wild nights and mild epiphanies

last night the moon, it was so tender

and all it seemed to be telling me was to let my body move.

Dhobi Ghat from February | this blogger experiments with prose

You walk into the movie theatre wrapped in an invisible cloak of silence. A 120 rupees ticket is more than you'd expected to pay at this shabby looking cinema hall. The small yellow ticket is thin and translucent - you're immediately suspicious of whether it will get you a real seat inside the theatre.

As the movie starts, you're glad you came to watch it alone. Often, your own words and commentary are so abundant and abrasive, you barely get time to absorb and appreciate the films you watch. But not today. Today, you've come to face a film one on one.

Into the first scene, you feel the distance between yourself and the screen evaporate as Yasmin begins her story. Yasmin is easily the most captivating character in the film, presented to the audience in a collage of visual fragments she creates to send as letters to her brother. Viewing these clips from the same positions as those Yasmin shoots from, you find yourself slipping into Yasmin's shoes to feel as she feels, to live has she lives.

As the most pervasive presence in the film, Shai is in the vulnerable position to be the least likeable. You're not going to say that anything is unlikeable about her. The young woman whose name you don't know has done a great job of playing this role. But by the end of the movie, you've almost forgotten her. The actor has been getting a lot of praise for her portrayal of Shai, but you wonder why nobody has bothered to mention anything about Yasmin.

For it is Yasmin's smile, her laugh, her voice that clings to you. There is an earnestness in her tale, an innocence. It is almost as if she doesn't really belong in the film, but being part of it, she manages to infuse it with new life.

For the first time, you find it effortless to like a character played by Aamir, a reclusive voyeur who is enchanted by the elusive Yasmin available to him only through video tapes through which she consciously constructs herself. Aamir's Arun speaks barely anything through the course of the movie and it is in the lack of dialogues that his acting achieves a rawness, a freshness that is still untainted by his stardom. In the film, Aamir is invisible, and thus Arun blossoms.

It is not the decided worth or quality of this film that captivates you. Your feelings towards the film are just as ambiguous as the film itself. But by the time it ends, you are packed with emotions. Empty of the understanding of the plot, but packed with emotions.

The film is less a story, more an evocation of feeling. And as you walk out of the theatre, amidst dissatisfied viewers who feel cheated of their money at the movie that showcases no tantalizing lives, no charming characters, and tells no tangible story, you feel as though you're a segment of the film trailing on in real life long after the movie has ended - without a tantalizing life, with an incomplete sense of self, and an ambiguous, intangible story many may feel unworthy of being told.

mutilate (ii)

this body is a collage stitched together by gazes that pierce.

so in this story...

the rain came down
and tickled my memory

and inside it
i found you giggling.

because you do not own a phone and i miss you and wanted to say hello and i know you'll eventually come here snooping around looking for a poem about you. so there.

you do know that
whenever you're dancing
i like to watch you

as your frail body flaps back and forth like a white sheet of paper
and those untidy curls bounce on a head like medusa's
a smile sprouts from within the forest of your bushy beard

that smile
is a smile that tells me
you've finally caught on to the cosmic joke

you must know that
i like to watch you with envy

you really have risen to the occasion of god with arms open
haven't you
you infectious thing

it's too late to hold on to just envy
isn't it

i like what i can taste on the tip of my soul's tongue.

be water (iii)

i sat between rocks
facing the river
my bottom cold
with the sand underneath
wet with dew
but tightly packed
like grain hugging grain
locks warmth

next to my large feet - tentacle-toes included -
a tiny photograph
with only the pudgy toed feet of my master
lazy pixels held together
a tiny, grainy photograph

the wind curdled behind my back
wet things gurgled underneath the water
half invisible - distinctly alive

on that side of the hills
dawn was long
and journeyed into all shades of gray before
it touched the sun

i let the ganga be wind and grain and the shadow of trees
toes curling - grains in between
i let it be the alternating rhythms of
movement and calmness
sound and silence
i let it be what conspires between source and destination
i let it be something on the edge of which i sat

anything but water

had i stretched out my hand and touched it
had i made a move
and moved and moved
into the water
i might have known

with water

you must start shallow
before it turns deep

my solitude has been a
yearning for depth
while i forgo all things deep

i resisted washing

stains
have turned to
scars.

like water VI

at ease.

like water V

our faces as they turn towards the sky
mouths open
waiting for the rain.

like water IV

sipping conversations with tea
at dusk

like water III

looking out the window of a tattered bus
on my way from madanapalle to bangalore

the rain, it brought out the true colors of the earth
and pressed wet memories into my heart

firm forever
memory of rain sealing cracks
healing hearts
penetrating sacred spaces
where nothing fades and none can be forgotten

every time it rains like that though, even here in kathmandu,
water deepens the color of memory
and hearts find new comfort in breaking for old reasons.