Actor Kamal Haasan's Message.

ரங்கராஜன் (எ) சுஜாதா ‍‍‍ - தமிழ் எழுத்தாளர், இறைவனடி சேர்ந்தார் ‍- 27/02/2008

கை‍‍நகத்தை வெட்டி விட்டால் வருத்தபடுகிரோமா என்ன ?
நம் நகம் நம்மை விட்டு பிரிந்ததே என்று !

தலை மயிரை வெட்டிவிட்டால் தவிக்கிரோமா என்ன ?
நமது முடி நம்மை விட்டு பிரிந்ததே என்று !

அடிபட்டதும் குருதி உடலை விட்டு விலகியதே !
அப்பொழுது கவலை கொன்டோமா என்ன ?!

எத்தனை பற்கல் கொட்டியது சிருவயதில் !
பயபட்டோமா என்ன ?!

இப்போது உடலே பிரிந்துவிட்டது............
சரி. அதர்க்கு என்ன ? ஏன் குழப்பம் ?
உடல் தானே !

கை‍-நகம், தலை மயிர், குருதி, பற்கல்,
கடைசியில் முழு உடல்
எல்லாம் ஒன்றுதான். வித்தியாசம் ஒன்றும் இல்லை.

உடல் பிரிந்தால் என்ன ?
உங்க‌ள் தமிழ் என்னும் உயிர் உங்கள் எழுத்துக்கள் வாயிலாக‌,
என்றென்றும் எங்களுடன் தானே இருக்கபோகிரது !
அது தானே எங்களை தங்களோடு சேர்த்தது !!
அதை பிரிக்க முடியாது !
சென்று வாருங்கள். மீன்டும் சந்திப்போம் !!

என்ன, இம்முறை தங்கள் பெயர் மாரிவிடும், உருவம் மாரிவிடும் !!
தமிழ் தொன்டு மாறிவிடுமா அய்யா ?!
உமது தமிழின் மூலம் தங்களை அடையாளம் கன்டுகொல்வோம் !
சென்று வாருங்கள். மீன்டும் சந்திப்போம் !!

Mysterious Myskkin

It was the local rajeshwari theatre in velachery. Honestly, i was bored that day and still dont know the reason why i went to watch this movie. I now try to convince myself that it must have been my friend and colleague arun's praise for the song 'vaazha meenukkum' that attracted me to watch 'chithiram pesudadi'.
I was irked by narain's performance throughout the movie, surprised by the skills of then 'new-comer' bhavana.
But i never tried to even think about the director of the movie till the climax. What would have been a routine movie dealt me a severe mental blow. I was thrown over and the movie itself became a mystery to me. How could a single sequence in the movie eclipse everything else that was there in it ?! I wanted to know the name of the director. It was Myskkin ! Again, a mysterious name !!

That was long time back. I wanted to watch 'Anjaathey' today not because it had prasanna playing an evil baddie, definitely not for narain, but for Myskkin. I would'nt say that 'anjaathey' gave me the same surprise that 'chithiram pesudadi' threw at me years back; but i was happy at the way the movie was narrated. I was also happy with the small drama enacted in the end between the ten odd characters in the movie. Narain appeared to have improved as an actor in the beginning of the movie, but in the end i realised that it was all in vain. He still has hiccups which he tries to cover up by shouting in the scenes, a plot handled by jeevan of kaakha-kaakha or should i say that it was gautham menon ?!

There was much ado about the negative role that prasanna had played in this movie; but except for the climax he hardly has five scenes. But then, it did raise some curiousities about this movie.

Myskkin - the director has given a good movie thats different from a normal tamil movie. Myskkin had commented a few days back that he should'nt be called an auteur. But going by a very basic definition, i think that he probably can be called one.

பார்வை - 2

பார்வை - 1

அதே கனவு

மனதில் ஒரு ஆசை.

செய்யவேண்டும் என்று நினைப்பது ஒன்று,
செய்வது ஒன்று.

என்ன செய்ய ? வருடம் 2008, 2003 அல்ல‌வே
ஐந்து வருடங்களில் தான் எவ்வளவு மாற்றஙள் !

நடைமுறை என்றொறு வார்த்தையின் அச்சுருத்தல் !
ஆசைகள் செல்லா‍‍‍ காசுகள் என்றொறு அசரீரி !!

ஆசை கலையவில்லை,
கனவாய் உருமாறிவிட்டது.
இன்றிரவும் அந்த கனவு எனக்காக காத்திரிக்கிறது;
இந்த கனவில் என்றும் நான் ஒரு நடிகன் !

எவளோ ஒருத்தி

நானும் அவளை காண்கிரேன்
நீயும் அவளை காண்கிராய்

கை ஏந்தி வரும் அவலுக்கோ
இரண்டு நானயங்கள் கொடுத்துவிட்டு,
நானோ செல்ல போகிரேன்
காய்ந்துவிடும் இரு துளி கண்ணீரோடு !!

ஆனால் நீ அவளை பார்த்து கொன்டு தானே
இருக்கபோகிராய் ?
மாற்றம் உள்ளதா என்ன உன் திட்டத்தில் ?

MACHU PICCHU AND ARUNACHALA

An article that i have chanced upon many times before has caught my attention again and i feel that it will be an interesting read for many.

THE SPIRITUAL AXIS OF THE WORLD

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi always insisted that the Holy Hill Arunachala was the spiritual axis of the world, even in a physical sense, similar to the geographical North Pole, with a South Pole axis. So strongly did he maintain the view that another holy hill existed on the opposite side of the globe to Arunachala - which was itself remarkable since he normally did not take very rigid positions except on matters concerning the Self and the Heart - that he once made a devotee pull out a world atlas and look for a similar mountain opposite to Arunachala. The only mention we have of this endeavor was that the search indicated a spot on the continental shelf beneath the Pacific Ocean immediately off the coast of Peru. No further effort seems to have been spent after this, though it appears that Bhagavan may not have supported the conclusion of that research, since he seemed convinced that a land-based mountain existed at the other end of this "spiritual axis".

The Latitude/longitude Coordinates of Arunachala (Tiruvannamalai) are: 12n13, 79e04

Recently I came across an article about a place in the high Andean mountains of Peru that is reputed to be a site of great spiritual force, called Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was discovered by Yale archeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911, and is the site of an ancient Inca temple city. This city appears to have evaded discovery by the marauding armies of the Spanish Conquistadors, yet it represents one of the immense mysteries of the Inca civilization. It appears the Machu Picchu Mountain itself was known as sacred to the Incas from a time before their own civilization, since the Inca's speak of the mountain as the "Ancient One," who preceded the civilization of their ancestors.

There are several striking parallels between the Machu Picchu site and the Shakti culture. The Inca's worshipped Machu Picchu as the manifestation of the Divine Mother Goddess of the Universe. They referred to Her as "Paachamama," a name that bears a striking similarity to the name "Pachaiamman" used for Parvathi in South Indian shrines. [In the early 1900s, the Maharshi spent many months at the Pachaiamman Temple at the foot of the Hill, outside the town of Tiruvannamalai.] The architecture of the temple city was astrologically and astronomically determined. Various points of the city serve as a kind of giant sextant or observatory from where specific constellations and celestial objects can be plotted and observed. A closer look at the topology of the city reveals a striking resemblance to the Sri Chakra, the Meru architectural topology that characterizes Indian Shakti shrines.

On the psychic plane, multiple individuals with siddhic/occult capacities have separately asserted on visiting Machu Picchu that the city is a place where the feminine aspect of the Universe is especially palpable.

Lastly, the Latitude/longitude coordinates of Machu Picchu are: 13s07, 72w34
While the geographical coordinates are not exactly opposite of those of Arunachala, it would be unreasonable to expect it would be exact since the earth is not a precise sphere.

While ultimately there is nothing but the Self, as long as the manifested world is our framework of reference then we will be confronted by the dual pairs of balancing opposites. There can be no Siva without Shakti, and vice versa.

The kite Runner

Many things would have caught our fascination when we were young. But very few of them stay with us, in our hearts, for a very long time. It can bloom open with some crossing images like how it happened in my case, when i went to watch this movie - The Kite Runner.
Kite Running is the practice of running after and catching kites drifting in the sky which have been cut loose in battle with other kites.
Its a dangerous thing for little kids because their attention is always focussed on the drifting kite and nowhere else; and they often run into someone or something.
I remember myself running into a lorry loaded with iron rods, while kite-running and had to go home with a bleeding nose. I should probably feel happy now that it was'nt one of my eyes instead !
But then, that's the kind of concentration that kite-runners seem to invariably achieve at such times. They seem to get hypnotised by the swaying kites.

I found kites interesting as a child & my notions have'nt changed ever since, not just because i found it a good way of enjoying my leisure time & as a child, i had lots of them. It was just not kite-flying. I would'nt fly kites simply. I needed someone to fight with ! & that's where my interest was. I would go to the extent of saying that the subtle arm & wrist variations required to manoeuvre the kite out of the enemy's path and then again to launch a 'useful' attack are perhaps more difficult than cover drives played of a cricket bat.

I made friends with vagabonds and learnt the art of 'maanja' making, a dying art now, from them. Nothing to worry about because its a banned practice now.
I cut my fingers very often because of this glass-laced thread, but never regretted it. The thrill i got after cutting down enemy kites compensated for it all.
This very thrill was back in me after a few minutes of the movie. So excited that i became and remorseful too. Excited after seeing the number of kites and all the 'artisans' at work. Remorseful because i was'nt a part of them.
The cameraman had filmed many kites and kite-fights generously. The afghani kites looks very different from the ones that i have seen and played with, the Indian ones.
But kite-flying, kite fights and maanja is not all about this movie. It constitutes the beginning and the end alone. In between these is shown a story, haunting and thought-provoking, which struck the same emotional chord like many have before, but still special in its own way.
The story of a boy, Amir who feels guilty of betraying his childhood friend hassan, who is forced to flee to Pakistan and then to the United States. The backdrop of the story between these 2 friends takes us into the middle of afghanistan into the regime of the Taliban.

Before the massive success of The Kite Runner, many Bay Area residents knew Khaled Hosseini as their doctor. In fact, Hosseini kept working as an internist for over a year after the novel was published. Now, there isn't much time to practice medicine -- since Hosseini has published two bestselling novels and has a major motion picture, The Kite Runner, which opened on December 14th.

Marc Forster’s timely adapatation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-seller about the doomed friendship of two Afghan boys is not only faithful to the book but enhances the narrative with resonant visuals.

A very short review of the movie by Susan Granger taken from rotten tomatoes -

The sprawling, generation-spanning epic begins in 1978 in Kabul, Afghanistan, where timid, 12 year-old Amir (Zekiria Ebrahimi), who lives with his aristocratic widower father (Homayoun Ershadi), loves playing with his best friend, Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada), the spunky son of their servant. Since Amir is literate, he often reads aloud to Hassan under a pomegranate tree, but – most of all – they excel at kite-flying competition. But one fateful day, Amir cowardly betrays Hassan, who is then sexually brutalized by older bullies. After that, Amir’s shame drives a wedge between them – and their country is torn asunder by the Soviet invasion.

Years later, married and living in San Francisco, now-grown Amir (Khalid Abdalla) receives a phone call from an old family friend, informing him that Hassan is dead, leaving a young son orphaned. Guilt-ridden, Amir embarks on a dangerous journey to his ravaged homeland to find and rescue the boy (Ali Dinesh) and bring him to California. Traveling in disguise in treacherous Taliban territory, Amir must cover his shaven face with a false beard and witness a sharia, the public ritual stoning of an adulterous couple.

The review does'nt cover one particular character Asif(the main bully). When Amir meets Asif to take back sohrab with him, Asif explains the reason behind the formation of the Taliban in a few sentences. Sohrab is the young orphaned boy mentioned before, the son of Hassan. When the local afghans were ill-treated by the invading russians, the afghans had to react quickly and violently. They had to revolt back and had to leave their impression on their enemy. They formed the Taliban.

Along with a significant irish audience i was amazed too, at the way the movie kept us engrossed even with afghani dialects interspersed with pieces of english, atleast for the first half-an-hour.

“The Kite Runner,” with no stars and subtitles for two-thirds of the film, is a brilliant, must-see film.