My Lost PAge- 46

( It's the lost pAge No. 46 of an unknown book of an unknown writer)

My books are there in every nook and corner of the world. Every home, office, school, kindergarten, butcher shop, temple, bank safe… even a thief’s most trusted carry bag has at least one of my works. From the kitchen to the toilet, these holy books are there to shower the blessings. I am so glad that even the waste baskets have them in plenty, especially my girlfriend’s. I treat it as the symbol of her affection for me and my works. She says that I am her baby. I wonder whether she discovered my works as the dippers on which her ‘baby’ shit. And she is always there for her baby to change the dirtied ones and put new. But do you know, I am still naughty, I still write, even on a dipper, so that my girl will come again and again and change it with love.

Sometimes I really feel that she is also unique. I never treated her as an angel from the heavens or someone who can be titled as ‘the queen of my dreams’. I might have all these quotes for many others, but not her. They all make me dream about love, which I can hold back only for her, which I never told….neither she…! I don’t want a ‘Queen of my Dreams’. I need the real ‘Lady of my Life’. Because of the one who can be considered as the reason for which I am still real, original and I remain as me for ever. She is the one who brings me back from the world of illusions or the dreams which others create for me. When she is some where around, I can feel her warmth, her breath, her touch. Her touch can do miracles. One kiss can make me mad for her. And if I die this moment she would never shed a tear from her eyes because she knows that I hate her cry. But she has to die first, that is my dream. I want to give her a sound sleep on my laps till she touches the heavens. Then I would die, one day, with those dreams and memories about her till her last breath, with the satisfaction that she always remained happy as my guide and companion, with a hundred prayers, a thousand red roses and a million kisses that I can dream of to give her in my next birth. My heaven is with her and the human life cycle would give me a better ride to have another birth to make her happy again and again for ever. I love her so much; I need her with me every moment…Her touch is my strength. I know that she too thinks the same about me. But still we have to be more practical facing the ups and downs of the strong, strange waves of the ocean called life. Life is the ocean, love is the boat and she is the light. She is unique, ‘The Lady of my Life’.

It is a well known fact that I am a branded flirt. But I am happy that I still maintain my barriers. She is my only beauty. I don’t understand why I love you so much, girl! Anyway, I am little bothered about that ‘why’. Do you know why? The day I shall start searching the reason, my world and that word will lose its colour and charm. I may sit here for another century watching its flash, just to realize the fact that it is still hesitant to reach you, remain with you. I use to tell her that there is a special room reserved for her in my heart, a special room with the windows facing the classic peaks of Himalayas and the door facing the waves of Arabian Sea.

And the credit goes to…

There are a lot of things about childhood we still cherish…for me it was been an unpacked bundle of memories that can't be ever missed with the passing time. I was pushed back to those nostalgic moments by a “friend request” in Orkut from a very old friend, Ajay John Gray. After adding him to my profile, I quickly wrote a testimonial for him that goes like this...

He is someone with whom I've grown up & can never ever miss those nostalgic days. And something we shared in common - poetry. Still remember the days we spend writing in class. On poetry competitions we use to finish fast to exchange it and make corrections before submission. But I always wonder what separated us. Life caught us in different zones with different thoughts & different dreams. May be this difference can be read from our poetry too, he is the man of grammatically - thematically perfect poems. But I used to write for a music set in mind. The diff - He was always been a good POET where as I'm was more a lyricist. Ajay- I hope I could analyze our life well with our poetry itself. In reality both of us know that we are no writers anymore as we dreamt...but the victims of time...But u know, u can still break the time and go ahead chasing your dreams. U can read it as the lines of someone who read your poetry as well as your mind better than anyone else.

I guess this explains all about him & me. It must be at the same bench or while having a fight or at the play ground or while washing the lunch box…I don’t remember the exact time or day which we both were caught close. But that date back to the corners of an odd time of the 3rd standard at Nirmala Junior School, Kerala.

Today I am a media professional and at times a designer, a writer or a filmmaker. But here I want to leave all the credits to those moments of childhood with him and of course to those friends of our 3rd- 4th standards listened to our stories during the breaks and in the school bus. Most of those silly stories were inspired by the kid’s story books - Balarama and Poompaatta. The funniest fact was they took life in the class hours- written (Scripted and Screen played), scratched (edited), drawn in the notebook (Story-boarded) and finally described with a bit of acting (released with AD/ PR strategies) to the friends during the breaks. After so many years now we are able to correlate to those moments to our very real life for survival in 2008. But then it was Creative and now its just Cre’ACT’ive.

A lot many seconds, minutes, hours, days and years passed. Nirmala Junior School changed to Nirmala High School. ‘Mayavi’ of Balarama changed to the detective Sherlock Holms of Arthur Conan Doyle. The look and feel of our stories too changed. A new diary still remained the worst of all temptations. I used to have my own version of Tarzan named “Dalwar” and his pet animal companion “Meeta”, a wild hyena. “Dalwar” had a sign language with fingers, which was designed and executed by Ajay & me. The code language was used more effectively when we act the “The Dalwar” scenes during the class intervals. The nearby church ground and the school play ground had seen enough of this Drama. In fact all these went on till our 8th-9th standards. Like Lee Hawk's Phantom he too had his own Logos and Slogans. And he was the hidden hero of his loved tribe – Polo Tribe. Hope this sounds really crazy…….Coz that time those novels ruled our minds.

The fool play and the interest for human heros got faded away as the time passed and poems took an upper hand. Thanks to the class and school level competitions- Arun and Ajay became a familiar friend figure. In fact those days we identified a bit a competition between us. Yet we used to do exchange and proof read each other’s creation.

Both of us won many prizes. For me two of those certificates are still close to heart. The first one for the thrill of getting a prize for the first time. The story was about the “death of grand father” in the point of view of his ignorant-innocent grandson. May be I could relate well to the story as I participated in the competition after attending the funeral of a grandfather like person in my locality. The prize was given by Malayalam film actor– Nedumudi Venu.

The second one was even more exciting. One day my dad got me a Malayalam novel, “Oru Sangeethanam Poole” by Malayalam writer Perumbadavam Sreedharan. The novel was about my all time favorite writer “Fyodor Dostoevsky”. It was an execllent portrayal of the painful, yet romantic days in Dostoevsky’s life when he was forced to write a novel (“The Gambler”) in return to the money borrowed from a real cunning guy. The time allowed was quite challenging and he had to get the help of a lady stenographer “Anna.” As “The Gambler” progressed though Dostoevsky’s mind and Anna’s type writer, “Oru Sangeethnam Poole” took a new turn, by which the writer and stenographer fell for each other for the same relation the pen have for the paper. Sreedharan defined Dostoevsky as "The writer who have God's signature on his heart." I was so excited when I heard that I’m getting a prize for my poem on “Malayalam”, from Mr.Sreedharan. It so happened just two days after me finished reading “Oru Sangeerthanam Poole” and was totally mesmerized by the romance he penned.

Now back to Ajay and me, at one point of time he became more popular than me in his poems, even reaching the state level poem completion. It was quite likely for me to be jealous of him. “What made my writings go down?” I used to wonder. But today I know, where we both stood then and that is nothing but my testimonial for him. I wish I would have realized this then……………

It’s been 8 years since I met Ajay. We are not writers or poets anymore as we used to dream. After my tenth I 've not written a word especially in Malayalam other than usual class notes and documents in comp. The habbit of blogging itself is something I gained very recently.

He is an Ayurvedic Doctor back in hometown Kerala and I’m a Knowledge Management Media professional here in Chennai. In simple words, we had become two individuals known to eachother at some point of time living in two different world with different dreams and different visions……….

Forever Heber

The film was screened at Alliance France for Madras Day Celebration '09', organized by Mylapore Times.

Room No: 169,
Bishop Heber Hall,
Madras Christian College,
Tambaram,
Chennai,
India.

Nothing special about this address, except for the fact that my heart and my soul still live there. With Heber chapel at the door side and the ground at the window side, 169 still remains my paradise on earth. Many nights I had spend sitting at the open space near the window staring the stars. It was never been closed for an entire year and five months. An owl nested at the tree near by was the only one curious about my lone little world. Didn’t you have any shame sweet heart? Anyways she is the only woman who had seen me truely, both my mind and my body nude…So I've a special love for her!!! In fact I was equally curious about her world trying to videograph her. During those days there were many who doubted that the department’s Hi-8 Handy cam is yet another organ on my body. Oh, now I remember those other cute neighbors of mine who posed neatly for my cam. That includes two cute parrots, I caught -kissing and romancing -sitting on top of the chapel bell tower. I needn’t mention about all other romances that bloomed in and out the mighty chapel.



About the bell tower I have yet another interesting story for which I myself been the protagonist, but of course not a romantic tale. It was a Sunday morning. I got up hearing some noise from chapel side and I could clearly see my junior friend Ginsu standing there surprised at his strength on pulling the gong out of the bell. That was never been his intention but to ring the bell for Sunday mass. Luckily it didn’t fall on his head. All were confused as it takes hardly half an hour more for the mass to start. If I remember it correctly I was the one who climbed on top of the bell tower and married the gong back to the bell.

Another nature’s actor was a woodpecker who found luxury on the tree stood in between my room and the chapel. But twice I had to miss having the cam for shooting deers came visiting me. Once it was a huge male wounded deer sheltered at the corner of chapel and the nearby room. At night I had jumped through the window (this I did many times luckily not falling the prey to roaming securities) and went near the deer. But I couldn’t reach him worried about its mood. Then as always I climbed back to the room through the wire mesh near the chapel side. One of my biggest fantasies was to jump though the window from my first floor room and go and lie on the lone ground at mid night gazing the stars. Another was walking out to the main gate at 4 o’clock in the morning waking up the securities and then having a tea from the shop outside.

Generally we speak about “nav-rasas” or the nine moods of man. But Heberians have a million other moods that can be explained only by a Heberian.

If you come to Tambaram darling
Come to Heber Hall……..
Heber is a Paradise
Fish pond and all…….

For the lucky men "The Gentlemen" , this is the song on which their heart beats.

Me and friends Deepu, Benji (Benjamin) and PJ (P.J. George) had never thought that we are thereby setting a new trend in Madras Christian College when we screened a documentary titled “Forever Heber” about our beloved home Bishop Heber Hall on the hall day 2005, as its been followed since then by almost all the Halls in MCC. I am proud-in fact, terribly thrilled – even after three years of me leaving Heber, I’m still getting calls from Heber as well as the brother halls Thomas and Selaiyur on suggestions and review of the short films by the young minds of MCC for the respective hall days.

For me it was first a craze to shoot the age old traditions and customs followed by the residents of Heber. I videographed almost every possible event in Heber from my first year (2003) of stay including anything and everything from General Body meeting to Octavia. And hence the film is a mixture of year 2003 to 2005 in Heber. Slowly the craze became an idea of making the documentary my M. A. Communication documentary film project. As it went on the craze and the idea became a mission for the future. And finally thus the film “Forever Heber”.

Fantastic script of narration written by P.J George to fabulous narration by Benjamin, it just brought out the best in all of us. My love was always been the moods of Heber with its immense simplicity, whether it be the green from the nature to the grey and blue from the minds of Heberians. The rain fell from the roof had music in it and the tone of Church bell had the right attitude.

The day of screening is memorable in many ways. I was running around holding my breath coz of many techinical problems. Thanks to my sweet little friend Cris who was my hall day guest. She kept saying "Don't worry Arun, it will work". And it so happened - with the lights off, in the sweetness of that dark, for the first time a film of mine got screened and tat too in front of my own family, the Heber family. Later Cris just smiled at me and said "Are u happy now"... Oh, yea....I said this in mind...

Heber for ever......Ever for Heber...Forever Heber….

Read about Heber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Heber_Hall

Just sharing you a very beautiful blog written by noted filmmaker Shekhar Kapur to his daughter, on his birthday.
http://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/archives/notes_to_my_daughter/