Walking ahead, though the past was slightly askew, she unlearned many things for good, sighing and laughing at her funny plans, she heard the silence completely and asked herself to stop feigning.
Tiresome, but still hopeful, she accepted the confusion. Forgetting fear on the way, she dreamed about the mountains with her eyes wide open. Dense fog passed by, saying nothing, approving nothing, just making her smile a little.
The tall pine trees reverberated with continuity and change, thus affecting her. Rocks, stones, pebbles all are very jolly, she wrote in her notebook.
And now she sees the stairs. The question arises… not whether she will or will not, but how truly. Walking, but how truly?
This is to be realised on the way, she tells herself.
Stopping, as her mind was moving too fast, she breathed… the air deftly hushed her talkative self and so she listened… listened truly, completely.
Now is the time to live, now is the time to act, now is forever, at least till I am.
Point taken, she walked ahead humming a soft tune.
The Queen, clearing her throat soundlessly, said to the ministers, in a poised tone, that she cannot care less about De Mallow’s missing dog. Disappointed, she roared sophisticatedly that pivotal issues like taxes, status of the palace treasury and the upcoming royal party should have been ranked higher than the issue of a missing dog.
Bowed heads, the ministers, said in a rehearsed chorus that De Mallow’s missing dog’s issue was chosen by the chit system that Her Highness had herself started for providing a fair chance to everyone during these sessions. The Queen raised her gloved hand and her voice simultaneously, which made the quiet and meek looking ministers, quieter and meeker. The Queen politely, in a high pitch, suggested that they should pick another chit; everyone agreed unanimously.
With a picture perfect smile on her face the Queen picked up another chit and with an expression best caught in an old ugly portrait, she brusquely said, ‘Mary’s missing lamb’. Someone among the ministers gasped in horror.
Pathos
Little Mary loved her little lamb Pufo and refused to accept that his sudden absence meant that he was dead… probably it was the fox. She garbled many stories, which didn’t make any sense unless one also looked in her big blue eyes.
Mary’s blue eyes could hypnotise everyone without even intending to and thus, every day, every new fellow hypnotised, heard a new tale about Pufo’s absence. To me she told that her Pufo had gone to get her starry wand with which she will make this grey land glitter.
I believed her… her big blue eyes can’t lie. I too will wait for Pufo, I told her. She smiled through her eyes and said that the night Pufo left, both of them were watching the sparkling night sky and relishing the thought of a glittering land.
She asked me not to cry, because by then I was, and gave me some freshly made carrot cake. It was delicious, but still I couldn’t stop crying… maybe because she said that she had kept some for Pufo also. Oh little Mary!
Logos
I went to meet De Mallow, he too had lost his dog, can’t remember his name, nevertheless, like Pufo, he too deserved to be mourned for. My eyes were still glistening.
Me: Ello, De Mallow, old chap! Am sorry to hear about… about… your dog.
De Mallow: Hmm!
Me: When… how… a… so he is missing… Little Mary’s lamb is also missing.
De Mallow: My dog is not missing, he is dead.
Me: Now, now, don’t you say so De Mallow, cheer up, I heard that your case was discussed in the royal palace and the Queen will definitely…
De Mallow: I found the carcass yesterday night near my farm; eaten by a big animal.
I stood there stupidly with an awkward expression, gaping idiotically when De Mallow closed the door in my face.
A melody that sinks within and fades, ever so melodiously. A rhythm you follow till the end and beyond. Dreaming with open eyes, smiling and savouring it, singing along at times. Welcoming whole of it, embracing it silently.
Harmonic waves, from deep to a crescendo, spread its radiance. Transcending the terrific time, for one and all, it becomes ineffable and divine.
Meeting and merging, loving and caring, thoughtfully waiting to take the form of its true seeker.
Mr. Tambourine Man
– Bob Dylan
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seein’ that he’s chasing
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Listen to this wonderful song {a live performance that I love}–
There is humour for sure, there is drama, fun-action, romance, a great thrill, you’re enthused, lost and found, the questions tickle you and the answers leave you wondering, beautiful images absorbed consciously/ subconsciously, you agree with the characters, grinning at the revelations, all in all a Woody Allen film shows how deluded and smitten we are with this one thing called life.
Each film of his, that I have seen till now, talks about life – a journey his characters embark upon, going through myriad emotions, dreaming and deceiving themselves, somehow finding a way back… or perhaps not, and in the end reaching a new place, different and changed… or perhaps not. Life like!
The story completes a circle every time… for the viewer at least. Certain scenes stay glued in the mind, we play them back repeatedly. The witty, satirical, punned dialogues make his films an absolute hoot.
My all-time favourite, Annie Hall, begins with Woody Allen as Alvy Singer telling a Groucho Marx’s joke –
“I never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”
And this is exactly what we experience throughout the film. He feels unsatisfied if he gets a slight feeling of satisfaction. But the film is very much about Annie Hall. Steadily, through a character who is narrating the story (Alvy) we drift towards Annie Hall; his relationship with her, his ideas about life, what Annie should do and not do –
Annie – You don’t think I am smart enough to be serious about.
Alvy – Don’t be ridiculous!
Annie – Then why are you always pushing me to take college courses like I was dumb?
Alvy – Because adult education is a wonderful thing! You meet a lot of interesting professors. It’s stimulating!
Later
Alvy – Adult education is such a junk, the professors are so phony… how can you do it?
By the end of the film, Annie Hall becomes a real person, a friend and so does Alvy Singer. So simple and perfect is the story that the viewer never feels as if it was woven to be so.
Woody Allen’s films also celebrate cinema as a medium, Midnight in Paris is the crowning illustration of this point. Midnight in Paris – a film like a novel like a painting like a song like a memory.
Along with the protagonist, Gil Pender, we travel back in time and have an encounter with Ernest Hemmingway, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, T.S Eliot, Cole Porter, Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, Pablo Picasso and many glorious others. A fantasy lived in the magical, ‘the most beautiful in the rain’ Paris.
And definitely, the reigning emotion in the film is that of nostalgia, making us ponder whether or not –
‘Nostalgia is denial – denial of the painful present… the name of this denial is “golden age thinking” – erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in…’
I think life is simple, funny and lovely, full of constant reminders of death and trauma. Contradictions rule us, often making life a miss-match of countless emotions. Everyone’s a magician who lives, often with one or million complex thoughts nicely daubed with understandable set of ideas and rules, with a smile on the face, doing what is supposed to be done, wondering ‘what is happening?’
Woody Allen is one such “magician”, in fact a master, watch any of his films and you’ll know what I mean. If not an answer, the question will definitely get clearer and it’ll be great fun.
Here is the list, in random order, of the Woody Allen films that I have watched and enjoyed –
Annie Hall 1977
Play It Again Sam 1972
Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989
Manhattan Murder Mystery 1993
Manhattan 1979
Take the Money and Run 1969
The Purple Rose of Cairo 1985
Cassandra’s Dream 2007
Zelig 1983
Hannah and her Sisters 1986
Midnight in Paris 2011
Blue Jasmine 2013
Match Point 2005
Vicky Cristina Barcelona 2008
Bananas 1971
{Next in line – Husbands and Wives 1992}
[The title – Meetin’ WA – is taken from the 1986 short film/ documentary by Jean-Luc Godard where he interviews Woody Allen.]
Eddy told me, spiritedly, after watching a documentary on how the cells function in our body, that he has found his long lost faith in life.
I could sense his words were imbued with this newly found faith.
Great, I thought. Just then he saw my socks and before I could utter a single word to appreciate his metamorphosis, he politely questioned and shockingly answered, “three holes in this pair of your socks?!”
Eddy went back to his room; I wonder how many months will he take this time to recuperate fully.
Anyway, so I checked my socks and somehow the holes in it made me believe that if this can work, anything can.
Dears, today I am working with this positivity in life. Thanks to the pair of socks with three holes in it.
Who, Eddy? Oh! No, he is still in the room. But that’s life.
Cheers!
Only one hole, not my pair of socks. :-) Image – Pixabay.
Nazo, busy reading the flowers (she loved this exercise, it made her “fuller”, that is what she said). [Source – Pixabay]
Nazo believed in magic. While the stories about djinns and fairies and magic potions made her wonder, the everyday sundry experiences also left her mesmerized. She was a simple person who felt special about simple things like the sun peeping out from behind the dark rainy clouds.
I told her once a sad story, intentionally, I wanted her to cry. It was a made-up tale about a little dog that lost its way home and died of starvation. Before I could make it sound more pathetic, I saw tears in Nazo’s eyes. Mission accomplished, thought I, until Nazo did something magical.
She asked me about the dog and I fabricated the cute brown dog, with black ears and kohl eyes. Suddenly, Nazo jumped up and started clapping. She told me to follow her and we both ran down to old Mr Tolkien’s house. What I saw there was as mysterious and as astonishing as a miracle.
Nazo went ahead right into Mr Tolkien’s garden and brought a cute brown dog in her arms, it had black coloured ears and kohl eyes. She announced that Mr Tolkien found the starved dog yesterday near the abandoned park and brought him home.
While coming back, I, filled with a concoction of emotions (specifically foolishness), told Nazo the truth; that it was a fake story and I meant only to make her cry because of her utter belief in magic in life suffocated me. Nazo laughed at me and didn’t say a word. She then hugged me, if I remember correctly.
After a few days, Nazo gave me a card (she loved making cards), a lovely one with colourful flowers and bright butterflies. She had written a few lines inside, apart from wishing me a happy day, that I can never forget; it read, “Magic is real for me, maybe because I try to see things from the earth’s point of view – a beautiful blue-green lonely planet – something magical is happening for sure”.
Since then, I too have started to believe in magic.
Rainbow in my eyes is black and white for another, the dancing fog and a cool breeze for me is like a shapeless wraith for the other, what I see is my reality, to them it is an illusion, then what is the truth?
Glorious joyous memories imbued deep within, a place, a depth from where also rise our poignant ideas and reveal what a suffering life is. Is it explicable to be such a medley of emotions?
If we are This and we abhor That, to such an extent that we swear to reject That and worship This forever and ever, being like a book culled from various intransigent ideas and generally clueless, merging and confusing This That to such a severity that This That becomes one and we altogether start abhorring Them, then where are we heading to?
It can’t be a joke of an ulterior nature because jokes aren’t secretive and it can’t be an earnest tragedy because the ending is not sad, but is blissful, then what is this dramatic life about?
When nothing is certain except change, when change begins it and concludes it and when we too are bound to change, then does it make the definitions fallacious? What do they explain and how can they when everything changes?
All forms will become formless; absolute existence, absolute consciousness, absolute bliss. Like it was and it will be.
You refuse to follow the crowd and you avowedly disregard the art of punditry, the rancour and anger veiled, disappears when you see it with your inner eye, the contradictions choose not an easy hyperbolic, but a converging simple route and the paradoxes recognise their nature whenever you sit in absolute bliss, and renunciation takes you from the known to unknown, inexplicable, irrefragable, immutable.
Kevin, I think you can, but you will not act directly. Otherwise, what is the point of my journey?
Farewell Kevin. I’ll memorise what you said to me that day, ‘it is a world of mutual help and struggle’. And in my world, I am to engage myself totally.
Phenomena Endless Quest 1992 by Paul Jenkins acrylic on canvas 66 x 74 inches 167.6 x 188 cm Private collection, Taipei. [Source – pauljenkins.net]
And I almost always forget. Sigh! Not that whether I am going forward or backward, is it the oblate spheroid earth or vertical me, the flowing time or the following life, the dream within dream or the dreamy me… but the funny fact that I have gone through all this before, in different measures, small degrees, little proportions and reflected on quite often.
Still, I simply, pleasingly forget.
Then things repeat, without my knowledge. Lucid ideas shine through and bring sense back to this life. Life! Surely very confident of itself, life is. Just look at the way it is happening.
Living an usherette’s life, I watch my story playing in every other story. A happy wallflower, that’s how confident I am. Dashingly, entering the stage in my mind, I take over. The glee moment, ideas collected elegantly.
Reality is not a plain horror story, it depends… just like senility is not only for aged, but it depends.
Oh! I mean, let us pick five memories and analyze all very humbly. Then watch a classic black and white movie and read a ‘must-read-before-you-die’ book, all very scrupulously.
Also, travel to a place never been before, pick it directly from your bucket list. Great!
After doing all this, surely vicariously for now, a tremendous clarity falls on the point I have been trying to make.
Life and the happenings, routine feelings and memories, hard hitting failures and mild successes, dreaming-trying-acting-dreaming and in the end, facing the underlying theme vibrant in every direction, almost deafening once observed, right?
No! What! No? Fine, am sorry, then forget it.
But, please, at least, try to deconstruct what is repeated in your life. That is all.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
