EN THEOS

I am watching 'An Education' directed by Lone Scherfig. Perhaps I may write more about the film sometime in the near future but for now, it's brought in a strange pensive mellowness....The coming of age of Jenny has me thinking ( I say 'has' because I have yet another half an hour at least to go) or rather trying to recollect if I had a distinct phase of my growing up years which marked the transition, my transition from a girl into a woman. The theme of the film is of course much more than this ...but just watching Jenny, her brilliance and the way she swims along with David's witty-charm -moving from her boring suburbian Twickenham existence to evenings at Jazz clubs, dinners in expensive restaurants and her ultimate dream.. a trip to Paris - I get a sense she will swim ahead of him . Or so I hope.

Much of what girls grow up with is the notion of finding adventure, affection and ambition all tied up , somehow in one packaged experience or an opportunity or more commonly all to be achieved from a man who they idolise or could be in love with or wish would love them in return. The smarter ones have their fun but don't lose themselves in a whirlwind of feelings that cloud rationale and reality. The more dreamy-eyed or slightly vacuous or the kinds that are smarter than what they appear but not smart enough to know what's good enough for them, slip and lose their way. The last I remember, I categorised myself as the latter one.

Fortunately, the last 2 years have perhaps been a period of transition unlike any other phase of my growing up (There I got the answer to my own question :D). Growing up doesn't necessarily have to be from one portion of childhood to another or to even the years that we are told we need to behave like adults. Nescience exists and remains throughout our life ,ironically perhaps intensifying as we grow older (because aging quite often makes one myopic ). I recognise how ignorant I am and have been. But I pat myself on the back today for taking a step forward to what I hope will make me well...a little less judgemental and more humble of how little I really know.

Enthusiasm is the key for now to survival. Incidentally I just learnt that the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek word 'en theos' meaning God inspired, having God inside your or being God inspired. This discovery has just opened up a completely new perspective for what I am feeling right now :)

STARTING SYRACUSE

It's been nearly a year that I quit my job as an Associate Producer at Bloomberg UTV. Countless SOPs, hundreds of e-mails, facebook pings and ISD calls later, I settled for a Master's program in TV, Radio and Film at Syracuse University. My heart though was set on New York Film Academy so it's going to take a while accepting that this is for the best and I will still have a chance to live in New York city someday. I have an open mind...shouldn't be that difficult settling in :)A short film and a documentary filled up the gap of this long sabbatical. Added to that long months of domestic bliss back at home in Bhubaneswar with parents. Trips to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai...catching up with old friends, making new ones and discovering that some friendships can be more than just that......in a very wonderful way :)

So my mechanical penning down of events in the last few months is urged by the fact that here I am in Syracuse finally and that paper work, formalities, shopping ALL OF IT, piles up in what for now looks very intimidating for the next one month. Driving down from NYC to Syracuse was wonderful. I couldn't have asked for better company and a more picturesque landscape . Syracuse and especially the university area where I live now, is almost lost in a different era of time. Dotted with picture perfect homes, quaint old Victorian looking university buildings, it does seem a bit too idyllic for a campus town...

Finally made some friends. Chinese, Greek and Canadian on the list for now. Looking forward to getting to know them better. Now it's down to the house hunting and finishing pre-class assignment. But it doesn't seem that bad. I have Christopher Vogler's 'Mythic Structure for Writers' to read up before Tuesday and 4 films to watch so NOT complaining :D


Oh and 4th of July brings with it fireworks so the weekend shall be very peaceful. Last night's outing with Anna from Greece and a couple of other American students was peaceful. ....


This is perhaps the closest I get to writing a 'journal' like post on my blog. More such accounts will be coming up, you know the kinds that have less context or philosophical streaks to them, just objective penning...

For now 300 pages of Vogler beckons...toodle-doo!

One fine day..summer in suburbia Mumbai

Amidst swirly red twines

I sip I wait and watch

the pale haze around the corners

sip in the bitter-sweet taste of our conversation

in small sentences, by two.


"Bitter sweet" ? of all that we have experienced

What would we want to hold on to

Are we mellow? Happier? Cautious?

Are we counting our steps?


Or are we holding our breath till the seconds run out,

You contemplate your sobriety

You negate my affirmations

I wait for the wine swirls to fade out

And I'll hope for the reds to fade to white



(To be continued......)

SWEETNESS BUT NOT STICKY

And so we move
In spaces apart
Joined by our memories
The only thing we'll share for a while

It's a strange numbness
Of mind and body
And yet I am no zombie to this
Instead this makes me 'comfortably numb'

And look!
Corniness galore, sweetness but not sticky
Of conversations that don't seem to end
That's how my time with you was spent

This is good
This is true
Offered in a sentence by you
Offer me some more wine, won't you....

Of Spoilt Treasures

Ravaged gold that you are,
Attacked for your riches,
Of taste, flavour and sight.

Once reaching out to the heavens,
The wind threatened to topple you
But you hung on.

Now lying neglected and bare open on this ground,
Only to be scooped up by another pair of beaks.

How I wish you had reached your prime,
And then honoured me with that envious bite,
Before the parrots got theirs
..........

You were my grandpa's prized mangoes.

twenty-five

Well, what do I write here. Those 'I turn this number and here's what I have to say' articles are so abundant aren't they? A fellow blogger observed when he turns that extra number, that he no longer belongs to that 19-25 age category, you know the one that you have to tick mark in those forms? Different people, different observations, different epiphanies..hmmm


When I was growing up, birthdays weren't ever an occasion to cut a cake, blow candles or party . Strange as it might or might not sound, this 'un'merry like attitude to anyone's birthday in the family sort of made me a bit mellow perhaps, but brought in a strange form of humility towards life early on. The family gathered around, there was the 'pranam' to the elders, lots of hugs and kisses and then of course the customary visit to the temple. Later in the evening, we did have a great family dinner, friends and relatives would join in and well that was our way of having a good time. I remember feeling strange at how the neighbourhood kids celebrated their birthdays. Everyone sat around a big table or hall in a symmetrical circle, ate potato chips, plastic coloured pastries and went back home happy with a 'return' gift. So, I guess with my family's method of celebration, me and my sibling had matured a little too much beyond our years to NOT expect all this hulabuloo, fancy gift and money being splashed around .

Today, my 12 year old cousin who's way too 'hip' for my comprehension (and we tell our parents about the generation gap!) asked me over the phone what I had done or was planning to do so far and what do I get in reply? "God that's so boring didi!' (Kids today I tell you !!) Of course my family didn't organise a treasure hunt that landed in all the goodies coming to me (I love these kind of birthday parties btw , it's a brilliant game to play as well if you've got a good writer in the fray coming up with fantastic clues) or drink away to high heavens while the younger brood of the family swayed to music but I had a great day. And here's why. Because it was REALLY about everyone in the family doing their very bit to acknowledge this important day of my life and well, make me smile about it! A cousin of mine woke me up with chocolate and a hug, next my uncle walked in with flowers, my eldest uncle gifted me a papita from his own garden (and anyone who knows me knows that I'm a 'fruit-a-holic! and fruits from the garden, ahhh bliss!! I love gardening as well btw), baba and I had some quality time at the temple, Ma toiled away all morning to make me what the Bengalis simply can't resist, the 'mishti aamer chaatni' (sweet mango chutney), my sister doing the every best that she always does, helped me smoothen up a 400 word SOP that was simply not working out and in the evening, well what do you know?!!! My youngest uncle and aunt surprised me with a birthday cake and well I did do the routine that I haven't done in quite a while!!! We all sat around in the porch overlooking the garden after that and gup-shupped for a solid 2 hours (in Bhubaneswar's heavenly evening breeze) with our black lab bounding around gleefully amidst us! Now how many people have this fortune?

And time for the cliche:

I turned 25, twenty-five, 20+5. and I have no epiphanies this year. Not a single one! Strangely I'm overcome by some calm , perhaps it's the mellowness that comes with 'it's just another year of my life towards a larger figure or maybe I suspect this time, some inkling of the fact that's growing stronger within me: that, what I've done or not done so far doesn't matter, it's really this second, the day and the month followed by the year that will. Oh wait! That is an epiphany! So I'm turning off the lights, logging out of my blog and hitting the sack with this recurrent thought. 25shouldn't be so bad, should it be now? Just a little too perfectly placed in the middle of your 20's. Gaining balance and drawing margins is will really be the motto this year :)

AND THE PIECES CAME TOGETHER

So I admit that staying home 24*7 for a while now has begin to bug me...finally! But in between worrying about my next project, sending off applications to film schools and nail biting hours of scholarship hunting, I resort to one activity now and then, most of us do, scout interesting blogs to read :) I simply clicked the little tab on the left hand side of my screen that says >>Next Blog. The results left me a little stumped. The first blog was about cupcake fridays, basically some pastry lover's blog. The next was a BITTERSWEET something about a choc-a-holic; and well surprise surprise the third was on Ice creams!!!

Either divine intervention is trying to cheer me up with these sweet tooth writings or well I'm being given a sign I need to take some serious interest in increasing my weight (yes yes I baffle my high school teachers even today because every time I meet them, I seem to have "stayed the same" their precise words. I weigh a meagre 45 btw. Anyone needs a partner for ice skating??)

I am not trying to say something finite in this post, most of my posts always do have a clear point that I'm trying to convey in between lapsing into verbosity. But heck, here's something I just realised I wish to say through this post.

You know what you observe, read or listen to, if registered carefully in your brain and simply pondered over in some larger context can actually throw up amazing epiphanies? I have this cosmic force is trying to tell you something theory that was proved to me in 2008 when I was going through tough patch. I would listen to a very dear friend who would roll out these snippets of philosophy or theory she had read earlier and I would mull over it . I would try and find some solace in the wisdom of what she'd uttered. Then there would be the proverbial 'too much of a coincidence' instances where I would be guessing if something indeed had happened. I would only have to look at some feature stories in the day's paper that echoed my doubts or sentiments and I would be forced to wrestle with my desire to get the truth out of say a person or a situation.


Maybe there is some power/force that is determined to teach us a lesson or give us some wisdom to hold on to when we decide to look the other way. And the peace and solace that we often seek in our crazed lives comes from everywhere around us in our day to day existence perhaps even the most mundane things a newspaper, a line from a song playing on the radio or maybe your friend. And all you need to do is contextualise it to your problems. There's a process of unravelling your difficulty that begins therein and if not an absolute guarantee of happiness , it's bound to throw up some interesting epiphanies, thoughts to help you cope with your unhappiness or problem.

Try it out next time.