Beyond 'S'

Iranian,  إيراني One thing about Iranian films is there’s always something in it that I connect with. It’s generally the little things, little problems, a certain conservative nature of it that we’ve come across growing up. One man who captures it perfectly is Asghar Farhadi. Ever since watching A Separation, the drama that takes you into a journey of a couple, their lives, the little things of it and ending on an open note, like he does in all his films. Making the audience part of his process, putting a question for us to answer- So this week, when I sat down to watch About Elly, a movie where a group of friends go on a road trip, one among them being Elly who isn’t well known to most of them. The way down the line, things get messier and complicated over a certain event that occurs. Again the little things that I mentioned of earlier- a scene where they play dumb charades, the way they tease one of the characters with Elly and then comes a most beautiful and honest line as...

An orange falls from a tree- Not on Newton. No one wondered why she fell, like he did when the apple did. But everyone wondered whether the orange was orange or the orange was the orange. Is orange a color or a fruit or a color named after the fruit or the fruit named after the color?? How does orange look?? For me she looks orange, for you too she does- but my orange isn’t the same as yours. I might be color blind or you might be, or we both might not be- yet orange is orange today, but tomorrow or for someone else, she’s totally different. Once we make an attempt to accept all the confusions of her cover, we look closer, as she lets you into her world. As we get introduced to a new expression among the various others of her. The juicy vesicles that we consume each one of them having a quality of her own, mood of her own and having her own individual existence within. An aroma of her own that slows down the movement of sand into the other side of it. As we separate a vesicle, anothe...

After finishing a fantastic second season of Master of None, started going through Ansari's Wikipedia page to come across that he has written book on something he was dealing with through his series. So I got the book and I've been reading Modern Romance- An investigation. Reading this, I'm kind of feeling that in a way we feel we're a generation who've seen the best of both, now I feel that we've lived the best now we're just turning into 'not so nice' people. The way we play some form of competitive games over the various apps available to us, where the texts are a way to hide from the actual conversations or the way our personalities are judged over the way we use the dictionary, grammar, emojis and how we sound over a text. After some level there is an understanding dynamic between the two, but until then it's this uncertainty that might come off as confusion or in a judgemental form, might be a loss of something that could've would...

If someone could write a code to find the frequently used word by me in the past few months, a word that would feature itself in top five would be Dahej. The place I look for reasons to get out of even if it means travelling forty kilometers to watch a film. In an overly crowded, fitting people in corners keeping the doors open travelling away from the ‘Mein aur Meri Tanhaayi’, that is the isolated experience of Dahej. Plugging in, listening to some Ed Sheeran- looking around and wondering, what am I doing here? As I try to adjust into my seat. The loud tracks of Badshah in the vans do distract me, the spits of pan do distract me but in this chaos of our lives, where I can’t even hear my voice- distraction is a routine, is a form of concentration. Then we arrive, to a land where Uber is only an app on your phone and not a reality. The weekend kicks off- Boss Baby. Easiest getaway from the world possible- The parallels it draws about being an adult from a baby’s perspective and about...

Bananas- The fruit most of us love. We consume the good of it and dispose the peel. Something that we ignore to notice is the way the peel makes people fall down, if not disposed rightfully. After extracting the good, if you leave it on the streets to decompose, it’ll get back on the human race by making someone slip for someone else’s action. This sounds like the story of every grey character towards the black end we’ve known- the bad guys- or the villains that we’ve come across. So who are the good guys? Bananas??- Maybe. So let’s talk about Batman, the universe with a quite a lot of grey characters. Batman was trained by mercenaries who wanted him to destroy Gotham, become a ‘peel’ to Gotham slip it off its course of downfall and mark a growth of a new civilization. But he does become a symbol, a symbol of ‘right’ among all wrongs- he becomes the peel in the dustbin. When the peel is in the dustbin, instead on the street- it’s in the right place, doing the right thing. Not on the ...

When you’re walking around the mall and see a piano playing itself to a set tune with a barricade around it saying- “just enjoy the music from a distance”, but deep down, you wish you were wearing a suit or tuxedo, jump right in, start playing it and the whole mall breaks into singing and dancing- You’re still not over La La Land. At least I wasn’t. From the way it flows and you find it difficult to put the experience of it into words. Just like something that cannot be explained, but experienced only in a dark room, on a large screen through four seasons- a perfect symphony of the love for dreams and dream of love. Something that could make you remember the most inanimate thing, that you’ve forgotten and stays in the cupboard or the last time you played it. A guitar that you used to play for the fun of it, means a lot more and you wish it was here, with you. When Bollywood that thrives in music in creating moments falls short in front of a magical musical, and you know it’s someth...

If you’re A poet A misfit A dreamer A schemer A rebel A loner A doer A thinker Please For the love Of the universe Don’t change A piece of blue paper with these words on it was handed to me on a bowl with many others, with different quotes to it. The universe chose this for me, amongst all the other chits of paper, stuck between my fingers as I lifted it from a ‘bowl of quotes’ placed at our table along with the bill at a café, in the narrow lanes of Udaipur. With partially digested pasta with pesto and a shot of caffeine in the form of Irish coffee, I was hit with strong words making me ponder about- What am I doing? - in middle of the largest state in the country. Of all the café’s in all of Udaipur, I walk into this and this little blue paper falls in between my fingers. I was lost in a sea of thoughts, each word playing on repeat in my head as I walked down the narrow lanes towards Bagore ki Haveli, again. I couldn’t hear the words of my friends, just s...

A city where the Silk roads doesn’t seem to move smoothly like its name and places named after LIC policies- impatience is available on the go. As the metro moves seamlessly without disturbing the life below, a couple of ‘not so’ strangers (who know each other) decide to get a cup of coffee, in a Fortune 500 US Based Outlet in a mall, which is considered an architectural beauty. Travelling up the hills, away from home to meet a person who travelled towards home, from the state of ‘Amma’, a day late, as the roads weren’t silky enough. The orders were placed and they both would forget what they were about to drink, especially the one who just said ‘Anything is fine’, as it was being placed. A brownie was added to it, which wasn’t cursed. They didn’t have anything to catch up, but sitting on a wooden table next to each other with exotic cups of coffee placed in front of them, looking out into the lives of people that didn’t matter and looking into each other’s life as it would change dr...

The leaves are starting to fall again. Wow!! Looks so beautiful! Why do they fall?? Why is it happening in slow motion in my head, is it because I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately? They are falling down as the wind plays with it, spins it around, caress it, feel it- so romantic. Does anything like that exist in this inexhaustible variety of our lives? They are dying and yet they are loved, they’re old and on their final journey and yet they’re loved. Maybe it’s because there is no expectation from the wind or the leaf. As it touches the ground, it’s dead. Moved around in its grave by the speeding vehicles, by the kicks of disapproval, heartbreaks that we experience- As their soul moves to a new tree, ready to blossom, to grow as a new leaf- The repetitiveness of life, the never ending cycle. What is he talking about? Does he also get lost in his thoughts while I’m talking? Why is he dressed up so well? Did he get placed? Or is he telling how they rejected him? Does he actually...

I could hear my heartbeat, ‘lup dup lup dup’ and my footsteps echoing as I walked out of my workplace. The narrow passage with the overview of the city on one side and the other was a glass wall overlooking the lab I used to work. Now it was just a room, a computer and a lot of respect. I kept walking out as the lights installed on top switched on and off along with every step I took. A piece of technology installed and devised by myself, to save power or maybe it was my way to compensate for the long drives I took by myself for no reason-“Maintaining the energy balance”. The shadows forming for an instant and vanishing in a blink of an eye and the city never looked better with all the lights. It had rained earlier and the refraction of the city lights through the drops on the glass, something I ignored. I didn’t know what time it was and it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t wearing a watch anymore because time had lost its importance in my life. It never ran slow, it did when I gave it too...

I kept staring at the chandelier, the way it reflected it’s light all across the hall. A few more chandeliers in the room doing what exactly the one above me was doing, but I didn’t bother about the rest. It was like how in a Bollywood number, we look at the actor or the actress rather than the background dancers who are doing the same steps. I had a glass of wine with me and was trying to get the smell of it and move the glass around, just to make others feel that , ‘I knew my wine’. But trust me I had no idea. The color of wine shined in the presence of the chandelier which was the reason I noticed it at the first place. Looking over at the crowd that was dining a top notch dinner, I was waiting for a special person and our table to be ready. Right then, a girl in a wine red cocktail dress, a high pony and black stilettos just walked past by me as I kept sipping my wine. She sat couple of seats ahead of me and moved the strands of her hair behind her ears, waiting for her table, ...

I had made into the city, a bag of clothes; a will to persevere with no dreams whatsoever.  I was out on the streets roaming around with no clear goal. The light’s my source of inspiration, the chaos in the city- music to my ears, the smell- my food, the sea breeze-my refresh moment. Every face unknown, unfamiliar, yet had a bit of apnaapan in it. The old buildings were my getaway spots when the monsoon struck, when the sun was at its best it was the marine drives- The city presented to me in a way I wanted it to. I was being a part of it bit by bit, part by part. During Dasara it was the temples that fed me, Ramzan it was the flavorsome biriyanis at the mosque and during Christmas it was the churches. I was devoid of any relations to the things that mattered to a common man. I was in search of a life, a dream that the city had promised me as I left my own. A dream of a better me, a goal to bring in a change within me and around. I was quite lost in the fast moving, unparallel, i...

“So many books, when will I get time to read all of them”, I thought. “A story lurking at every corner of the store”, I said to myself picking up a Gabo. A lady was standing beside me, gave a stare, the one that said, “Were you just talking to yourself” and I smiled. “Hi”, I waved at her. She waved back. “Advaith”, I said. “Snighda” She picked a book, I couldn’t notice the cover and then she moved to seating area. She was pretty, not so tall, long hair in short the general characteristics of a beautiful woman. I carried my Gabo and sat opposite to her. “Do you like Marquez works?” she asked. “Yeah, actually I do. The way he develops and presents the story is very intriguing” “I’ve read one of his books” “Which one” “Love in the time of Cholera” “Haven’t read that” “Ok” “By the way, what do you do?” “I’m a dentist. You?” “I’m a writer. Someday you might see some books of mine” “Ah, writer… What do you write??” “Anything that comes to my mind- The conver...