Goddess of love and strength

Sounds like you have it figured out. No! don’t feel bad on feeling down. You are bound to feel down when leaving such a good situation. But being away from your partner is extremely challenging. Yeah, I am impressed with you that you lasted this long.

I don’t know how you did it.

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I am very impressed. I think you are really really strong. I always think people who can pull this challenge off are just very very strong.

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Sounds like, you have some really big decisions to make. Its not like when you make a change, you close the door behind. You can always come back.

Good luck with your decision!!!

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About a bride…

The bride was completely unprecedented. And not only that She isnt weeping, but that she isnt weeping, despite all the calls around her to the contrary. While being walked across the hall, the crowd continuously prompted for some display of sobs. Not to be intimidated, She has bloomed even further off. She is focused more on the joiner, than the severance. It would be many many years, maybe even beyond our lifetimes, that we will see a bride like that again.

Shehzori – The Beauty

So I finished watching another Pakistani Classic “Shehzori”, another wonderful work by Haseena Moin, one of her quite early works, that was aired on PTV in early 70s. Although, thirty years ago from now, I still think that was more of a modern era in Pakistani thought as compared to present. Where so many extremes and conflict exist and independent thought is lost, creativity is stale and what you watch on tv is pretty much down right garbage.

I don’t think today people today will be willing to like a character such as this heroine acclaimed “Shehzori”. A girl who has a will of a her own and that much of a mountain, who knows how to fight for herself, not because she is trained to do it, rather, because that is what she is. What a beauty…!

I haven’t seen a stronger, agressive and lovable female heroine in any of her other plays, that too in possibly the worst of circumstances. If you have a thing for strong girls, ‘Tara’ gets you in the very first scene, where she starts roaring at the house maid for leaving her husband’s house at dismissal of her inlaws. She isn’t shy in blaming women’s losses on their own weaknesses.  She doesn’t blame it on circumstances as you hear people do even today as they talk of how some girl is bound and helpless because of this or that and feel sorry for them. I am amazed how well she made that point back in the 70’s that until a woman gains a sense of self and manages to take reins, nothing can really save her. One catches it in the very first scene that she herself will be presented with the same challenge and prepares himself to see how she handles it.

And handle she does, not chained by expectations of society. She had probably never been a part of it and that serves her well. There is this old saying “Where there is a will, there is a way” (a pill that one should take everyday when one is inclined to hide behind difficulties ).  As we see her ploughing through the mess, we also see hope building up, help coming in one form or the other as we see her going only guided by principle and her sense of self.

The play is not devoid of peculiar comedy that Haseena’s plays always carry. Its remarkable how she mixes such strong themes of female emancipation with her usual wit and satire. The dailogues specially those of Tara are blunt as apposed to sharp in more of her recent works. It is fitting to the plot and particular scenario shown in this play, as there are some situations requiring utter bluntness as compared to some complicated ones requiring sharpness. But it also in my mind reflects author’s youth and the free spirit she carries at the heart of her creations.

It was a treat to watch after a long time. After having known Elizabeth of P&P and Scarlett of GWTW, I was long after discovery of a strong heroine in Urdu Drama. One that is a force to reckon with.  Inspite of the common thread that runs in their heads and the common roaring blood that inspires their actions, its remarkable how much variety they have.

The Julia in your head matters…

A line from “Julie & Julia” got me., although it was in no way the main subject matter of the film. It referred to some interesting discussions, about having someone in your head as a blown up amplified version of its real self, and loving it and being inspired from it.

This was when our modern day “Julie” who is obsessed with “Julia” from 1950 and everything about her. It is when she gets a taste of “Julia” in reality and is understandably crushed. Of course, she expected Julia to be what she had imagined. To ease the shock, her husband comforted her with this line that “the Julia, the one in your head matters to you”. The easy thing in her case was that she had never met her, so when she did not like the reality, she chose not to meet her, so as to conserve the strength, that her imagination of Julia had always given her.

Its probably easy to be obsessed like that with someone in a role of a teacher, a mentor, or a someone who is distant in relation to you. When it is possible to be distant. When actually a culmination is not required. When it is possible to be far so as to realize,

“Duur baittha ghubaar e mir uss say…
Ishq bin yeh adab nahi aata…”

In general though, when one is obsessed with someone who is close by. Fantasy collides with reality quite easily. Shouldn’t then a person be able to shake themselves out of falsehood? The disguise that they have constructed to worship. Its amazing how one puts all the features that one likes in the object of his/her love and keeps doing it blatantly, unstoppably.

I mean listen to “Aafreen Aafreen” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The mehboob in that feels like some one from some other universe. Definitely not a inhabitant of this planet… Although, I would allow such exaggerated praise of one’s love, but with a condition. An important condition.

The condition is that of “possession”. If you possess someone you love, it is actually not allowed rather incumbent upon you to worship your possession. That is when it should be done, and only to that it should be done. When one is possessed and is possessing. That is when they are allowed rather encouraged to sink deep into this ocean of “parastish” aka worship.

What right do you have to be obsessed with something that is not yours. And if it was supposed to be yours, why did you not attempt to attain it. If your attempt failed, that is then another story.

Thanks to “Julie & Julia”, it resolved a little something for me. The obsession without culmination is probably possible in a distant role… where one can be nice and strong enough to understand the reality of their object of love and do not drag them through the facade of their imagination.

Loss

Time and again, days after days I am brought in touch with it. Loss. How do you save a loved one?

I repeat, as I sketch this scene before you… how do you save a loved one, when you see them walking blindly towards… a pit, a hole of unimaginable depth and pain. You can even see themselves in misery… as misery is what they are falling prey to, but they are unaware of their own misery. They are deaf, blind to it. Its as if they are walking on a cliff towards the tip to jump and below is only molten lava.

Your whole body is tied, senses are tied, you only see it all happening before your eyes.

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My mind invariably goes to the countless mornings and afternoons. Walking together. Evenings, Playing and learning, cycles, streets, fights and quarrels, ice lolys, and video games, story books and all. Adventures of childhood, growing up. A preview into things I would meet in two years time.
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How the hell do you save a loved one like that.
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When I ask, I receive a lesson in prayers and belief. You should be confident that your prayers will see them through. See you through. Who are you to dare control something when every little thing is HIS command. Pray and believe in it!

Of superficialities and a Leading lady

When superficial women annoy you…
When their caprice needs to shatter…
When society expects you to be nice…
When they all want you to be proper…

When you are sick of civilities…
And of conceit and pretensions…
When you need to slice their standards…
with words pinging with sugar…

When you need to show them a mirror…
When you see their vanity get hurt…
By no design of your own…

And take pleasure in inconsistencies…
And laugh at their follies…

And deal with Misses Bingleys…
and Steele’s and Crawfords…
and enjoy their futile chases
of Darcys, Edmunds and Edwards…

You need a dose of Elizabeth Bennet again!

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Oh my dear sweet love, Miss Austen. What would I have done with out you and your beautiful creation that is this woman. I wait for the time in heavens, when I get to kiss your hands.

Nicola Tesla

The genius who lit the World. Today, July 10th is his birthday. (And his birthday sort of coincides with …, well just another engineer…:))

The inventor of Polyphase Alternating Current, Induction Motor and the Tesla Coil. by virtue of which he can be proclaimed as the father of today’s electrical transmission systems, radio, and a foreseer of all the wireless and satellite communications.

The film “The Prestige” chronicles his part of life where he was being crushed by Edison’s lab and Direct Current, while he maintained that the future belongs to alternating current. In the film’s plot, they develop a fictional hook for him, Tesla is shown inventing a machine for a magician attributing to him that he can do “real magic”. I actually didn’t know much of his life history before watching this captivating movie by Christopher Nolan (also by him: Batman Begins) and then I got hooked to Tesla’s personality. There is this marvelous scene in the film where we see a foggy night, out in the open Tesla is conducting his experiment for conduction through the earth. There are these oblong electric bulbs inserted in the ground as far as you can see, and you insert this one more bulb, probably completing the circuit and see the whole field lightening up.

I read, that he had drawn the principle diagram of Induction Motor walking with a friend on sand and explained it to him right there. Then, I saw him in Niagara Falls. His monument honoring his contribution and commemorating his accomplishment – first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls in 1895.  And today I find that in addition to lighting
the world, he also devised the four tuner circuit that builds the foundation of radios. I also find out today, that Marconi’s most important patent in radio technology was regarded invalid in 1943* considering Tesla’s prior and significant contributions. Marconi who established wireless communication between Britian and Newfoundland in 1901.

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We just keep learning. The places and ideas, we have inhabited, in this case Newfoundland, Niagara, Radios, Electricity, keep muddling with each other and give meaning to our existence. Even the picture on the top of this blog has three photos, 2 of them taken in Newfoundland and 1 in Niagara Falls. And we know just how pivotal are the Signal Hill in Newfoundland and the areas surrounding  Niagara Falls.

*www.teslasociety.com