The High of Media!

The way I ended my last post, I am sure you thought I am hating whatever I am doing at Manorama. That was intended only to confuse you! ;) I meant that driving a car in the rain is a far better proposition to me than sitting in an office. Just that!

So what am I doing right now? An internship! Right when the internship question was popped at the university, I made a note in my mind - manoramaonline.com is where I want to be. It is close to home, ensures exposure to a daring combination of print and new media (my stream for Masters), gives a chance to flaunt my bilingual capabilities - the pluses were obvious. Of course, there were also people in place who could easily get me in. ;)

So when everyone serenaded their way to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, I crept my way further South to this tiny town of Kerala, my home, Kottayam.

And guess what I am doing? Reading, writing and dreaming. In that order. All the magazines that I am a fan of, are available here. I am not going to tell you which they are for risk of destroying any image that you may have of me ;) Okay fine, here is a clue for one of them - think on the lines of f-letter words. Oops, please abstain from the obscene path. Remember? I love films. Enough now. :)

So I read a lot of what I love. Then, how can I not write about all of that? I write at least a couple of articles a day and see smiles blooming on those people's faces who are saved from some work. Need I clarify that it gives me a huge high? Come on, I am a Leo. Very very easy to please. Ego boosts come almost naturally to our breed with the slightest stimulation.

Just imagine how I felt when I saw my first story online, then? Okay, story means just an article and not a 'story' as my mother thought the other day. She read Purushothamanayi Prithvi and innocently asked me "Ithengane kathayavum?" (How can this be a 'story'?)

Anyway, find some more of them below. Disclaimer: These are not creative masterpieces or my magnum opera. They are just stories written to suit the style of cinema and lifestyle sections of manoramaonline.com which is not half as serious as a traditional newspaper would be. All of them are in Malayalam and the site can be viewed only on Internet Explorer.

Nainan Narmam

Pattinte Rajadhiraja

Maniratnathinu 53am Pirannal

Russellinte Rasangal

Zoo Zoo... Super!

Veendum Oru July 4

Yathra Thudarunna Musafir

Thakarnna Swapnavumayi

No, I am not done. Remember, I told you about a third activity called dreaming? My conclusion is that I am best at that one. Gazing at the computer screen, I literally get lost in my thoughts. The other day, I was jobless and was watching an interview of Kavya Madhavan on YouTube. (Thank God, YT is not blocked here like GMail is. Google, I miss you. Freedom is what you gave me!) Apparently, my supervisor was calling me at the top of his voice from a distance of roughly a meter! A colleague had to literally shake me up before I responded finally. My tolerant supervisor thought I was engrossed in the interview. Now, you tell me how engrossed can I get with Kavya Madhavan? With Prithviraj, I can try! ;) Only I know that my mind was lost in some place which I myself have not figured out where.

The concluding note is that I am on a creative high of seeing my articles on a platform of Manorama. As of today, the only downside is that I have been moved from the seat that I adorned for the last two weeks. The guy whose system and chair I was allotted came back from leave. And talk about invading a Leo's space. You will hear a roar! Grr....

The Monsoon has come, so have I!

The other day, one of my cousins was ruthless enough to tell me that he has totally forgotten me. Apparently, the only way he used to remember me was through my posts. Now that the profile is full of dust, I have been reduced to a dusty corner of his memory as well. That's when I realized, I should change the equations!

So here I am, back to the grind. I won't even get to the usual explanation and excuse grind. Three months lost are three months lost. Gone with the wind and the rain too!

Rain! Oh yes, I am at home, the land of letters, latex and lakes enjoying my summer break. Sharada sent me an SMS yesterday calling me a 'lucky one' for being from the land where monsoon originates! I was flattered. Truly, monsoon is monsoon only when it happens in Kerala. It is so effervescent and so omnipresent! Travel from Parassala to Parassinikkadavu on a rainy day and chances are, your car will be rainwashed throughout.

Coming to the monsoon this time, weather experts 'predicted' three days back that monsoon will arrive in Kerala in a week's time. And lo! The rains really had to prove them wrong. It arrived bang on the very next day. Those experts must be sheepishly smiling now, right?

The nature around has suddenly taken a different hue of green. A very dark shade that makes you want to go deep into it and explore the secrets and the stories behind. The brown of dust has gone into oblivion and this mysterious green has completely taken over. Oh, there is a famous smell that people talk about when rains first hit the earth, right? I could not sense it at all mainly because the very first downpour was, well, indeed a heavy downpour! I guess that smell (famously called puthumanninte manam in Malayalam) just melted away in the water. Anyone knows what this smell is called in English? Most times, my vocabulary is just not enough to talk about my God's own country. ;)

A friend of mine is a fan of long drives on rainy days. He keeps telling me how he loves the left-right movement of wipers as the car tries to evade the rain and rush fast. The screech like sound of rubber against glass 'exhilarates' him in his words! I could never fathom his energy as he voiced his wiper mania. But yesterday, I got a taste of the thrill. As I drove after a second show from Kottayam town to my home in Arpookara, I realized that it was the first time I was driving in such torrential rain. Add to it the tension of driving through an almost invisible road in darkness, I was quite on my toes. Plus there is dad by the side nerving me consistently saying “Slow Down” even at 40 kmph.

Nevertheless, it was truly an 'exhilarating' experience. Water is an amazing thing, you see. Even if your skin cannot feel it, it cools you from within. The gush sound, the translucency.. I can feel it as I write about it. It is that magical! When it comes directly from the heavens, in its purest form, it is all the more beautiful. Almost breath-taking.

The feeling of being in a cozy enclosure with an air conditioned breeze to add to the comfort and witnessing the most energetic flow of water right in front of you – I think that's what adds the exhilaration element to drives on a rainy day! Think about it. Just hundred centimeters away, there is a world of water out there waiting to rush in and drench you. It holds a huge suspense within– what if the front glass just breaks off right now? Now, I do think it is a phenomenal space to be in.

But right now, I am in a different air conditioned enclosure which is not so exciting - Manorama Online's office in the Manorama building on K K Road. More from this space, later. :)

Home is where thou hearth is!

Statutory Warning : This post is very long. As much close to my heart as well.

Most of us would agree that 'home' is not just a word or a concept. It is a world in itself. My version is that it rests in the security of our hearts with gallons of emotions compressed inside. I have stayed away from my home for the past six years. It has been a life changing time for me.

When I first moved out to join my college hostel in 2003, I had not foreseen this change. In fact, I never thought about it deeply enough. It was a natural transition - something that everyone of my age went through. Although I was lull that I had to relocate, I had no regret as it was my decision to study in another city when my city of letters (lakes and latex too) did have a lot of options. It took me some time to realise though that I am not in the best place considering the monster of a warden I had. To add to the complications, she was my teacher too.

Okay, let me tell you that I am a good ‘people’s person.’ I have this gift of getting people to like me if I want them to. Teachers definitely fall into that category of ‘people whom I want to like me.’ My boy classmates from school always used to pull my leg mentioning my ability to lather teachers up. But this one was a tough cookie. I realised that people don’t cook up stories about ladies hostel wardens when they say they are frustrated souls. She created lots of problems for me including not letting me go home on weekends when all others went. She even accused that a majority of blank calls that the hostel received actually targeted me (I now see it as a compliment though). There are very few people, in fact, only one person that I have held grudge for a long time. She is that person. In a nutshell, my first experience out of home was very discouraging.

My second year in college passed off in transit as I was constantly travelling Kottayam-Kochi-Thiruvananthapuram for various activities that included studying and compeering. Though I was officially stationed at home during this year, I never actually lived there. This was also the year when I realised that travelling alone helps you mature much faster than anything else. You learn to juggle between different modes of public transport. You become an expert in crisis management as you learn to deal with late trains and buses that do not wait. You realise the worth of every penny when auto drivers ask for exorbitant amounts to drop you from South railway station to your college that is a kilometre away. You deal with so many different kinds of people. Your alertness levels go high as you protect yourself from hands and god-knows-what-all that are waiting to grope, press, feel etc. Your respect for the range of womanhood increases as you watch your co-travellers multi-task by fighting, talking and cutting vegetables – all inside the comfort/crowd of a ladies bogie in a train. It did not take me long to become a fan of the Indian Railways for the amazing social service they did of which I definitely was a beneficiary.

In my third year, I joined the YWCA in Kochi which gave me my first taste of freedom and independence. There were friends who wanted to run away from the college hostel although they had less lethal experiences in comparison with me. So we were a perfect group at a perfect place. The curphew time of 6pm did not seem restrictive in a city like Kochi in those days, especially since we were all single girls with no immoral intentions. :D

YWCA days gave us the opportunity to walk the streets without having to worry about getting back somewhere when we did not want to; to bunk classes once in a while and catch the first day first show of much awaited Hindi movies in Sridar theatre; to roam around Convent Junction checking out the latest accessories and cosmetics in the endless ladies stores; to go window shopping through scores of shops in MG Road; to eat chaat as much as we wanted in Venkatesha chaat shop near the hostel; to gaze, stare and watch everything on road while walking to and fro from college. It was fun.

My next phase of life was destined to be in a farther place compared to Kochi. Hyderabad was never ever an option for me for anything. But then, man proposes and God.. yes you know what. My parents found me a ‘home’ at a family friend’s place. My colleague from Google was with me as well. Chechi was really sweet to both of us. But due to unavoidable circumstances, we had to move out after three months. I was literally homeless and in tears. I remember that it is one of those few times in my life, when I was on phone with Achan and Amma and started crying without realising it. 'Home,' at that point, was a distant dream at the other end of the phone. But then, as always, God helped me find the right place to move into. And how right it was!

Jeevan Jyothi Institute in Begumpet run by nuns has hostel accommodation, a retreat centre, etc. That became my 'home' for the next two years. I found new friends who fell into a wide range of age. There was a warden there as well, but with far less consequences. She was a harmless little thing who used to talk a lot. We never bothered about what she said and used to live life the way we wanted. J This is when I got my first taste of curphew-free living. In a city like Hyderabad, where there are far more things to do in comparison to Kochi, we utilised this freedom optimally. Late nights were mostly for movies and almost never for parties; unless there was one organised by Google, in which case transport was taken care of.

Jeevan Jyothi witnessed me blooming into a working woman. My apprehensions of being alone in any place at any point of time, my fears of strangers staring at me, my inhibitions of going shopping alone, my unfamiliarity with solitary and silent thinking – everything vanished. More importantly, by the end of two years, I felt ‘at home’ almost always at this place. This means that I missed my home where my family lived far less than before. I could feel the goodness of going home when a day of work ended at the pleasant workplace of mine. I realized the depth of this feeling only when I had to uproot myself to move into my new abode in Hyderabad.

Resignation from Google which was another kind of home considering I spent up to 14 hours a day there; having to move to virtually a corner of the city from the heart of the city; distance from my dear ones – it was a tough time when I first moved into my campus hostel in Gachibowli. In the first month, I used to often wonder – God, where am I? What am I doing here?

But then, everything changed very soon. Great friends came my way, the complacence and calmness of the campus kicked in and lo! As I am writing this, I am feeling ‘at home’ yet again. Gachibowli is far away from the city. But there is MMTS (metro rail) that gives me connectivity to all the places in the city that are important to me. APSRTC buses are common too. Basically, considering I am a public transport-addicted person, there is enough reason for me to be contented on the connectivity issue. Also, I appreciate weekends much more now. That’s the only time I get out as the university is very much self sufficient with eateries, ATM and movie screenings.

One thing I noticed is that the process of feeling at home was much faster here. Kochi, Begumpet – all these places commanded more time. I am assuming that I have grown as a person to someone who is used to changes, now that I have seen quite some. I wonder how I will deal with my relocation from here. It is going to be a big one and painful too. There are still 15 months roughly left.

Having told you about all the different places where I felt at home and otherwise, a climax about my real home would be ideal, I guess. There are still moments when I long to get back to a period when I leave ‘home’ every morning with iddli/dosa packed in my tiffin box amidst the din of Achan and Amma getting ready to leave for their work. May be, that will never happen. In fact, I doubt if I will ever live there for a longer period than a couple of months. I see work and marriage ahead which necessarily might not be based out of Kottayam.

But does this mean that my home is no more mine? Definitely not. That’s the reason why I mentioned in the beginning that home rests in our hearts. My greatest strength, I realise as I end this post, is my ability to cuddle into that nest of security even when I am miles away from it.

A Slumdog, A Hero and A Wife..

Watching three movies a weekend is an overdose. You agree or disagree? Two months ago I would have disagreed. Now I agree. IFFK is for sure one reason. The other is the weekend that just passed by.

On Saturday, I saw Slumdog Millionaire, finally. One lesson I leart is that I should not watch a movie so late, especially if it is being talked about, all around. Things about that movie were so all over me that nothing was new. Me being the loyal film-goer waited until I got a legal ticket to the movie without succumbing to piracy and black marketing and see what happened.

I was wondering if we have seen such movies before. I cannot really recall names of films but everything looked so 'Oh I have sen this before.' I felt it was a normal masala Hindi (oops English) movie. Nothing so spectacular as such. A good one that makes you feel good. And yes, phenomenal music. Apart from that, what is the whole hype about? It may be new to Hollywood, but to us? I doubt. I guess we just drowned in the Oscar frenzy. I genuinely hope that Rahman wins though.

There was a piece written by Arindam Choudhuri that appeared along with an IIPM ad in the Times of India. I am sure some of you have seen that. It read "Do not watch Slumdog Millionaire. It sucks." His main point was that the movie is just an attempt to position India as a land of slums; rewriting only our existing reputation in the west of being a land of snake charmers. I do not agree on the point that Danny Boyle had such heinous intentions. But there is a scene where a taxi driver beats Jamal up and he exclaims "See for yourself the real India" to his foreign tourist. The tourist responds "Now see a bit of real America" and pays him some money. The Indian in me was deeply wounded by this. Yes there are pitfalls. Agreed. This is a huge country with a huger population. Righteousness definitely co-exists with cruelty here. My complaint is that there isn't a single character depicted in the movie which has a ray of positivity in him/her.

I thought I was lucky to get tickets for Luck By Chance on the second day after its release. But while the movie was on, I thought otherwise. I felt the narration was a little slow. The ensemble cast is praiseworthy. The climax of the movie was super sexy. But I was generally disilluisioned. On an afterthought, I realised that it was the effect of back to back movies. It pulls down your energy and sensibility levels seriously.

On Sunday, I watched Veruthe Oru Bharya after about three months of wait. I had literally prayed the movie would release in Hyderabad. That's how badly I wanted to watch it after hearing the soaring reviews from my friends and family in Kerala. Gopika has done such a brilliant job of the typical housewife that Malayalis are so familiar with. I almost killed Jayaram in my imagination for being the chauvinist he is. I really hope he is not like that with Parvathi, his real wife.

Moral of the story is that I have decided not to watch more than one movie in a day. It harms my ability to enjoy a movie much more than anything.

PS: Luck By Chance is a good movie. Please watch it if you have a chance and get lucky. :P

Save the Green Planet, my sensory organs and a revelation..

Being a Communication student at University of Hyderabad endows one with some glorious opportunities. Getting to meet some stalwarts is one of them. Prof. Earl Jackson from Seoul University in Korea visited us this week to be a part of the visual culture programme that SN School is hosting. During his sojourn, he screened one of the movies that created a visual revolution of sorts in Korea called Save the Green Planet.

The protagonist of the movie is crazy in the world’s perspective. Five minutes into the movie he kidnaps a corporate honcho who he thinks is an alien who will endanger the whole planet and its species. The movie then went on for about ninety minutes to show the ruthless torture that our ‘hero’ (protagonist is definitely the better word) subjects the villain (?) to. From peeling off his feet skin to nailing his hands just like Jesus Christ, any cruel thing you can think of was executed in the movie. Technically well made; yes. But my eyes, ears and particularly heart were aching by the time the movie ended. I was wondering why anybody would want to watch such violence through a medium that is essentially meant for entertainment.

Prof. Jackson led a discussion after the movie and it was eye-opening. The over-the-top violence became the issue in discussion; he explained how Koreans as a civilisation are used to the violence depicted in the movie. A history of butchering, colonisation and oppression made them identify with it like they have experienced it themselves. It was not new to them as it was for me or any of my classmates who closed their eyes for most of the shots.

I then thought how wrong generalisations are. The one I made a paragraph above, for example. A medium that is essentially meant for entertainment. For whom? For us Indians, cinema equates to entertainment. (Possibly, for westerners too. There is no way we would have got this connotation for cinema from anywhere else.) For us, music and dance is an integral part of our cinema viewing experience (Agreed, this is not so for westerners). True, we too have had a past of aggression and oppression. But not of the degree that Koreans or Japanese have experienced. Rightly enough, their cinematic sensibilities are different too.

Prof. Jackson also mentioned that while it was a path-breaking film in Korea, it was a financial disaster. The interesting thing is that it was not because people did not watch the movie. The makers of the movie were so confident about their creation that they arranged a lot of free shows in the initial weeks of release for word-of-mouth publicity to develop. Sadly, all the people who were to watch it watched it then. Nobody bought tickets to watch the movie later. So that was a marketing strategy gone awry. Due to some weird policy in Korea, the talented director Jang Jan-Hwan who sank into a financial depression wasn’t allowed to make another movie.

As much as the movie left an image of hopelessness in me, it struck a chord with millions of Koreans. After decades of restricted film making freedom, Jang broke free with this film and it means so much to that nation. This revelation compensates for the disturbance that I experienced the whole evening after watching the movie.

I guess I will watch Slumdog Millionaire and instil back the hope in me. :) Can't wait.

Some rattlings...

Sometimes, things happen not for a reason. My hiatus from blogging is such a thing. Yes, I know that it is a very philosophical way of explaining laziness.

While I am extremely sorry that almost two months slipped off through my fingers without any output, there were exciting things that kept me occupied. May be they have made my thinking/thought process clearer. May be, this will help me write better in future.

One of my goals when I decided I am going to be a part of the IFFK this year was to write reviews for the bad and good films I watch; to make a diary of them and present before you. Clearly, none of that has happened. Mainly because watching five films back to back for seven days continuously was in itself a task. Analyzing them at the end of the day just did not happen. However, I am trying to put together a briefing of sorts which will remain a memoir of the film extravaganza that I attended.

Since Sharada was around, my family went for a Kumarakom trip with her. We have been there before; but this one was special because all of us were together after a long time. A close friend from school got married on the Christmas day. To attend that, I cancelled a family Bangalore trip. I don’t regret it at all as the delight of Liya’s expression when she saw me compensates for it. I was her only friend who attended the wedding.

School friends are always so special. They see you grow through those transforming stages of life. They are the friends who you have for the longest time. They know your families and vice versa much better because school friendships are monitored and approved by parents more. You have shared tiffin boxes. You have fought for silly things and then forgotten about them the next day. You have grown up together to be what you are. I was extremely emotional to see Liya get married. For many many more reasons. It is the next stage of her life and I so wish she be the happiest ever married girl. She deserves it. As I write this, she is in her flight to Sydney with Micheal.

Much more has happened in the new year. A new semester has begun. I am back at the university missing all the family time I had in Kerala. Soon, I will slip into a mode where home is at the other end of phone calls; just that.

Our courses this semester are far more ‘serious’ than last semester. At least, they sound so.

• Media Laws and Ethics
  
• Communication and Social Change
  
• Introduction to Advertising and PR
  
• Print and Web Production
  

The last course is the one that I am looking forward to. I hope that it will help improve my status of a tech-ignorant person. More importantly, I will learn to deal with softwares that enable me to make my blog look better.

The post has been long. Sandhya chechi, thanks for letting me know in the meanwhile that you were missing me. This one is for you!

Memoir of a Month..

This one is tough due to the sheer length of the time period involved. I haven’t been posting here for a month and it was not due to the lack of inspiration that happens to most bloggers once in a while.

As I had told you all, it was exam season. But then, that got over on 26^th December. What was I doing after that? Precisely, movie watching for about four days and little bit of packing to complement it. On December 1^st, I started my long awaited journey back home. To Kerala, God’s own country.

How true that punchline is! The way greenery ushers in a fresh leash of air on to your heart and soul as Sabari Express crosses Tamil Nadu border and enters Palakkad cannot be described.

But it is not just that.  Humidity is a villain. I have started taking bath thrice and four times! After a couple of days at home, I packed off to the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram for a wedding fiesta. My cousin sister Dhanya got married leaving me as the next prospective bride. It is torture! People nag you without ends about how it is the right time to get married. Nobody gets the point that there is a strong requirement of a suitable state of mind to get married. It is marriage after all. Doing it when you are not ready, at the wrong time, can prove disastrous if not fatal. And I am in every other mood than to get married now! Anyway, Dhanya chechi’s wedding went superfine. As I type this, I am back at home again.

This visit is again very brief. Thiruvanathapuram beckons me with an amazing platter of films as it is the IFFK season. The International Film Festival of Kerala starts on 12^th December. I am participating for the first time with high hopes of enjoying some great movies and writing some preparatory reviews (for a future in professional film writing). More on that later.

Today, it rained heavily in Arpookara, the beautiful village where I live. Sharada called me and mentioned that Kochi is no different. Rain in December! That’s the unpredictability and beauty of Kerala. There isn’t even a dash of winter here. It is monsoon all the way.

Did I tell you that Sharada, my classmate from UoH (University of Hyderabad) has accompanied me to Kerala? Of course I did not. She is with me for 20 days and will return to Hyderabad after IFFK. Now, she is in Kochi doing rounds in the Jew Street and capturing Synagogue the Sharada way.

So that’s the post after the hiatus. More fun ones will find its way here as a very interesting festival of films awaits me. If someone in Thiruvananthapuram is reading this, try getting a pass and watch some good movies. The array of Malayalam movies itself is very impressive.

IFFK, here I come.