wutheringheights

It was an October afternoon in 2001 I walked into the house of violin maestro Lalgudi G Jayaraman with a ‘sorry’. I was late by almost an hour for the interview that I had fixed with him over phone a week ago. But there was no problem. With his trademark humility, he invited me to his house. “Music is like a painting. The seven swaras denote seven colours...” He began the conversation with music. “A violinist should be a vocalist,” he explained, “Otherwise he can’t play the lyrics correctly.” Lalgudi Jayaraman was trained in Carnatic vocal, but he later chose violin because he was fond of the instrument. “Violin gives an extension of my imaginations. It’s a part of me. I can’t see it separately,” he said. When I asked him about the violin that renowned American violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin presented to him while attending the Edinburgh Music Festival in 1965, he smiled and started talking about Menuhin. “He loved our music, art and culture. He was a good friend.” Wh...

Eight years ago, I had a tough time inside Landmark. I spent almost an hour inside the bookstall, holding “Things Fall Apart” on my right hand and “Anthills of Savannah” on my left. Both the books had the name of the author 'Chinua' on top of the covers and 'Achebe' at the bottom. Between Chinua and Achebe, there was a line of praise, which read: “The Classic Bestseller With More Than 2 Million Copies in Print.” But the interesting part was the one at the bottom, written by Nadine Gordimer, a South African writer. “Chinua Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent.” Even though I wanted to buy “Anthills of Savannah” (I liked the title due to some strange reason), it was “Things Fall Apart” that finally found a place in my bag. Unlike in the cases of Kafka and Pablo Neruda, no one really introduced me to the world of Achebe. I don’t know how Achebe entered my world though. Was it because of the African tag? Back home, I started...

There was every reason for a dog-catcher to throw his rope at Thomman. He never wore a collar – the symbol that helped identify pet dogs from the stray ones. Thomman was healthy and handsome. He had big black & white circles on his body. A chronic wanderer, he would walk into our house only at lunch and supper hours. In the early 1980s, animal protection laws were not very effective and the dog-catchers used to kill the dogs they trapped. It was on the way to school we saw his body lying on a drainage slab with his mouth open. Tears kept rolling down from my eyes till I reached school.  Pomeranian dogs were fashionable those days. One day, dad got up early and left home before we woke up. He returned before noon, holding a white puppy in his hand. “Female… female dog… throw her outside now itself,” shouted my grandfather. “No, I paid Rs 50 for the puppy. I don’t want to throw her out,” dad said. Grandfather was cool, but he looked at his son as if he did somethin...

“Don’t ever touch the silencer… It’s hot,” said the hippie uncle soon  after parking his brand new Royal Enfield  Bullet  on the street where  we played cricket. “It will burn your hands. Be careful.” With two  garlands, one tied around the headlight and the other on the rear  lamp, the  Bullet  had a dozen sandal-paste marks on its body. The potbellied uncle was never in a mood to leave the  Bullet , foreseeing  the possible harm I would have given to his new machine. So he checked  the vehicle a couple of times to ensure that it stood firmly on the  middle-stand. After walking a bit, he would return and stay close to  the  Bullet , adjusting the garland around its headlight. He wanted to  know whether I would approach his machine in his absence. The action  went on for almost half-an-hour, and finally the uncle gave up,  smiling at me. I could still feel the heat evaporating from the silencer as...

1996. It was a cassette shop inside the Palika Bazaar where we first went together with a common idea, after we became friends ten years ago: buy some good collections of ghazals. She knew Gulam Ali was my favorite. I never knew who she liked. I bought a couple of Ali’s famous ghazals, including ‘chupke chupke’ after an hour’s search. In fact we were meeting after a long time. At the bus-stop, when I was about to board a bus to R K Puram where I lived, she hurriedly handed over a small box to me. Sitting on the bus, I slowly opened the wrapper… there were two cassettes: both by Mehdi Hassan. “Ab ke hum bichhade to shaayad kabhii khwabon mein milen” was the first ghazal I played immediately after reaching home. I must have played this ghazal one thousand times. Interestingly, we have never met after that. In 2009, when I went to Kozhikode to meet Ahmad Bhai, a music-lover and friend of Mohammad Rafi, he told me how the town was graced with the presence of Mehdi Hassan in 2000. “Wh...

  I never knew Narendran Nair maintained a blog till I ran into ‘Thoughts’ hours after his death. He never liked the idea of even chatting online. A totally different character very few people could understand. He was often misunderstood by colleagues, but he didn’t bother much. Our friendship started with migraine way back in 2005 when he joined Express after quitting his job in Bombay. We both were suffering from that serious painful disease for long time. I don’t know whether he liked me, but he used to talk to me a lot. I still remember the day he left The New Indian Express and joined The Hindu. Many in Express thought Narendran would never find a job in Hindu , but he got a good, a senior post with the paper’s Madurai edition. After joining there, he used to call me from Madurai to share his displeasure with the former organsiation. The conversation went on and on. When I went to Madurai to cover an official event three years ago (I was Deputy News Editor with the New Sunday...

I don’t remember when I met Sunil. But I remember the day I took some photographs of him, using my favourite Pentax K1000. The year was 1999, soon after we finished our journalism course at Press Club, Trivandrum. One evening, Sunil handed over a roll of Konica and asked me to take his pictures in different angles. I took him to first floor of the Press Club building and started clicking. Close-ups, medium shots and long shots followed one after the other... Finally, we both went to Babas (a famous studio) and got it developed. Sunil didn’t tell me what was the purpose, and I didn’t even ask him. After two days, Sunil told me that the pictures were sent to London. For a moment, I was shocked. London always evoked a kind of nostalgia. It was my dad’s favourite place. The smell of London always surrounded him although he left the place when I was seven. The chocolate bags, toy planes and post cards… Everything he brought in from London had a smell of the town. So London was always a ...

I recently read a photo feature on Manuel Alvarez Bravo in an old issue of The Massachusetts Review. A set of eight pictures was featured, each documenting his native Mexico's archeology, spirit and aesthetic. A boy who grew up witnessing the violence during the Mexican revolution, Alvarez was keen on the culture of his country. The landscape, people, rituals...the unending list of what makes Mexico Mexico...

Two days ago, I read a poem "The day I got the news" by Cynthia Snow from an old edition (2009) of The Massachusetts Review. Not my kind of poem, hihi..but liked it...Here's the full version... My heart rose up through my throat and skittered away like a Lucifer hummingbird. I reached out to grab hold but you know hummingbirds fast, featherweight, short on trust. I couldn't stem the exodus. I'm not the Messiah though I did want sun streaked white clouds, brightness everywhere. I could only watch the smallest blur of wings, a stop motion gaze -- eyes on me, eyes away, body away, away, away, gone. And here at the kitchen window a sponge soaked with sugar water. And here, at the dining room table my hands, in the umbrella stand, six tidy, geometric holes. And here, in my throat, nothing but want of sugar.

  I didn’t know what to do with my business cards when I quit my job for good six month ago. There were three boxes, each containing 100 cards. I neither wanted to throw them into dustbin nor leave them unattended. Finally, when I cleaned the cubicle, I took them with me. At home, they found a safe place in my bookshelf. One day, I saw my six-year-old daughter Mihika building a castle using them. It was nice to watch the light-blue cards falling one after another. Not a great fall, but a fall indeed -- caught between the vibe of blue and white. When she was not in creative mood, Mihi would throw the cards all over the floor. The first two letters (highlighted) of the two-word name of the company would stare at me from different angles. A kaleidoscope of   ‘I’ and ‘e’. One day, I was surprised to see the old cards finding a place in my card-holder, replacing all the relevant ones. Here too, the ‘I’ and ‘e’ stared at me from each page. Mihi’s game with cards at times end...

My first train journey started with a fall. I was three year old. The compartment was waiting at the ‘outer.’ Since it was a break-up journey, we got inside it a little early. While my parents were busy arranging the baggage, I played up-and-down on the exit ladder. My first attempt was good, but the second one got spoiled. I lost grip and fell down. A railway employee (or a policeman?) who sat nearby immediately took me into his hands and performed a ‘pendulum-shake’– towards left and right for five times each. I was ok. But still, there was a mix of mud, tiny stones and blood oozing from my mouth. The sad patch was soon taken over by surprising images -- the midnight sun of the engine, waterfalls and the cashew uncle. We were on our way to Goa . A handful of peeled cashew nuts would come out of the window before our compartment. My dad would receive it with his right hand through our window. One or two might fall down. It was magic. Although I was clueless about its origin, I enjoy...

wutheringheights: A tribute to Pavada Sir & Jumper

Last week while reading Kigsley Amis' Memoirs, 'Jumper' came to me . The context was different, but still 'Jumper' took me to my school days. We had a neighbour, a Singapore-returned, who used to wear only bell-bottom pants. To the 'creative' locals, it looked like a skirt, so they called him '*Pavada Sir'. The stout, polite man was also a magician. We got to know about this when he performed a show in the local temple in my hometown Attingal. Pavada Sir started off well, but failed while lifting a flowerpot using a thread. When the crowd laughed, Sir tried to pass the buck. “See, I told you guys, I needed a very calm atmosphere. Since you people made noise, it didn't work out.” That was the first and last public performance of Pavada Sir. Pavada Sir didn't mingle much with the locals. The only person who he used to talk was Raghavan Nair, his childhood friend. But Nair never thought that he would have to pay a huge price for this friendsh...

Black, white and sepia memories...The picture of OV was taken at Santhigiri Ashram in Pothencode, Thiruvananthapuram. EMS... at VJT Hall, TVM.

It's 1 am. I was watching Andrzej Wajda's Kanal , a movie on the Warsaw Uprising, when I experienced my seventh earthquake. The third after coming to Chennai. It was a minor one, which lasted almost twenty seconds. It took barely five seconds for me to realise it was an earthquake, but i didn't get up. Soon my mobile started ringing, it was Bishwanath (he thinks i am an earthquake specialist, because when the Lathur tragedy happend, I was in Pune). We talked for ten minutes. I switched on my TV, there was no news... As i write this, there are two things before me. Kanal and earthquake. Should i write a poem?

A couple of years ago while walking through the busy M G Road in Ernakulam, my friend and I ran into two sex workers. We were drunk, heavily. Srikanth was then an active member of a group which organised seminars for sex workers all over Kerala. According to him, they (sex workers) are doing a great service to society. And in most cases, they act as a grievance cell for men who are in search of a close heart -- a cot where they can share ‘everything’, confess everything. As we slowed down, a welcome gesture came from one of the ladies... The usual communication test began under the shades of neon. Srikanth was not interested in the ‘eye-gesture’ business. He looked sad and apologetic. “S, I want to touch her feet, as a token of respect. Can you ask them?”, he requested. The two ladies knew we would approach them. “Hundred”, the elder one made a sensible move. Fine, but how would I convince them about my friend’s unusual intention? I looked at the younger one, who looked new to ...

I am not an admirer of  Muhammad Ali but I am an ardent fan of Hulk Hogan. The reason is simple. In the late 1980s, almost every Malayali who worked in the Gulf returned with a couple of video cassettes of American wrestling. The availability of such cassettes abroad, especially places like Dubai and Sharjah, made Hogan popular among us. I don’t know much about American wrestling but I like Hogan. I still remember an yellow-colour cassette my uncle got me from Dubai. The cover showed different poses of a heavy man with long white mustache and hair. What was special in Hogan compared to other wrestlers, you might ask. I like Hogan because he was an embodiment of defence. You would see him badly beaten up by rivals, blood oozing from his mouth but once he had decided to get up, no one could stop him. So much was the power to stage a come-back. I have seen cricketers returning to form after a bad patch. I have seen business magnets making remarkable come-backs. But I have never se...