Sitting and Staring at beach brings me a lot of calm generally , in fact day in and day out it does bring me calm, today was not one such day.I sat there at the beach going over what I had done that day in office , I had complained , screamed and then lost cool over a petty issue of not being noticed despite the hard yards I had put in.
The scene played over again and again in my mind.No matter what, it would just not go away,i tried to shoo it way with a regular routine of mine,closing my eyes and counting till ten , I couldn't even reach six.Finally I came to a conclusion that what I had experienced was unfair and I had every right to feel so and not calm down or perhaps carry the feeling as far it doesn't go away itself.
With such a disturbed mind I started to take a walk along the beach , the day had started to cool down ,Chennai can be hard on you on a summer day and specially in the month of may , I let the waves hit my feet and just sat down to get myself drenched.I just had no idea how long I was there sitting and thinking and ruminating about the day's events.
As it was getting dark , I started to walk back to the road, that is when I saw this incident , A kid with torn trousers was fetching stones from the beach and running to a guy who just took it from him examined it and then threw it away, this happened at-least for five to six times , I just could not suppress my enthusiasm and joined the guy,the boy used to run to us show the stone and then wait expectantly , the guy who asked him to get that would see it and then would just frown and then throw it away , the boy seemed not to understand , look apologetically and then run back to the beach and bring back another.From a conversation with him I understood that all he wanted was a shell.
Finally the guy left with the boy left searching for the stone.I stood there with my blood seething, I just wanted to ask the boy why would he go to such long stretches without understanding what he was doing, when the boy finally returned to find that the guy was gone he stood there for a long time with a long face, he did not know what to do , looking at his face I took pity and started to tell him that all he wanted was a shell not stones, he still was adamant showing the stone to me, I just shrugged my shoulders and thought that at-least I could help the kid and bought it for 20 rs. I put it in my pocket and reached my room.While changing from my wet clothes , the stone fell down from my pocket and there surprisingly was the shell...I was shocked to see that what appeared to be stone was layers of salt and filth that had covered the shell and it was the finest piece of shell I had ever laid hands upon.
The next thought that struck as lightning to me was the morning incident where I was the boy running to and from the beach to fetch the shells and the guy who demanded them was the one who did not recognize them. A smile came to my lips , I knew what needed to be done next .... I just had to know that the filth and sand has to be cleaned before presenting it to the guy( it may be any other guy/company/non-entity doesn't matter to me) who asked for it,for he might not even know what a shell looks like.....
I went back to the beach to find the boy, he was not there , may be he just bought his one night meal ... but he taught me a life lesson..
So what is it , I ask at the end of this,what is it that I am going to change,there-in lies my problem, too many ,one at a time my friend ,one at a time...and all in good time,the thought is all it needs ,to be done
In headlines today , Indian team members in a pub brawl , eight months ago the same protagonist caught fighting in a pub ,we broke the news first then and now , looks like carribean curry is too hot for our guys, in other news Indian prime minister and US president met over the issue of terrorism
--- Past one week this is how the news channels reports seem to be giving more air time to most trivial and a page 3 incident , yes we are all disappointed and as self-appointed custodians of holding every other person to account of brining the nation to disrepute , we enjoy the bashing , the photos of the past , the public dissection and analysis of a troubled family .In pure cricketing terms we were outplayed and the better teams on that day prevailed , it hurts when someone you pinned hopes on failed and worse when you watch it sacrificing your sleep , but at the end of the day cricket is just a game and like in every game there has to be a winner and there has to be loser.
A loss of Indian cricket by no means authorizes us to pass judgements and burn down houses of the cricketers,if at all the anger should be directed towards BCCI who seem to be content with filling their coffers by playing the same team 40 times home away and then in a neutral venue. Why did we not travel to the kiwi land for 8 years ,agreed that we were made to play in grasslands and it was not a good advertisement for cricket , but then what does the board do , they do not send the team to the country for next 7 years ( logistics , FTP and crap ),what do kiwis do this time around , steal some strip from the golden quadrilateral and lay it in the ground , team makes merry beats a second grade test team with considerable ,come back and brag that this team has won in every knook and corner.
If the ball bounces bring back Dravid , if it is at a comfortable height let Raina make merry, the board is to be blamed for the debacles and in between all the money , hectic schedules and the legal tussles cricket somewhere is taking a back seat, like I said it hurts but then even Speilberg makes flop movies. The anger and hurt does not justify us wading in to the personal lifes of cricketers.
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Sent from my mobile device
Sundar M R
Picture abhi baaki he mere dost......
I love watching movies, when I saw pulp fiction; I was left wondering when such movies will come home. We have so many talented movie makers, and a lot more movie goers who are bored to death with the 6 songs 4 fight movies. Here was the answer, the age of spy cameras and mms has come here to stay, LSD will leave you with a disturbed mind, a lump in your throat and I guess it will make lot of talented people out there with a handy camera shoot movies.
The title display was so Quentin Taratino’ish , I was left wondering when was the last time I felt so good 2 minutes in to the movie , the 3 stories are interwoven seamlessly without effort . I hated Ekta for spoiling my evenings in probably 3 different languages, but this might be her Rashomon moment. This is one such movie where the plot takes back seat and the characters assume the center stage, no breaks for a cigarette during that unruly song or no moment to check that fold under your girl friend’s neck, this movie captures your attention and never let’s it go, for the 108 minutes it slides through the screen.
Like OLO, the characters and their handling are so beautiful, the morning shift girl in the store who has a Russian lover is the one that will stay with me for a while, she is so very clichéd, but then she makes your heart go for the night shift lady who forms the crux of the second story, betraying more would be a injustice to the movie. This is what a realistic cinema is or the closest cinema could get to be real. The interweaving of one story to other actually adds something to the other two, this technique is now well documented in multiple story line movies, but this one is the closest it can get to perfection.
In this age of sensational stories and unedited footage fed in prime time, LSD is a very honest attempt and the director has his heart at the right place, something is changing in Indian Cinema, in the space of two months there have been two good movies VTV and LSD and an impostor MNIK which could have been, LSD is Howard Roark of the cinema’s this year.
Violence and sexuality is extreme ,but we were not promised otherwise , the trailers don’t do justice to the movie , it does not prepare the audience for what is going to hit them , we need more Dibakar’s and Anurag’s , bring them on , marry multiplex movies to the common audience.
The night travel was a revelation , we did want to take a deviation to Mahabaleshwar but I guess it had to wait for some other day , the pain in my next started to descend towards my right elbow and finally I had a throbbing pain all along the shoulder , the highway was a beauty and the car was flying , I did not want to interrupt the flow and we stopped for a tea near Kashil , by this time I had tried different postures to reduce the pain and Arun was down to 60 from 140 KM’s per hour , a tea and a roasted corn did
not thing to raise the spirits and we decided that we should drive till Kolhapur and rest for the night , but 30 kilometers in to the travel , the pain was unbearable and the night pitch dark , my thoughts wandered to the discussions me and my manager used to have about driving hazards on highways and with me sleeping we decided that a halt was of primary importance , after knocking at a couple of inns we found our self at a small hotel , and parked ourselves in a dingy room ( was A/C of course ) . When we woke up the next day, the sun was beautiful and there was a small stable next to the hotel, the view from the fourth floor was nice and I had a good time capturing some of the moments of my life on the D40x.
The pain was very less compared to previous night and having rejuvenated ourselves with a cup of coffee, we hit the pedal at 8:30 towards Kolhapur, it was bright and sunny and all indications were for another hot and humid summer day , 20 kilometers in to the drive , just before entering to Kolhapur we were surprised to find thick fog covering the road reducing the visibility to 10 meters or less , Nikon time’s again , we stopped to admire the beauty it was ( not that we could see anything ), but fog on a summer day and with no indication made us halt and think about the Munnar days from the past .
9:30, breakfast time and we obliged the angry growls from the stomach, Dosa in Kolhapur 800 miles north to its birthplace, the Sambhar was sweet and I could not find out the ingredients of the chutney, but we were famished and lassi made sure that we forgot the breakfast and drove ahead. The Sun was on his way to his destination as we put miles behind us, welcome to Karnataka was not where to be seen , but thanks to Airtel I got to know where I was, the only strange thing for me in this travel was that, as far as I could see on both sides of the road, there was not a single tree to be seen, it was a red sand desert.
Nothing exciting happened for another two hours and I dozed off, only to hear a swear word and to be jolted out of my comfort. A Lorry driver had put on his left indicator to change lane and somehow at the final moment decided to go right and we had to abruptly break , that was the closest brush with disaster we had till then , the sun was sweltering hot by this time and the engine was grumbling. The fuel indicator got me worried, but Arun was said it was safe for another 50 kilometers, let us hit Hubli. 5kms in to the journey, the fuel indicator was on and we had to turn back to fill the tank, Strange enough the service man at the fuel station did not understand Hindi, then Arun tried Kannada and we were not brave enough to use Tamil, National pride some other day, once the fuelling was done for 2000 rs, the Service Man started to say two words which got me worried, very worried indeed, No Card only Cash and we had about 1 percent of the cash with us. We suggested that one of them come with us to a nearby ATM and we would drop them back here, I guess this one had watched too many English horror movies and instead suggested that one of us stay back while the other got the money. Thus I got to know close up how a petrol pump works; I even filled tanks for a couple of passing by tanks and learnt how to program the machine in terms of both money and quantity of the fuel.
The owner took pity on me when he knew that I was a software engineer and enquired on my health and how much I bleed my industry per month, I was getting restless with his English and he with my Tulu, but magically enough we understood each other, after all we are Indians, Arun came back and we hit the road again with a moong dal packet the owner gifted me. I did not eat it then, My mother had always cautioned me against eating biscuits from strangers in a travel, though this guy was a owner of a petrol pump I could not quite come over that feeling, out it went through the window once we crossed a safe distance
At 2:30, we passed by a college on left and to the right stood huge statues of Mahaveer Jain, I do not remember the place, but the statues were astounding, standing there, in middle of now where , we got down the car and went in to the dhabha nearby for lunch , this particular dhabha will always be etched in my mind , no not for the food , but for a dog I saw there , it was easily 3/4th of my height , and my dog enthusiastic friend wanted a photo with it , I was sure that one of his hands or leg will stay forever in that dhabha and I had to drive the rest of the distance , but nothing of that sort happened , the dog turned out to be one lazy creature , it just posed for the camera . I maintained a safe distance just to be very sure. Arun had to take break and we stopped by a small village deviating the NH and finding a tree , I climbed on to the tree and sat on it gazing at the ongoing traffic and not even a single bike passed by without stopping to have a look at me , this particular feature of people always amazed me , no wonder how much ever hurry we might be in , we would always stop to stare , we are one enthusiastic bunch ,when it encounter something strange , I guess that is why PDA is less in India as opposed to other nations.
The blazing heat gave away to a pleasant evening the nicest I have seen for months now, we had reached Chitradurg by around 6:00 in the evening and the sunset was beautiful, I was unlucky not to have caught a single sunset in KanyaKumari. The colors today was beautiful, I was never good with art and one picture which I always drew good was Amoeba and the other was that of a sunset, be it with a background of an ocean or the a hill, this was my favorite piece of art and the colors that surrounded the sun on this particular evening just blew me away, I had to be quick the sunset was fast and I almost missed it, a couple of shots turned out to be good, amateurish but a good. A few more miles and we saw a bush fire raging through whatever shrubs it could devour on a nearby hill, the journey from here on was arduous as NH4 turned out to be horrible for around 90 kms and it took us a good three of hours to reach Tumkur. We finally hit Bangalore at 11:30 our looks resembled those of the rider in the cowboy movies, muddy boots, unkempt hair, tanned skin. The journey took us almost 18 hrs at an average speed of about 60 with pit stops, but it was fun, it gave me lot of insight of what to expect in northern Karnataka and would serve as my first long trip on a single day.
I remember certain events precisely in my life and the words spoken by my friends, my relatives and even the conversations I overheard in trains, buses. This is an attempt to acknowledge the effect they have had on me, some of them hurt while some brought about an uninhibited laughter
One of my friends said to me “ When there are lot of things going bad in your life , take them each separately and never ever try to relate them for there is always a way to hook up these things and the only thing it leads to is more chaos” , this works out brilliantly enough for me.
My relative was speaking to one of my friends and was saying “the most straightforward person in our family “, the wry smile on my friends face told me that I wasn’t the same while with friends, but I made it a point to work on it from that day and to this day when I wake up that is the first thing I think about.
This one is a gem and I still ROFL when I think about it, We were discussing what a condom does and one of my friend asked what happens when u have sex with condom, pat came a reply from another friend “It’s like wearing a raincoat and trying to get wet in rain, nothing really happens” (We were in our 14Th or 15Th year then)
Then there was a issue with the shares of the money we had spent on a trip and two months down the lane I was still unable to repay the debts, one of my then friends offered me an advice, “You have got to get money from a place where you need not repay it, until that happens you are never going to get out of this “.
I was totally broke due to my adventures in my final year 1st semester and had nothing but a couple of rupees left in hand, I searched my trunk box and found a small pouch of coins that I had not used and had collected just for the sake of it, the happiness I got that day cannot be probably matched with anything yet in my life, I learnt that saving really helps even if unintentional
“I would die for you, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t live for you – Howard Roark Fountain head” probably the last message my best friend sent me. Well, never try to change what is not yours to change, take a person as he is.
“I don’t love you and if you do not want to believe that what can I do? “, Love is not forever, it changes as does all the things in the world.
“Take this cash and solve your problems , after all you are my son” , when my bad debt had reached the ears of my father , a small unrelated incident which made me understand what a family is all about.
“America invented a pen which could be used to write in space craft which costed lakhs of dollars? Why not use a pencil? “Well looks smart the questions doesn’t it , but when someone else told me that under zero gravity a broken pencil tip could cause a hell of a lot of damage I started thinking …