My Tryst with Vipassana

I’m back from my 10 day trip to Igatpuri, back to the realities of the world where people talk and human beings exist at a totally different plane. If I really have to write down my feelings, it would honestly be difficult; I have tried to structure my observations about the experience in the form of a private interview with my Self – more in keeping with the kind of life that we lived there.

(The Golden Pagoda at Igatpuri)

So, now that you are back, how does it feel?
What do you think? Like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix or the Monk who sold his Ferrari (Smiling) Actually, the only feeling that I can use to describe the event after the 10th day is the feeling of lightness. Maybe, somewhere, the heart has grown a bit soft, has melted and it feels a bit peaceful or maybe it’s a placebo temporary effect; can’t say.

You have got the answers to your questions??
Friend, I remain zapped; getting answers to my questions!!! I don’t think I know my questions clearly enough, forget the answers...There is probably a feeling of some change internally but I’d not like to sit on judgment on it now itself, let’s give it some time.

Fair enough, then let’s discuss the nitty-gritty a bit more. The 10 day silence – how awful was that?
Actually, it is a 9 day Arya maun (Complete silence – no gestures or actions or eye contact and not only an absence of words). During the 9 days, you can still talk to the assistant teacher or the management regarding any problems on the technique or the arrangements and all but you must avoid all communication with others.

On the 10th day, the silence is broken and you spend a day in the centre without the vow; the idea, as I understand, is that exposing oneself to the world immediately could be a bit of shock.

But a 9-day silence still seems quite a punishment. Wasn’t it tough?
Honestly, it was not that tough. You are in an environment where everyone is a stranger and silent and there is no external stimulus of any kind that could make you feel like talking – you know no TV, internet, books, magazines, music. But you do a lot of talking to yourself inside; you probably do that all the time but never realised it. Come to think of it, I think I did enjoy the silence – some challenges can be inspiring.

So, you’d have thought about family, friends and office???
Actually, it was a random flow – no, not flow, avalanche is a better word – of thoughts and nothing much in specific. I hardly ever thought of office which surprised me, considering that my world seems to start and end with it. Quite a few thoughts, on the first few days, on near and dear ones but otherwise it seemed only about myself. I know this sounds pretty selfish, but then I guess that’s the truth. Deep down, maybe that’s the only thing that matters (sighing)..

Alright, so, what was the daily routine like?
We were supposed to wake up at 4 AM in the morning and then do a 2 hour meditation from 4.30 to 6.30, either in our rooms or in the Group Hall. Breakfast was served from 6.30-7.15 and the next session commenced at 8. After an hour of meditation, you could choose to continue the same in your room or stay in the Hall. Lunch was served at 11 AM and then after the required break/siesta, the next session was to start at 1 PM. Again meditation and then snacks at 5 PM, followed by the next session at 6 o’clock. Then there was a must see/hear 1.5 hr video recording discourse by Guruji (Shri S N Goenka) at 7.15 and then you retire to your room by 9.30 night. The same schedule went on for 9 days.

So, you basically, eat, sleep and meditate that’s all?
Well, that’s all I suppose; I also walked a lot during the breaks, especially after the lunch. Other than the regular breaks, you also had a 5 minute break after an hour of meditation. Maybe if the schedule had much more time in between, it could lead to a lot of boredom.

The Ashram food; what about it?
Guess, it was a bit surprising; I kind of liked it. It was less spicy and not much masala (for obvious reasons) but it was pretty decent – tasted better than my office food. But there were quite a few people who did not like the food but then you can’t make everyone happy. The fact that there was no dinner served (the last food was served at 5 PM during the snacks) was a concern to a few but then since you are not actually doing any great physical work, ideally, that should not have been too much of a problem.

Tell me about the meditation – that was your only activity during this period!
For the first 3.5 days, we practised Aana-Pana meditation; involves focusing one’s attention first on the sensation of breath passing above the upper lip and in and out of the. Then the Vipassana technique was taught on Day-4 where you observe the various sensations in your body ranging from heat, cold, throbbing, vibrating, tickling and any possible reaction, which are sensitised by the Aana-Pana meditation. The idea is to merely observe the sensations and not react to them.

Sounds pretty trivial a thing to do for hours..
Breath and energy flow is considered trivial by most of us because education has never taught us the use and relevance of this activity. At a very high level, every reaction or emotion that you exhibit triggers a sensation in the body but you are not sensitive to realise that. As soon as the sensations are felt, we are supposed to move our attention from the top of the head to the feet, and so on until we have scanned each and every part of the body. Most important is that we cultivate a sense of impartiality and equanimity to all sensations.

If we experience pleasant, subtle sensations we crave for them while if we experience gross, unpleasant sensations we develop hatred towards these sensations. We need to observe these experiences and treat them impartially; all things are impermanent and our suffering is because of our sense of attachment towards these feelings- negatively or positively.

And did you feel that magical power or whatever it was during this period?
Actually, I struggled for close to 6 and half days to figure out what I was doing and it was only after the teacher (an affable French gentleman named Yves Guichard) corrected my technique that there was a change. I did feel a lot of energy flow (gross and subtle) after that and that felt great but of course, the point is that the flow may be great but you must never develop any ego because of that; it kills the very purpose of the entire sadhna. Maybe being a Reiki practitioner, it may have helped but even then, it did take 7 days to make some progress.

Actually, there’s no point in discussing the sensations or the experience and calling it magical and all that; subtle behavioural changes are not very evident immediately but have a much lasting effect and merely taking about seeing light, vibrations, and energy is purely superficial. Each person’s experience is different and these cannot and should not be compared, otherwise you’d have people searching for mysterious electric, electromagnetic, vibrating, thermal and what not effect without understanding the final purpose.

You think this could make a change to your life and that more and more people should actually learn this...
It is too pompous a presumption that I have changed (when I can’t even explain the change) and henceforth, things would be different. I guess, the seeds for some change have been put but nurturing them is upto the student and that’s what determines any progress in this regard. I think more people should try this out and experience and then decide whether they want to go ahead with it or not.

But let’s be clear, the 10 day experience is not easy. You need to leave your family behind, stay alone like a bhikshu and follow a grind of early morning waking up, no talking, meditating for a greater part of the day – not exactly what you describe as a holiday. I myself had this urge a few times to run away from there during this period but then jaon bhi to kahan? I used to look at each Day waiting for the Day 10 to arrive but eventually, you kind of accept it. In hindsight, you kind of feel so much better but can’t say the same during this period. Anyway if you are determined, you can do it, if so many others can, why not you?

How was the crowd there? Mostly of a higher age group maybe..
Funnily no..There was a few guys fresh out of college, somebody doing his PG, quite a few employed and about my age, a few couples and all kinds. My neighbour was a young Australian who had his own bakery business in Navi Mumbai; there was this 45+ Muslim guy, the son of an Imam, who looked just 25 and was some kind of a fitness freak; another guy in his late twenties who was broke and just travelling to various places; another guy was a filmmaker who had co-founded an organisation to promote social change, a media manager with a private TV channel – all an interesting assortment of characters with nothing much in common.

Ok. But how would someone sit for hours, close the eyes and meditate? That easy??
(Laughs) Sorry, no such pretensions at all. Lots of thoughts went around in the mind during the first five days during meditation in the hall with the eyes closed. And even after that the mind would keep wandering wildly from one place to another but then somewhere in the midst of all this wandering there are periods of powerful concetration too. The initial breath observation and the complete silence did play an important role.

Also, the sexes were segregated during the entire period and you actually did not see any female during this period except while walking towards the dining hall but for some reason, I abstained from looking in that direction during this period – some poor attempt at will power, I guess:)

You plan to go there again?
Actually, no plans for anything at all at this point of time; let’s take each day as it comes, who knows how much the world changes before I take another break. Monday and back to office and so back to reality; we will leave it at that.

My Closing thoughts...
This was a 10 day break from routine and eventually, it felt good. This could be due to a change in the routine or due to an actual change at the basic level where I suddenly felt, what should I say, connected with myself, a little bit. Maybe it was the exhilaration of lasting for 10 days and proving some kind of a point to oneself and others. Whatever, it is, the feeling is itself transient and needs to be understood – Trying to develop equanimity towards both happy and sad events; for me, this was one of the most important points that I picked up during this course.

There is also a spiritual ego or baggage that I have been carrying – I am a Reiki healer and have read a lot of books in this regard and all that – but this journey has managed to inject in a more sense of humility and reality. Reading and analysing spirituality does not make for any change or even if it does, it is purely at the top level, the inner feelings remain the way it always was and that needs much more hard work and practice deep inside to change. But then there’s nothing to despair, each journey has its own stream of joy; pick it up and proceed on the next journey...

In Search of Silence

Come Wednesday August 13th and I am on a 10 day long sabbatical from everything that I am associated with and have been so far in my life. I will be in Igatpuri, a small town which lies between Mumbai and Nasik and whose primary claim to fame is the Vipassana Research Institute.

I call this a sabbatical and not just a break because during this period, I will not only have no access to Internet, Mobile and other forms of communication but I will also have to maintain total silence. 10 days without speech/noise does sound rather stiff, I concede, but then if you have volunteered for a programme, I guess you better abide by the rules. I distinctly remember Amit telling that I speak much more than an average girl speaks in her life (no stereotyping intended) and so the challenge seems just that bit more intimidating!!!!

When I announced my decision to do so, there were all kinds of reactions. Some folks wondered why I would want to subject myself to this torture (getting up at 4.30 AM is also part of the rules); some said that would like to know from me how it feels once I am back so that they could also plan a trip;some wondered if I were not crazy to do so and how my office gave me this leave; some felt that it is too early to venture into such a but most people were of the opinion that I should go for it, it was just that they did not either have the time or the inclination or initiative to try this out despite all the good feedback that they had received.

So, why am I going? Honestly, I do not know; this was a decision taken on an impulse. Mind you, since I first read about it in the Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald, I have been intrigued by the idea. But there is always a huge gap between conception and implementation; the flights of fantasy need wings and it just does not come that easily. Since arriving in Mumbai last October, I, Kunal and Infy have discussed it many times but have been postponing the idea, so hopefully, my trip will spur them on. I guess that on many an occasion, what drives people is their pursuit for meaning in life, advocated by Viktor Frankl, the father of logo therapy.

The pursuit of meaning in life is quite abstract and is not something that someone can explain with logic and analysis because each of us has a different purpose and the discovery of the same comes at different stages. You don’t need to be 45+ to start looking for it; searching for it when the energy levels are high and the passion to explore new territories is there is more important. Age can never be a limiting factor in our search for truth.

Of course, this is not to say that you take a 10 day silence period and you learn the truths in life; I would be kidding myself if I were to even suggest that. However, it is important to listen to myself and try to answer some of the questions that I have been asking myself for so many years now. I have experimented with Reiki, Transcendental Meditation, Raja Yoga and a few other alternate paths but somewhere keep losing track of all these paths. But a traveller should never stop; sometimes, the destination may not be very clear but it is important to ensure that the travel continues. There are many sign posts but we need to identify them and move ahead.

Every time, we introduce each other, we relate to our profession and describe ourselves accordingly – I am Pradeep, a banker who works in XYZ Bank. Funny,we seem to be confusing our lives with our means of livelihood. We need to ask ourselves what is it that we want to do in my life and not what is it that we want to do for our my livelihood; these are totally separate things. Are we confusing our lives' goals with career and personal goals?

If we don’t live for our profession,we live for our family or for things that we derive pleasure in but the soul's craving seems to have gone into hibernation. I guess something from inside always asks questions but in the din of everything around us, we just don’t seem to listen to it. We have, unknowingly, suppressed the inner voice and maybe, just maybe, this short period of solitude will help in throwing some light on understanding the destination.

We met many people who seem so restless with their lives and live empty lives – going to office and coming back and servicing their families but the joy seems to be lost. Life can be quite a taskmaster, I guess, and the small things in life have suddenly flown out of our lives. Will the Vipassana trip make a difference to my life? I do not know but it is still an attempt to try to make a difference in my life which is ambling around Interest Tables, Pricing Controls, Fees, Parameter changes and all those mundane things that make up the life of a Business Analyst in my domain.

The world will be the way it is and we may not be able to change it as per our needs and this leads to a lot of inner turmoil and frustration. We cannot change the world but we can change is the way we face the world and its trials and tribulations. Eventually, I believe, that we need to meet our karmic destiny and there is no running away from that- can we be ready to take responsibility for our lives and not blame others for our problems? All sounds too snobbish, expecting so many things to happen just by keeping quiet but then there’s no harm in attempting to change when you know that you need to, otherwise you will anyway be the sufferer.

And then, finally, escaping from the cacaphony of the urban madness called Mumbai (could be any other urban decay) is necessary once a while to retain your sanity. You cannot reflect back when you drive in fifth gear; you need to slow down ..... 10 days of serene silence can never harm anyone, can it???

That thing called Mental Illness

About a couple of months back, I spent a week in a psychiatric hospital in NIMHANS in my capacity as a part of a patient’s family. This is not my first experience with psychiatrists, having stayed earlier in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences for about 3 weeks in a similar capacity.

And it brought about the best as well as the worst in me. The feeling of frustration and anger was pretty obvious but the experience did open a window into another world – a world inhabited by people just like you and me, those who dream and those who just have lost the capacity to dream.

A hospital is not exactly a cheerful place of existence and a psychiatric centre can be even more difficult. All the patients in the ward are present there on account of some mental illness which cannot be understood by others.

So you see people there living in their own worlds disturbed by our actions and lives. Staying there in a timeless existence in the midst of people who are not in the same frame of mind as some of us can be a very reflective process.

The human mind is a complex animal and you’d be surprised by the thoughts and fears that plague many of us. But society ordains that we should not express our fears; after all, it makes us less manly.

Suppressing or controlling emotions is only an escapist action; we need to acknowledge them and it calls for a certain degree of change that we may not be willing to do at this point of time.

I am willing to spend money and refurbish my flat, service my car but I am not willing to rejuvenate myself; just too caught up with short term goals to be worried about long term ones.

It is the classic Chicken and the Egg Syndrome - Once I take care of my wants, I will look at myself but what if it is too late???

The difficulty of dealing with mental illness is in understanding and relating to the patient’s troubles. Unlike physical injuries that are pretty evident, mental injuries are too deep rooted to penetrate. Many of us have mental injuries which require attention but we refuse to acknowledge them.

Some of these injuries, if not attended to, manifest themselves in the form of major illnesses or at the least in various forms of unexplained irritation. Depression is a medical term, for God’s sake, and not merely an English word to signify a lack of cheerfulness. Definitions of beating the blues and down in the dumps may not be enough to explain the issue.

One of the biggest problems associated with mental illness is the stigma associated with it. People just do not want to discuss their illness with anyone. A mental illness is not perceived as just another disease that needs treatment. What cannot be seen cannot be understood and so the patient stands isolated and misunderstood.

The way people interact with people who suffer from these illnesses make you feel sad; it makes you ask why is it that we think that mocking at someone’s misery is the only contribution we can make. Jokes on the mental state of people no longer sound that funny. I guess seeing the problem from a close proximity gives a different perspective.

People who came to visit us at the hospital would wonder what the problem was. Was it actually a problem that required hospital treatment or was it just a state of mind that required cheering up? Some nice people did propose that maybe, just maybe the family is not doing enough to cheer up the poor man - clearly, easier said than done.

Living in a state of mind that looks at world in a state of void gives a sense of unexplained emptiness. Have we all not gone through situations in life when we suddenly go blank and think that the world is collapsing around us? What happens if this state of mind remains for a long time and occupies all our emotions?

People have called us up to understand what Depression actually means. Do people feel sad or anxious for no particular reason at all? It should come as no surprise that so many of us go through these phases but are unaware of them. Medical science and society have not enlightened us enough to understand the problem and acknowledge it.

Please understand that the problem of depression is not something that you can just “snap out of” as most people would like you to believe. Like any other serious medical condition, it needs to be treated.

As family members or friends, it is very important for us to be supportive of the patient’s predicament. All is not lost and it is important that we stand by the man. He needs all the help that he needs; please do not abandon him and call him mad or lunatic.

Medical care works only if there is a genuine concern attached, otherwise, all you can come up is with a short term solution. The feeling of being unwanted is quite painful and you may feel it one day, without ever being ready for it.

Anyone, just anyone, can suffer from depression, and it should come as no surprise that one of you who is reading this suffers from it. But are we ready to understand that there could be a problem and we may have to consult a psychiatrist? I know it could be potentially embarrassing to be known as someone who has a problem and needs psychiatric attention.

But then is the embarrassment (if any, mind you) so high that you are willing to subject yourself to hours, days and weeks of mental misery for reasons unknown. And then, most importantly, it’s your life; why should you allow someone to dictate what you need to do in your life?

I am not too sure of the statistics involved but it seemed pretty tragic to me most of the inmates in the hospital were youngsters – people in the age group of less than 30. Is this an ominous sign of the mental state of the people of our generation who are cramped mentally and do not have sufficient support structures to help themselves out.

We are moving ahead in life but the progress that we make is at a velocity that can be dangerous. The people who are not able to handle this momentum are at a danger of finding themselves discarded. Most of us are actually in favour of this survival of the fittest theory except when it comes to our people. And then the reality hurts and it hurts bad.

It is not totally unimaginable that one day we find ourselves suffering from this problem but are not willing to accept it. After all, how can I suffer from depression? Isn’t it one of those elitist ailments that calls for meaningless therapies? There are many of us who are in this state of perennial rejection who would eventually wonder "Why Me".

We need to be constantly aware of our state of mind and emotions to ensure that we do not slip into a depressive state. Of course, this requires those rare moments of introspection that we don't have time for. We need to value or lives much more, don't we?

Born Into Brothels

Amidst all the euphoria of the stock market striking the magical 20,000 figure, all thoughts of dark India recede to the background. It is buried deep inside conveniently forgotten because we just cannot face the reality that we are a part of a world where the Pareto principle reigns supreme.

As I walk around the streets of Mumbai, there are so many maimed beggars that I see but I find it difficult to look into their eyes. Wonder if it is a sense of disgust at the thought of Shining India or a guilt that comes to the fore when I stare at these half naked bodies crying out for help.

Born into Brothels is in many ways a rude reminder to the fact that these wretched poor exist in a separate and parallel universe, without an exit, while far away from all this is the prosperous booming India where we find ourselves. It is a 2004 American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Calcutta's red light district, who continue to live on the fringes, neglected and unkempt.

While the state of prostitutes in this part of the world is quite pathetic, the condition in which they bring up their children ensures that the next generation also ends up no better. The mostly illegitimate children of these sex workers are also expected to "join the line” when they reach a certain age (or does age even matter?).

Minor girls are highly sought after in brothels (read virgins needed) and secure good prices, making it very difficult for the parents to let them leave, especially when they represent the only source of income in the entire family.

Zana Briski, an American photographer, visited India in the late 1990s, taking pictures of women's issues in India and at a certain point, was invited to go to Kolkatta to become part of a photography show. She somehow traced her steps to Sonagachi, one of the oldest red light areas in India where approximately 7,000 women and girls work as prostitutes, and that was where her journey started.

Ross Kauffman, her collaborator, joined her later and they ended up making this acclaimed documentary film which won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature in 2005.

While the women were reluctant to let Zana peep into their lives, the children responded very spontaneously to her efforts. In order to understand them better, Zana lived with them, provided the children with 35mm cameras and taught them how to use them.

It is from the images the children captured and their experiences they had while doing so, that the film's script unfolds. The result is a film that takes us inside squalid brothels and allows us to see the world through the eyes of some of its most vulnerable residents. Shot using a digital camera, we get to know the children through their photos.

Opening with an introduction of its kids and the harsh reality of their lives, the movie follows the children as they wander, cameras in hand, through the streets of Kolkatta. The film also documents Briski's uphill efforts in trying to rescue these youngsters from a seemingly morbid future, and seeks some educational facility that will accept them.

But clearly this is so much easier said than done, as one nun tells Briski when the filmmaker seeks her help in locating a school for the children, "Nobody will take them" because they are the offspring of prostitutes. Some manage to find places in special schools despite these issues but the biggest obstacle remain the children's own mothers and guardians, often protective out of the sheer necessity for survival.

Clearly, the fathers do not even exist in many of these places and even if they do, they remain nothing but faceless pimps, wallowing in their own world of drugs.

Zana also experiences the pleasures of dealing with the Indian bureaucracy while trying to secure a passport for one of her students, who is selected to travel to Amsterdam to be part of a children's jury at a World Press Photo Foundation photo exhibit in Amsterdam in 2002. She moves pillar to post trying to get the relevant documents and after great effort, finally manages to send Avijit, one of the kids, to Amsterdam.

Will the boys also be used as prostitutes in future? The movie is silent about this. There is no scene that is sexually explicit or anything that suggests any form of titillation because of the filmmakers' intent in not wanting to exploit their subjects, which is such a welcome relief. After all, a voyeuristic peep into the world of sex with liberal doses of titillation would sell just as well, would'nt it? And of course, you could justify it in the name of art.

Briski says there is no logical or rational reason she invests herself so completely in this endeavour. She admits in the film that she is no social worker, but wanted very much to help the kids, for otherwise their future was a dismal one lacking hope beyond a world of prostitution, drugs and crime.

Through the ups and downs of this journey of her spirit as she wades through the various aspects of India (alien to her), she learns that there is a limit to which she can make a difference. The problem is much more chronic and providing cameras to a bunch of individuals will not resolve the larger menace.

The credits at the end tell us about the future of the kids taken to a boarding school. Only a couple of them continue to stay in their boarding schools while the majority is taken out by their parents, drop out, or is asked to leave.

I guess the solution is not so simple after all; the red light district has existed for centuries and will exist for centuries more. Is art and education enough to empower these children? Quite possibly no but these are steps nevertheless. Moreover, as a society, we have a role in treating these individuals with respect and not just treat them as scum which needs to be cleaned.

Zana allows us to peep into the world of children, caught in this web where hope is the only way to survive; is it not just so unfair that some people have a natural advantage over the others merely because of their place of birth? Aren’t we so lucky to escape from all this and be able to read this while many thousands are resigned to lives of eternal misery???

Zana and Ross have started an organization called Kids with Cameras and funds donated to them are used to teach photography and educate children across. Even if we are indifferent towards the under privileged classes, let us atleast support such attempts. The audience along with me in the theatre certainly felt a sense of empathy as they applauded generously; hope everyone else feels the same…

Taare Zameen Par

Tears welling up and weeping is not the easiest emotion that a man can express and when the raison d’etre for the tears is a movie, it becomes even more difficult to justify (if there was ever a need to). Aamir Khan’s directorial debut Taare Zameen Par accomplishes this rather effortlessly without too much of a melodrama but with a kind of sensitivity not seen in the recent past.

The movie takes us through the heart of a child suffering from dyslexia and succeeds where Monsieur Bhansali fails. It creates a world familiar to us, which we can relate to unlike Black which exists in its own self-indulgent vacuum. The images of a paint drop falling on Ishaan’s face, the dogs sleeping on his lap and the everyday sights of the world look so beautiful through the eyes of the young boy.

TZP deals with the life and tribulations of Ishaan Awasthi, fondly called Eno by his family. He’s a dreamer, with no sense of time, who lives in his own world inhabited by nature and its glorious manifestations. He is a regular kid who fights off bullies; bunks school and spends a great deal of his time day-dreaming.

Initially, we do not realize that anything is amiss and relate his behaviour to his age and innocence. He’s sent to a boarding school where he goes into his shell further till his disability is finally discovered by an Art teacher in his school, Ramkumar Nikumbh, played by Aamir Khan. The teacher then works to put him back on track.

The movie practically lives through the child’s eyes as he struggles to find meaning in the numbers and syllables drilled through his mind. He needs to not only satisfy his parental aspirations but also work around with his disability. Parental obsession with their children’s performance is only a symptom of this larger malice- where result is the only thing that matters. Only the exceptional ones are required, the rest of us remain people on the fringe without any voice.

The kid Darsheel Safarey is absolutely wonderful as he portrays the everyday kid we are familiar with and not the irritatingly cute kid in movies who tries his best to get on our nerves. His name appears first when the credits start rolling and his performance justifies that.

Aamir as Nikumbh Sir sports a spunky hairstyle and performs admirably, with just the right amount of restraint.(Let me concede that when I saw the Khan in the movie, I wondered how much we was being paid for such a job; shit, he can’t live so comfortably in Mumbai working only as an Arts School. Agreed that’s a cruel thought in the midst of all this but I could not stop myself!!!). The father remains a bit of a stereotype but Tisca Chopra as the mother fits the bill pleasantly well only to be ignored in the second half.

TZP sees Aamir as a very sensitive person; his tears well up just a bit too frequently in the movie. Is it because society has taught us that it’s not manliness to shed tears that many in the theatre felt disconcerting to see Aamir’s tears?

His characterization was a revelation; the protagonist is shown as a very soft-natured guy whose heart pains to see the struggles of a child and who has less control over his emotions when compared to the average hero. I always did think of Aamir as a Method Actor who thinks primarily from his brain; but this movie comes straight from the heart, not just the head and you actually feel for it.

A special mention about the music. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy and Prasoon Joshi have done a wonderful job in delivering compositions that go along with the feel of the movie. The music has a soft, lilting presence which gives it a beautiful feel. Music has been used liberally in the movie but in no way does it manage to slow down the proceedings.

But there are areas that you wish Aamir could have plugged in, so that the movie could have been even better. The parental interactions in the second half are strangely muted. Ishaan’s mother has sacrificed her career to take care of her kids and is shown to be very sensitive to her children’s needs but even after realizing that her son has a learning disorder, all she manages to do is a Google search on dyslexia.

Was it the Actor Vs the Director clash that caused Aamir Khan to take over the role of the parents too and reduce their role to mere bystanders whose only involvement with their son is to collect his progress report?

Would it not have been better if Aamir had also tried to put in a parental point of view and not paint them in black and put all the blame squarely on them. Yes, they play a pivotal role in shaping the future of their children but trying to understand them would also have helped.

For all the pains that Aamir takes to showcase Ishaan’s difficulties, his progress takes place just a bit too fast, all in the pace of a song. Even the ending has its share of melodrama but even if it were only melodrama I would not have an issue. Instead, it requires Ishaan to take part in a competition and win the first prize to regain his esteem.

After all the bravado about parental mentality and rat-race, it is a bit unfair that Ishaan has to succeed in another rat race to redeem himself. Every child is special, so any need to actually outdo others and prove his specialty?

Most characters in TZP act as caricatures but I’m willing to buy that illustration. Maybe that’s how little Ishaan looks at the world. His perception about himself drives others to look at him similarly. At the end, Ishaan stumbles as he walks to receive the prize; does this suggest that he still is dependent on Aamir?

Nevertheless, the movie worked for me at different levels and not just the parental-child angle. It also talked about listening to one’s dreams as well as one’s inner feelings. The movie is not just for kids and carries a message for all of us.

We have forgotten to admire the small beauties that nature showers us daily with but take it for granted. The fluttering of a butterfly, the rhythm of a fish, the gentle waft of the breeze and its goose pimples are no longer important to us. What is important to us is our obsession with targets and timelines; so much so that we do not have even the time to feel happy about completing our targets.

Every child is indeed special!!! Thanks, Aamir for displaying the guts to break all conventions and make such a beautifully sensitive movie…………

Wooing the Go Slow Movement

As I stand on the edge of a road watching the population hurtling across at an uncontrollable pace, it seems so uneasy watching the faces of people as they grimace and scream at everyone else and move ahead on the wild roads governing our country.

These small journeys can lead to a great road rage but at the same time can also be a lesson in building patience- after all, you realize after sometime that you cannot overcome this ocean of humanity and you have to give in. Both the Merc and the Maruti meet their destinies here and both are equal here.

Speed is a very relative concept and it gets so much more accentuated as you travel across destinations, each location in its own time clock. As I traverse from Mumbai to Hyderabad and swoop down to Kerala, I realize how painfully slow the passage of time can be.

Living and travelling in the din of the Mumbai metropolis acts as such a marked contrast to the lazy life of my town. As I sit in front of my house in Palakkad and watch the cattle grazing and clouds ambling by, I wonder when I last sat down and saw nature taking its own course.

Speed is not always a virtue and is primarily a function of our need to compress our lives into compartments of milliseconds which we cannot live without. Are we genetically programmed to want to do things faster than they should be? Is the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius relevant in our lives at all junctures? Maybe no but we do find it difficult to decelerate and go along with the flow of life.

Life has a certain flow but we always want to go faster; we do not have the time or patience or slow down and enjoy its small beauties- a case of missing the woods for the forest. Trying always to look at the larger picture has numbed our sensibilities and I can no longer strive to be the God of Small things because Size Does Matter.

As you sit in a vehicle or try to cross the road, you see this urge across to push faster and faster. People glaring and screaming at each other and trying to move swiftly but there is no smile on anyone’s face and no one willing to slow down and allow the other person to go ahead.

We have been brought up to believe that the world is always trying to move ahead and conspiring against us and we must not allow that to happen. So, we trust and care for no one; the only thing that matters is what we have done or where we go.

Try this experiment one day- Stand on the edge of a busy traffic junction and observe people moving about. But observe this as an outsider with absolutely zero involvement with the proceedings. You are merely a passive observer and looking at the scene standing outside it.

You observe the flow of life; everything is perfect just as it should be, just as life has willed it to be. It can be a meditative experience to stand outside and observe the world without being a part of it.

I am told that if we were to slow down, we will not reach our destination. But what is our destination? In this race for speed, we have no permanent destinations. Every halt is a mere pit stop in our relentless urge to cross the 100m line but then we do forget that life does not stop at the 100m finish; there are scores of marathons to go and here we are obsessed with a few 100 metres. What we are doing in the process is settling down for the smaller things in life at the cost of the larger, natural and more beautiful things in life.

Our culture puts a premium on speed and the techno world that we live in actively allows and encourages us to keep buzzing 24/7. Blackberry may be a technological marvel to keep you connected every time but the end result is that you remain connected and vulnerable to office pressures more than ever.

Multi-tasking has been thrust upon us and marketed to us as a virtue but think of it and you realize that it is such a misnomer; it is the same as zero tasking. You are there everywhere but in no single place at any time. Technology has reduced barriers and ensured that there is a greater ability to interact with people but willingness to do so is not a function of technology.

“Slow” is therefore, a dirty word and we need to do things fast just because everything else around us is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense. Ever thought how difficult is to sit silently in a meditative state for a few minutes; the body starts twitching uneasily because it has never known what it is to be doing nothing. Inactivity is also required at times if we think about it. You feel like you're chasing something, but you never quite catch up with that something.

This fast obsession manifests even in the food that we have – Fast Food is something we have started living in. There’s no time for proper organic living and so we need synthetic substitutes pumping higher calories in a faster amount of time. As we click and punch keys in an attempt to connect to the world faster, it seems a small mercy that the sun still rises and rises as per its nature and not by the whims and fancies of engineers trying to screw up nature in the name of breakthrough innovations.

Slowly but steadily we may just be close to reach that Tipping point after which it may just be too late to slow down and start living all over again. If we haven't already reached a breaking point, we're close.

In this hyped-up world, we need to keep an eye on our personal speedometers- it's very easy to do things fast just because everything else around you is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense- courtesy slowmovement.com

This thought primarily struck me thanks to this beautiful forward sent by Simrat; I personally would not like to do a copy-paste but I do think that this forward is quite meaningful now.

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to possess a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x number of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in other words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US’s attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time.

As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Om Shanti Om

OSO is a Farah Khan movie – if you do not keep that in mind and condition yourself accordingly, you’d miss the point of the movie. Ms. Khan and party are out to have a ball and whether you like it or not, it does not matter or as SRK says, in the movie, in his tribute to Gone With the Wind - Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. There is a scene in OSO when a wannabe Bengali director says that the cameras are ready from the Satyajit Ray angle and the Bimal Roy angle but the producer asks him to focus on the Manmohan Desai angle kyonki wahin kaam ayega.

This philosophy exactly reflects Farah Khan’s mind as she sets out to make a pot boiler with no arty pretensions. For a lover of serious cinema, this can be a difficult experience – akin to a true blooded South Indian reading the Times of India after years of digesting The Hindu. But after the initial period of indigestion, it can also spell fun in a different form of way; of course, this feeling has to be a more conditioned one rather than natural.

Comedies/spoofs suffer when they start taking themselves seriously; and then you wish they’d stick to the comic plot instead of weaving silly melodrama- Check any Priyadarshan’s movie for that. Farah’s Main Hoon Na was a pain whenever the story tried to take upper hand over plots like the Sush-SRK romance; OSO also charters into such a terrain occasionally but for some reason the seriousness never sinks in.

There is not much of a story to mention, except that boy loves girl but girl loves someone, that someone kills her and boy and girl die in the process. They are reborn and the hero takes revenge with a little help from the girl’s ghost – a Karz meets Madhumati and then The End, finally!!! The story of re-incarnation and revenge is old enough and there is no real intent to recreate with a different perspective (we’ll leave that to RGV).

The pre-incarnation story of the 1st half is set in the 1970s while the second half moves into the current world of cinema. So, you have spoofing right from the days of Rajesh Khanna to Abhishek Bachchan. The movie meanders into seriousness occasionally but Farah Khan does not intend to continue the serious element for long. So, the seriousness stays put for a brief period before things again become hunky dory.

The good part about such movies is that they ask you to sit back and just watch, with a sense of abandon - keep your cerebral part out of it. Let’s not discuss the plot and the futility of it in the entire scheme of things because that is not relevant – Damn, we have a topless SRK emerging from the waters and bringing forth the quintessential metrosexual male (he could try the Daniel Craig style next time), a beautiful Deepika Padukone who manages to keep our attention on her face throughout and a whole lot of actors gyrating to foot tapping music!!! And you dare to ask for more????

OSO mocks at many in the industry- Sooraj Barjatya, the Kapoor family (Overacting hamari khandani beemari hai), Manoj Kumar (wonder what was there to be upset over his depiction here???) and many others but it is all in good fun. The clichéd dialogues and the performances (especially in the first half)) are clearly over the top but that is partly Farah’s tribute to the good old world of Hindi cinema.

Only the villain played by Arjun Rampal is underplayed; Baradwaj Rangan has a point when he says- an “unabashedly old-fashioned, over-the-top approach would have been more appropriate” for the antagonist of a self-respecting masala movie.

The songs are good, pleasantly hummable but for some reason they fall short when you watch it on screen. Where is the “Aankhon Mein Teri Ajab si” song; slicing and serving it in parts destroys Vishal-Shekhar’s wonderful score. And the title song is an HAHK type family get-together song- where the idea is “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” (Witness Govinda and SRK scratching each other’s back literally in the song).

The song went on for too long and I was waiting for the song to complete. But the songs still remain a plus point in the movie- Maybe Farah should try her hand at a musical where she can take more liberties with the script.

The best part of the movie is actually the rolling of the credits. It is done pretty innovatively and everyone gets a part in the credits, including the spot boys- Now that is good work and I’m sure that it would have pleased the entire team to no end. Moreover, Farah Khan entering the final stage of the credits and being welcomed to no applause is pretty symbolic of the hold that directors have on audience – none at all!!!

At the end, the movie remains just an occasional spoof – an attempt at parody with a story thrown in bits and pieces occasionally for the discerning guy in the audience to pickup if he wishes to. Too many wisecracks can make a half an hour serial but a 3 hour movie can be a bit of a stretch and that’s where Farah Khan stumbles.

Honestly, I don’t think there is anything much in the movie but if you want to while away a couple of hours and more and you have nothing much to do, go for it. Either way, there is nothing to lose….