Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Why I write - Guest post on Coffeebeanzone

Dear Reader,

Does the name Roasted Coffee Bean bring back memories of haunting smell of Coffee, freshly roasted and powdered to make a divine cup of coffee?

Well, here is a refreshing Roasted Coffee Bean, at her very best.

The highly talented girl/lady has a wonderful LinkedIn profile, a somehow active Twitter she owns a very interesting and engaging blog on Wordpress. She is a lyricist, painter, photographer and writer. The lady revealeth as much as you want to discover about her.

So start your journey of a million miles, on cyberspace, with one single step.

Enjoy! Spread the word around and Share. Click on: 


And hope you will visit Roasted Coffee Bean for more Guest posts on an amazing number of people. Indeed, hang out there and have a fill of many others, she has written about. 

Saturday, March 15, 2014

See not; hear not; do not!

From the net 
See not; hear not; do not!

The three monkeys of the mind must of course do exactly the opposite of what they are asked not to do.

Take the example of Ms Polly Outrageous. Having lived a fairly open life, swing in the 60s and stretching it to the 90s, she has finally found her peace in a life of discipline and one-centeredness. She is presently involved with reviewing her colourful life in the past and drawing, painting and writing stories of that past. But lately, she has ventured on facebook, and the first thing that hits her is the picture of couples kissing each other, which has gone viral. Needless to say, Ms Polly Outrageous has unwittingly looked at that video with much interest. Yes, of course it is possible to kiss and even love strangers, just like it was possible and still is, to love many, like they did in the 60s. Ms Polly Outrageous is now engaged with her imagination and like a tourist in London, having left all their identity in India, may engage in indeed the very outrageous, because in London, nobody knows her, Ms Polly Outrageous is really living out her name on facebook, but with dire consequences.

Only the other night, in her dream, she has been kissing someone, trying very hard to avoid kissing the lips. Even in the dream, she is prompting herself to not venture into the absolutely real, which will then cause her to accept that the near flirtatious pastime is becoming a serious preoccupation. As long as her kisses land on cheeks, forehead and other so called safe places, at least she is ‘safe’. This, after all is not one of those nights she is alone, she knows in her dream.

All that we want, we deny first. All that shows up in the dreams is a reflection of a shade of reality, which could be exactly as the dream or something that has a hidden meaning. In the above case, at face value, Ms Polly Outrageous, is certainly flirting with an idea of including ‘someone’ else; of breaking the cast and expanding the parameters. On a deeper level, she is merely trying to ‘kiss’ something new. It might even be a new life, a new job, a new love, a new life she is seeing in the offing, with which she is toying in her mind, flirting with the idea, but not wanting to get too close to it. A deeper mouth to mouth kiss would shift the position in her mind totally.

On a philosophical level, there is too much ado about nothing! The picture of the kissing couples has excited the impressions left behind in her mind, by kisses in the past.

The real, is the experience of impressions, which in themselves are not identical in every case, even with the same thing. A kiss may cause my mind to retain some impressions which may not be identical to what is left in your mind of the same experience of kissing. Hence, the real, philosophically can only be called unreal, for impressions are not scientific residual matter that appear in the same way, every time. Yet, one cannot deny their existence, because, if they did not exist, they would not revisit.

Where psychology ends, philosophy begins. Where the desire dynamics is a source of perennial discourse, philosophy gives step-motherly treatment. Where desire is a life giving force, philosophy is quick to douse water saying, memory of impressions is not truth. Indeed, impressions are not real at all.

But the take home for Ms Polly Outrageous is only one, that being See not; hear not; do not!

Where are you?






Saturday, March 08, 2014

Film review - Highway

Rorschach Test
Highway is not a film about being taken hostage. It is not about living with so called hardened criminals. It is about scars that never go away, with time. It is about being safe in unsafe places and being unsafe in safe places. It is about bonding of people with deep scars in their minds.

Director Imtiaz Ali has done a smart job of dramatizing a plot that is often not spoken about or dusted under the carpet.

Starring Randeep Hooda and Alia Bhatt, the movie begins when Alia Bhatt escapes for a breath of fresh air from her own wedding ceremony and is kidnapped by gangsters who go on the run with their captive in place. Alia begins to like her journey on the highways as they travel from place to place trying to escape the law. It is at some place in this journey that Alia, reveals the real story line of her life. Indeed, it is here among the so called unsafe people, that she recalls her abused childhood in the so called safety of her home.

As the story moves, Alia and Randeep get closer to each other. The love angle does develop, but there are no song and dance around the trees nor mushy whispers and passion play. There is only a very strong bonding which hovers around psychology where Alia develops love towards her captors. As they settle in a wooden cabin, in the midst of nature, Alia, does not want to return to her home. Indeed, she wants to make a home with Randeep. But the agitated parents have set the law to hound them and even before they have time to settle down, Randeep is killed in Police shoot out and Alia dragged back to her home. Here, she meets her uncle, the villain in the home and in wide public accuses him of the sexual abuse he had performed on her, when she was a child. The crowd is shocked but Alia has had her time to acuse and bring to the forefront a pain she has been guarding in her mind.

But will this revelation, save her? Will it ease the scar left behind in childhood? If Rarschach Test is correct, then the scar in the personality has made Alia a lover of the unknown, for the known is dangerous, like her uncle.

Imtaiz Ali is smart. He has packed in a more meaningful message into an otherwise, colourful but much overused theme of abduction of rich people’s children.
There is a solid message here, delivered in a way that is ingenuous. And brave.

Cast
Randeep Hooda as Mahabir Bhati
Alia Bhatt as Veera Tripathi
Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Goru
Pradeep Nagar as Tonk
Durgesh Kumar as Aadoo
Arjun Malhotra as Vinay

Hemant Mahaur as Kasana