A Song 208

Maidan.
Rumbling trams.
Marine Drive.
Clanging trains.
Length, width
of a living.

A Song 207

Mahashivaratri.

Three temples, triple prayers.

After plates of spicy

saboodana kichchadi, 

faith undigested

burps. 

A Song 206

Chatting Madhavikutty
realised why me was a journalist
she a poet.
An absence of grandmas.


.....


Dripping desires
from a
walking stick.

Aami 2

How long should a film me. In the 60s, a film had to be 180 minutes for a paisa vasool. Over the years watching off and on western films, prefer 90 minutes and lots of silences; an absence of background music, incessant noise, is a relief. Rama and me liked Aami substantially. If you have not read Madhavikutty, Aami may not be interesting; must is a connect with Madhavikutty, says Rama. Have car loads of it, locked in, affections given me by Kamala Das and Joseph Kurien, a journalist in the Times of India. None else. Kamal need not have stretched the film to 150 minutes; shots of Aami losing a Parliamentary election despite having a two lakh readership; the death of Madhav Das and Aami lying beside the body after clearing the room of visitors; this shot is particularly needless and could have been passed over with a mention; has every death to be shown the same way, the dead body covered white, head and jaws tied up, a diya and huge doses of glycerined tears;  better is the telegram in brief informing Aami of the death of  Ammamma; Aami has written of a star dropping into a pond beside her home, rivers being far away, could have been better viewing. A child Aami having lunch tells low caste, Valli, 'Adiyannu pappadam venda.' 'We are high caste, not Adiyans', Ammamma butts in and me laughed. Smiles and laughs are rare, sadly. Me knows of the Lady's laughs. Bank House at Churchgate the venue. Cant films do away with disturbing background music, continuous as in Aami plus the needless songs. Back and forth camera style is fine if the director clicks. Aami could have had more hints than hurried shots, one after another. You cant haste Aami. Kamal speeds the easy pace of Aami. An odd feeling, Aami is a bit too much for Kamal? Yet, Kamal has done his best though the best comes from Manju Warrier. Lady, a request. No more love dances and loud dialogues, no dishoon dishoon for you. With Aami you have turned an artist. No more an actor. Kamal Saar promise to see Aami a second time. 

Aami

... Fit in. Oh
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows,
By Amy, or be Kamala. Or better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role.
... wrote Kamala Das in The Old Playhouse and Other Poems with an introduction by V.C. Harris.

And in The Old Playhouse, she weaves:....

There is
No more singing, no more a dance, my mind is an old
Playhouse with all its lights put out.

Kamaluddin Mohammed Majeed or Kamal searches for Aami in his more than satisfying film Aami with candour and colour. He says the film is not based on Ente Katha (My Story) of Kamala Das. Kamal would have read the book and also A Childhood in Malabar, a memoir as the film has glimpses of the memoir. Kamal, like many, is trying to learn the poet .. as a human, as a female, as a mother, as a convert to Islam and being always, always a Krishna lover, in a harsh society ever the same from early 1930s to 2018 and beyond. Is the Krishna in film Aami the Lord Byron the poet refers to in the memoir ... 'I carried around with me a picture as my constant companion a portrait of the poet Lord Byron... What if that poet, whose religion was different from ours, arrived in Calcutta and led me astray.' If she had lovers, so what? Have not wedded men desired more than their wives? Me has. Was Aami keen on sex or was the search for an interesting, a warm human?  If she exchanged religion, so what? Thats her business not of the public. She was uneasy with Hinduism and Islam as for all religions women are cooks and chefs... or better still male, birthing machines. Certainly, religions did not satisfy her. Today not many are prepared to accept Aami the poet, the human. For them her sex matters most and the smirks and giggles follow...Am not sure about Kamal as he searches for 150 minutes with camera in hand. He does it more than well... markers being the Neermathalam tree and the sarpa kavu with oil lamps in a Malabar village of 1930s... they do walk the film and when Aami in a wheel chair makes the last trip to her home after turning a Muslim, there are protests. She refuses to go away. A top shot of Aami in a wheel chair under the Neermathalam tree ... ah .. a verse in camera, a glimpse of a long ago caught and displayed for todays and tomorrws... is a Cadbury 5 Star.  Ammamma (maternal grandmother), dearest to Aami, remarks in the memoir: 'Let her grow up like that, not knowing fear.' Yes, Aami has no fear and Manju Warrier is a fairy act, her best she may admit in private. Close ups throw up the pinches and pleasures. Her mother a famous poet Nalapat Balamani Amma wrote on motherhood, never cuddled Aami, but I hugged my kids, wryly notes Aami. Age transitions, the laughs and grims, Manju Warrier, Rama and me enjoyed her. Yes, you have the intensity of Smita Patil and Shabna Azmi plus the subtlety of Deepti Naval. Kamal misses out on a star falling into a pond, the funness of Aami childhood, the memoir elaborates. The search is well reported but missing is the essential poesy in the poet as that defines her .... perhaps, Aami drowns the director Kamal. Someone like Ray or Adoor could have microscoped and binoculared the many messages, easily and simply. Film shuts down and the lights at Carnival with Aami lines ....wished I had been less of a poet, and more a woman  But will Malayalis accept her warmly, affectionately ..... this blogger knew her well for a few months in 1974, me called her Amme and her affection cushioned .... that Aami me missed in Aami.... Aami missed it her entire life ... Yes, it is a two humans film --- Manju Warrier and Kamal. Manju overwhelms. Thanks, Kamal. 

Chamko Paints

An executive of Chamko Paints (hope, Chamko Deepti Naval will not protest or go to court or use the club) in boot-suit, mobile tagged to ears, into a running, chattering morning walk. He has no time. In Mumbai, none has time, none is without a watch ....has no paint brushes and paints. Chamko Paints is working four shifts. Last week, the executive, Hara Bhara Desai, has not seen a bed or a pillow. He with staff are painting trees in shades of green; the badam a bright green, the rain tree a dumb green, a silk cotton tree in shocking red....he talks... does not listen ... with paints and paint brush he climbs trees and shrubs and flowers touching with paints ....... and this year in Borivili there is less work as metro has put down most of the trees .... some remain with socks of green grass .... maybe they wont be there next year.... yet, business is not bad today, maybe Hara Bhara Desai may lose his job next year, the gentleman says to no one, unplugging ears..... me on a walking stick could not keep pace ... Chamko Paints may have to drop paints from their product portfolio... but for today morning, painting is brisk business with the sky getting a taste of toned pink from painters climbing ladders on sky rises. Funner of a morning with ancient DD tunes ... the first song of magpie robin came on air...  .... the bird perched on a terrace rod .... followed by a white on the breast, fantail flycatcher pecking a flowering mango tree..... a sunbird on a coconut palm... and the screech of the rose ringed parakeet .... spring painting? am not sure as Mumbai has no spring ... it is ever hot, hotter and hottest .... and then the house sparrows forever with Rama trying to brahminise their tastes ... today, on the window sill the sparrows nibbled, perhaps, for the first time, lemon and coconut rice along with Britannia biscuits.... the sparrows beaked it all, pleaded Rama a second serving ..... no more non veg for you, only veg, Rama told a chirping five sparrows .... wondered whether the birds will lose the tang for worms? At 12.20 p.m. the stainless steel plate is empty.... maybe, to every coming there is a going ... a take on the Bible:... to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heavens .. a time to be born and a time to die ....Krishna and his friends have left the Society for their homes in Nepal ... a new set of brothers has come to police the society ..... and when me gets used to them, will go and one day me will go ..... Krishna me liked, his family of five in a village a day's ride from Nepal... his children at school, wife on the farm when he lands three days hence.... there were no byes, just a going away .....will it be spring in Nepal? Thats the best way to quit....

A Song 205

Sparrows in
gang fights
over puffed rice.


.....



Sadphules
absorbed
in smiles.


....


Living
soaped
in haikus.



....


A wine red leaf
lands on Ajoba,
slips into a carry bag.