films or music or home!

The chennai international film festival just concluded. A plethora of films from various countries spread out over two weeks. Vying with this was the Chennai music festival for which I was commissioned to write a few pieces. I would have managed this and the usual work demands but most worryingly, mother was unwell.

Something that brings things into sharp focus is illness. What is more important? what are festivals of music and films for? What is art? and lastly, why do you watch films, read, hear music????

Still, some memorable films in the festival and I'll write about them here soon...

Some Interesting Books

There is a collection of essays about Amitav Ghosh (Amitav Ghosh - a critical companion) which has been edited by Tabish Khair. After a long gap, I am back in touch with Ghosh's work.

The book promises to be a good read which will throw insights into this writer's novels and essays which are born of this curious mix of history, anthropology and fiction. It is fascinating to see experts analyse various theories of anthropology that underlie the construction of the author's major novels.

Analyses of works of fiction always indicate that story-telling is a very conscious art. It only appears spontaneous and is most often carefully thought out and scientifically (in this case) carved out. But there must have been a stage when the story just came out and wrote itself. Are those not the truest stories that need to be told and listened to?

A wonderful addition to this set of critical essays is Ghosh's own piece on Satyajit Ray, his idol of Bengali cinema. A poignant note is struck when Ghosh discloses that despite his obvious near-devotional admiration of Ray, he never actually met the latter and only had extended phone conversations with him... Still it sets a tone of seriousness and sentiment for the book.

I look forward to reading more of this book.

Passing of a Friend

A friend from my college days passed away recently. I had not been in touch with him for years - over ten - and got to hear from him very recently and that too, after knowing that he was terminally ill and was fighting to stay alive. A cold sort of empty feeling is what surrounds me when I think of it. His family, loved ones, children... it seems unfair.

Yes I know life is not fair. It has never been so, and in milder ways I have experienced the way it brushes off anyone's feeble attempts to resist being pulled along with its whims and fancies. That does not offer clarity or suggest a way out in a moment like this

Death brings to mind the superficiality of so many things we say and do - even declaration of relationships. It springs on one the mix of feeling and unfeeling which holds the same questions about choosing to be selfish or unselfish, and whether achievements have any significance, in the world patched up with currency streams whirling around power vortices.

My feelings on ram's passing rest only in the memory of very childish laughter and pranks that we shared as friends,it would be a slight and a pain to try and share his family's bereavement. I rest my commmiserations, like a small unnoticeable bunch of petals among the huge wreaths of love that my friend's family offer as a tribute to his memory.

dazzled by the heroics

why does one not write ? It's a very very good question isn't it... but one which has no easy answer, or perhaps there just is not point in answering this.

between the nameless formless darkness of the undefined present and the vision of having it out in words, there is only a painful feeling that something must be said, if not for the benefit of the onlookers, then for oneself. Naturally the second person even may have zero interest in what you write...

so the question finally is.. why must one at all write?