Dream, Destination, Destiny!

I was in Trivandrum to make a film. I did not know anything about film making, I was a poet, I knew how to write and recite. I was also a risk taker, an entrepreneur of a kind, or why should I be there for making the film? Or, and I think this could be the real reason, maybe it was just that I had always wanted to go to Kerala http://greatbackwaters.com/

and my desire was finally taking shape. It was materializing, but in a totally different way from what I had envisaged. I had always thought I would holiday in Kerala with my family when my children were young. The desire to see Kerala had been fuelled a long time ago by my next- door neighbour. She was from Kerala. My children had breakfast every Sunday morning at her home. Her dishes were delicious and I learnt a lot from her, like not wasting anything. When she transferred rice from one dish to the other, not a grain of rice was left behind. I stopped being so careless about food after watching her. But what I learnt more from her was of Kerala, which till then had been just a part of the nebulous, hazy South for me. I had never gone beyond Hyderabad. Andhra Pradesh and Kerala are poles apart in more ways than one, and Hyderabad cannot be really considered as geographically ‘South’ as Trivandrum.

As the years passed and the children grew into teenagers, I began to believe that I would never get to see God’s Own Country, despite my fervent wish to do so. But as they say, “there is delay in God’s house, not darkness”. And, “when He gives, He breaks rooftops”. So finally, many years later, I was whisked away to Trivandrum not to holiday but to make a film there.

This experience was a mixed blessing. It was raining every time we tried to shoot the film. I realized the degree of hard work the making of a film requires. It meant crew, co-ordination, timing, jugaad panaa by the minute. Each day cost money in terms of camera, crew and actors. The weather and luck play a big part in the whole thing if you are shooting outside like we were. I realized that making a movie is not a cakewalk because everyone and everything has to work for each of those perfect shots that seem to flow so easy on the screen. The high-voltage tension involved has to be experienced to be realized.

I learnt a lot in Trivandrum during the process of film making. Of how a fire is lit for a film and kept going on the beach despite rain. How you can be blessed by a sudden shot of crows flying low, which when filmed there and then, add to the film’s depth.

With all this, I experienced the sheer beauty of Nature with all its bounty. The grey beaches, the deep blue waters, the dark green coconut trees, the sweet yellow bananas, Nature just gave of itself freely and willingly. The film could not have been made anywhere else but here, against this backdrop of lyrical natural bounty.

Trivandrum is different in so many ways from Delhi, the city where I live. In Delhi, we get the beginning nips of cold in October. In Trivandrum, it is humid, and it rains, even in October. Yet it is a part of India, and beautiful in so many ways.

The trip to Trivandrum seemed to have opened up the South for me, for after shooting this film, I have gone to Pondicherry and Chennai in subsequent years. I love to travel, and I am so happy that my dream of going to Kerala finally materialized in the most stupendously exciting and remarkable way. Two dreams came true, Trivandrum and a film. Three dreams, actually, for the dream to travel also got fresh wings.

The bey blade : encounter with a high tech toy

On the way up to my flat in the lift I met a young boy. He held in his hand a green coloured plastic object which I could identify as a bey blade, since I was still somehow in the loop and was not so alienated from what moves the ages between 8 to 12. Bey blades have many names and types, but only those who play with them, or their mothers who are forced to purchase them, would know the variegated names of these.

I am wont to make conversation with young things, who may or may not be sweet. So I opened my conversation with what would be of interest to him, and to me as well. Bey blades are strange and unfamiliar objects in my eyes and I could get to know them better.

“What do you have in your hand? Some kind of new fangled gun?”

It could be, it could be.

Amazed, he looked at me. I did not know? ‘This… is a bey blade.” Then his face put on once again a dead pan expression. He just wanted to get on with his life.

I did know. but I wanted more.

“So what is this one called?” I knew they had names.

He mumbled something, I could not catch the name.

“I have many ,” he said. He rattled off the names now, and I caught a few. Not so sure I heard these right…Dragoon? Pegasus?

“This one has ‘stamina’,” he said. He was referring to the one he held.

Stamina?

It seems the bey blades have characteristics like stamina.

He had begun to talk. The lift had gone all the way up to the 7^th floor.  Impatiently, he pressed the button for his floor again.

“Yes,” he said, “stamina. It can go on a lot longer than others.”

“There are other characteristics too?”

“Oh, yes.”

This was a whole new ball game, no, lattoo game.

“So this is a  lattoo,” I said, knowingly.

He was shocked. “No. this is not a lattoo. I told you, this is a beyblade.”

Lattoo. In the streets of Karolbagh many years ago, was played this game. Young boys played it and me, the tomboy for a while, often tried my hand at it. Though I never got interested enough to master the craft, I did love the way the lattoo spun on the mud or the tarmac or the grass, its pointed  end sharp and cutting, a one- legged ballerina spinning on her own.  One spinning wooden top would be joined by several others, and I would watch to see whose lasted it out the most, who won, which lattoo fell first. The guy whose lattoo lasted it all was the hero of course. He would most probably be taken to the corner shop and fed a samosa to acknowledge his victory for the day. If he was lucky and his friends had some money in the pockets of their cotton shorts or pale blue school pants.

The spinning top of those days was a red and yellow toy with a fat centre, a little cap on top and a tapered iron pointed leg. You would wind a thin twine round and round from its top to its fat stomach and right down below, catch the end of the twine in your hand, balanced the lattoo between your index finger and thumb, and then release it by pulling hard the twine.  So much balance and art, premeditation and control required for the lattoo to spin and not fall flat on its face. Much like today’s bey blade but here, the control and preparation is of a different type. And the feel is all plastic, no wood, no twine, no bright red and green painted colours. I am nostalgic. I do not care much for bey blades, I did care for lattoos then. Not too much, but enough, enough to write about it now.

His sister stood next to him with a  ‘scooter’, those one- legged things you trundle along.

I asked him whether he had one.

“No, I have my bey blades,” he said.

I know he spoke in the plural, because kids don’t have one, they have many. They are expensive, the price range is from 150 to 400 rupees. And then they have spare parts, the more fun add-ons to the basics, which again cost some more, say another rupees 50/- for each spare. Welcome to the world of money makes the top spin more. The old wooden top is a cheap, forgotten hero of another era.

“Do you ride this sometime?” I asked him as I looked at his sister’s scooter.

“No, it’s hers, it’s a girl thing, a girl model, I would never ride it.” He gave me a look from under his eyes as if he was talking to a strange creature.

I was strange to his world, a world of bey blades, a world where stuff was not shared. These are the times of specializations, and what does for one will never do for the other.

The lift doors opened, he walked out. His sister walked out. He looked back. We, of two different worlds, were travelling in the same lift, the lift a time machine.

A  bey blade which would never be a lattoo again, in any avatar. In the future, it may be something else, a ‘funky-toss’, a ‘snake-slide’, or a gutter-snipe’, who knows?

Is my nostalgia tinged with regret? A trifle, yes, for who does not want to be that kid again, the one who ran down stairs and watched the tops spin in the galli late into the evening? But otherwise, no, for it is pure nostalgia of my childhood time, just like this young one will have of his. The bey blade is a product of this time, where games have to be specialized and high-tech, the spin instantaneous. What is not lost is the spirit of competition, game play and the human endeavour to make sure that kids have toys.

*****

Life Today, Just Mobile

Life today. Just mobile. Even if you are in bed, you are mobile. Your thoughts and ideas dart and so do your fingers. In this day and age, the one thing that translates all this energy into action is the mobile. Life is on your fingertips, allowing you to share your brain and heart through this small and wonderful piece of technological art. It not only allows you to talk, but you can share your life through photographs, through words and song, making cameras, laptops and radios available in one device with which you can move. Tata’s new phone, the One Touch Net Phone offers all this and more to savvy mobile people of today…like me. And services like Yahoo are free. And call rates come to you timed per second, not per minute. Could anyone ask for more?

Yes, of course.  Smart matters, but good looks count.

The phone looks beautiful with its colours of purple and silver, and purple and black. It attracts attention. Then, it is simple and familiar to use, the QWERTY keys ensure that, the one touch ensures that too.

So it is smart, good looking and comfortable. What else? I love to click photos on the go, you say. I am passionate about instant photography, street photography, candid camera, you say.

With this phone and its 2 MP camera, it is easy to click photos - and share it instantly with Bluetooth.

And?

Okay, more and more. Dive in WAP means that you can let your eyes swim while you access everything with a single soft touch. No complicated keys or buttons to remember and press. It has customized keys for several things. Yahoo and rejoice all you want. This is the one touch wonder with all of Yahoo available: mail, surf and sail through conversations. And Yahoo M&M (mail and messenger) comes free!

Sounds good. Expensive in toto?

It’s a TATA product. Less than six grand. With all these features, it’s like a gift.

Wow. I can save my poems on it too?

Of course, that’s understood.

 Today’s world includes constant change, innovation, connectivity, mobility. Instant access and sharing is the order of the day. No time to lose and everything to gain from each second. I need to do so much more, connect with friends who matter, embrace life on the move, listen to music on FM, sport a trendy looking phone as I walk and talk and smile. I make every second count in this age of information, communication and connectivity. I use my mobile for photos, emails, music, and oh yes, for talking!

Seems like the Smart (and Lovely) phone, the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone has all this and more. Life is wonderful and gets better all the time if you are mobile with the right mobile.

I am sure to share my life and give it more meaning with a mobile like the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone. And do more, be more with Tata DOCOMO.

Here is where you can check it out. Go check here:

http://onetouchnet.tatadocomo.com/

****

Radio Parul: By The Water Cooler Contest

Radio Parul: By The Water Cooler Contest

By The Water Cooler

I have entered the premises of my new office and sat on my desk. I am feeling a bit out of place, everything is spanking new and unfamiliar. I look across and hope someone walks through the glass door so that I can connect in person. My nervousness stems from re-entering the work force after a gap of many years. We shall not count the decades, since they age me unnecessarily.

I look across to the other side. Through the glass paneled doors I see a pair of feet under a desk and for a moment mistake them to be a reflection of mine. I am used to offices of the olden days, where office doors were made of teak, or polished to look like miserable copies of teak. And tables were of solid wood, not glass and steel contraptions. In other words, in those days, my feet would not have shown on the other side of the table, let alone be reflected on the other side. In these days of transparency, however, everything has to show as much as it can, to ensure that there is nothing hidden.

I move my feet back to tuck them in a bit more so that they are not so visible, but the reflected ones don’t move. I look at those feet. They are brown skinned, the nails buffed and polished to a high gloss in bright red and encased in high heeled black . How the hell did I think they were mine, I only wear very pale pink polish. The only thing in common is the brown skin and the colour of the heels. I cringe a bit and withdraw my feet a bit more. The ones on the other side do a little tap dance.

I open the glass door of my office and step out to explore or find someone. Before I go across to the other side of the passage which houses the general office staff, where the feet which did not belong to me belonged, I glance at the passage.

Standing there, rather nonchalantly, as though he owns the place, is a young man in beige pants, pink button down shirt and tan shoes. My tone is clipped. “Could you get the air-conditioning started in my office?” I point towards the door I have emerged from.

Before he can answer, a plump girl made plumper by her pregnancy and her round face made rounder by the halo of squiggly hair around it rushes out of the office door, the one on the other side, in her white heels (I noticed all this) and almost careens into him. As she steadies herself,  mumbling, ‘Sorry, Rahul..”, I repeat my question, this time addressing it to her. She says, “Yes, of course, I’ll check,’’ and runs back into the office.

The girl rushes out again, this time ensuring that she does not bump into Rahul, and looks at me, “It’s being attended to, sorry, Ma’am , we thought you were coming in tomorrow. Sir will be meeting you in five minutes. I have to rush, please excuse…” I barely nod before she rushes out with Rahul behind her, a bit crushed now, mumbling, “ Ma’am,” but also pushing his thick hair off his forehead in a gesture of defiance.

I hear the hum of the air-conditioner start behind me, open the glass door and walk in. I plonk myself on my chair unceremoniously and try not to look at the feet on the opposite side.

This is going to be very distracting to me. I will have to do something about this. Change the orientation a bit.

Meanwhile, ‘Sir’ arrives to find that he is looking at my back.

“Honey,” he says, “why are you doing this? This is no way to receive anyone.”

On hearing his voice, I swivel around. ‘Dear husbandji,” I say, “I refuse to look through the door at other people’s feet. I’d rather look at the blank wall. Please take a seat.”

He has to walk around to the other side to sit opposite me. He faces the glass door.

“What’s the problem?” he says.

“My office needs real brick and mortar walls, and I need a teak door.”

“Honey, you are joking.”

“No I am not, I refuse to look at feet. “

“Don’t let your gaze wander. Concentrate on your work. That’s the idea.”

So he did know what I was talking about.

“This is bad design,” I said.

“Glass takes less space and is more elegant.”

“Sorry, my table will stay facing this way then.  It is as per Feng Shui.”

I can be obstinate.

The next day, my office was moved to an old part of the building, where the walls were of brick, the doors of wood. It was air-conditioned and sound proof. When I looked up from my table, I saw a teak paneled door with a brass knob. It creaked a bit, but at least I did not have to look at feet or wonder whom they belonged to. I was happy in my little cubicle, comfortable in office spaces as I knew them to be. Thick, solid and dependable. If these attributes were there, transparency and ‘see-thru-isms’ could take a hike.

My husband knows how to keep me happy. Even in his office, I am the boss.

© ABHA IYENGAR, 2010
This post is a shot at something.
Parul Sharma’s latest book ‘By The Water Cooler’ is going to be launched soon, and she is running a mouth watering contest (okay, we will limit this water bit). This post is shooting for the contest. You can do it too.Read the details here, just follow the link to the orange ice candy...

http://orangeicecandy.blogspot.com/2010/10/by-water-cooler-contest.html

Happy writing.

Encounters of a Soft Kind continue...

CW4

Another day of interaction and I was now quite comfortable in the space created through our interactions on the previous days.

This time we concentrated on techniques like POV. I gave example of a story and using it , indicated what POV was and how shifting POV should be avoided.

We also talked of different genres, there are so many of them, and then each genre has its subgenres as well. I just like to stick to the principal genres , and let the subgenres take care of themselves. For example, speculative fiction has so many subgenres, and when one writes, one will know whether the story is horror, fantasy or hard sci-fi and that should be enough. Otherwise, sections like gothic-horror, steampunk, and so on and so forth can blow your mind. It is something like medical specialization. There are bifurcations and bifurcations, so it is better to stick to some basic railroad tracks.

We discussed what   ‘foreshadowing’  means, and how Chekov had stated that if you mention a gun on the wall in your story then the gun has to become a part of your story later on, otherwise it is a useless inclusion. 

How ‘flashback ‘works  as a technique was also discussed, and most of them understood what flashback was, since movies use a lot of this.

We then focused on our written stories.

 This was a reading out and critiquing of the stories with Gangadhar as the main character, or Ganju i.e. the man in the yellow pants. This was the character we had developed in the earlier class and had had a lot of fun in doing so. Someone had also sketched him out, and had done a good job of it.

The class was interested in reading out their stories more than doing exercises and felt it was helping them in figuring out how things work. 

The stories were different and the language and approach was different, some very good and some okay, but the main thing was that each one had attempted to write a story. 

I distributed the feedback forms and the response was excellent. All of them came up to me and thanked me and said they hoped I was holding more classes. 

This has been a very fulfilling experience for me. I too look forward to more workshops.

Encounters of the Soft Kind

CW 3.

It was a cool and rainy day and I was wearing, once again, a crisp cotton sari hoping it would not wilt in the damp weather. It would have wilted in the hot weather, so I consoled myself. Either ways wilt, what? Did not take along my umbrella so kind of prayed that the weather clear, which it did soon enough.

We first had a discussion on a story written by Satyajit Ray, titled, “The Promise” , which was brought to the class by one of the participants as a story he liked. It was supposed to be a practical story writing class and I made them do more in-depth exercises than before, using background, dialogue and imagery. 

It was amazing the kind of stories people developed. There was an image of a young man with a young boy on his shoulders with a background of a boat on a river. The two people became many characters: friends, father and son, brother and younger brother… in one story, the boy asks the young man to come to his school as his father at the parent teacher meeting because he is ashamed of his own father, for his real father is not young and good looking and tall but is short and fat and he wants to show off the young man as his handsome father. Another story was of how a young boy wants to be explained why his sister is all dressed up and sitting next to a man on the boat and holding his hand. Another story is where the boy does not want to be lifted on the shoulders because he feels he will burden his crippled father and is surprised when his father manages to lift him up.  Another wrote that the young boy was not happy for he was being separated from his real sister in an orphan home, so he could not accept a new sister in a new home with a new father, so even if his name was Joy, he could not live up to that name.  Fantastic, on- the -spot tales.

It was a learning process for me too as to which parts of an image people notice and pay attention to and put focus on. In another image, someone talks of the dog, another of the single sprouting plant, another of wet walls, another of the lone bicycle rider…

Also, a story line with the second character and conflict development was constructed to be developed further in the next class.  On the whole it was a very satisfying session. Some of them wanted to purchase autographed copies of my book of poems, a request which I gladly complied with. There were also requests for my book of fiction, alas, that is something I still have to put together and then get published. But the impetus is there.

No wilting here, the class blossomed in front of my eyes. 

***