You.

May you always have the you.
The you that keeps you going.

May you keep making the you.
And keep the you you make.

The you that has you embarked on,
Places, may that you take you.

May you dare to dream the you.
And may you care to meet that you.

May you share all thats you,
For I am not just me alone.

May you too always have for you,
The you that I always do.

iMHO

Steve Jobs is dead, to begin with. (Yes, I re-visited The Christmas Carol, recently.) And, the magnitude of the reaction, from the masses, has been huge. Ok, the Internet-masses, let me re-iterate that to. The last time we saw such an out-pouring reaction was, probably, when Michael Jackson died. Infact, I feel this one’s a bigger wave, considering the fact that it has come from virtually everywhere across the web-wide-world, and from everyone, irrespective of anything that can potentially classify them. Also, the reaction was quite consistent, from all over.

Yes, it might be unfair to judge these greats, or even compare these two different personalities, based on this or, probably, anything else. But I think what we can certainly try to do is – draw parallels between the popularities, of not just theirs, but, may be, of the two different streams they are from, to see if we can spot a trend or two.

I think it would not be wrong to assume that the following for technology has gone up many folds, in general. Or, technology has become mainstream, can we say? For a long while now, it has been commonplace for people to eagerly wait for the release of a new music album, a movie, or such sorts. But, off-late, we are witnessing a lot of hype building up, amongst the masses, before a product/feature release/upgrade, and lot of noise coming across after it. Like it has been with music and movies, people are following the previews and reviews closely. Everyone reads and understands product specifications now, and out of interest. They keep updating themselves with information about various products, not just when they are looking to buy some stuff. That is, people are not just being consumers of information technology, but of technology information too. And, magazines, blogs and other media sources, channelling such information, doing incredibly well, getting their share of popularity, stand testimony. There is a sense of enthusiasm in this following, much like that shown by movie-buffs and music-lovers. At times, there is a sense of religiousness too, for there are fan-boys for products and brands, and fans of rival brands are set up against each other, like how it has been in South India, with the film stars. Over the years, brands have been using film stars to promote their brands. Now, film-makers are looking the tech-industry way for stories. The Social Network movie was hugely watched all over. Sony Pictures, reportedly, is shelling out millions to acquire film-adaptation rights for a Steve Jobs biography. We’ve seen fans being happy if their idol’s movie made record collections in the first week, et al. Recently, I’ve seen people sharing the news, that Apple reached a million orders within 24 hours of throwing the bookings for iPhone 4S open, with happy smileys, over the social-networks.

Overall, can we say that tech-stuff is the new movies and Apple is the new Rajnikanth? Rajnikanth sir, only if you wont…. mind it!

91D [29 March 2011]

He is saying something, isn’t he?

I feel that man is saying something. Also, I feel he is responding to what a few are saying. Not via the media that would die to listen to him speak, and, if they don’t get to, would not mind re-telecasting his i’th innings for the N’th time, during primetime. Instead, he is doing it, the way he has been doing all the while, in the most subtle, and, may be, hence, the best of ways. He is not speaking, but he is saying a lot, as, like they say, actions speak louder than words, and, perhaps, leave a better impression on one’s mind. He is doing what he wants to say.

Apart from the umpteen such instances we people keep recollecting in absolute delight, during this world cup, his sixth, we witnessed the two centuries in the two big league matches — the approach and the attitude, amidst the rest of the team’s, the youngsters’, that disappointed beyond expectations, the fielding effort — that stands as a great example of true commitment, by this thirty-seven year old, whose position is the most secure one in the whole of sporting spectrum, be it a-place-in-the-side wise, the world-records wise or  the-best-ever-players-ratings-and-debates wise, amidst the captain-cool’s re-iterations that the fielding of his team cannot improve due to some physical constraints the players have, and the ‘walking back’ after nicking the ball — the nick that even the cameras couldn’t have confirmed, just a few days after Ponting, who is considered a competition to him, records-wise, and can only be records-wise, stood his ground waiting for the third umpire’s decision and, later, said he knew he nicked the ball but waited for the decision, hoping the cameras would have missed it somehow, and that that’s how he has always played his game.

I feel he is saying something. I am listening with my eyes wide open.

Govinda Govinda!

“”Theirs is just fifty rupees ticket, right?”, a kid, standing ahead of me in the queue, asked his dad, rhetorically. The queue was on way to “see” the wedding ceremony of the most popular “idol” for Hindus, that of Tirupati Venkateswara Swamy. “Ours is a thousand rupees one and hence we are going so quickly, ahead of them! Yay!”, he exclaimed, looking at the completely packed and hardly moving queue by our side. Very amiable values the little one is picking up from this supposedly, spiritually, most enlightening journey, the one to see the idol of Balaji, I thought.

We entered the venue where the idols’ wedding ceremony would take place. Half way through the wedding, like it always happens during any such one of deities or their devotees I attend, against my wish to sit, in all my senses, through it, and enjoy the beauty of it, fully, I fell asleep, though not so fully, with the sounds of serene Shehnai assisted by authentic Dolu-Baaja, the incomprehensible and yet mesmerizing Veda-Mantras and the traditional, cultural and mythological tidbits filled poetic Telugu commentary entering my head occasionally.

Apparently, the knot-tying ceremony was taking place when I heard the repeated shouts of “Stop it!” and “We want justice!”, creating considerable amount of noise amidst all that talked about above. Someone like me cannot help but be reminded of atleast few of those thousand Telugu movies in which weddings are bound to be halted, that too only right at the wedding venue and only right when the guy is about to tie the knot. The decibels increased as a big brigade of bhaktulu barged into the arena. I woke up to realize it really wasn’t a dream. Apparently, there was some discrepancy in the ticket sales and/or the scheduling. “EO down down”, was added to the list of slogans. Everyone in the big bunch of bhaktulu, had something to scream, but not many were really sure whom they were screaming at – the guards who are there to push you away whether you scream, beam or dream, the devotees who were already there and are apprehensive more about the delay these people might cause and less about their God’s wedding getting halted in between, the archakulu who kept reciting the mantras and carrying out all those wedding-ceremony-tasks on behalf of the deities, the EO who wasn’t even in the picture or the God himself who is theoretically everywhere but practically, for all the commercial and other benefits, only in those idols?

Shortly after, along with the verbal one that had been going on, the devotees took to physical assault as well, on the guards who tried to stop them, and few of the people, there from the beginning, who were late to realize that free advices shouldn’t be tried on mobs. A mob of devotees – least ironical, isn’t it? Those people were finally allowed in upon striking some compromise and the live telecast of the ceremony on TTD TV channel, which had been halted to not let out what had happened, resumed. Temples are serene places for spiritually and culturally enriched pleasant community gatherings, I thought.

The next day, we stood in that other queue, for another “darshan” of the idol. It seemed like most devotees were more devoted to their tight schedules, and could only give a little time to their God. They got outrageously irritated when someone overtook them in the queue, while they did not fail to utilize any such chance that came their way. They didn’t appreciate the possibility that it could be easier, faster and more comfortable to get to the deity’s end had they not flocked to every little space in the queue they spotted, only creating deadlocks. If only their God spoke out to tell them he doesn’t work by first come first served policy, it could have been better, and may be only a little. Let me not describe to you how badly little kids and old people got crushed amidst those devotees who insanely rushed and pushed ahead while continuously chanting the name of their God – “Govinda Govinda!”.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Now, I wish to revisit the yesteryear’s classic – BuddimantuDu, in which Bapu gaaru showed us that “Maanava sEvaye maadhava sEva” in most beautiful way.

On a last note, I think

Manam saaTi maanavunni aa vigrahaanni sEvinchukunnaTTu sevinchukovaTledu sare,

Kaneesam aa prasaadam sevinchinaTTu sevincheyyakunDa unTe chaalu..

91D [05 March 2010]

91D [4th Feb 2010] Che -wait for it- ers!

“Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!”

A magical charm, she had, that was both captivating and liberating, at the same time, in different ways. Yes, she had. I used to walk my slowest while passing by that place, if I wouldn’t stop to have something she offered, and till she shifted from that place, on my way back home, for the little glimpse I get, of her, to last a bit longer. She used to make and serve idlis and puris at her roadside stall. The way she kissed her thin and delicate fingers each time she tossed a hot one into someone’s plate, wiped the sweat off her young brow with her wrists when holding something in her hands and posed an ingenuous thank-you-smile while getting paid, I distinctly remember. Her dreamy eyes meant innocence, simple words – plain-heartedness, and, altogether, the youthful her – all grace and elegance.

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. [..]With women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural ingenuity, instinct for what is elegant, a supple mind are their sole hierarchy, and often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.

I had spotted her again, after a couple of years, when I went (to my) home(town) this time. As soon as I found myself pleasantly delighted, I found myself pretty disappointed, too, with the not so pleasant reality. Drastic, the change, in just few years’ time. The thin and delicate fingers have become thick and rough. Her arms got tanned and also burnt in patches, probably because of her long stint with her loyal-yet-incompatible partner – the burning stove. Her young brow has turned a rugged canvas to a few un-erasable strokes, running across, testifying some serious thinking and uncharacteristic, of how I had known her, frowning she might have had done. Her then dreamy innocent eyes now had a fixed-and-yet-lost gaze on them. This glimpse was sans a smile and, altogether, the young-yet-not-youthful she, sans that grace, sans that elegance.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households–strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so admired.

In fact, I’ve witnessed this happen to many I know, especially women, over various lengths of time periods. And, probably, like Guy de Maupassant summarizes it in one sentence,

How strange and changeful is life!

“PrajaabheesTam”

People are desperate for Telangana, said a political ‘leader’. They are all unitedly standing up for a united state, said another one. But, neither of them asked me. I’m sure they didn’t, as I really don’t have an opinion in this regard. So, someone is talking for me, taking me for granted, sure that I would never raise my hand and voice to say that this is not my opinion, and not once but on numerous such occasions and on several such issues. They are rigging my vote, like. Why am I, the citizen, not going out there, to make myself audible and say they are wrongly representing me? That too, when I kind of know almost all these so-called “movements” and “revolts” that are hitting the headlines these days are fabricated ones, directed and funded by the ones who would derive great personal benefits through/from those, and carried out by a set of people whose job is to do just that. A genuine movement, from the people, has already turned into a fantasy in a 60-odd year old democracy- the world’s largest?

91D [19th Oct 2010] Purposes of purposeless lives