Ahalya

A thriller by the Bengali director Sujoy Ghosh starring Soumitra Chatterjee, Radhika Apte and Tota Roy Chowdhury,  Ahalya is the story of a young policeman Indra Sen whose life and existence is changed, when on a missing person case, he meets a well-known artist Goutam Sadhu. 

The door is opened by a beautiful young girl whom he assumes is the daughter of the artist but turns out to be his wife. He sees a stone statue of the missing person Arjun on the table.Goutam Sadhu turns out to be a believer in magic and shows him a magic stone saying that he can turn into whomever he wishes to.

He is asked to meet Ahalya upstairs and she seduces him pretending that he is her husband. He no longer can make sense of the world he is in. This short film of around 14 minutes duration can stay with you for a day or two or even longer. 

Rain

Readiness is all

Hafiz

Quixote

Nostalgia

Always been a romantic

The solitary reaper

I am a solitary reaper, singing in the fields,
I keep pace with the sun from dawn till dusk;
I sing and speak to the hills and the dales,
And I hum all day to the beat of my sickle.

The valleys echo my solemn voice to me,
I forget the long hours as I keep humming;
My song changes its hue from hour to hour
And I love to sing of loves, lost or gained.

Sometimes, I sing of epic battles of yore
Bending over my sickle in the green fields;
Sometimes, a passing stranger stops to listen,
Lingering over the soft music that he hears.

I see him smiling at my lonely song and me,
As he moves away, I get back to work again.

Spring

Somewhere after the terrible times, after the turmoil is over, there has to be a spring,

When your footsteps will be like before, sprightly and fast not like the drag of feet across these interminable winter,

May be only you will be left behind to tell the tale, how this went from joy to misery in a single day.

Sense of loss

In a throw of a dice,
In a move of hand,
You threw away all
Went into sanctuary.

The songs of loss,
That spoke of you,
The tiny wings left
To learn to fly itself.

The seething pain
The story of losses
Come back again
In its full sense.

You choke your tears
Without a goodbye.

Ma

All I wanted was a pink book full of recipes;
Like the one she wanted to leave behind;
The family kitchen smelling of spices,
Christmas, roast chicken and plum cake.

The shopping spree just before Christmas,
Cake-making at midnight done together,
Your recipes followed to the last line
And the tweaks to the plans that I make.

This book of magic remains incomplete;
The Christmas flavours linger in the air;
Goodwill, happiness and the first time
I had celebrated Christmas with flavours.

The book of recipes, your cooking secrets;
All are lessons that I have learnt from you.

Pic: mariasmenu.com

Remembrance

You and I,
These magical words,
I can never utter,
About another.

You and I,
Like day and night,
Never meet but to play
Hide and seek,forever.

You and I,
Carry an unspoken love,
Unfulfilled yet deep,
Hidden like a treasure.

You and I,
Away but together,
In sleepless nights,
And lonely hours.

You and I,
Wordsmiths who love
To coalesce liquid pain,
Into songs of remembrance.

And you and I,
Like parellel lines,
Stretch across miles,
Strange before strange eyes.

Definitions

You were no bride in red;

Only a widow-heart unwed;

Yet with the seasons came

A spot of red in your hands.

I was no prince charming;

Only a lonesome wanderer;

Yet with the seasons came

A boat song on these lips.

We moved along these lines

Along these definitions;

In the end you are a wanderer

And I have turned widow-heart.

Yet these roles reverse and turn

Bring no comfort only despair. 

New Woman

This soul was once like a huge flame leaping to the skies,

Then it withered, dried and drooped to the very earth;

Sometimes, like Icarus, it leapt out of its many mazes,

But burnt out in the heady dash for total freedom.

Then she brought forth a new-born, a swaddled baby

She sang her magnificat of newly found motherhood;

The soul forgot its troubles for a joyous interval

And learnt how to escape the many mazes again.

Yet mostly this soul was a single-celled organism,

Cowardly and crawling in this huge universe,

Too silent, too shut out and too withdrawn,

Incapable of learning or making its way around,

Sometimes, it longs for the crazy days of yesterday,

When the sun of total freedom had burnt its wings. 

Wake up with the sun!

More than usual,
There is a need
To do something
Different ,
Out of ordinary
On a morning
Like this.

It's a bleak sky,
Hints of rain
Cloud the sky,
While I decide
To go on a walk
After a long time.

The roads are quiet,
City silent,
Signs of life,
Only a few,
Cycles on the road,
More walkers,
Regulars unlike me,
Who on a special day,
Has decided
To celebrate life,
With a morning walk.

Much is done,
Much accomplished,
On a day like this,
When I woke up early,
With the sun.

Sunrise

All smiles and bright;
The little one shines.
It's dawn once again.

Pensiamento Fantastico: The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

Vandana Shiva, the world-renowned activist and ecofeminist writer is an award-winning writer on issues related to women’s rights,. globalisation and the environment. She has written several books such as Making Peace With The Earth, Biopiracy: The Plunder Of Nature and Knowledge, Monocultures of the Mind, Staying Alive, Water Wars, Patents: Myths and Reality and The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. 

In her book, The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (2000), she describes the impact of globalised corporate agriculture on the small scale industries, farmers and the quality of food that we consume. In her enlightening book on some of the trends in food supply, she throws light on many of the problems faced by the common people in India such as stealing of the food produced in the country. 

Some of the issues discussed in the book are genetically engineered seeds, the controversy on cattle meat, the unethical ways of shrimp farming and commercial agriculture. She points out that the widespread conversion of land for food crops  into land for commercial crops has managed to wreck nature and also people who are dependent on these food crops. Though there is an increase in revenue, it is counterbalanced by a large-scale and long term damage to the ecosystems and their capacity to conserve soil and water. This kind of economic growth deprives forest communities of their sources of food, fodder, fuel. fibre, medicine and security from floods and drought. 

Vandana Shiva condemns WTO’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement that makes indigenous seed-saving and seed-sharing a crime. She founded Navdanya, an NGO that promotes biological diversity and organic farming after learning more about the ways in which genetic engineering and patenting was destroying the local varieties of food. This organisation has thousands of members and several seedbanks across the country to conserve biodiversity, practise chemical-free agriculture and to save seeds. 

The most important issue that she deals with in her book is about her struggle to fight the multinational edible oil companies and their plan to completely replace the traditional edible oils The Oils produced in the local mills were replaced by cheap imported oils resulting in the destruction of the livelihoods of the local people. 

One central theme in The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply is the need to have food that is free from genetically engineering and addition of chemicals through fertilizers. She emphasizes how it is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that the food we eat is safe, accessible and culturally appropriate and at the same time not at the cost of robbing the livelihoods of people dependent on traditional modes of food production. 

 

Pic: www.navdanya.org

 

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can  apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Pensiamento Fantastico: Agatha Christie

"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her." This was uttered by none other than Dame Agatha Christie whose second-husband was incidentally the world famous archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. 

Reading detective fiction has been one of my favourite pastimes since childhood. It started with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and has progressed to Paul Doherty’s historical thrillers. Many a time, I have read the same books again and again because I have forgotten the story within an year or two. Among these books Agatha Christie’s works stand first and foremost. 

When I look at the titles, they look familiar and though I may remember some of the storylines very vaguely, I can re-read most of her books (except a few haunting ones)  just because of the fact that they are so readable and so forgettable. 

Most of the time what I do is to read the blurb just to see if it rings a bell. If it does, the book must still be vivid. Otherwise, it usually only three or four of concentrated reading to finish a novel and the blessing is the kind of intellectual stimulation at the end of it. 

The feeling can be compared to that of putting together a jigsaw puzzle and watch it fall together in a kind of “aha” moment. This is not just my opinion, as only recently I read the historian Romila Thapar’s recommendation to read Agatha Christie mysteries to enhance gestalt thinking. 

A few of her mysteries are so haunting that I don’t even need to read the blurb to know the storyline.  For instance, I find it impossible to  forget At Bertram’s Hotel, which is about a nightmarish world where some very innocent people are framed for crimes they have not committed and the police recognizes a gang of lookalikes who manage to get away with it. It has Miss Jane Marple as the detective and she is of the view that human life everywhere the same as in her village of St. Mary Mead. 

Most of the good reads have Hercule Poirot, the Belgian as the detective. He is described as short, with his head the shape of an egg, moustache always well-trimmed and shining, and with good manners. He is shown as obsessed about neatness and order, be it solving the case or his attire. 

What I still remember from childhood is that reading was mostly an accompaniment to meals as these books were so un-put-downable. Even now there is this fascination for reading a Poirot with a hot mug of steaming coffee and something really good to eat. Enjoy your reading, mon ami! 

 This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can  apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

The Ibis Trilogy

The Ibis Trilogy written by Amitav Ghosh consists of the novels Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015). Constructed on an epic scale, this trilogy shows the interconnected lives of people across India, China and Mauritius, all united by the factor that they were colonies of the British empire. The fates of these people are connected to the trade of opium, which was produced in India as a commercial crop much to the ruin of the Indian economy and extensively sold in China causing addiction among the Chinese population.

The first book of the trilogy,  Sea of Poppies begins with the life of Deeti or Kabutri-ki-ma, whose husband works in an opium factory and is addicted to opium. When her husband dies and she is tormented by her husband’s brother (who happens to be Kabutri’s father), she runs away with Kalua, a man from a lower caste. To escape from persecution, they join a group of people who are transported to Mauritius as girmitiyas on the ship Ibis. The other people whose lives become interlinked during the journey are  Zachary Reid, Miss Paulette Lambert, Jodu, Ah Fatt and Neel. The first book criticises the British introduction of opium as a compulsory crop in the place of food crops ruining the Indian farmers. 

The second book River of Smoke describes the girmitayas’ life on the island of Mauritius and their adventures. The British and the Indian traders earn fortunes by bringing opium to China until the Chinese government takes steps to prevent the large-scale influx of opium. The government takes preventive steps against opium addiction and they seize and burn the imported opium. The traders become discontented at this and have to flee for their lives. Neel and Ah Fatt escapes from the ship Ibis along with a few lascars. Mr. Bahram, the Parsi trader who happens to be Ah Fatt’s father appoints him as his munshi. This book is set mostly in Canton against the background of the First Opium War and shows how the Chinese cannot live without opium. 

The third book Flood of Fire spans across British India, China and Mauritius, where Deeti and her descendants have established themselves as settlers in the plantation. In the midst of the First Opium War,a  ship Hind sails from India to China with Zachary Reid in search of Paulette and with Shireen Modi who wants to get back her dead husband’s wealth. However, Zachary Reid forgets Pauline and has an affair with Mrs. Burnham, who becomes a likeable character as opposed to the first book where she creates all kinds of problems for Pauline. This book depicts Zachary’s initiation into the ways of the world.