Poignancy...

What is this about poignancy that draws one to it? Is it because it leaves an aching hole? Something that cannot be placed, pointed to? That is so unseen, but it unmistakably stays with you long after the event has gone past? And when you recall it, you really wish the ending, the event or the situation turned out to be different? But the very fact that it was what it was, is the reason one is able to remember it? And when one does, it touches a chord within

1. In salangai oli, an old Kamal forming a canopy over Jayaprada’s forehead with his palms, so that the pouring rain does not wash away her sindoor, unaware that she is a widow and living in his long gone past, where he gives her up for the very idea of marriage !
2. In Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins sitting in the library with the Italian Soprano in the background; his face strangely at peace, oozing a strange glow of independence that itself is poignantly at odds with where he was – serving life imprisonment for murder of his wife
3. In “Elizabeth town”, Susan Sarandon, during the tribute meeting to her dead husband, showing off her new dance-skills; as something she learned after his death, the first time she ever had to do something without him
4. A 12 year old kid, perhaps drawing from her own experience, writes a story where the protagonist (a young girl) dies of cancer…
5. In Shakti, Dileep Kumar meeting with Amitabh to break the news of his mother’s death, but hardly speaking a word with each other (and in the earlier Tamil version of Thangapathakam, Sivaji makes it equally poignant in his own garrulous overplayed way)

[This list will grow]

As I write those, I vividly remember those moments; but perhaps incongruously fondly too? For, those have helped etch some memories in me - the differentiating ones in the sameness of every day. Aching, maybe; but differentiating all the same!!!

DMZ Transgressions

In the journey from here to there,
In an unscheduled brief stop in the middle of nowhere,
I stare out of the window;
Into what seemed a deep, dark and dead alley,
Where a single street light, incongruously,
shed an eerie glow.
Under the light, a slight shirtless waif,
Sifts for his day’s food in the waste.
I see the boys frown in his wrinkled brows,
Hunger will be his tonight’s friendly foe!
Perhaps, like before, he will survive
Through one more uncaring night.
As I contemplate doing right,
The car starts to roll on by,
My out-of-sight-out-of-mind takes flight
Out of that dark alley.
After a brief pang of conscience and guilt
Of having done nothing to that nameless son,
I will have moved on.
But that child will never make it out of that DMZ,
Never knowing school, never being fed,
Never knowing warmth, never knowing helping-hands
Those that my son takes for granted.
Living in the no-man’s land,
That is the destitute child of an impoverished God.
And worse,
A effin' fodder to my transient conscience
and to this futile pretentious verse.

I have a Dream !

I have a dream...

...and I’m certainly not Martin Luther King Jr.
To be fairly accurate too, I had several dreams.
In fact, to be honest and accurate, I was an avid day-dreamer.

Please note the ‘was’ part.

The earliest dream, I recall was, when I was 2^nd grade; I was B.S.Chandrasekhar when I grow up, bowling India to victory with my own 6-31. Of course, I was also G.R.Vishwanath, getting “lifted” by this giant – Tony Grieg, on scoring a 100.

Then I was an adolescent – the dream was always technicolor and sometimes confused; but looking back the dreams were a fun-ride with very active and very much day-dreaming - always, with the 20/20 hindsight, makes me smile on some of the absurdity. With the advent of late teens in college, I was going to be the best communications engineer ever – do the engineering, post-graduate and PhD and will be launching rockets for India ! As reality bit, that morphed into a need for simple job later on; and the mid-20s was consumed for doing something complicated, complex and challenging at work; additionally, dream-walking through a few complications !

Then the dream of the late-30s was about the son, what my son would grow up into and how I was going to give him everything that I may have missed as a son growing up; we would be watching a cricket match together and perhaps watching a few other things too, together; I’ll be rooting for him to fall in love and find happiness, but at the same time apprehensive that he falls for the right one…

As I grew the dreams did not stop, they just grew with me – the canvas was different, the art was different, the strokes and colors were different, the songs were different, but nevertheless, the dreams remained.

Of all the dreams I had, I never thought my life would turn out to be thus; and not really sure how many of them have really come true…
But then I could really do with everyday doses of reality too !!

Now, after all these years of hectic dreaming and Past the important milestone (age-wise :) ) of the life, its just whittled down to one:

I have this one dream now - my dream is pretty simple - there would be a time machine on which I would get on, fast forward about twenty-five years into my product end-of-life and find out if this one dream have come true; including the time machine one - but then it seems like a recursive and circular reference error in the Microsoft XL

I still have that dream...