Category: Notes

Social networking, in the real world

Web 2.0 has given us so many tools to keep in touch with each other. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Foursquare etc, you know what is happening in your friend’s life, where he/she is standing right now, what he/she does or thinks right now and see the photo records. Then you can let others have a peek into what happens in your life too. BUT – does that really satisfy your need to interact with real people in real life?

I remember this once incident from a New Year’s eve an year back. I was single, all my friends have had other engagements or parties to attend and I had no one to keep me company to celebrate the New Year’s eve. And I felt so lonely. I logged into Gtalk, Twitter, Facebook and Orkut – but none of them seemed to matter and they just appeared to be a strange world. The whole virtual world seemed to be fake, an illusion without a human touch.

I had this thought particularly when a friend called me last Saturday and told me how lonely he felt that day as he was alone at home. He saw some of his old friends in the neighborhood and he said they also seemed to be lonely in a kind of way and he felt the need to network in the real world. Those neighbors were his childhood friends with whom he lost that touch in the course of time and he said now he understands the value of keeping a good network in the real world.

Sometimes, the virtual world seems to be throwing information overload (links! links! links!) and its kind of losing that personal touch that we all crave for. The vast network that it offers and the way it redefines the word “friend” (everyone you meet on the social networking sites is a “friend”) are beginning to seem very boring. And it makes me want to go back to that smaller world of friends that I had many years back. Smaller but thicker. These days, I am trying to spend an evening on every weekend with the childhood friends and it gives a lot of comfort and free air to spend time with them, sharing even idiotic things, laughing it off. It is so comforting. And when I see the rush of people to add more and more people to their friends list just to showcase “I’ve got N number of friends!“, I wish that they understood the value of networking with real people, in the real world. Or keeping in touch with the real thick friends they have, how small it might be in numbers.

One man’s dream

This happened many years back. It was the early hours of the night. I was sitting in the veranda with the earphones of the walkman plugged into my ears. Soft, soothing music flowed. I fell into a light sleep.

Then…

An empty beach in the twilight. Wind blows lightly. Soft piano tones.

There stands a woman, so beautiful, her white robe floats in the wind. She stands against me and smiles at me. A set of violins and cellos rises, with a light tone of flute. Music is heavenly.

Now she is walking along.

A hug. Eyes closed. Kiss.

Then rises a set of strings of violin and cello. Her fangs, goes deep into my neck, sucking off my blood.

Then I woke up. The music was almost over. Soft piano tones were playing to mark the end of the song. I sat there wondering what just happened. I wasn’t in a deep sleep. I could remember the melody which was being played, while having this dream. Yet, that dream, however short it was, felt so real. I took the album cover and searched for the song name. I read the song title in total awe – One Man’s Dream.

That was the first and only time that I can remember when music created a clear imagery while listening to a song.

Mother this, Mother that

There is an English medium school to the back of our house. Same school where they did not give me admission because my family could not affor the admission fees back in those days. They are growing up pretty big, thanks to the increasing donations for admission and funding. Now they have several blocks, dedicated to CBSE & state syllabus and a teacher’s training school. As the school expanded, they needed to have more entrances than the main gate. So they started looking to buy off any available land/house from our street to build new gates to the school. One for kids who came by auto rickshaws, one for kids who walked on the way home and one for those who cycled back home.

The then principal of the school, a young Catholic priest who was later accused of buying vans for the school registered in his name, first approached our neighbor to see if they were willing to sell off their house to the school. They happily obliged and the priest gave them a good price for the house and the land. Later that house was brought down to ashes to make an entrance road to the school. But the road wasn’t wider enough. So they approached my elder brother one day and asked if we were willing to sell our house too. My brother said we wouldn’t. In our street, ours was the oldest and almost-falling-down-to-the-earth house. So the priest could not see any reason for why we poor fellows wouldn’t sell off their house for a very good price which was competent with the market price.

The priest approached my father secretly and asked the same thing. Father said No. When my brother came to know about this, he went straight to the principal priest’s cabin in the school and told him, “We were in this place for the past 60 years. This house was built by my father’s mother. This is our ancestral house and we are not planning to move from here. So stop approaching any one of our family with your price tags“. Priest stopped asking further (though the one who came after him tried another way of compelling us which we dealt with legally), I later took up the land from family, built a new house there and now staying with my family there.

When I look at it again now, it is not the count of years that makes me stay in that very same place. This is a house that my grandmother built with my father and his brothers. They built the entire house with the mud bricks and sandstone powder. My grandmother lived and died there (though I don’t have even a fainted memory of hers). My second brother lived in this house too, before he died at the age of 27 in a road accident and his body was brought into that very same house. This is family. There are emotions attached to this 5 cents of land. No power can ever buy that with their money, unless something real bad happens to our survival.

This is why I love that place. My home, because my family live in there. My street, because that is where our house is at. Our small semi-urban village, because that’s where our street is, my childhood friends are and the local community is with people whom I’ve known since my childhood. Thrissur, the city that I have grown up with it’s nooks and corners. Kerala, because Thrissur is a district in Kerala state. And my country India, because my state is part of this country and the people from our state have contributed significantly to build this country.

But the home town or home state changes to another form when it comes to define the country. It is not just home land, it is Mother land. I don’t understand what that means. Mother land? The country is seen as mother, we are taught. But why? A country is made of pieces of land and what makes us sentimental about it is because it hosts our home. If we were born and lived in America or Africa, that would be our home. When M F Hussain painted India as a nude woman, the fanatics and the so-called educated lot (I call them the qualified lot, because they are never educated in the word’s truest sense) came up in arms against him, asking if he would dare paint his Mother in nude form. Our nationalist blood boiled when we saw this piece of land as a nude woman. But we never raised much voices when girls were raped and killed in the very same mother land, just because they looked Chinese, though they were born in the same country. We had no problem in cutting the womb of a mother in this mother land, or killing the sons and daughters of other mothers in this mother land. Burning them. Raping them. But “insulting” a piece of land? That’s unbearable to us even when those killers and rapists walk among us.

Mother land, mother tongue… mother this… mother that… what do they mean really? What kind of conveniences or excuses do they give us? How are we assigning any meaning to them?

(Image courtesy: Focuswildlife.com)

Married

(Thaali, Manthrakodi and Rings – photo by Aashik)

Can’t believe it happened. Felt blessed to have got wedded in the presence of my closest friends. The doubts, the questions, all seem to be vanishing away. And then there are surprises. She finally sang to me. And she sings pretty much better than I expected. 🙂

Engaged!

So the reason for my week-long hiatus from blogging is that I got engaged on last Saturday. Yeah! I got engaged. 🙂 It did not happen overnight, but I didn’t want to announce the news publicly because I messed it up last time. I did not even tell my friends until I was sure about it. And this time, am so sure about what I got.

But it is not a fairy tale love. Though she stays just 2 KMs away from my place, in Thrissur, it is an arranged marriage and we learn many things about each other as we talk every day. It is an interesting process. We have so many opposites on many fronts. And there are so many doubts in both of us about each other. When I crack a joke, am conscious to see if she takes it in the right spirit. When she talks, she seems to be wanting to give me the right impression too. But as we get to speak more, it’s becoming like, “okay, you don’t need to explain it“, and I see it as a positive sign.

I never have believed in an ‘ideal match’. I still don’t believe in it. I think it depends on the couple to understand each other and make compromises and that is what makes an ideal match. Compromises – individually, intellectually, materially and so on… We both are trying to do that. And in that process, we expect hard waters and hope to cruise through them together and understand each other better. So each day we have something new to learn.

Her name is Sony (shortened form of Soniya), and according to a friend “a singer and music fan couldn’t have found a match with a better name” and another friend said, “this is called Poetic Justice! You love music and you get a woman named SONY.” 🙂 She loves music, yes, and she also likes to sing though she has not sung for me yet. She has promised she will, soon.

Am I excited? Yes, but also tensed a lot. In fact, I could not even sleep through the night before the engagement day as there were so many things haunting me personally. Not related to marriage, but on the personal/family front. I hope that all will be over soon. And I am teaching myself not to worry about things that I have no control over. I hope I can sail through the troubled waters and make things work for us. And make more music (I know it has been a long time since I posted a song here, but I promise more songs will flow after the marriage).

As for now, we need your prayers and blessings…

Hey You!

Do you know how much it means to me when you talk?

When you talk with your sweet, stupid, nothings?

And how much that makes me smile?

And how much I want to be right beside you?

How much I am longing for a kiss, a hug, or just to keep looking into your eyes?

Do you?

2009 – The year that was

2009. What an year this was! Like this dialogue from the movie Forrest Gump says, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” It has been a mixed bag this year. But when was it all good or all bad? Life always kept giving me a lot of surprises. Good and bad ones. And this year been no different. In fact, it was the most happening year in my life to the date.

I had my first audio interview done for Deccan Radio, an internet radio station. The first English song that I composed, arranged and sung – a “Protest Song”, to say it in the Dylan way – had an honorable mention in the Desi Critics Valentine’s Day contest. It was creatively a very satisfying work for me. Then an article about Blogswara appeared in Malayalam Vaarika and my first TV interview came out in Manorama News, again about Blogswara. My cover version of the Malayalam song Picha Vacha Naal Muthal has 5000+ online listeners in Muziboo alone and a total of 1920 mp3 downloads within 4 months (Muziboo and 4shared combined). That is the maximum number of listeners and downloads I have ever got for a song posted online. Last year, I also composed a song for a short film, which is being directed by a friend.

2009 was an year of losses for Keralam on all fronts. Writer Kamala Das, a.k.a. Madhavikutty, passed away this year. Film personalities, including two top actors of the Malayalam cinema like Murali and Rajan P Dev and the very talented scriptwriter-director Lohita Das, bid good bye. Another one was Sainoj, a wonderful singer.

On the personal front, life always teaches it’s best lessons in bitter ways. And it helps you grow stronger through the most hardened ways. That is what I learned experienced this year.

Things which I’ve learned this year:

1) Only you can decide what works best for you. That doesn’t mean you should avoid taking tips or advice from others. Take plenty of these tips/help/advices. Whenever you want or from whomever you want. Think it through for sometime (not for a long time, because the delay can make it letting others decide it for you). And always rely on your instincts to reach the final decision. The end result may not always be happy, but you know that there couldn’t be a better decision.

2) Sometimes you have to take tough decisions in life for yourself. Even when you know that everyone around you whom you care so much about would be hurt and blame you for that decision. But if you are convinced that it is the best decision that you can take and the only one which would work best in the long run, go ahead and do it. Don’t worry too much about who would stand by you and whom you would hurt in the process (it is not as easy as I say it here though). Ultimately, it is about you and your life. No one else knows you better than you.

3) Don’t expect so much love and honesty from all your friends or family, so that you won’t be hurt too much when you do not get the expected amount of love and friendship from them. Most of the relationships work in a make-do way and out of convenience. Understand it and move on.

4) Money does play a big role in life, no matter what the others would poetically say. I would say, “There are only a few things that money can’t buy. For everything else, you need Master Card.” So always keep a balance between earning good and achieving your personal dreams, particularly when you have a family to look after. But do not worry about it, if you are strong enough to raise your middle finger at the world when they laugh at you and call you a loser.

5) There is no such pain as intense as Guilt. It is so powerful that it could destroy you totally. Learn how to get over that by yourself.

6) You don’t have to be nice to everyone. You don’t have to hold back from expressing yourself, fearing what others might think of you. Then you are at the risk of being unjust to yourself. Those who cared to know you in depth would hang on and always be with you. Others would pass and deservedly so. You cannot be friends with everyone in this world.

7) Do not underestimate the so-called “unlearned” ones. During my teenage and the early stages of my adulthood, I used to ignore my Mom’s wisdom. She is about two generations away and I thought that my Mom, who had education only till the 5th grade, could never understand the way things work in my time. And I used to underestimate her wisdom and admired the so-called educated, learned, cultured people instead. But as I grew up, I began to understand my Mother better and now I know that she could be the best advisor when it comes to family, relationships, society etc. The only exception could be the professional advice.

The unforgettable moments of this year:

1) The moment I saw my mother when she was being moved from the cathlab to the ICCU after her third heart attack in a span of two days. She had a terrified look on her face, as if she just saw death. She asked for me and held my hand when I went close to her. She only said, “it was so painful”. One look at her face and I was so afraid that I was loosing her. I told her “don’t be afraid, everything will be just fine”, though I was the most afraid one by then. “I know”, she replied as if to console me. Later when she came back home, she said that she thought she would die in there.

2) The first time I faced the TV camera for Manorama News interview. I was so nervous that I thought I would mess up the whole thing, but luckily I got in to the flow once the interview was started. I could say the right things and it was a success.

What I look forward to in the new year:

There are some exciting things coming up in the beginning of next year. I will write about it as and when it happens. Like I said, life has been a mixed bag through out these years, but at the end of every year, I could see the positives outrun the negatives. This year has made me emotionally and thus personally stronger. I am excitedly waiting for the hardships and happiness that the next year has to offer. 🙂

If I am to pick up some of the blog posts from this year for a revisit, the following would make up to the list.

Homosexuality and Our Perceptions
Church & Politics – An Un-Holy Alliance
The times of Times of India
The Dignity of Labor
Pictures of Thrissur Pooram
The Summer Vacation
An Indian non-Thamizhan’s take on SL conflict
The Soul That Knew How To Sing
Aussies, Bollywood, Racism etc
Why do you listen to music?
Before the Rains – City & Village
The WTF advertisements
Walk the Talk, Sir ji!
Paala Poovithalil – Thirakkatha (cover)
The Savita Bhabhi Saga
Age of Statues
Picha Vacha Naal Muthal (cover)
Iniyethra Naal (original composition)
What has made DHRM possible?
A circle of life
Sreemathi Teacher’s English
M G Sreekumar on Tamil songs
Love Jehad?
Bollywood and Indianness

And thanks to you my dear readers/listeners of this blog, for all the flowers and brickbats. You guys too help me so much in the process of learning and growing up. So thank you!

A circle of life

“I used to walk for kilometers to fetch the firewood for half the price of what was available in the neighborhood”. The mother told her son.

“I would walk with your elder brother lying on my shoulder, and the firewood on top of the head and rarely took the bus. Thus I could save 10 paise. I kept those 10 paises until I could make it to Rs. 200 and then I deposited that in the chit company”. Her son smiled, as he’s heard such stories of ‘living and saving within the limits’ from his mom earlier. He had just bought “Imagine“, a documentary DVD of John Lennon for Rs. 600 and a music album of the movie “Radio” for Rs. 160, just to see if Himesh Reshammiya is finally doing a good job on singing.

“I know mom. I remember one such time. We were going somewhere; You, me and two sisters together, I think. We walked all the way to the town and I wore a wooden high-heeled ladies chappal since my rubber slippers had nearly turned paper size. That pair of ladies chappals were abandoned by our neighbor and given to us if I remember it right. It was a hot summer day and I couldn’t walk on the road without the chappals. So after some protests initially, I had to put on those chappals. And guess what? I still remember that chappal, it’s shape and color! I don’t think I would ever forget that.”

“Have you ever thought why I had to do that? I wanted us to live within our limits and without debt. And with the little I could save, I could manage our family and it’s expenses including some weddings.” Mom said. The son took her hand in his hand and looked at her affectionately. He knew he would never understand what she said.

“I’ve worked all these years.” She said. “I’ve worked right from the childhood, starting with the paddy fields of my family in the old days. And now I lay here, not even being able to walk without help.”

“Don’t be silly. Everybody gets old and now is the time for you to relax and rest a bit. And sooner you will be able to manage things on your own. This is just temporary.”

He looked at his mother’s pale face. Her eyes were wandering around the white ceiling of the room; she must have been thinking of the old days. He planted a kiss on her forehead and said in his mind – “Don’t you worry mom, I will take care of you to the best of my capacity. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” Then he prayed to God to keep his sources strong as long as his mother lived. He said, “Dear God, I won’t complain if you give me poverty, push me to debt, leave me living in a hut – but please, please – only after my mother’s time. When her time comes, I want her to leave happily, in prosperity and peace.”

As he looked at her affectionately again, the mother turned a daughter and the son turned a father. A circle of life was just fulfilling.