to come to deduce that we as a society are largely leading orphaned existances: for our own families have failed us to be raised with a mindset that has a standing of its own and thus can sift authentic from the trash.

Yesterday post watching this movie 'Animal', i was aghast that stuff like this is not only just being churned out, but is being consumed with a voracious appetite!! The absolutely baseless mindless violence that has been given a heroic status, the comedy that was nothing but crass; the narrative technique that was somehow managed as madly as possible. 

Actors with a lot of potential should have the integrity to resist being a part of such atrocious cinema! I was super annoyed with Ranbir kapoor! I expect so much better from him! Even the way the love has flowered out between him and his wife-to-be in the movie was totally pathetic! If a man was to qualify himself in the eyes of a woman with stuff like this, then I wonder if God too could save the entire feminine race! Ok, she leaves him in the end, but the very reasons of choosing a man like him in the first place is what i am raising a question at. "you have a wide pelvis" says the hero to the heroine, only to clarify that she will bear good offsprings, effortlessly delivering them!" This is a reason enough for her to fall totally head over heals in love with him. Whatever else was offered to woo her was is so flimsy as a means to reinforce him as husband material, that it is all so bewildering to imagine we as a society are allowing ourselves such junk!  

Why should I have such a strong opinion!?" "its only just a movie! You are supposed to see it all with putting your head elsewhere; or not put too much head to it." Wish I could convince myself with arguments like these! But the fact that there's thousands and millions in this country who are so impressionable and take away all this crap to internalize! We are not just allowing, but ensuring that we are nurturing our youth with the most contaminated world views and eventually creating a world that could be a ticking time bomb.  

Our silence could be suicidal! 

  

Sequel to 'Drop your Guards'

Through her re ignition into Vipassanna meditation, she definitely was awakened to the fact that if there is pain or suffering in life, the cause of experiencing the misery was all within. Was difficult for her to come to terms with this as an acceptable realization, but arrive she did!

It is the giving in to the sensation that perceives the pain that creates the chain reaction of aversion or craving that entangles us into a perennial cycle of pain and ephemeral pleasure. But the act of pure observation enables a being to float upwards in water just as effortlessly as when he loses his life than when he is feverishly trying to save himself with his arms and legs flailing about...

More than anybody else

It is oneself,

one is to keep the guards intact against

with the undesired waiting to jump on,

And the coveted forever evading.

The first phase of life

The cause for pain was outside…

Completely out there.

Time passed on and

brought the cause closer…

at least half, within oneself.

Now as the lights were turned on,

breaking one open from the cocoon of sleep,

brought the cause completely within.

For the guards inside, when vigilant  

knew, the moment the thieves enter

and no way can the the elements sustain

when the housekeeper is ready

to take them on.

He cannot afford to doze off now...

the remnants of the drowsiness

Keep trying to overpower

That’s where the sleep is

to be rubbed off the eyes.

Life:the play of light and shadow

What an eventful day that was! Out on a holiday, we were my brother's family of four, my parents and me with my two daughters. In all we were nine people.The beach named Alibagh on our way back to his house in Mumbai was the milestone that was to be explored in a couple of hours before reaching home. It did not look as picture perfect as one is wont to expect from the idea of a beach. The sands looked a little unwelcoming, almost as if resentful of having to host a group of enthusiastic tourists. Or I was perhaps made to come back with this impression due to the conspiracy they were going to be a part of, against us: the elements of nature to which the sands could not have been a subdued spectator! Or so i assume!

That vast expanse of that sea stretching far into the horizon spreading and fusing into the distant sky's edge, fading out from the capacity of the normal human vision. It never fails to inspire awe in me but for that ruthless erasing by means of the familiar curiosity with a stale bit of knowledge, of the Earth being a round ball! So that edge is the last visible part of the receding round structure that creates that amazing semblance of the charitable flat surface!

Having left out footwear in the car behind, we were on to wading in the very stretched out shallow beach to the fort stationed upon an island just about five hundred meters away. There were very few souls around on that secluded beach which though was sprinkled with the local flavor of the adjacent populated areas, yet had an unusual sparse presence of people. One lonely hoardings around the beach had something written in Marathi language, thus leaving us ignorant of whatever significant or not so, put up there for the perusal of the passing by population. I only faintly recall that their was perhaps an old style horse buggi type of a ride available on the beach, along with almost a very small number of local folks visible.

Registering all that cursorily we were excitedly on our mission to be heading to our cute palace of a fort lodged fascinatingly upon that island surrounded with water, yet all so shallow that we managed to reach it within roughly fifteen minutes. It must have been an interesting walk while our feet were lodging and scavenger like finding a safe enough foothold upon the invisible surface beneath. There were some nasty surprises awaiting as my mother suddenly happened to step upon something razor sharp, that slashed her right toe ruthlessly inviting a sloshy and angry outburst of blood expressing its disapproval aggressively at that reception! It seemed inconsolably persistent in its complaint!! We were pained to see mum in that state. Having managed to tie her wound with a handkerchief that Papa was carrying , we moved upon the topmost part of the fort.They were evidently dilapidated remains of a palace of a once upon a time flourishing king perhaps. Who knows? We were more keen on sitting down with our huge tiffin and on satisfying our starving stomachs while enjoying the feel of dining at a place as exotic as that!

While we had just about been only half way through our food, I heard this strange unfamiliar siren like sound coming from the beach from where we had started. To my brother it rung a familiar bell! He categorically demanded that we pack up asap and start moving back as the sea was announced to now going to revive its tide ! Meaning it was going to be on a high tide, and not the shallow depth with which we had initially interacted. I now saw how the unusual extended stretch of the beach had a strangeness to it unfamiliar. We packed up in five minutes and began our walk back to the beach. Mum's foot was in bad pain and nevertheless she had to somehow manage.Careful to walk slow to prevent our feet from meeting similar unwelcome lancinating rocky pieces who seemed to be inhabiting that area in hideous numbers, we may have lost some precious time! Or so we realized, when within just about less then half the distance accomplished we were already more than knee deep in the water! The levels were rising!! We had to make it fast! But in the anxiety that was mounting with every advancing step, we were taking the distance that seemed shorter to the beach but as it turned out was deeper and now we were waist length immersed in those threateningly rising waters!

My brother had his five year old daughter by now safely lodged upon his shoulders astride. And my brave bhabhi had the twin son sitting on the same safty zone. My two daughters were holding my hands walking on either side almost on the verge of tears.My parents were holding on to one another by now with utterances as if of the final moments of our lives, for now the water was reaching our chest level!! Mom being the shortest and my younger one the same height that time were the deepest in the menacing waters! We didn't know what to do! We could not have helped ourselves from contemplating the state of my husband being informed about our loss like this! That too after a considerable gap of time, for who would have informed him where we had disappeared!

It was sure that we could not have sustained another 5 mins in that vertical daring momentum that the waters had challenged us with and made us haplessly hoping for mercy from quarters unknown! the fear in our hearts was mounting up.The conflict between the fact of what we were facing and wonder cropping from the deep seated sense that nothing was going to be lost and we were going to make it, was strong. I could see a strange revival of deep love that I had rarely seen between my ever bickering parents. A sense of loss for my husband, impending.

 The distance was still an intimidating one and impossible now for our petty feet that were creating craters wherever they placed themselves! People on the beach who had swelled up slightly in number were standing and watching us aghast at the plight we were reduced to wading between life and death. Having been reduced to a spectacular parade in front of them, they had now  begun shouting and screaming to pep us up and to speed up, only if there were the possibility!

Herein appeared the horse buggy wala with one more person to assist him suddenly rushing to our rescue! Were we going to heave a sigh of relief? Mumma and the kids were made to climb followed by Papa, me and bhabhi and then my bro! But Lo! The bugghi went deeper into the sands refusing to budge! For once we were blank but the next instant jumped my bhai, his wife and I who could not have remained inside in spite of their appeals. The wheels lifted out of the stuck sandy bed, and courageously pushed strong enough, to enable the light of the day finally beaming upon the faces of us all, out of those ravenous waters!! Or rather out of those kind waters who were just having some innocent fun toying with the little playthings?

Did we actually make it!! Were we actually so completely alive this moment, unlike the moment before when we were so thoroughly surrendered to our fate mocking at our petty efforts!! What a play of light and shadow by the naughty clouds was the taste of that slice of life, the memory of which still relives with the excitement of visiting the mysterious! The same moment could have meant annihilation...and here we were alive and ticking...strange feeling ...confounding explanation!

that room of mine has so many stories....

A room of my own is perhaps a gift, the value of which I didn't realize till I talked to a recent and a very accomplished friend of mine who told me that she did not have the luxury of her own space during her formative childhood years. Just  like we  undermine so many other things that we take for granted that we are awarded without ourselves making any effort.

Oh how I felt an empathetic gush of emotion towards her when she divulged this fact, for the closeness that I feel with her. She belongs to another full fledged space for herself. Coming to the recollected vision of my favorite space, my room: the first memory that comes to me is that of the vast open sky over the terrace space that led to my very own small yet large enough territory. The sky space was also available through a window as large as a door posted in my room. It was securely partially grilled for preventive measures while allowing the upper part thoroughly free to connect to the open area outside. I remember standing there more often than not drinking from the city scape scenes outside. There were sights and sounds that greeted innocent visions now and then popping up sensational surprises. The most entertaining of the scenes were enacted by the dramatis personae I'd like you to make an attempt to guess.

Without unnecessary delay I must whisper in your ears that they were none other than troops of monkeys that harmoniously co existed with the humans in those traditional residential areas adjacent to the locally flavored bazaars. Oh what antics they would award us with every now and then! And for all the harmony that coexisted between the two species, there were only these very frequent visitations by their shrewdly demanding blackmailing  herds. All that they would very politely do was just to snatch away the clothes that would gullibly be drying up upon the unsuspecting clotheslines! And if the poor owners weren't buoyant and quick witted enough, before they would realize the clothes would be meeting a terribly mournful fate of being turned to tatters within as much as the blink of an eye! The simians would generally nevertheless end up being rewarded  with rotis or any thing for that matter temptingly edible that the owners could fish out as instantly as possible! And Lo! The clothes would mostly be parted with and dropped back while you would be looking on with utmost hope flickering through its last remnants towards any life still remaining in that outfit!!

On one instance I recall my mother bravely snatching back a very expensive shirt of my father that would otherwise have met with the same ruinous misfortune! It was about to be dying a premature death at the hands of a ravenous female monkey who knew howto get her job done. The joy of that victory is still potent enough to bring back a smile of a puffed up chest at the recollection of a warrior mom!!

One more very hilarious event that I was lucky enough to be an inadvertent spectator to was when i saw a child of about 11 or 12 years mishandled rather unceremoniously by a senior patriarch of the clan. I was just as usual ruminatively posted over the huge and expansive window of my very own room, when all of a sudden i accost this very unusual spectacle! He, the graybeard must as I assume now, had been ill treated by his wife, or perhaps his boss, oh who know's what..was definitely in a bad mental demeanor. Thus he naturally found his frustration venting itself out upon this boy so strangely! All that the poor ape did was catch hold of the boy's hair with both his hands while shaking his head to his utmost oscillatory capacity before he decided to spare him. I could almost pinch myself back to senses, or wildly rub my eyes to believe what i had just seen. It was not the normal way the aggression of monkeys was known to have expressed itself. There were serious monkey bite instances often heard. But this was a mild treat in comparison. The little boy must have been as zapped as i was just viewing the scene from my far off window!

There are numerous memories that are tumbling unstoppable as I have taken a willful dive into that lovely past, that are endearingly related to that loving, cozy, pampering, motherly room of mine. So I cannot help but promise to come back with many more sensational one's that are waiting to take off from the precipice of those nostalgic branches.

Wistfully Yours,
Bhoomika

All is Well That Ends well...

That day could have been the last one of my life, without whispering any such premonitions into my innocent ears! The day of one of my ultimate infantile adventures, which for all you may guess could be pedestrian from the point of view of veterans. Actually it was something that I glamorised within the heart of my hearts to venture into. I had after all heard of many, every year crossing The English Channel! If not as soaring, I could do something as simple as crossing that little stretch of the backwaters which happened to be right behind the resort that we were staying in at Kerela. And that was it.

Kerala is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is blessed with high mountains, beautiful coastlines, dense rainforest, aromatic tea, and coffee and spice plantations. The cultural heritage of Kerala goes back thousands of years, but one aspect of Kerala that I liked most during my trip was the backwaters in there.   

The thought germinated into a full-fledged, well-conceived fanciful plan and was now at the verge of taking off. The authorities back in the resort had given us a clear green signal in favour of the little adventure, adding to my motivation with the bit of information of lots of foreigners doing it there. Sanjay, my very responsible husband decided to take care of my little one in his arms while himself lodged in a small boat being rowed parallel with me all the way to the other end. The plan was that we shall together be reaching the bank on the other side which was actually an isthmus separating the river on our side and no less than the magnanimous Arabian Sea on the other! What could have been a more mouth-watering idea than to be undertaking a project so miniscule and yet so mighty as to venture into the river waters, to be exact, the famous back waters of Kerala! From a macho swimming background in a pool maximum of 50 mtrs to a meagre river stretch of at least 500mtrs joining into the enormous Ocean, wasn’t such a big thing, was it?

We started early, assuming the feat shall be through in an hour, since like I said, the stretch didn’t seem so uphill. And there I was, wading in those back waters of an almost welcoming lagoon. A lagoon, just for reminder’s sake (I didn’t say you almost forgot your basic geography) is, a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Yes! It seemed that this almost still body of water was going to assist me in reaching my destination within no time. But once having been commenced it was already beginning to give me some jitters that entailed these tingling sensations resulting from brushing against long sea weeds or for all I could guess, unidentified sea creatures. No, no!! No psudo attempts to rake up sensations already. There weren’t any sharks or crocks lurking in those non transparent waters so to speak as confirmed by the resort people. Yet anything even far smaller was enough to trigger some goose bumps, in spite of my brave attempts at overlooking them. Thank fully I was safe as far as any such dreadful possibilities were concerned. 

Having started in my free style stroke, to prevent exhaustion from taking over I found myself switching over to the more relaxing back stroke sooner than later. But something unusual was beginning to happen. I noticed my husband’s boat drifting away from me instead of maintaining the parallel track it was meant to. I was clueless. My mind however did not intensify the inquiry in that direction. I was more or less still at ease dealing with the here and now of managing through those shallow waters that I realised were much shallower than I could possibly imagine. They were as I understood later a proper coral inhabited area. But the fact of their boat mysteriously distancing itself from me did not become my boiling query, which by all means should have.

I was still lying with my back upon the cushy waters managing my distance with mild leg movement, that all at once I noticed my hubby wildly gesticulating something at me. I was bewildered at that body language. My ears that had all this while been immersed in the water jerked themselves out with my head becoming erect to gather some meaning out of all that confusion. And I instantly understood that I was being commanded by him to do something that was imperative. I could faintly gather him instructing me to another direction, away from where I was heading. I have thankfully been an obedient partner at times, and fortunately so in instances like this one. I followed suit and I saw a host of local fishermen gathered there on the bank vehemently conveying me to be out of the waters while simultaneously beckoning me towards them. I found myself instinctively compliant. And whoa! Here I was pulled out and now standing on my two feet being given the facts with a dash of a hype deservedly awarded to the possibility I could have rolled into. I was heedless towards actually being siphoned into the ocean with the outward flowing backwaters!

Really! But how come? They divulged something that we should have been informed by the resort authorities in advance.

The night before, due to heavy downpour the backwaters were on a high tide. And the current was very strong.  Now I could see the pieces of the jigsaw making some sense…No wonder I was sweeping towards another direction. Because it was the current that was pulling me!! So while Sanjay’s boatman was taking the boat in the intended direction I was headed towards another. And it would have been a matter of a couple of more moments before it would have put me in the very mouth of the ocean becoming a tiny morsel to it. Its mighty suction would have made it impossible to be pulled back from as confirmed by the experienced fishermen who looked so alarmed at the prospect of somebody getting into it in front of them. Phew!!

Safe and sound, I can propound Shakespeare’s “All’s well that ends well”, without of course not overlooking the role that fortune plays in our lives.

one of my favorite childhood places...

Here rang the lunch bell in my school, and there we would be marching enthusiastically towards our generally visited place. Away, “far from the madding crowd”, ha! Interestingly impervious to inviting one and all…a secluded spot in the midst of a green thicket adjoining a highly coveted swimming pool that lay deserted and empty. Those years were spent craving to get into that irresistible reservoir. Though as good as sterile for its hapless water less ambiance, its existence seemed insatiate, for this was all it called for. All these put together, had as though those low frequency calls as made by the elephants inaudible to the general ears…perhaps. For I found a unique fulfillment in that locale, and was never too habituated to it, to have it drone monotony.

It was upon an elevated pedestal like structure i.e. towering slightly higher than the rest of the vast expanse of the landscape. A landscape that constituted the seeming endlessly green football field beyond which lay residences outside the lilting and trusting low rising boundary walls. They really were as I imagine such innocent walls, to the world we now live in, wherein that height would be a mockery to the idea of safety …This pool however had a high wall surrounding it withal. Though it was an altogether different matter that we found ways to sneak into the arms of it once or twice still.

So as the bell would announce the commencement of lunch, I and my dear friend would, with our march along with our humble tiffin’s, reach this back side of the pool. An area out of bounds for the primary and the junior school children, as given to us to understand. But like I said it were these chaste infringements that are characteristic to the temperament of the likes of children born with lesser ability to adapt to the conventional skills of social interaction. So activities like these would perhaps be more fulfilling to the otherwise unexpressed beings, awarding them with a dint of courage at doing things others were not bold or perhaps creative enough to do. All accomplished unintentionally…

Here we were calmly adjusted upon a wide wall that had adequate place for us to spread our platters and ourselves upon it under the canopy of a love showering tree densely drowned in the cool shady patch of a prolific out pour of leaves, offering its affectionate muscular branches a secure entertainment for us once we were done with our lunch. Though I only faintly recall that part, the teen shade was on one side on top of which we could climb and walk, and the other was this wall extending into this huge almost paternal tree further followed by an almost steep downward slope awarding a brisk walk back into the fields on one side and the school building on the other.

              

Back within no time, as that one generous hour of lunch break would fade into memory of a few miserly moments, from whose treasure chest have I bartered these nostalgic recollections sprinkled with a an urge to reach out to touch it just one more time…Something so much a part of my being, so thoroughly etched in the stone pillars of my regurgitable memory banks, yet so far away as to never get one more chance to touch and feel them as real as they were, once upon a time. ‘Time: the eternal illusion’ seems then, wisely expressed.

Bhoomika Jain

Drop your guards!!

At one point it felt like
she was left with no desire
at preserving trust remnants..
The world seemed too often
overwhelmingly difficult to withstand...
These ever mounting waves that
looked and seemed friendly
inviting her a splashing interaction
had stuff like stinking jellyfish
lurking in there...
Smiles she greeted them with,
progressively erased rudely...

Cowering in the dark den
wanting invisibility
seemed like the only option left...

Vigilance, all empowered vigilance
towards one and all seemed like the
only option...
Though so difficult to be
armed with such heavyweight artillery
and shields all the time
did she have an option
she wondered...

And came the reply 'NO'
in emphatic capitals...
NO...you cannot drop guards
against anybody...
And that includes
yourself along...

can you?
Answer my dear!

What celebration...?

"What are you waiting for !!! An invitation from the next door peacock !!
Go out and celebrate your existence.."(-imploration from a well wisher)

I was impelled to inquire:of the ways to celebrate,
than to wait for the peacock next door...







Is Celebration...


Being happy ...with what life has offered to you..?
is it trying to create ways to acquire,what you think will give you happiness?
Is it in the process discovering the truth behind the conclusions of
assumed happiness?
The skepticism that one builds up over the worn out ways that have
created the illusion of it..
and have cheated man from time immemorial,
or the desire to strengthen the ability to withhold, when it again beguiles you
with the novelty of the exhausted; the tried and the tested ?..
The beaten track with something of the impact of the River Lethe..(1)
that casts a spell,and hypnotizes you into a Lotus Valley,(2)
prevents you from the fact of the passage of time...
"It always seems afternoon..."(3)
so captivating that it becomes impossible to see through it..

Want for once to be filled with what feels like 
the ultimate toast to celebration
the spirit that finds no death,
hails from the land of permanence,.
joy born out of the perennial,
and then the intensity 
to the whirl of celebration
finds itself,
from where there is no looking back.





1. Classical allusion- (the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and
oblivion, with whom the river was often identified )
2. A place where the desire to escape from life could be delivered
through a state of euphoria induced by the consumption of the lotus
flowers.
3..An example of metaphor is when Tennyson tells us that in the land
of the Lotos eaters 'it always seemed afternoon'. Tennyson wants us to
think of afternoons as relaxed
    times when nobody seems to be in a hurry (people hurry mainly in
the morning). So this is a metaphore afternoon :: 'me time'.

Predictable unpredictability

The need to have them stay an arms length
 who disown you most unpredictably
 and whose unpredictability
 strangely becomes predictable
 and raises the call,
 intense call for wriggling oneself from the
 self created claustrophobic clasp.
 Stand erect and tall
 towering above those taller than you
 weighing stronger than those heavier than you.

 Oh,what a feeling of liberation
 LIBERATION !
 From those dry winds blowing scorchingly
 from the most arid deserts around
 Alternating with the frosty ones
 from the unrelenting icy lands.
 And here has been a fool who fails to do away
 with the uninhabitable habitats,
 for some stupid conditioning's sake.
 Offering one's precious devotions to the
 lifeless stones,mistakenly assumed to have
 life and warmth and love...

 may this being create a new avatar of herself
 and find that all new being
 be the snake woman shedding the
 old skin and creating the new from within.

 Shed in the process all glamorized image of her
 own self too ...can she afford to be dishonest ?

Am i so important ?

i am so important !
Am i really important ?
 Did  ever feel significant ?
 I knew i needed to be around ,
 that, I was required.

 But ,had i really felt i was important ?
 I did !
 For once I did !
 It was my child whose love did it to me ...
 Whose need of my love n attention shook me into the feeliing

 And i felt i mattered ,
 my love to this lill being mattered
 the absence of which might shrivel her being
 And my existence acquired a whole new meaning
 in the light of the need and love of this loving lovely soul...

Unknot this self !

Has the ego drenched
 arrogance strutting peacockien fool
 not been ranting at something
 endlessly,and not moved an inch
 from where it cried its first call ?

 The musical out pours,
 the painterly and  sculptorly catwalks,
 and finally the roving on the landscapes of paper sheets
 on the wheels of these pens and pencils-
 has it all led to any distance been covered ?
 Or has been just the rowing of the oars
 while the boat was still tied at the ignorant shore !

 Open oh Lord, I implore
 open the knots invisible to the blind eyes
 of the ranting fool..
 sprinkle just some more illumination
 to the path that leads to where heads the final
 destination.

Are we game ?

Was it all for this ?
 Was it going to lead to something as unwanted as this?
 Was there a pretension to herself ?
 Or how else can such a being justify innocence ?

 Where else would it have led her to ?
 The path was evidently slippery.
 Yet the thrill of the slide was difficult to resist ..
 Even if the base of it was filled with a puddle of stinking mud ?

 Why, to begin with,had she justified it to be a stinking puddle ?
 Wasn't there some contamination  of hypocrisy ?
 Rather ignorance...?
 For if she were to charge herself with it ,
 she was charging the whole of humanity with it.
 For so many of us ,rather most of us do fall
 a prey .

 Is it then a falling a prey to ones hypocrisy,
 or is it ,to our ignorance ?
 Ignorance born out of a refusal to open ones eyes
 when the danger is crystal clear;
 born out of blocking those ears when danger
 was screaming out loud.
 Just because the pleasure of that moment
 demanded that we refuse to pay heed.

 Oh ,my lord !
 Are we then meant to meet our doom
 crafted most pathetically with
 our own creative and artistic fingers ?

 Just because we have the numbers on our side,
 doesn't prove our being right .
 The concoction is deadly and poisonous,
 and we have it within our might to
 fling it aside ,
 if we chose to ,but calls for all the strength of purpose,
 The might of all fingers and toes put together...

 Are we then game ?

the journey goes on...

the journey goes on ..how much is deciphered ..from the familiar or unfamiliar
milestones covered..i wonder ...the desire to learn is there..but how
intense i wonder...
life has its clever ways of deluding one from the search to blocking
oneself against several road blocks.
things and happenings shed amazing illuminating rays on truth,yet the
light disappears within no time..
how strange is that ? i wonder... and why is that i wonder...


just why and how can we let ourselves be deluded into the hazy zone
,once the direction of lights reveal itself ?
Just how can we render ourselves into such weaklings, who prepare to
fall again,the moment they learnt to raise ?
Running after the "golden dear" ,shan't it cease ? before the reserves
of energy and time run out ?
will i become an adult before i finally turn old ?


want to sit with myself allowing deep dives within the depths of the
oceans hiding secrets within
want to intensely stay under the surface without giving in to the fear
of asphyxiation..
shall we dear friend ?

The Sour Grapes

The effervescence of the new peg just poured:
Here for you :


The wheat from the chaff,
the separation is paramount.
But the inquiries for that
need gain momentum,
gain intensity within.

The real want of this life ?
Translating into the need for
fame ,money , power on one hand
visavis peace and truth on the other ?
can the questions find bigger place
within this conscious self on a day to day basis,
and from there moment to moment...

Ah ! That is like a colossal destination,
transforming the inquiry into
absolute intensity that the entire universe
is coerced into solving it for you
devoting itself to work towards providing those answers
for your looking up to something above, for them .
trusting some source more than your limited being
for the answers to questions bigger than you.

That couldn't have been a sour grapes story
ranting itself under the garb of grandeur
of the inquisition,the exploration ?

the new dawn

Another new dawn…

 after days of dense clouds…

Storms…screeching winds…

But she was safe in the haven of the

Small seemingly frail cottage …

The cottage she never trusted ,as capable

Of taking care of her .

There were times  when she heedlessly left the safty of it

And endangered herself venturing outside .

Everytime she realized she would resolve allover again,not to leave the reigns within

And promise not to venture out .

But how many times her fear within wouldn’t let her hang on

And she would be a victim to anxiety driven actions  of Escape.

Escapes into illusions of hope and security, from anything or anybody

Outside of herself seemingly capable of rescuing her .

But how? How could anybody or thing ever provide s ,shelter

When she was running ,from none other than herself ?

And the day she saw ,nothing could be held responsible for not lending a rescuing hand …

…was the day of a new dawn .The fresh morning that failed to threaten her with the fear

 of culminating into another stormy night .

She saw ,that that seemingly frail cottage ,none other than her real self

Was far stronger ,than her supposition.

No more had she the need to cater to the tantrums of the silly child within,

which at some point refused to grow up, would always want her lollypop as her sop,

without which putting a hold on those howls was out of question .

And gratitude to those who seemed cruel ?

Instrumental, weren’t they ,in the ripening of that consciousness?

Who seemed to wriggle their fingers free of her ,hands ever latching ?

And just when she thought there was no hope

Whoa…She emerges into her new avatar?

A being shielded strong ,to be ever  bogged down by any of the ever bloating, monstrous illusions !

Ah ! They ultimately were discovered in their nude ?

In the light bright enough not to let any lies further remain unearthed  …

 

what is it ?

What rends my heart to pieces?
Do i know it?
Or assume all knowledge?

I seek an end to it.
Direly.
I seek escape
I seek reasons at validating
inadvertently prolonging that existence
pumping more oxygen into a life worth erasing.

Don't i see futility in its length, in its flow?
That which jibes acquires might till my 'me' gets affected.
Ain't I exposing them to infected air,
Those seeming bruises?

Calm acceptance, without bringing it into my domain of focus.
Is that the key?
It definitely is avoiding the desire to culminate it.

Just sidestep the path to that yearning and see how the flower of peace starts unfolding its loving self
through its petals offering beauty and love gradually and imperceptibly.

And i find something that was strangulating me has suddenly been losing its grip.
And i feel the passage of breath making its way back n forth , a faint heaving of the ribcage , up n down , revival of that pulse again.
Revival of the very force of life!

All, that came like a stormy gush, went past because something inside decided to stay put
To take all the jerks and starts without offering resistance .

As my head turns to look back, i see the trail of the monster who lost its power,
right there as my eyes could confront it fearlessly .

Won’t it come again? Asks the chicken inside?


Lest i shiver at its re-visitation: Big or small it shall be faced .
Oh beloved one...