Self Implicit censorship.

It's been a while since I did this and today's impetus has been has been a sudden realization that we censor ourselves implicitly. I mean to say that even though I believe in complete freedom of speech and expression and am completely anti-censorship, I implicitly do censor myself to be, let's say nice. Now there are two aspects to it, one the censorship and the other the inherent nature of a person to be more blatant, blunt, bold whatever about his thoughts are or to be more courteous and people pleasing. The negative feel of the latter is not owing to a prejudice but my dislike of the problem that ails me, and quite a few of us. Now that said, again this shade of the character too shows itself in certain regard and in a different context, one could be quite the opposite.

But then again, coming back to the previous point I was making, our development to a certain extent dictates how we deal with this implicit censorship. Why this hesitancy at times? This does not affect us when we are speaking out, as it were, maybe in a blog like this or in a general discussion. When I noticed this, or when I guess this does show up is when the discussion is outside our real comfort zone. When we are not speaking to friends, but to maybe family members we don't really like, or professional contacts in general. To investigate the issue further, another reason for this might be the fact that the mind is working in a horrendous loop to be politically correct and yet try and get a diplomatic stand-point. But it is good to just be plain blank about these discussions. And being of the (lets call it the disturbed) folk myself, this sucks when you censor yourself without realizing it and regret it post a discussion. Some of it, I believe has to do with our culture, which is very tightly wound about what to say and how to say.

All in all, it is a lag we have to overcome. Signing off on an abrupt note.

movie

A movie is like a recreation of life. Complex in nature, it has to be, because life is very complicated as perceived by us little beings. The sheer number of variables is astounding. You take the scientific point of view to create an analogy that makes you think but then the analogy is all bullshit. Still it is like recreating life. It isn't that easy, not as hard as science maybe, in a way, but the way to look at it is different. We are like pawns playing our part. Any part may be glorified but the picture remains the bigger picture, probably simply because of the astonishment when we watch it. It's like an orgasm, isn't it. It blinds you, makes you numb, removes all the sense of the presence or maybe make you feel more alive to it, more aware of it. A movie is beautiful, it has to be, since life is. No matter what it gives you, pain, hunger or despair, it is beautiful. It has that element of the incomprehensible that imparts to it the beauty. After all the product is the real joy and fruit of the maker and the audience. The real object of beauty. A movie is an illusion but it can make the sense of things real. There is a lot to learn from a movie, to take the trip, to travel between reality and imagination, a more preferred word than illusion here. That's what imparts the teaching, the wisdom, the fun, the romance. The mind is a weird tool. It has always been an invention beyond our control, ironically what we use to exercise any form of control. The movie is a complex being. It has all the elements of nature, of beings, it is a walking portrait of life. No portrait is as beautiful as the object of beauty it derives inspiration from, but it is the portrait, that is our source of beauty, in any and every possible sense. All our mind presents to us is a portrait, all we perceive is just a portrait, an abstraction, which is why reality is an illusion and a movie a portrait, a beautiful animated, walking portrait of life.

The diary of a truant school boy.

The diary of a truant school boy is a very special thing. It can easily be broken down I guess because it's free , open and vulnerable or hold out very strong for the spirit born of the same reason. It's like the mind of the school boy, very little written into, free to experiment and experience, ready to run and forth. It is scribbled in too, I guess like the dying marks of weak ink that make up the strongest ideas. All the brushmarks, I guess are a thread of thought , style and promise but innocent, loyal and honest, most of all. The diary of a truant school boy is also a very precious thing to hold, it has a lot of power, restless in nature, ready to thwart. It deserves to be free, it deserves to roam, the diary of a truant school boy is a also a very sorry thing, because even those who manage to keep it free can't manage to keep it alive in all it's glory, hardly alive.

Rumour has it, it does not completely die, it has shown signs of resurgence in the past, but no skill, no game, no sport ever comes back the way it was, natural and spontaneous like grass that crumbles below our feet and sways in the wind that tastes it and brushes it away. The diary of a truant school boy is a very beautiful thing and a thing of beauty is a joy forever and ever. Do not lose the eyes behold this beauty cos sooner or later it is going to slip away. The diary of a school boy is a free bird fluttering away over a cliff watching a sea torment, but with all the calm the sea has shown to possess.

Good movies aren't they.

i'd better right this now, else i won't...i'll go to sleep and i'll forget everything, not totally but it'' become stale in terms of effect. so before the effect of yet another movie fades into nostalgia and the remnants of a hope or desire, let me speak out of this type-writer like console.
this is nothing but a simple tribute to all those writers, novelists, moviemakers, actors and directors etc. alike who have come up with some good hope, something true and important for us. something other than what is generally used to politicize and has been politicized...so thanks to all of u for making movies like sarfarosh, aamir, mumbai meri jaan, a wednesday and the like (i can only think of these few now) that add strength to my hope that one day i shall live in my country in communal harmony..i shall live in a place where there is freedom of speech, expression and thought and my misguided critics shall understand what i actually want that my words can't properly convey, that i shall live in a place where i dont have to feel deprived or jealous of other countries for not having the sort of relegious vandalism that prevails in my beloved country...they add strength to my burning desire, my biggest hope for my land, country and people if u may say, my dying, leaving breathing, waking, sleeping hope that we shall one day have communal harmony in india, the soft earthen bed of ALL..because only an indian i guess, one who lives here, has been brought up over here can understand the level of ghastliness spread upon us in the name of relegion...because if germany still lives under and tries to come out of the shadow of world war 2 and japan the bombings and other countries out of their haunting, we, i believe are still haunted like many others but this is our biggest challenge, sorrow..the root of our despair
because we can't and won't really get anywhere with this in our backyard

Culture and Class

Has culture really become the property or lets say an article that can only be bought by the rich. Of course not you might say, but I'm trying to make the point in a slightly different manner. I agree a poor kind banging some stick away on a rail is as much music culture as a privileged person learning the guitar. But there is something else to notice here. When we look at a picture of an old female musician, sophisticated and couth, walking on to stage with a sitar and playing beautifully, talking of poetry, scriptures and looking like an angel in her articulately draped saree and fashionably walking among the crowd all erudite, her wrinkles not withstanding and now what I think is, is it possible to have this amongst the poor. the ones too caught up in the daily life struggle and no thought for once of pondering over the sadness of the lets call it backward culture they live in. just get that little girl in her 13s getting married picture for once. yes it happens. now what im saying is, that good culture actually takes status to earn. i mean there are backward and rich losers and ya the world is better of without them, but in general, good culture and i mean culture in the true sense, of beauty and practises not horror and bullshit deceit, is it only available after you get some refined(i sadly use this word) education and company which only the lucky few get. Yes there are those who can think beyond their surroundings, environment, company and generation but barring those, how do we expect the drunk crowd dancing in front of a pandal(drunk on the chanda collected) to bollywood music and kaanta laga stuff to appreciate what the aforementioned musician was trying to say. there is a gulf here. a gulf cos lack of education and then the root cause is of course as they say "bhookh aur ashiksha ka choli daaman ka saath hai (hunger and illiteracy go hand in hand)"...but i am sorry i have to question your attitude, i have my sympathy but i have to, it's not just the bollywood music, we do a lot of blind things, lots of them...really really sadly

fireflies

An experience worth calling a life-changing experience is an experience worth blogging about. We as I would now like to identify ourselves, the people who feel the dirt lying in the muck as close to breath as possible and thus similarly the fragrance of music were given what we all deserve, what we all never seem to get and what we all not that often make the effort to search for; we were given fireflies!
An experience, a concert which had the sanctity of soil amidst the outskirted sylvan of bangalore and the presence of , how do describe it, heartfelt, mind-jarring, still lingering music. Music at it's very best and highest. We had the best variants, so many of them. The picture of us standing headbanging to hindusthani classical, somehow jovially all strumming around in our places like drunk animals out of control was a nice scene to begin with. Then again there was the crowd, the beautiful crowd and the most beautiful part of them was that their existence and non-existence was much the same. No one gave a flying fuck. Do what u wanna do, be what u wanna be, stay how u wanna stay, no looks, none at all.
Now that I decided yesterday night to write his post since I was reminded of the beauty of it, I should mention some specifics as well. The first performance was by a band lead by a lady who used the word 'mast' exactly the way it should be used, with sheer masti! She played a proper version of the small harmonium like wired instrument which most of us have seen sold down our strees along with a version of the tambourine and she sang. yes all that. most of what she sang was kabir's poetry and appealed to god and simple lucid ways. no preaching included and me athiest was able to appreciate it so u get the idea. btw, i heard her say mast backstage when she was talking about other bands to some other music guy. i remember clearly a crazy bassist, u have to be crazy to be good, playing along with a drummer, flutist and vocalist cum rythm guitarist(apology if frowned at;). This band was called 'emergence'. they are from auroville, pondicherry, sing in english, tamil and french, grow their own food and stuff (again for specifics im the wrong guy), then they had a jam session between the flutist and the drummer. need i say more. need i say any thing more.....then i remember a band who had a guy who played the bamboo stick really, i mean that was his instrument. (have to say an extension of my voice is my instrument ;)). then there was this bengali band who played hindusthani classical, a guy later played tabla on a stool, mostly exactly like the one we sit on in school. (school nostalgia sometime later).
and yes a funny incident. every rose has its thorn (cliche - check) and every concert has a stupid lame fuck who boos brilliant bands and this guy simply replied to him , my memory's beating me here, something like 'jisko sunna hai wo rahe, baaki hand me jaaye', to naturally a lot of cheering from us. then there was a proper qawali guy, proper, i mean the way it's done and he sang 'damadam mast kalandar'. and u had to see the crowd erupt. even we in all our sleepy situation, me specially not having slept proprly the last night had to acknowledge. it was cold, chilly, beautiful. the night had ppl just frantically, rampantly dancing, beautiful hippies, they are just so beautiful and there, just there. and what else. we ended with 2 more bands...apart from the ones in between. there was a band which had the instrument which gilmour plays, half guitar on a table like structure(pardon my ignorance), now that was an experience and it ended with swarathma, a band like the name..sing in english, hindi, punjabi and the voices of 'jaana kahan hai mujhe - aage jaana hai mujhe' still resound. we left only by morning 6-7. i was dead sleepy before swarathma came, but they had be jumping again crazily, ha, and then in between their performance i saw superman, yes a guy completely stoned, totally on dope and realy really stoned, wearing a shawl like a cape and coming down the amphitheatre stairs and he was quite an image.
but all the specifications apart, the music. i cannot explain in mere words, how astonishing the music was..it was like, why the hell dont we have them all the while. i kept asking my friend stupidly, i want a video of that, there wasnt any, but i had a memory, that was good enuf and yes i had quite a memory being etched in digital slate now. the music was above that level..it seems naive to levelize music but that was that level of music, yes it is my ignorance that says that but then thats why im a fan and i can tell why the experience was special, the culmination not ordinary and i can feel the 60s even stronger and understand the woodstock outside the videos once again and even closer and tell u that it was a night of truly ENCHANTING music. i mean i dont remember any feedback during the soundcheck, and maybe it was passed as music...all the same. it was the best music in a way i had experienced. in all forms and styles.
and the last bit about the setting, i got in to a concert for free again. it was simple just walked around the little dried branches, took a round, some hopping. it was a forest after all.and there was a little amber sparkle that you could see from the skies that was fireflies.

Penny Lane___

Their breath smelt of puffs I guess. It must have been a lot of vibrance, vigour, fresh melancholy mingled with dated mirth, sour n sweet nevertheless. They must have been foolish of course, the best of their breed, the worst but still the forerunners to what has made what is the crux of our spirit's exuberance. It personified tasted the sixties and lived it. They were the sixties but still the forerunners to a smart quick run of slow moods. They have been there, they are still here, never gone. They are the BEATLES!