All that goes on that we never notice…

It’s almost 20 years since I completed my postgraduate thesis on ‘Our Town’. I barely remember a word of what I wrote then, and more importantly what was going on in my mind and around me while I was penning it down. But there was a faint flash of remembrance that sparkled bright when my 8 year old daughter made a list of things she wanted to be included in her speech about favorite things. I was pleasantly surprised when she chose her trip to India as her favorite thing to do. While I was expecting her to talk about touristy trips we made to all those exotic locations, she caught me off guard with her recollection of all the unspectacularly precious moments spent with family back home. Jasmine flower strands adorning her double braid made it to the top of her list. That was followed by the curious case of the crow that fed on savory snacks, and visiting the neighborhood temple’s cow shelter to feed the cows and calves. Picking bangles, bindis and hair accessories at the local super store was also recounted with absolute delight. When she started speaking about my hometown Madurai, the mother of all temple towns, I fully expected her to talk about the mammoth Meenakshi temple. Instead, the humble marudhani-henna shrub in my parents’ backyard took home the honorable mention, along with grandma’s leaf-grinding skills to decorate her palm with fragrant henna circles. Not to be outdone, grandpa’s trip to town to bring home the lip-smacking jigarthanda was the piece de resistance to conclude her list. So all this was going on during our brief summer trips sculpting my child’s childhood. And I never noticed…

The Mother-Son Equation of Baahubali

Look no further than திருவள்ளுவர் to define the quintessential moment of a mother’s pride at the joy of her accomplished son. There is that powerful quotient of a mother’s pride in the passing glances exchanged between Sivakaami and Baahubali , as she walks past him after he saves her from the elephant on her way to the temple in the beginning of the movie. That pride stems from her fostering him to be the strong man he has become. That feeling is shaken when she sees him going against her wishes by siding with Devasena. Sivakaami begins to resent Devasena , as she questions her thus far unquestionable authority over Baahubali and all of Magizhmathi. Her disappointment is written clear all over the subsequent scenes. When Kattappa smears Baahubali’s blood on her palm, it evokes a distant image of Lady Macbeth’s bloodied hands. The final tragic moment is captured in all its epic stature when she caresses her dead son who is lying dead in a distant battlefield. She sees him in her mind’s eye even though he’s not physically present there. Her lament on how to wash her sin of taking her son’s life is befittingly answered in the way she drowns while saving his heir. There’s terrible beauty in this poetic justice.

First blog post

Different things can push you to write. It can be the people around you, the places you live in,things you see, the sounds you hear or a combination of all, and so many more. For me, it definitely is a combination of all these that stir a sense of restlessness at first. It slowly grows into these voices you hear in the mind. I know it sounds disturbing to say “voices in the mind”. But once you learn to lend your ears to these voices in the mind, it begins to sound sane, and even sensible.At any given moment, a zillion thoughts, ideas and feelings take wing and flutter within the mind. But trouble begins with the translation.Finding the right words to express what’s within. And even before you begin to do that is the process of filtering what’s worth saying and what’s not. And there comes the rub of what’s worth to you might not be worth anything to others. What’s sensible to you might not be to others. Of course, all of this is happening in your mind, before you will yourself to write a word of what you think or feel.But after all the sorting and picking you actually sit down and write, because you don’t know if you can until you actually do. And that’s what I’m beginning to do here.