A Song 91

A fresh red hibiscus,
an old man,
a few sparrows,
a myna,
nod heads.
A raindrop;
steps down
from hibiscus
to birds
to skin-head;
raindrops.
Old man is not
into culling flowers
for gods,
wife,
daughters.
A Sunday morning. 

Visaranai (Interrogation)

In Mint Friday, Lata Jha expands differently on Hindi films: The Re-emergence of Bollywood's Unconventional Leading Man. A fine read. Maybe Lata touches on actors me likes a lot: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Manoj Bajpayee, Irrfan Khan, Rajkummar Rao and Dhanush. Maybe many will quarrel over Dhanush but me enjoys him. At least he is not a Tamil routine. He is at least not a muscle man. No young Malayali actor and that is not surprising as Kerala filmdom has stopped breathing fresh; sadly, Lata Jha does not discuss young female performers like Kalki Koechlin; maybe it is for another day. Nawaz and Manoj or their variants me meets in Borivili -- the bhaiya selling vegetables, the auto driver talking of floods in Varanasi.... -- extraordinarily ordinary; and their films stay in me long after seeing. They connect us. And that brings me to 2015 film Tamil talkie, Visaranai (Interrogation), directed by Vetrimaaran. Till Thursday had not heard of the film; Rama had. Reading The Hindu site, came across Oscar nomination for Visaranai; clicked youtube; we watched perhaps the critical and brave film on the Indian police system and interrogations; a few compromises as the starkness could have been more brutal; can one expect reason from this system? perhaps a notch ahead of Ardh Satya; a Telugu-Tamil mix, it is a dark film; freezes you; explains the public fright of even a beat constable on Link Road; the police talk is cold; and far too real, the just short of two hour film; for me Oscar is not the last measure and a Oscar denial does not make Visaranai less better; the police force has to be particularly debased to do what it is doing in Visaranai and outside; perhaps, the Tamil dialogues could have been more distinct, ear-catcchy; the cameras a dash more focussed; Visaranai is happening everyday at police stations; for a change no normal Tamilisms; googled to learn the film is from Lock Up, written by an auto driver in Coimbatore, M. Chandrakumar. It is a logical walk from Visaranai to Taste of Cherry by Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami; a gentleman, for some critics a homosexual, thinks and talks of suicide driving through Tehran; he wants someone to dig a grave for him and shut him; there is logic in moving from Interrogation to Taste of Cherry as after being mishandled, one human by another, suicide is best....... or is it the Taste of Cherry?  

A Song 90

Sun wet
under an open
umbrella.

...

No caws from
upset
drenched crow.

...

Rains cold Patil.
Today's paper tomorrow,
or is it yesterday;
Okay anyway for shaky Aji.

...

30 minutes school classes;
15 minutes recess,
brief for lunch and rains;
is it fair,
asks drizzly Chiyu
hugging rain drops
with friends,
walking to school.

A Song 89

Born in a bullock cart,
Vasu saar, a school master
without schools, teachers,
taught.

...
uncinematic profile,
in a jibba, mundu,
deep in an armchair,
warmed in jute sacks
free at ration shops.

...

when kids tailed him
with whistles,
tugged at his clothes,
he wanted more.
...

Vasu saar
had holes in him
for hide and seek.

...
at his best,
a half-shut cash box
at Potti's eatery
near Three Lamps corner.

...

cool as Gita,
book and wife shy,
a bouncy daughter
Gita, deep fried.

...

odd hours
at temple pond
noting
suns and moons bathe
and dance.

...
school bell gonged;
Vasu Saar at
Three Lamps bus stop
for the day's bus
loaded with tales to jot
a Saarian epic.

...

Was there when
the one platform railway
station
flagged a single bogey
steam engine,
lugging a Sarrian epic.

....

Vasu saar -
an autobiography -
by Kalli a lady,
a stray,
without an okay;

A Song 88

Bored turtles
in temple pond,
desire change.

.......

Rain drops
sans swimsuits,
kick into own puddles.
   
.......

A Song 87

Under the acacia
brushed yellow,
lost, last words
inked on post cards,
crowd a lonely post-box,
without a post office,
a post master,
a post man.

A Song 86

Festival offers:
at Marine Drive
in Arabian Sea,
Kabir and Tuka
stock take abhangs, dohas;
Hindi film beats
of Kishor, Lata and Talat
sold out.