A LETTER AND ITS POEM

Gathering my pieces, a smile I feign

Hi!

Greetings.

Our world is full of stories. Many of them are incredible. So incredible that we tend to suppose they were altogether alien to human experience. Yet these stories our stories. That happen around us. And, some of them, to us.

She is the brightest of my  students till date. There was always a child in her; yet she could invade into the world of adults with great ease. She was, those days, full of girlish looks, askances, gait and playfulness. Yet she was mature enough to understand why people behave how they do. 

Her home assignments were a treat to correct. All her free compositions were model essays for her juniors in the succeeding years. They were precise, succinct yet impregnated with vital points. She was a rebel too. A lovely rebel.

Only Kendriya Vidyalayas could produce such wonderful gems.  Bright and adaptive.  I taught her English for three years. They were so memorable as those classes were animated ones with heated discussions, debates, jokes and shouting at one another. An ideal language classroom.  She was a front bencher and the reactions her face would emit would be a histrionic feast.  I was loud. But she could silence me with her stares. Many a time my unsavoury remarks were condemned by her gentlest reprimands.  In more than one way, she is my teacher too.

In the first years of millennium, I was transferred to Kerala and she went to Agra for her graduation studies in literature. With a PG diploma in advertising, she joined an event management firm in Delhi.  Except occasional chats on fb, I could not bother about her much. Her photos with foreign locales bedecking the backdrops, I could only be happy about this darling girl.


Until the bolt from the blues hit me.  Her dp on WhatsApp was not carrying a cheerful countenance I was familiar with. Besides she was reclining on a vertically exalted pillow. That smacked of a hospital bed.  Something made me feel that all was not going well. I was afraid to hear anything unpleasant from her.

But I had to know. Recently, though.  Asked how she was doing, she told me she was busy fighting out an abdomen cancer. She was, in fact, recuperating after a surgery. Speechless, I keep walking to my favorite gods and goddesses with questions why it had to be like this. What do we call this? Karma, fate, accident, reality or what?


I knew Purvika would write poems. Good poems.
Recuperating from a major surgery to get abdominal cancerous blisters removed, she has written this poem. After reading it, I could not remain gathered, though.

We are living in an ominous world where some deadly diseases are lurking somewhere close to shatter us into unrecognizable pieces.

Get well soon, Purvika!

With prayers,
Yours truly.

GATHERING MY PIECES TOGETHER

-Purvika

And it comes to a screeching halt
As I wake up with a jolt
And around me these wimps
All here to grab a glimpse
I cry and writhe in pain.

Gathering my pieces, a smile I feign

Not knowing the way back from here
I look around in doubt, I look around in fear
And as all my efforts go in vain.

Gathering my pieces, a smile I feign

A smile on my face, that goes deep down to my lips
And I walk back, as though nothing has happened

That drop of wax is charred
A portion of me, scarred
How do I wipe this stain?

Gathering my pieces, a smile I feign

I ask will Time fade it all
They say it's me, my karma, His call
The hands left my hand, and the pillar crashed
My smile, my dreams, my hopes, smashed
I struggle to walk, my back to the wall
I fall, I stumble, but gather it all
A step I move. An inch. A yard.

Gathering my pieces was never so hard.

I look at the stars that set and rise
And set again each night, into my eyes
Each tear shed is accounted for
And then I am shown an open door
I look into the eyes, and tears I see
The scar behind that smile, that's the old me
These moments when I stared into an afterlife.

Who knows? Who has returned? Is it worth the strife?
As I look at the moon the tears don't stop
A hand in my hand, my rays of hope
Life is much brighter, the other side of this blow
They say it's a blessing, but take it slow
I crawl, I scramble, but move I must.

I betray a smile, the tears I dust
The rays all around, a promise is made
A promise is kept, and the tears fade.

The hands wipe it all, a peck on my forehead
And I walk, and I falter, but I begin to tread
The grass is green and soft, the water sparkling blue
The grains still prick, but are dampened by the dew
Yes, it seems beautiful. I think.

Maybe
Gathering my pieces, this is a new me.

And I walk, as though nothing has happened..

THE MAN – THE GENIUS – THE GURU

THE GURU

I nearly missed it.  Preoccupied with umpteen numbers of mundane chores, I could not have noticed but for a stroke of serendipity.  Besides, there were any number of events, I thought, that gripped the attention of this nation for last one week.  An MP was slapped four times by another MP in daylight at an airport lounge just because the former is rumored to have said something unsavory about the party leader of the latter.  Defense forces, particularly the navy, have been in full swing to trace out the whereabouts of the remaining pieces of an air force aircraft that flew into oblivion on the way to Andamans.  Bangalore is experiencing what Chennai was experiencing on the first two days of December 2015.  Gurumoorthy of Sangh Pariwar was sending, on prime time, ominous signals of an impending Hindu hegemony in a land that is known for its unending tolerance of every kind.  Amala Paul, the slender beauty of Kollywood, is parting ways with her director husband, Vijay.  Surprisingly, India posted a historical overseas win over West Indies. Chennai boy Ashwin looks more handsome than ever as he is getting busy with scalping heads in countless numbers – match after match.

 

With all these things hijacking the attention of the nation and yours truly, I almost missed it.  It was full page. That too, center page.  Obviously, it could not have been bigger.  And the septuagenarian, in his trademark whites, was caught, in a size slightly larger than the post card, smiling enigmatically at us.  The man who taught every other director, of his times and in the succeeding decades, how to make  films. The man, who told us that the frames of a feature film need not be filled with jarring sound bites, and his tranquility are famously woven into eloquent set-piece in the narrative of Tamil cinema.   Uthirip Pookkal, Johnny, Mullum Malarum, Poottaatha Poottukkal – these celluloid epics stand towering testimonies of the genius of man.

Mahendran, the legendary Tamil director, turned 77 on July 25^th.  It has been forty years since Mullum Malarum was released.  In commemoration of its release in 1976, the director was interviewed by Aasai for The Hindu (Tamil Edition) where the director shares with us many fascinating details and anecdotes of his active years.  The most curious of them is why and when Sridevi decided to undergo a nasal cosmetic surgery.  It was the ace cinematographer of 70s and who cranked camera for most of Mahendran’s movies Ashok Kumar (except Mullum Malarum for which camera was handled by none other other than Balu Mahendra) who unwittingly commented on Sridevi’s “ugly, big shapeless nose”. Mahendran feels that it is because of this quip by Ashok Kumar, Sridevi should have rushed to have her nose rebuilt. The director, during the course of this long interview, goes on elaborating the principles that governed his art of filmmaking.  Also there was an interesting anecdote involving the superstar of South Indian film world – Rajnikanth. 

Being an ardent fan of the septuagenarian, I could fall in love with every sentence the director pronounced in the interview.  More than that, I am heartened to know that this gentleman looks hale and hearty and appears capable of enthralling movie buffs with some more superlative films made of his finest art. 

Godspeed to Mahendran Sir!