It is probably the idle mind, it is probably the devil.

There are virtues and there are vices and there are other things that you can get away with. Are virtues really virtues? Are vices really vices? Am I Nuts? Maybe…

Live your life with passion, they say , but not so much that you forget your material commitments. Live your life with devotion, they say, even if it means accepting things that you don’t agree or understand. Live without fear, live with gay abandon,live and be modest about it. Love one and all, love unconditionally, as long as the boundaries are not breached...

Do ‘good’; Selflessness is good, courage is good, dedication is good, sincerity is good, grammar is good revenge is good. No? ok not revenge then; or was your problem with grammar? 

Apparently, Everything happens for the good, but can’t happen according to your wish. Life doesn’t work like that. Don’t be selfish, think about others. Think about others who get it their way when you let go. It is a small price to pay for their happiness. Aren’t they happy? In their happiness, lies yours. There is a soul, there is conscience. There is god. In the end everyone gets their just desserts.

Life is overrated. There was never an alternative. Intelligence is overrated. Lies, More lies, more and more lies, arguments and counter arguments, who is to judge. You are corrupt only if you are caught. In general, I shall judge you for this, vilify you for that, string you up for this other thing, but glorify you later, for the same, after you die. Why? Mortgage.

Adhere to society, don’t step out. Complain about the herd, but not too loudly, the foxes await in sheep’s clothing. Interpolate faiths, extrapolate practices. Apply logic and reason, transcribe old superstitions.  Think, rationalize, Induce, instigate, rule, justify, moralize, patronize, neutralize.

All the rats are running to the sea. All the rats end up in the sea. But that is fatalistic; a destructive thought and a bad thought process. Constructive ones are those that involve stopping for breath, admiring, taking in the world around you, living in the present and running around trees; only to find others have left you far behind. 

Run, Just a little more, a few more steps,for all to change. Run, just a little more, only to find it all the same.

No. Not any more. change.

Write, sing, dance, laugh, play, live, lose, regret,cry, ache, pull yourself up again,take a deep breath, control your emotions, curb urges, calm them nerves, and feel at peace; enlightened, zen. There is nothing wrong with defeat,nothing wrong with death. You don't need to pray to keep them at bay nor do you need to fear the judgement day. It is going to happen on an another day if not today. 

Live with your convictions, your morals and only for yourself, even if it is wrong. The truth is there is really no 'right' or 'wrong'. Just a set of good arguments and a set of bad ones... 

some songs don't stick no?

Music is a medium; it makes the air around less overwhelming. Music is rhythm; the rhythm that flows through the way things are done; the typing, the speed, the pauses, the blinks and the restless taps  searching for words. Music is white noise. It brings down the volume on the strident disquiet of solitude. And sometimes, every once in a while,on one of those rare occasions, a piece of music catches you unaware and  transcends into something surreal. It demands that you listen to it, perceive it with all your senses, and you do, with rapt attention.

There is this song by the name “chandiranai” from the movie ratchagan. The song was pretty much in a nondescript corner in my player and used to pop up now and then only to be flipped over for the current favourites. But on this particular train journey, I was taken by surprise, spellbound at the beauty it could conjure.I was so hooked that I had to stop after three of four repetitions lest I dilute the effect it had on me. The breeze, the moonlight, and the rhythm the train set; somehow it was magical.

I had not come across the song’s picturization then. Hence, the mind painted its own picture. The motif being a duet set in a misty twilight / night bathed in moonlight with a gentle breeze; a bit of graceful dancing here and there along with silhouettes and shapes flitting through the conciousness now and then complementing the song's mood.  I didn’t know what the movie was about, neither did I know where the song came in or what the emotions were, leading up to the song. (Turned out , when I did watch the movie later, the all pervading emotion throughout the movie was one of boredom and hopelessness.) I had drawn my own version of the song and to me it was lovely.

What I didn't expect was the rude shock I had when I did eventually get around to watching it on TV; there was not a single shot of the moon. I was scandalized. I wondered what the director had smoked up to come up with this. After watching some of his other movies, later, I have come to realize now, that he has a natural flair for stupidity. But back then, I was a bit naive.When a song goes “chandiranai thottadhu yaar Armstrong a?” (Did Armstrong touch the moon?) and the rhythm is so lazy; so beautiful, why would he shoot anything else other than the moon? Why would he show us this nonsense? what is the theme of this anyway? 

Composing music for cinema is a two way process. The director sets the mood while the composer comes up with the tone. And they discuss. When I think about our commercial potboilers, I often wonder what the narrative to the composer would be like. Especially in cases where duets are used almost as place holders. “I’m going to New Zealand, I’m planning to take arching shots of the landscape, compose something for me”. Fair enough. Makes enough sense for the composer get a grip on the expected output. But when or how does a song go discordant?

Another song that comes to my mind here is “aathangarai marame” from kizhaku seemayile. I couldn’t forgive myself for watching it on TV for a long time. Personally I thought that the composer had over shot the narrative. I still wonder if the song really required such richness.If it did, then the visual imagery had failed to deliver on the promise.I do concede here that the song as a separate entity was beautiful.Similarly, In the more recent times, no other song has disappointed me more than “adiye” from Kadal. What a damp squib.

Circumspect is the word. Or you can probably insulate yourself. How? when a song that you have just heard, gives you the Goosebumps, floods you with vibrant imagery, assume that the video in all probability is hopeless. then proceed to watch it; get pleasantly surprised if it does live up to the song. If it did not, you always knew :D 

one @livetimefe on Twitter tweeted “what's stopping men from approaching women”

On an earlier occasion another female I know, had asked me the same question. Always weak with wit and spoken word, I shrugged the question off while another guy stepped in with his theory.

Again, like many other instances, I managed to formulate a response much much later...

Why?

Before I start off I would like to let you know here, that my “cogent analysis” of anything resembles a scatter graph on an excel sheet. Hence I’m going to refrain from “problem definition, problem analysis, problem solving, implementation and testing “

Also Indulging my lazy behind, I have decided to just pose questions, questions that seem to me, are relevant at some level to the broader problem. I’m just guessing here, but I’m also getting away with certain level of stupidity by framing it as questions… read on.

IS IT

• The General lack of treatment of men as men, not boys, women as women, not girls in the society when it comes to relationships, be it romantic or not? 

• The social taboo regarding puppy love rather than accepting the fact that it does exist and it is really just a phase and not a WMD? 

• The class differences, caste differences? Not everywhere probably, but subliminally expressed through snootiness? 

• A thing with the females brainwashed into believing that male advances are to be thwarted at all costs to maintain the family’s misplaced sense of ‘cultural acceptance’ (happens all the time, not exaggerating)? 

• The glorious case of rape culture in Indian cinema and society where a power struggle is always resolved through rape which in turn, fosters creeps? 

• The pathetic censor board, for the same reason as stated above? 

• The alpha male syndrome? The girl is expected to talk first, not the other way. 

• In its own small, tiny way, the huge taboo attached to cross cultural marriages, honour killings, the persecution of ‘love’ marriages etc. by the society in general? 

These are random questions… they are as valid as they are non sequitur and I’m just sounding out my own opinions on this. I’m as confused as I was when I started with this .
Some cities are culturally more evolved, some are less, and some seem to be evolved, on the surface. I probably have a vague sense of what I would tell my kids when they face the world at their time. But even then, I’m not sure, whether I would be ‘evolved’ enough to tackle their problems.

Just a small detour here… Earlier this week, I was reading this confession of a mass murderer. Apparently his biggest frustration in life was "not finding a girl to love him and not losing his virginity" on schedule. As I was reading it, there was a chilling realization that same guy, in India would have probably resorted to molesting/raping and once satisfied , would have probably been roaming around among us, continuing his dastardly acts.

It is also a pity really, that sexual violence was expressly allowed on cinema from times immemorial while a kiss, or a hug or any other open show of love was a taboo. I don’t support vulgarity, but a lot of things are not really vulgar, if you think about it… These expressions of love could have been celebrated all these years and we might have had a more tolerant & accommodating society now. I’m not saying, we would be devoid of creeps, I just believe the count might have been a little lesser and probably the interactions between the sexes would have been more comfortable.