Life-en-treats

First WB and then World Movies showed Before Sunset and Before Sunrise some months ago; two movies that can be seen independent of each other but are also good when watched sequentially. This movie manufactures tears in my body, but does not help with expelling it. Such is its sense of humour. Not sad at all, not happy surely--and not classifiable in those terms at all. The colour this movie splashes about is the colour of truth. An exploration into the myriad forms of love, disappointing relationships and my favourite part: a prophecy lived out. I seriously recommend this movie to those amateurs among us who have seen few movies, little life and even less of relationships. I cannot help saying that, and sounding imperious! Art makes us better and these movies are ART. But, of course, it takes a long long time to even understand art and then benefit from it. Like everything else, it also possesses the ability to violate us. Art makes better human beings because it provides for us...

A very deep question has been bugging me for quite sometime now. You could call it, that eternal question about the nature of love and human beings and even dismiss it because it's a difficult one. But the eternality of this question is somewhat transposed by the given timeframe, by the very concrete nature of its aspects that binds us humans, as does breath to body. How has the economic downturn affected relationships? I imagine there were households that fought about the sudden cut in resources. Changes in lifestyle must have been hard to enforce, upon others, upon oneself. The confidence of those given pink slips must have dipped even if there was some consolation in the large scale-ness of the phenomena. Occasionally, it must have felt a little like a natural disaster. People must have faced regret, sorrow and a sense of betrayal, with many relationships strained. And what of those who decided to say 'no' to life because they lost their jobs? It was only much later that...

Just this past week I met two unhappy women. Both aunties; that's what you would call them married women slightly older than you, if you grew up in Bangalore. Aunty no 1 is from a small town, and moved to Bangalore through marriage and has been miserable ever since. She was previously a neighbour of ours. She came to our house to find out about her husband's salary. She had to know how much he earns in order fight for maintenance for her son in the court. She was distraught at the prospect of losing her teen-aged son to her husband. 14 years since marriage, she had found no happiness at all, not one moment. Her tears made their presence in our small living room every now and then and vaporized into the warmth we extended to her, only to reappear again. From the very beginning her husband has taken sides with his mother and left her alone! Aunty no 2 also happens to be my masseur. The other day she came home and while I was being massaged to satisfaction, she shed tears fro...