My God by name Chinna

I cried the whole of Saturday night. There, before my very own eyes, had unfolded a human tale of strength and victory, of compassion and love of the highest order. Chinna was lied to rest on the floor, the evening daily of the day serving up as a mattress. It was the fourth time he had suffered from fits that night. And his mother, could no more stand numb to see her child rolling off like a bag of bones. We set him, trying to make him feel as comfortable as we could, yet the pain with which he groaned was a sight, little to much for any human to bear.

Chinna suffers from cerebral paralysis - CP in medical parlance - a condition which results in diverse complexeties to the locomotive system, along with stunted mental growth. He has been so, for fifteen years since his birth, and the disease shows no signs of relenting with time, for the reason that the worst effect is seen right at the time of birth.

Kamala, his mom, said he had suffered this during the time of her pregnancy. It happeened since the oxygen to the foetus got alarmingly less. She categorically remarked "saami kudutha varamnu nenaichukka vendiyadhudhaan" ( We need to take it as a boon from the almighty).

Though the windows had been shut, the moon shone through the glass shield. We remained silent for Chinna to sleep. She said she was feeling tired too. After all, it was 2:30 in the night. The fast passenger, the thing it was, unexpectedly crossed tracks. The sound was enough for the fits to come back. Kamala managed to hold his hands close to his body, while i was trying to straighten his shivering legs. It lasted hardly a min but it seemed much more than that. Chinna salivated in his shivering, and all he could relate was a deep-throated groan.

And then, the mother did something only a mother could do. She asked me to take the lower berth. She managed to find some space in the cramped floor, as Chinna could hardly straighten his crooked limbs. She laid down on the bare floor there, just beside her son, covering his shivering body with her saree.The child he was, he cuddled up under his mother's arms, smiling and feeling warm . I laid there, watching this, the pristine form of love unfolding in all its splendour, where none of them required to even speak, just the warmth felt being enough. I was thinking, what could this child could be thinking now? What drives this mother to wake up every morning, to see her son in shambles in his bed, and get him dressed up and feeded? Chinna is their only child.

Kamala, just turned his face toward's mine, and pointed to me saying " Chinna.. Anna paaru". He slowly turned his head,lifted his hands towards me, and smiled. I felt very small before this child. The irony of nature, that such people, could do nothing but smile. I felt like a cleansed soul before him, who inspite of all his hardhships, pain and agony, could smile at me. Kamala smiled too. I stood there transfixed. How could i ever return this gesture? A gesture, which did not ask for anything, but giving the only thing he ever possesed - his smile. I felt small. very very small.

avinash.

Women without a frock!!

There was one piece of garment which had been fascinating ever since i learnt how different dresses look and feel - frock! My mother had a queer reason for liking to have girl children at home - you can dress them beautifully while boy kids always had either a half trouser and a t-shirt. There were numerous options available for girl children - pattu pavadai being my mom's fav - but a frock is one that caught my attention the most. My sister used to have a lot of them - one with bear dolls all over , one with flowers of strange forms, one with trains running all over!. Though she was not the young priti-zinta like child my mom boasted her of, yet i have always thought the frock gave girl children a strange beauty of their own. As times changed, with androgen spurting up with my teens, frocks meant long legs and hair remover ads sporting women with beautiful looks.Yesteryear heroines who dint have the privilege of sporting a bikini even in a durga puja as the mallikas and matondkars do today, wore frocks to show off the sensuos side of them. I personally feel sridevi and silk smitha for that matter looked their best in a rightly coloured frock. ( that were made to wear blood red and shining gold ones were another thing). But the best thing about this dress - along with the half saree in this part of the world - is not every woman would pass off fine on them just by wearing them. you need a lot of passion in dressing up completely in addition to your attire - the way your hair looks, the makeup you wear and the slippers you were too! - which girls nowadays i feel lack the knowledge of. They find it hard to carry them with a frock - either it turns up nastily obscene that every 50 year old starts drooling or too misfitting that their boy friend start thinking she has picked this up on the suggestion of some crook friend of hers.
Times have changed and so have peoples fascination for dresses. Nowadays I find children of 5 - 10 years dressed up in jean trousers, mini sherwanis! ( or what you call them?? ) ; girl children in sleeveless pull overs, chudidhars (it sometimes looks sick even on grown ups) and tight fitting wrap arounds. Some things that were left behind by the British speak volumes of the grace they carried. And you need not wait for me saying that i am eagerly waiting to watch a gracious heroine spoting my favourite women wear!

P.S : 1. Sorry guys if you had expected a mango-aunty story out there.
2. and the guys who really think that why write a post on this, its because of two reasons - one is me almost falling off in sleep after my lunch that I wanted to get me going by writing and the second one is, that the only place nowadays where I find a women with a frock on is on the door of a ladies' toilet!

Something to write

It doesnt happen often with me that I set out to write without knowing what exactly the piece is all about. Some things I have done in the recent past.

1. Cut my hair so short that people jump, as usual, to assumptions like - my girlfriend has ditched me, its my way to cherish the flavour of the season ( how wierd!), one of my colleagues even suspected I am under chemotherapy ( it was difficult for him to visualise a curly haired to have lost so much hair, in so little time). I just wanted to get rid of it and I did. Why cry over it ??

2. Observed the rise of Zizou at the World Cupand the rampage of Federer. Guys like these, time and again, stand up to remind that though the play is already set on the roll,you can command the lead role if you are willing to.

3. Reduce my covetousness towards sleeping. There is no point in blaming the Egyptians, day after day, for making me fall short of my project deadlines ( why the hell there is only 24 hours???), and not even a genius like Heizenberg can explain my manager that at any given instant of time, it is impossible to work 8.5 hours a day and deliver the promised to the client. More than that, its a mental thing whether or not you sleep to rest. Enjoy your time when you are awake and you will never yearn to sleep!

4. You dont need anything reasonable to write a blog, the minimal being that you feel like writing one. and you have the result to prove it.

5. Realise that its nothings wrong to feel that you could have done it better after every attempt fo what you attempt to - the same I feel now. In fact, the more you feel you have the space to grow. The same one a lizard feels every time after losing its tail ( May be ).

6. Drinking is not that bad ( yeah its bad is it ??), provided you take in till your comfort zone is not breahced and also your poor neighbours' isnt.

Cheers,
Avinash

The King and the prince story

Not so long ago, in the nearby lands, there was a kingdom ruled by King Daniel. His kingdom was the most famous among all the tiny kingdoms that existed. He commanded supreme autjority over his subjects and was held in awe even by his detractors. Though his invasions were limited to his state, his popularity had spread to distant lands, thanks to the diaspora of his subjects, all over the globe.Before proceeding further on his achievements, we will dwelve a little on what makes him special.

King Daniel is not a descendant of any royal clan. He was born in a poor peasant's family. His martial education was largely self taught. Though not of warrior blood, he had a natural liking for warfare. Every morning and evening, he used to engage in street brawls, that were largely to capture the public attention, along with his brother. Soon, he became popular in his village and in the surrounding towns.

Spurred on by his brother and his instincts, he thought he could make it big at the biggest city of the state. so, soon he left his village to try out his fortunes in the company of his brother. Though the intial days at the city were demanding and excruciating to say the least, he would found his admirers among the Bourgeoisie and the masses alike. The passion and natural flair that resounded in his art made even his detractors look upon him with admiration. In many wars, where he fought for his state, his valour won him accolodes and his meteoric rise was almost unstoppable in the ranks of the army. Soon he became the undisputed general in charge of the young brigade that stood for the kingdom. As time passed, as the king fell in to his second oblivion, the place for the King naturally went to Daniel.

After taking the reins, he soon understood that his native fighting abilities alone wont hold him high in the days ahead. Prudently he went to distant lands and learnt the native warfare of various regions, soon becoming the master at handling any native weapon one could name then.

What made King Daniel truly special was, his uncanny aptitude to interweave patterns in both his native as well as foreign warfare. This made the rise of any other kingdom almost impossible. Few were his competitors, but even they could not withstand the marauding warrior he was.

Decades went past in his rule and the kingdom benefitted hugely by his loyal service to deliver always the best whenever the citizens deamnded. He ensured all sections of the society, including the dowtrodden, received their share of the benefits from the yearly benefits. Trade was at a high and merchants came from far off lands to start trade ties with this champion.

But as Destiny may have it, all good times wont last enough , even if they do for long. Out of the blues, suddenly, a young kid was making waves at the nearby kingdom. This was Dileep, later came to known as the Sun prince as his name suggested, who was turning out to be a crowd charmer with his novel fighting skills. The rise was also partly due to the crushing authority which King Daniel held over his detractors, and the poetic justice of the new replacing the old. Dileep rose in popularity with his repeated victories against major opponents, and soon became powerful enough to supercede the authority of King Daniel. He had a developed a unique style of fighting with mordern weopons and unflinching attitude.

Aided by his prodigal talent and wonderful performance at various battle grounds, Dileep soon became the undisputable champion of the legion. King Daniel had but a few loyal followers and continued to hold sway over his limited region of authority. People , though respected him for his achievements, largely came to accept Dileep as their next emperor. As Dileep continues to hold sway over the imagination of the masses, the rustic warrior that King Daniel will be surely missed.

Cheers
Avinash

P.S : 1.My attempt to see how Daniel Raaja who later came to known as Ilayaraaja and Dileep who became A.R. Rahman have captured the hearts of millions of music lovers in this part of the land. Thank you guys for what you have made of us !!
2. As evident, the content and intent exemplifies only a single creator. Reason - After all the contemplations about bass strings, violin counterpoints ( leave the vocal; no one has ever done it better as far as I have heard ), my 'realisation' of Raja has come to where the identity has ceased to exist. I see Raja in myself - the repeated attempts to test the human limits of endurance; the sheer joy in creation! I beg your pardon to all the creators because, of course, I am.

Why to name it?

Questions are strange proportions. Proportions in the sense,they lend harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole design. Yes. Questions lend balance to uncertainties and evolve in to what they speak for - realisation of paradigms. They indeed are strange proportions.

But my thoughts over their authority to existence and evolution has led me to writing this. The generalia acceptance is that, the realisation of existence is the proof of it. This is the base on which knowledge has been acknowledged over the years. But of late, even in theoritical physics, the evolution has led to quantum entanglement from just classical qunatum physics. And i feel it is time we understand the same for all the age old praxis, which, rooted in realisation, spell the death knell for the unseen.

I rue why indefinitive things cannot command existence in this world. Do everything that has been reasoned out do imply the reason that define them? It pains to realise that we catch holdof the purpose defining the reason rather than the other way.

I wish to quote a small but interesting example. When back from a hard day's work, energy completely drained out, you pine to take a bath. Open the shower, feel the first few droplets of that lukewarm ( or what is it??) -- there is a feeling that transcends all languages and description, a sense of pain and bliss that whips every muscle and nervelets and as the water reaches the floor, you sense as though you are washed away in the cosmos, floating the best moment of your time. You can simply cannot capture this feeling in a single word, leave alone in English, in any language. This doesnt mean the language is lame; but there is a terminal point after which the expression or reasoning fail. The word ceases to exit. The power of sensation defeats the power of expression. You cannot see it, you are in a no man's land; you dont have the power to explain it and you give a name and a character. And more appalling is that, you never know if thats what it actually is!

Silence frightens. Darkness frightens more. Entities that metaphor lacunae fill our hearts with insecurity. "Let there be Light" is everyone's prophecy here. We fail to acknowledge that beauty and sense is not proprietious to definitives alone. I feel a feeling undefined, a meaning unexplained - one much similar to a tamarind leaflet's journey wafting through a brook - that flows through the interrogatives. Let us listen to them. The music of silence. The shades of darkness. The peace in red and the gore in white. ( I am sorry if that lasts sounds a little leftist..haha.)

Acceptance and denials are the pans of the balance of cognizance. But the world has erraneously calibrated it to nullify the inherent visciousness.

I want us to leave the unanswered lead a life of their own. Answers are for cretins. What you say?

P.S: 1. The stimulus for this post was my intuitive denial to Chomsky's statement that knowledge and probability of existence is directly relative to the effectiveness of expression of the same.
2.I am not averse to the basic human instinct of logic and knowledge, but I have seen on many occasions, to me, the conclusion and derivatives professed just doesnt fit in. I am thankful to K.B. and Kannadasan, as men who had silently inspired me to see things from this plane, and admire the unanswered, and not push them to extinction by passing biased judgement.

11:41 P.M.

Inebriating and fuddling share a common place in the dictionary. But astonishingly to my experience, I have,more often than not, have found out that people seem to be more "sane" when taken over by the magic potion. The outrageous explosion of thoughts and perspectives that pour out with a a glass of beer or whisky, have got me thinking on this for quite some time.

STOP.

Vikki, my roommate and a really interesting character, usually turns delirious when he takes his favourite "8 PM" was at his best on this Tuesday too. We had our "Minnalae" throughout ( it has almost become ritualistic of Vikki to have this one running when he drinks) and the other praxis which Vikki faithfully follows when he is in the mood - shouts of beatitude which would make a wild boar shrink in shame, uninterrupted - though bursty - belly laughs over things which only he could laugh at ( e.g. can you ever imagine a person who can ever laugh at his own laughter? He does it for a reason which only he is aware of !! He keeps on going till panting for breath) and some eclectic collection of songs which are nurtured with perfervidity by him. The series of cheers and "bottoms-up" ( as we call it ) went well in to the night considering the fact that the liturgy started around 9 p.m.

STOP.

When he had turned tired of all the hullabaloo ( I rather think that the bottle was nearly empty had dampened his spirits), we went out "for a walk" ( his metaphor for having a puff -his last for the day) and came back to lay our backs to rest, we went on fiddling on the usual topics that are picked up for discussion at that part of the night - how the day went for each of us, the recent developments if any in our respective organisations and other then-current happenings. Slowly, we were drawn to a discussion on the Srilankan Tamils and their plight. Vikki, then referred to one of his school mates by name Janakan - a kid whose family had a grocery shop in the heart of the business hub of Colombo - but had to leave their homeland with 2 sacks of rice and one lakh in cash - lamming to Rameswaram ( a small town in the southern tip of the country - entry point for Srilankan Tamils considering proximity and affability of the town to them). He went on with details on his yores with Janakan - the conspicuous peculiarity in his accent (considering the fact that they speak the same language as we do), the legerity he possessed ( courtesy the priliminary training given to every Tamil child by the LTTE).

Just as I was thinking on what makes people push to the brink of leaving their homeland parting with the fortunes hard-earned all their lives ( considering the barren fact that they can never be sure of reaching the shores - they could be done away with by either the Srilankan Navy or the Indian Coast Guard ), Vikki said "Even though we may excogitate on the details of cause,effect and eventualities of the them, we may never be able to capture the real suffering they go through. And this holds true for all the leaders who voice their interests in favour of the Srilankan Tamil diaspora." More than the words, the ineptitude that resonated in his words was what striked me.And above it, the responsibilty that he assumed , submitting for his ineptitude, was the unbelievable aspect of all.

Imagine the shamlessness and excruciation of spirit every man would undergo to see his wife or sister enacting the most pristine of acts of nature - give birth to an offspring - under blazing sun or biting cold , with bombshells and pullalating sounds of Kalashnikovs resonating to the pangs of the female. The bombings of Iraq ( advertised by Rumsfeld to be more successful than the Aucshwitz) - ironically when i did a Google, the latest killing in Iraq, a bombing which had killed 21 children was only an hour old ; the utter barbarism to explode a geletin in the vagina of a 16 year old - after being gang raped- and much more - for we only to ponder that we dont get to see HBO in Chennai!! Indians on the whole should be collectively be ashamed of the fact that the aid that flew in to Kashmir during the recent earthquake was a pittance compared to the ones that flew in for Gujarat and Nagapattinam. Do we innately approve of the fact that we dont recognise Kashmir - in letter and spirit - a part of India??? It is not our inability to generate thought process than money is what concerns me most.Introspecting further, the people in the South have always remained immune to the misfortunes of the people to the north of Tropic of Cancer.This is not a case with our nation alone, but the world over - where passion for violence, unrest and anarchy forplays to satiate the hidden demons - and the general public shun their thoughts to self and the four walls that they dwelve in.

Every nerve and sinew of mine aches to understand the commanility that links these - the intoxication that we derive on fresh smelling blood and splattered flesh. There is a certain fascination associated with violence and the beatitude the beast derives out of it will not die out even after generations.

Here in lies the responsibility of the spirit to acknowledge and empathise with the countless sufferings of people across the globe. Though we cant do a Bharathi or Che Guevera, every act of ours should be valued with the responsibility it carries - be it what we eat, dress, speak and the intagibles ; its not an advocacy for certain act or intiative that but for the reorientation of the stream of thinking of every individual - however miniscule it may be - by which, in some means or other, atleast few souls would go to sleep one night to awake to peace and freedom.

Cheers,
Avinash.

P.S: 1. I sincerely believe the thoughts and efforts of every individual influences someone in some corner of this world ( Call it Butterfly theory or whatsoever).
2. If you find the content meandering across multitudinous paths, for it was my attempt to capture the complete array of thoughts that "I" went through while penning this down.
3. Though I have titled the post with the time myself and Vikki had this discussion, it took a lot of "I" to put it down. As Vikki said, you may never know the pains and suffering that I went through during my 3 days on this piece.
4. And as long as it gets me and others "thinking" and acting accordingly, I wish to say many more Cheers to Vikki and his 8 P.M!!!!

The Reason

Anything to "live" needs a reason-just about anything.And I need one too.I in the sense not the I you call out to, but the "I" I would really like to scream out to. And this one and many ( I presume, and also pre-empt to deny the world calling me sly) to follow would in essence arbiter this bargain between i and "I". There may be an end- for elements to which we perceive can never be - or they can never be one - for which the justice is accepted which the world dare to renege- but, the tussle would go on between i and "I". And here, i want a third one ( and thats I too!) to tread the middle path advocating for the two. All this I quote as The Reason behind this one, and the hidden reason - i hate to disclose - is for once I want "I" to speak and the world to listen!

Cheers,

Avinash.