மதிகெட்டான் சோலை

An attempt at writing fiction in Tamil.

சென்னை என்னும் பாலைவனத்தில் பல நீர்க் குளங்கள் உண்டு. பரதேசியாக திரியும் நாடோடிகளுக்கு தங்களது அனுபவங்களையும், சித்தாந்தங்களையும் ஆழமாக சமுதாயத்தின் மனதில் பதிப்பதற்காகவே நிறுவப்பட்ட இந்த ஸ்தாபனங்கள், மக்களின் மயக்கத்தை ஊக்குவிக்கும் கோவில்கள். சாராயத்துடன் ஊறுகாவுக்கு பதிலாக கம்யுனிசத்தையும், காம்போதியையும் கலக்கி நக்கும் மனித இனத்தின் ஒன்றுபட்ட இரைச்சல், மரணப்படுக்கையில் கிடக்கும் மனிதநேயத்திற்கு பாடுகின்ற ஒரு அவசர ஒப்பாரி போல் இருந்தது. இதனாலோ என்னவோ, மைல்ஸ் டேவிசின் சாக்சபோன் அந்த அசிங்கமான சத்தத்தை மறைக்கமுடியாமல் மறைத்துக் கொண்டிருந்தது. சில நிதர்சனமான நிஜங்களை பல போதைகளை கொண்டு மூட வேண்டியிருக்கிறது.

ஒரு அழகான வாக்கியத்தின் நடுவில் வரும் சந்திப்பிழையைப்போல, அந்த இடத்தில் அவனது தோற்றம் ஒரு ஆச்சர்யக்குறி. பல எழுத்தாளர்களையும்; "இன்னும் பத்து மாதங்களில் உலகம் அழியப்போகின்றது!" என்று சந்தோஷமாக தத்தம் தீர்கதரிசனங்களை கூவும் மத குருக்களையும்; லியோ டால்ஸ்டாயையும், கார்ல் மார்க்சையும், அவர்களை கரைத்துக் குடித்த அரசியல் கிழவர்களையும் வியக்க வைக்கும் அளவுக்கு அடர்த்தியான தாடி. புவியீர்ப்பு ஏதோ அவனது மேல் இமையை மட்டும் அதிகமாக தாக்குகின்றது போலும் - அந்த கண்களின் சுவடு மட்டும்தான் ஏதோ ஒரு கோணத்தில் தெரிந்தது.

அவன் முன்னே ஒரு காலி கோப்பை. ஏற்கனவே "Repeat order sir?" என்று கேட்ட சர்வரை உட்காரவைத்து, அரை மணிநேரம் CERNல் நடக்கும் Big Bang சோதனையை Bing Bang என்று தப்பு தப்பாக உச்சரித்து, விவரித்து அனுப்பி விட்டான்.

"மாடனைக் காடனை வேடனைப் போற்றி மயங்கும் மதியிலிகாள்!" என்று அவன் சொன்னது ஏதோ அந்த சர்வரின் பிறப்பையும் அவனது தாயையும் அசிங்கப்படுத்துவதுபோல் இருந்தது. "சுத்த அறிவே சிவமென்று கூறும் சுருதிகள் கேளீரோ?"

இத்தனை நேரம் மலத்தின் நடுவில் இருந்தது தெரியாமல் திடீரென்று தன்னை சுற்றி இருக்கும் அசிங்கத்தை பார்த்தவன் போல் சட்டென்று அந்த இடத்தை விட்டு எழுந்தான்.

Sodium vapor lamp - கலாச்சாரப் பதுமைகளின் அணையா விளக்குகள். தெருவெல்லாம் மங்கியதோர் சாயம். பிணங்கள் சாலையோரத்தில் கிடந்திருந்தன. ரத்தமில்லாத மரணம் - ஞானத்தின் இறுதி உர்வலம். இவன் ஒருவன் மட்டும்தான் பைக்கில் சென்றபடி அஞ்சலி செலுத்தினான்.

வீட்டில் மயான அமைதி. ஏதோ ஒரு முணகல் சத்தம். மைல்ஸ் டேவிசின் சாக்சபோன் இசையை படு கேவலமாக வாயில் முணகிக்கொண்டு, அவனது தலையணையை ஆசையாக பற்றிக்கொண்டு, அந்த காலியான ஹாலில் இரண்டு மணிவரை ஆடிக்கொண்டிருந்தான்.

Do car horns really go BEEP?

How about the sound from the engine of a Suzuki Max 100R? Does it go TRRRRRRRTRRRRRR or DRRRRRRRDRRRRR? What about those laced aural patterns of a metallic nature within this engine sound? How do you translate that? Have I already translated it by calling it "a laced aural pattern of a metallic nature within this engine sound"? What about SPLORT and BOINK?

I want to write about a carnatic music concert. How do I do that? Sure, I can describe the audience, the singers, the way the singer's spit travels and hits the mike, the way the music binds the listeners together in a collective trance. But what about the music itself? What is the literary equivalent of a good arohanam of Hamsadhwani?

Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Saaa!

There! Can you hear the Mayamaalavakowla? Can you sense the Suddha Rishabam and the Kakali Nishadham? Do the swaras wash over you like a slow stream getting benevolently faster? How about if I put a line on the top of certain vowels? Does that make it sufficiently sanskrit and sufficiently musical?

As my fingers TAP on the keyboard, I am beginning to grasp the inability of the written word. (chair scraping on cement floor with an eyeball stuck underneath) is the closest we have got to writing authentic sub-titles for crazy Japanese movies.

tap tap tap tap TAP! Wrrrrrr..... Kqueakikqueaki... TAP!

Take a drag

Bodies and lights. Bodies swimming in the stale air. Writhing. Undulating. Gyrating. Droplets of sweat charging across the space between the men - lit by the flickering serial lights from above. Blink. Blink.

The sound from the loud speakers comes only as an afterthought, loud though it is. Film songs. Self-compositions. Hymns to the gods. More film songs. The drums beat faster. The bodies are not swaying anymore. There is a jerky motion - like old Charlie Chaplin movies. Real life is doing a television - showing static frames and passing them off as one continuous scene.

There is an imposing, huge, gigantic idol of Ganesha. He is leering rather sadistically from behind his long, serpentine trunk. He dominates everything - watching over the drunken men and the cheap songs. The lights swim across the vision. Ganesha again, this time frowning at the quarreling men.

No. That's not Ganesha! That's Dionysus - the Greek god of wine that inspires ritual madness and ecstasy. You can see the ancient greeks on that road - 10th Main, New Thippasandra, Bangalore. You can see them carousing and dancing. You can see them gulp down Monitor Whiskey and sing praises to the seven dominions of Zeus.

Pretty soon, you will see them on the pavement. The rulers of this country, passed out on the sidewalks like pieces of dirt. The beggar picks the dried remains of yesterday's sambhar from his fingernails and watches the scene with rapture. Tomorrow's leaders squat with him - and drink in spirituality through half-closed, bloodshot eyes. Feed them with power brownies the likes of which Amsterdam has never seen. They are overdosed with all that power. Of the people, for the people and by the same stupid people. Give them democracy. Inundate the streets with beer. Fill the textbooks with Big Bangs and moral education.

Intoxication seems to be the only to answer to cynicism. One small whiff of illusion and you are hooked. High above the puny humans having a spiritual orgasm, a cloud drifts - lit by the innumerable sodium vapor lamps of the city. You get the feeling of an inferno underneath. We are all blazing in it. The pain from the scorching heat of our personal hells are supposed to cleanse us. Corporeal mortification.

The cloud curiously looks like a crucifix.

Katradhu Tamil - a review

"Drink hot coffee, drink hot tea - and remember the people that remember you."

Prabha drinks only hot coffee and tea. He likes to have his lips scorched just so that he can picture once again his Anandhi urging him to drink scalding hot water on a hot day.

This is an eloquent conversation between intellectuals - leaving the general masses as stupified as Karunas in the movie. But why worry about general masses when you have a piece of art as precious as this?

"That imaginary tiger was dreaming about the imaginary desert. Thus was our love begun at the age of 7."

Writer-director Ram has not only scorned a few of the existing stereotypes, but has also displayed Prabha's inherent hypocrisy beautifully. Prabha's battle with his inner demons depicts itself externally with horrifying results. The camera pans and zooms with the landscape as Prabhakar wanders like a nomad, the view skewing with his own loss of perception and his intoxication. It is not a single man's battle against the society's evils but the tale of a man whose dreams turn into obsessions; whose ideas turn into ideologies; whose inevitable hypocrisy persecutes him harder than any known law.

When Prabha commits his first murder, the blood spurts onto his arm. The warm blood. Jeeva, as Prabha, is chilling with his reaction at the gush of blood. The background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja is haunting throughout the movie. Jeeva is brilliant in this movie - something that goes to show what a good actor in the hands of a good director can do. And the girl that does the role of Anandhi (I am terrible with names) is like a sudden strumming of a sitar in the middle of a eulogy.

Watch the movie. If not for anything, watch it for the screenplay. The story unfolds like a badly unfurled carpet. Each bend is a new pattern.

Bullshit

Silence. It's never absolute. Even in the most confined of the quietest places, there is a vague ringing in the background. There is no source. It could be the sound of blood pounding through your veins, it could be hidden crickets in the wall. But there is that ringing.

A Tv comes into view amidst the blackness. A TV in a room lit by a dim red lamp. Purely for effect.

It's an old TV. That much is clear from the static. The new ones don't show the static. There is just a blue screen keeping in pace with the Microsoft generation. I have read that the visible evidence of Background Microwave Radiation of the universe is the static in your television. We are actually witnessing the remnants of the Big Bang (or whatever theory you might prefer) by looking at the static.

The man who has the only seat in the room seems not interested as if to mock bearded sentinels of theology. He is intently staring at a crack in the wall, illuminated garishly by both the dim red lamp and the aformentioned static from the TV. The crack runs deep, horrendously anthropomorphizing the dead wall. The wall is of some generic color that looks undecided. It could be beige. He continues his investigation of the crack.

He suddenly lifts his shirt up and examines his belly button. It looks like a squashed oval. He scratches his beard in contemplation. There is some significance here that he can't quite place.

"An otherwise linear time bends upon itself to create ugly, so-called patterns that we call memory. Curiously, memory is never in first person. Why? I see myself in those scenes. How?"

The silent ringing returns with a vengeance, as if in anger at the interruption. The first stars are born.