Category: Yesterday

  • Memories

    …of the relatively ignorant bliss of childhood… of the roller coaster ride of adolescence, the exhilrating times of youth… so far.. and perhaps as we grow older, the realisation of middle age, and the inevitability of old age… by the time we reach the twilight of ourlives, perhaps these memories become one of the pillars of our lives…
    something that we never work towards, and assume that our minds would automatically record and catalog it – by person, by time, by taste, smell and hordes of other things that cant be described..
    I saw a malayalam movie recently, a movie i was looking forward to seeing, featuring my fave actor and directed by a one movie old director, who had set an extremely high benchmark with his debut movie.. and thankfully, it delivered, and how!! it reinstored my faith in actor whose performance screamed out that all he needed were good scripts and he would do the rest.
    that was a necessary digression, because even the trigger for a post has to be acknowledged, specially one as deserving as this movie…the story of a man who, while having never accomplished his dream, retains his faith in his intellectual abilities, and hopes that he can live his dream through his son. a man who has to balance his duty towards his father with that towards his son.. and while he focuses all his energies on all these happenings in his life, gets struck with alzheimers…. i cant remember a malayalam movie in years which can come remotely close to this one .. and no, thats not because of any ailment, its because there hasnt been a movie like this in years…:)
    its a movie that made me think.. day after day after day, we go around focusing ourselves on the short term and long term things we aspire to do.. some get a joy out of a night with friends, some get it with the knowledge that their investments are safe and sound, some get a joy out of having achieved something..but all of us get a joy out of remembering the good times we have had in our lives… what if we cant remember those.. in His infinite wisdom, perhaps he has answered this too, for if we dont know that we cant remember, theres no pain… we will live small lives, with joys and sorrows we would never remember later…
    until next time, remember to drop in again 🙂

  • Papa Preach!!

    It must be because all of us are around the same age, or maybe its the template way of our existence.. anyways, have recently read at least 3-4 posts that have to do with parents’ retirement.. and again due to the typical way of our existence, its mostly dads who are written about… also interesting are the comments, that in some way identify with the situation…
    while i do agree that retirement in some way creates a void in life thats difficult to replace, i have also begun to think that the above set of dads have achieved more than what we have, or will… and thats perhaps the better way to look at it…
    They have the respect of their sons, daughters.. they have settled themselves well, and even provided for their children.. they may perhaps have never known a career crisis… and they are proud of the work they have accomplished in their career…they havent worked so hard that they never had time for the little joys in life.. they have passed on a value system to their next generation..they can look back and say that they did justice to their parents, in terms of time and attention..
    yes, they might offer you advice that you wouldn’t follow, and bore you with what they did and how, but that, i guess is a nice way of knowing about a way of life that once was…
    until next time, father figures…best

  • Seasons…

    Its chilly in Bangalore… not the bone numbing chilly, but the kind of chilly that gets taken care of by a jacket, the kind thats pleasant, the kind that i associate with a hot tea, a good book, snuggling under the blanket.. and reflecting about the seasons…yes, we are talking about the weather :).. because the pleasantness of it makes it interesting… well, okay, maybe i didnt have anything else to write about… 🙂
    but theres definitely something about it that inspires a post.. its one of the times when time makes us objective, step outside ourselves, and reflect on the things that have been happening,things that we have been doing unconsciously in the daily rigmarole of living, and get reminded of when we actually start thinking about it…
    the last three months of the year…. in some places – winter.. in chennai – the time when it takes exactly 3 more seconds for an ice cream to melt (pleo, was it, who wrote that), in kerala – the time when the one and a half hour non stop bus journey to the engineering college early in the morning became all the more unbearabale, and your beacon is the hostel loo, at the end of the journey, a time long long ago… the time spent in writing mock tests to land up in a good management institute, the rush to beat the three hour clock, a time long long ago….in goa – amidst all the sun and sand and scary tests and assignments, counting days to the christmas vacation when you could go home, a time long ago…. back to kerala – balancing sales targets, and a desire to be in bangalore with the wife to be, sometime ago :)…
    and finally bangalore – listening to ‘Walk of Life’ and smiling away at the post that just got written…yes, seasons, i guess it is just nature’s clock ticking away, reminding us of the good and not so good times that have been happening to us, and around us…. long long ago, long ago and now..

    until next time, nice clock, no cause for alarm….:)

  • Storytellers

    Its party time for the worms in Bangalore, the book kind that is, all thanks to the Strand Book Festival – one of the few things that rock our home’s otherwise carefully managed financial boat..:)

    Last weekend was no exception, as Sherlock Holmes, Calvin, Asimov, Mughals and assorted other stars came into our living room, a slightly different kind of printed paper went out, and like always, there’s not even an iota of guilt..hehe

    Since D preferred to do eyebrows while I browsed through rows and rows of storytellers, it gave me time to send a little note of thanks heavenwards, to the first storyteller i ever knew, and the best – to my grandmother, who used to tell me a story every night before I slept, who used to make sure i got my ‘Poompatta‘ every month, and insisted that my dad bought me ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ regularly. The storyteller whose stories were only for me, whose characters always seemed to be my age, or the kind that i liked, whose stories were imaginative, inspiring, heartwarming and everything else that stories should be, who made sure that i would love stories for the rest of my life.

    And since i know i can never be that good a storyteller, the books I buy are perhaps my way of passing on my favourite stories to those who come after me, for I understand that only the very fortunate ones end up getting a great storyteller as a granny.


    until next time, live happily ever after…

  • Jammin’ in Goa

    No, not exactly, but yes, one of these days, i certainly will…a couple of posts brought back memories of the place, and hence the title..
    the first one, by Mirage, brought a sweet wave of nostalgia, specially when she mentioned all the places we used to haunt.. oh yes, those were indeed the days.. i still believe that the immediate time before we get out into the world and be part of it as individuals who fend for themselves, both from a financial as well as a relationship standpoint, are the best possible days.. while we still might be suffering from doses of education,and the rough and tumble of assignments and tests, it still remains a time of at least partial abandon, coz you know dad is going to send the cheque next month too..:)
    but the next one, that by an individual who works for the JAM magazine, also brought back memories of Goa (that was where i started reading JAM, and continued for almost 3 years), but accompanied by the rude awakening that as much as we like to think that the blogosphere is a mature entity, it is not always so, and sometimes the unpleasantness of the real world is dragged into it.. while i dont intend a detailed version of the controversy,in my mind, JAM has done no wrong.. but more importantly even if it has,the comments left on the post were in extremely bad taste…
    and as people who have a stake in the future of blogs, it is important for us to drop in here, read about the subject, make up our mind, and offer our support.. because i think this is about an individual who seems to be doing something she believes in, and just because she happened to express herself, and that expression wasn’t particularly pleasing to a group/institution, she shouldn’t feel she has done something wrong, and more importantly feel isolated.. so do drop in, and for instructions on helping out, drop in here..
    until next time, its Just Another Manuscrypts post!! 🙂