The day

Shyama was not sure. She sat in her room, smiling at everyone, as people walked in and out of the small cube that stored God knows how many things, including herself. She smiled, but her insides moaned – was she sure about what she was doing? Her cousins were chatting, laughing and giggling, throwing sideward glances at her. She was supposed to be the happiest woman in the whole world that day. But, was she? She wasn’t sure. Worse still, the point was, she shouldn’t be worrying about it then, not at that instant.

A few anxious seconds. And then, her dad seemed relieved. Granny hugged him. Mom was brushing away happy tears. Little sister hugged her. A mix of emotions – relief, happiness and a strange emptiness. Amidst all that, Shyama stole a glance at him. Raghav looked at her as well. She felt reassured, smiled for the first time from her heart, since the morning. She trusted her instincts. They told her it would all go on well.

A year later, she stood staring at her mirror in their bedroom, twirling a curl dangling near her left ear. They had taken many steps together, forgiving, fighting, understanding, giving, sharing, loving and holding on. Shyama stood there lost in memories. Suddenly Raghav hugged her from behind. “Happy Anniversary, sweetie,” he whispered. She smiled - a smile of genuine happiness.

Holding on..

"She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever."
- Jeff Buckley

Isn't that true with places too?

The curse called mega serials

In an era, where running a TV channel is considered a really lucrative business, competition is high pitched, with the channels battling out to grab a lion’s share of the TV audience. The hindi channels, though my understanding of them is limited, has led me to believe that they rely on their long running soaps (the kinds of Ekta Kapoor’s “K series”) and the innumerable game shows that glitter with celebrities from the Bollywood, to boost their viewership levels.

My earliest recollections of a hindi mega serial that ran for days and days together is “Junoon”, which incidentally got dubbed into Tamil, triggering an entirely new domain of tamil lingo and jumbling up of word order. Aditya Dhanraj, Keshav Khalsi (played by Tom Alter), Mini Agarwal (played by Kitu Gidwani), Seema, those are a few names that I can remember now. I am reminded of how I hated Mini Agarwal for the vamp that she used to be and her dad, do I sound right, when I recollect that he actually was handicapped? Memories ah!

Moving down south and fast forwarding several years, to about five years back, we arrive at a period where mega serials started influencing the popularity of tamil channels. Serials like “Chitti”, “Annamalai” and the present super hit with most of the homes, “Metti Oli” belong to this genre. How could I forget Balachander’s serials like “Kayalavu Manasu” that dripped with melodrama?

I can’t explain how much the recent serials put me off. I return home at around 9, when “metti oli” would just begin. I would vent out all my frustration about the serial over the dining table, Poor mom! And I would just run into my room shutting the door behind. I just hate the ideas they propagate. What “hate”, Gosh, I can’t stand them!!

I see my emotional grandparents sob silently as the so called sacrificing cum patient females weep buckets and buckets in that idiot box. God, I don’t know how directors build such story plots. The central characters (esp. in Chitti/Annamalai) are seen smiling in the first five days of the serial. After that, they meet challenges from all possible spheres and they won’t strain a single muscle on their face to smile. They just draw a blank face and of course, weep.

And the torture can come in various forms – an unrelenting MIL (she is the villain in most women’s lives) as she pours out dialogues that a normal human would think a million times to speak. Even, if it’s a serial, come on ya, give me a break!! However, fictitious you claim them to be, there is a limit to stretching the gap between the good and the evil. The extent to which you can do that also has limits.

The serials are over crowded with bad characters with only a handful of the supposedly, selfless and infinitely patient souls. Torturing husbands who side their ever-reigning moms also find a frequent slot. And as the plot evolves, cunning characters crop up and disappear or stay till the end, to achieve their character moksha, a complete personality clean up aided by the ‘goodness’ of the central woman.

It isn’t difficult to assess the kind of impact it would have on the psyche of people watching such serials. With cable television, almost having become an integral part of most of the households, I wouldn’t doubt the capability of such serials influencing the mentality of the viewers. For children, this is more damage than one could ask for. It just ruthlessly shatters their innocence. From playing games with Barbie dolls, they would probably imitate a fight sequence between a MIL and her dotter-in-law. Who knows?
There is a famous quote that goes, “Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression!” these serials are unconsciously imbibing the wrong qualities in children.

Talk about elders. With already so much unrest bothering their minds, they would sit and watch such serials till they go to sleep and any kind of insecurity that they might already possess, only gets complicated through views propounded by such ‘master pieces’. They tend to believe that the old are left to suffer and you simply can’t blame them for that. Believe me, I am seeing live examples before my eyes.

My granny gets easily confused and mixes stories and characters, across the six and odd mega serials that she watches through the length of the day. Its so funny to watch her actually asking my grandpa doubts on serials, who is much better in keeping track of stories. He would only blame her for her forgetfulness and continue to shed a tear or two, for the poor soul who would actually be subjected to torture in an ongoing serial. Kadavuley, idhu nattukku thevaya?? I only hope that this gets to change some day.. to hell with mega serials!!

Beautiful Minds

A pretty long one..but do read on..!!
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Months before, when I was standing at one of those roadside stalls at pondy bazaar, I saw this girl, who with fear blanketing her face, was clinging on to her mom and was wading her way through the crowded pavement. As I saw her, I quickly recognized her to be that "different" kid, she wasn't a normal child. In medical parlance, she was a down syndrome girl. It was also immediately apparent - the features spoke the truth. Stunted growth, small eyes, a pressed in nose..

And what surged in me - a wave of pity and sympathy? No, its not just that...because I have been through more than just looking at such children. Suganti, I have known her long for now. She is 26 and is one such girl. My experiences with her have been more than revealing of certain very very pertinent truths, which most of us "normal" humans fail to realize, in our mad race to lead sufficiently "meaningful" lives. Sugi, is brilliant. She studies in a special school, takes part in almost every co curricular and extra curricular activity, and not just that, but comes back overflowing with prizes. And what could be most priceless, is her joy and pleasure, in showing them all to you.

At 26, if someone could be innocent, its only possible in her case. Sugi loves tamil mega serials. I still can recollect how she used to literally dwell in "Chitti" world. She would recount every episode with fantastic precision even today, and holds that special, and innocent liking for "chitti". The love and compassion that she holds for someone who is very dear to her could drive you to tears. She loves my dad and I can't forget the day, when she sobbed in silence, sitting at our balcony, just because she discovered all by herself that my dad was ill because he wore a sweater.

At 20, she would love all those things that a teen would love to possess in her wardrobe. She would fancy the earrings that I would wear, the mobile phone that I have, the glasses that I have. She would insist that she wanted a pair of glasses like mine and she hated hers. And talk about her craze for watches, man! its mind blowing. She loves every other watch in the world except hers.

She would beautifully correct her idea of what is happening in the lives of transition of the people around her. When I was in Pilani, she gave me a title, "Mr.Pilani" and that is how I used to get addressed. Never was it 'Anu'. Later, when I passed out, she made the change in her mind's register; I was then in Bangalore, and she would remember exactly where my hostel was situated. And I was back to being addressed as 'Anu'. I sometimes call her movie dictionary; she would just see a scene from a movie and would promptly narrate the entire story, probably give you the name too and if you are lucky enough, you get to hear a hit song from the movie too. Her only problem remains that she can't register what she learns.

She writes beautiful tamil and would dutifully clip sheets of paper to a writing pad and copy paragraphs and paragraphs from a tamil newpaper or tamil weekly, with perfect clarity. All this accompanied by those long syllabic 'aaaaaaaa', 'vaaaaaaaaa' 'nnnnnnn' 'avan..' and then the next word. There have been numerous occassions when she would wonder, when she would ever get past her twelfth and then go into college ("REC trichy", she mentions) and finally land up in a good software job in "Wipro" for a salary of 30 lakh rupees per month!!

Those times, I would feel a surge of helplessness in me and a strange kind of anger on God, as to why he ever did that to her. So many dreams and ambitions packed in her and yet crippling her from not able to achieve that..what kind of a punishment was that? She would laugh and suddenly cry and try to speak some english sometime..Well, why all this? I wonder what little world of dreams Sugi carries in her mind, which would probably never see light. But, beyond all that, she would hope and hope and hope, that her day isn't far off.



Having said all that, what is it that I am looking at? I believe there are lessons to be learnt from everyone. As we run everyday, chasing our so called dreams, we forget some human elements that sadly lack in most of our lives. We forget compassion for fellow humans, we lack the ability to emphatise with someone who suffers and we hardly speak nice words to those who mean most to us. Sugi would care immeasurably for those she loved and would pray earnestly for their well being. It is amazing how we could call that mind, problematic. Life isn't all about scientific functioning. It has a human element, by all means and that is what is ultimately what everyone looks out to, than your material well being.

The second important point is how we land up complaining for trivial things in life. We are immensely blessed, we are what we want to be, we can think and act the way we want and feel socially secure, in many ways. We don't have strange eyes staring at us when we walk down roads. We escape those rude mumbles which some meany mouths would talk when such a kid walked down the road.

The other day, I was talking to Mythili patti. She wished earnestly that I covered a programme staged by differently abled children, at the music academy on 22nd february. "The programme would not be professional. Nevertheless, it is good to see that they are capable of all that they manage to do," she said and she broke down. I felt a lump in my throat. I only hope I could go and write a story on the event. More importantly, I pray I continue to emphatise with such children and their beautiful minds!