blood


Blood is still oozing out from the deep slit…
A sheaved hand,
Few gapping mouth,
There was a blast here…
A duty-bound reporter mutters
Live on the camera…
Blood is pouring out…
The lines have their place
In each and every copy-
-Of Julius Caesar…
A wife has seen the nightmare…
Nothing new to talk about…
Many such unheard wives have seen such dreams
Night after night
Some before the death of their husbands and children,
Some after the fatal loss…
Some like Keats have wondered about the redness…
Some have just whipped it off
-For fresh blood to ooze out.

Your silence


 (Dedicated to the year 2008- and the people i met that year)
I find your silence breathing to me.
The moment I bend my head in despair
I feel your silence breathing on my neck.
In sultry nights, on untouched bed,
I sense your silence stretched across.
Of hundred things I assume every day,
I love to see your silence looking for the real me.
In crowded roads and suffocating metros
I feel your silence comforting me.
Your silence hangs around all the time
-Disobeying laws of motion and those of gravity.
Your silence makes dreary roads enchanting again.
Your silence remains everywhere.
Intact like the veil of burka
Or like my shadow never abandoning me.
Your silence holds me up again.
-Hugs me, when I need a touch.
Are you there?  I never enquire.
Your silence follows me everywhere.

My first short story...

 (This story has an interesting history. My late grandfather had told me the art of story telling, but it got lost with his cremation on 14th January,1997...It was not until in standard eleven that I rediscovered my talent. It all started because of Radhika, a wonderful person and a very loving friend. In spite of being nearly four years younger to me, we became friends, as we travelled by the same school bus. One day, having talked about all messy thing, gossips, fights and analysing teachers, Radhika demanded for a self made story. I lied to her about the source of the story(told her that it was from an old college magazine...) but this was my creation, my first step towards story telling and story writing. It was not until last year that I first penned down this piece. The aura of it had always frightened me and had drove my to a strange state of mind, towards disbelieving it to be my own creation...too much has being said...yet so much beyond my expression..read on)

The sketch 


The face …the white breeze…no a white sari, a woman wearing it, a woman with a long braid…a night street…she is walking down the empty night street…I need to stop her…”Didi”… I gasped for breathe unable to speak! My eyes opened to the revolving whiteness above and met the fluorescent beams scoring the ceiling. I turned left. My wife was sleeping as quite as a fallen petal. Our bed was quite big. But she loved sleeping, nestled against me. With no intention to wake her up at this hour, I cautiously turned right and switched on the bed side table lamp. My hands went for a paper cutting, well secured under a fancy paper weight, on the bed side table.- The 7’’ inch piece of paper, a cut out from today’s morning news paper. It announced the felicitation of …’Didi’. I read the paper again and again. My eyes closed to let a tiny tear drop of tear roll down my well shaved cheeks. My mother’s voice calling me from behind…’Bubai’…I run down our front door stairs mumbling excuses…keys jingling in my pocket…I rush across the road…stuffing my mouth with two biscuits(all I could manage to grab from my afternoon Tiffin)… I rush up the red stairs. Fishing out the bunch of keys from my pocket, I selected a particular fancy key and opened the front door. There is a creek, my mother has by now, reached our front door… I open the door in front me and close it with a thud on the face of the outside world. I am safe, I am free I am inside my Didi’s house…Didi will return a few hours from now, and till then I have her house at my disposition. I am not alone in this three roomed one storied house. I have her books that are arranged all along the side walls, I have her China dolls singing to themselves on the table at the corner, and above all I have Mr. Goodie Boy to talk to. Didi’s living cum study room seems incomplete without Mr. Goodie Boy. The strict essence of discipline, education, and all the rest of the things that accompany them, have all seemed to have found a comfortable place to reside in Mr. goodie Boy. I do not know what his real name is. Didi would always give me a funny smile whenever I asked this question. Who so ever it was, he was no doubt a patient man. He never complained of being stretched across the whole wall. He was a man, may be in his mid 20’s, obediently bend over his study table, scribbling his mind out. My father, an engineer by profession, had remarked that the painting was done with a graphic pen impression. The strokes, he thought and I agreed with him gave that impressing stoic look to the contours of the face. His hair fascinated me the most. They were a mop of perfect curls I had ever seen in my life. I always had an opinion that curly hair was a god gifted item and had some kind of a spiritualism attaché to it. Whoever, had such kind of hair, ought to be a good boy. The first boy of my class had curls so did my cousin and both of them scored high in their tests, unlike me, much to the increasing frustration of my mother. Our Mr. Goodie Boy had thick curls that covered the nap of his neck. He was the first thing that a person would notice while entering Didi’s house, and he would be the most important thing that the visitor would remember after he or she has left the house. I do not know, why I felt this, but surely he was the only thing that made Didi’s house complete. Didi lived all by herself. Didi was a teacher, a researcher and also a social worker. She never had relatives visiting her place. All those who came were either related to her profession or were academic people, wanting her to take classes in their institution. Often few newspaper people would come to take her interview, which she would politely decline. No one ever heard her voice. She was strict, but again soft spoken. She indeed spoke little. May be I was the only person she spoke too, somewhat freely. She was simple, just like the white covers of all her books, methodical, like the disciplined manner in which her books (she would call them her soul-mates) were arranged in their chocolate brown wooden book selves. Often I would run down my fingers along those in the lower selves and would imagine strange tales of battle won and lost. Of nations destroyed and unknown lands discovered… My thoughts were interrupted by a prolonged ringing of the door bell. I looked out of the side window. A group of six people were standing at the door. It was afternoon and I could hear the big bully boys playing in the field on the other side of our complex. I opened the door to six set of enquiring eyes. There were four women and two men. They exchanged looks, finding a skinny teenager answer the door. But I had my dialogues ready.-“Didi would be back within two hours, you all may sit if you please”. They consulted with the man with a grave face and filed into the living room. Once comfortable, all around the sofas and cushions around, they had a brief glimpse of the room. First, they tried to talk among themselves, completely ignoring my presence. But they could not ignore Mr. Goodie Boy. Initially they tried their level best not to digress from their talking points. But soon all of them were engulfed with the enthralling beauty of the sketch. I followed their words and tried to enjoy the atmosphere of awe that soon revolved in the room. All said something or the other, except the grave looking man. His eyes were transfixed at the crystal ashtray on the centre table. His face was jaw tight. He seemed out of the place, lost in thoughts. Somehow, it seemed to me, he was not even thinking about whatever he wanted to speak about to Didi. He was lost in strange thoughts. I was quite taken aback by his reactions to the increasing comments made by his associates on Mr. Goodie Boy. He gave answers in monosyllables, something that had never happened before. I was shaken out off my reverie, by a doorbell. It was evening by now. And it was Didi at the doorbell. Her smile and her habit of shuffling with my hair made my day. I took the food packs from her hand and trotted after her into the living room. She greeted all the six visitors with her prosaic smile and asked them to sit while she made arrangements for their refreshments. The formal and usual ‘thanks-do-not-bother-your-self’ and ‘it-is my pleasure-and-I-am-not-bothered’ followed. These formalities bothered me because I had to tell my day’s story to Didi, and could not waste much time, because my mother would soon be coming for me. I did take time to notice Mr. Grave-face’s reaction at meeting Didi. I could bet he was not in himself, and he was feigning it. Once in the kitchen, I dashed about Didi, rumbling my day’s activities and my observations about her visitors. She gave me her funny smile once again and a suggestive look, indicating my time to rush back home. Like a reluctant schoolboy I dragged myself back homeward. From the window of my room I could see Didi’s neat and somber house. I was growing and quite typical to that age, the strange senses of negating those in the family and feeling the indispensible urge to share one’s innermost thoughts with someone apart. Didi was that ‘someone apart’. I did not even required to say many of the things; she would just know them or would simply guess them out. She was my best friend or may be more than it…she was like the wet earth, a village girl, or an earthen goddess…I wondered why did she never marry?? My books were ignored; my eyes were scanning Didi’s windows. I had strange feelings like something unwanted was about to happen. The retinue of ‘six –intelligentsia’ (they seem to know a lot and worse, they were all up to prove themselves superior) left about an hour and half after my departure. The grave faced man was the first to leave. I tried to see Didi’s face and but she was half hidden in the shadows. The others thanked her for the hospitality, the ladies were loud, but the men were unnecessarily vocal. The grave man never uttered a word. I watched the team walk away and Didi closing her door. She would usually look up for me watching her, but she did not do anything like that this time. She was thoughtful or was she worried, was she sick or afraid…what was so wrong with her? My mother called for dinner…I could hardly eat…I rushed back to my room soon after a few bites. I reached my window to find someone at Didi’s door step, that grave looking man! ...my mother came in and before I buried myself into my textbooks I saw the man enter the house after Didi. I was not sure at that time of what transpired inside her house that time, but our part of the little world was filled with my mother’s abuses and my incessant yelps-the usual treatment for being inattentive, with exams round the corner! I went to bed with a sore back and a troubled heart. My eyes refused to close,” that man is still in the house”. Sleep and a heavy heart dragged me to slumber. Now Didi’s main door was quiet big, if any one opened it at night, light would surely fall inside my room. The door opened quite late. The grave faced man walked out with a huge board tucked under one of his arm. Didi was not at the door…It was a windy night; a gush of wind closed the door. I sat up confused, was it a theft or murder and theft, I thought of rising an alarm, I paced about my room, tried the lock at my door, an extension of my punishment, I was locked in my room. I needed to know about Didi, how was she where was she why was she not closing the door all by herself. What was the huge thing the man carried away….Questions tormented me. I stood by my window, eyes strained, trying to locate Didi. There she was! Oh! She was alive! But she was not in herself! She was wearing a white sari, her movements were pathetically slow as if she was dragging herself, She did not even tie her hair, this was never to happen…she walked out of the house…it was too late… she did not even close the door… Mr. Goodie Boy had gone! The wall was empty! The road was empty!! Didi was nowhere!!!”Didi!!!! I could not yell! The night did not permit me somehow. They could never locate Didi. She simply vanished, never to return. I complained to the police about my inhibitions about that grave man. He not convicted, when we met again during the proceedings, he took me to a corner, and said,” I am the culprit but of a different crime…I have a daughter of your age…my wife is suffering from a fatal disease…I knew her from my college days. I was her friend, I never felt I was her life, she knew I needed money that day, we went to buy that sketch, she refused in front of the others, she called me back to give it to me personally. I took my last impression away from her…” Some street dogs broke into a nasty fight. I got up with a start. My wife was sleeping like a lovely bud. We would have a new member in the family in months to come…If it was a boy, I would call him goodie boy, if it was a girl I would call her… ~

A SLUM’S NIGHTLY DELIRIUM


“Liqour bottles, crawling turps, domestic violence 
Unperturbed herds of- 
Little ‘Voltaire’,’Michaelangelo’, ‘Shakespeare’-sleep on. 
Days spent on grotesque pranks.
Penurous; famished meals,-contracted bellies- 
They end up plotting filmy escapades. 
Caught in frenzy, without any progression- 
‘They and I’-rattling skeletons!!!! 
‘CITY –REFUSE, SOLD HERE…EVERY NIGHT.’ 
‘CITY- REFUSE…! HUSH! HUSH! HUSH! 
“CITY REFUSE…!HUSH! HUSh!HUsh!Hush!hush!” 
“SLEEP!SLEEp!SLEep!SLeep!Sleep!sleep!” 
No more raving!I must sleep, they must sleep……”

Indian tv serials

Indian serials or soap operas, as they are called, have been an integral part of the television-viewing society.
If the TV set is called the animated companion of the housewives, the elderly men and women in the family; the serials are treated like an extended family by them. The Indian TV serials deal with different themes and messages for the society, or at times they are merely entertainment.Comedy, social issues, family relationships, mythology, children shows, patriotism are the few popular themes around which their plots revolve. Telecast-ed in various languages, they have one eminent thing  common in them- the high dramatic appeal. It is widely believed that the target audience- the middle class en mass, needs an outlet to fulfill their suppressed dreams, like prosperity, in all the sense of the term, lavish lifestyle, and most importantly requires a high moral guidance, to combat with the arduous hurdles of daily life. If watched closely all the TV serials shown throughout the day on a daily basis, caters to all these suppressed desires of the viewers. The plots in all the major TV serials televised ever since its advent, have shifted its storyline from the rich to the poor with the middle class sensibilities squeezed in between. There is a thin line between the reality and the dream world that these serials craftily maintain.Some question the sets, some grumble over the costumes  and some find it hard to imagine how the characters live on and on without showing any sign of aging. mostly, nothing seems common place about the characters apart from their on screen names. promiscuity, adultery, constant family tussle, black and white characterization, vicious schemes and plots all boil together in the cauldron of the scriptwriters. They are the reality removed from the real world or they are the distant kin to the fantasia that every Indian viewer weave daily in their mind, is debatable.

midnight's children-courtesy sparksnotes


Themes
The Single and the Many

Born at the dawn of Indian independence and destined, upon his death, to break into as many pieces as there are citizens of India, Saleem Sinai manages to represent the entirety of India within his individual self. The notion that a single person could possibly embody a teeming, diverse, multitudinous nation like India encapsulates one of the novel’s fundamental concerns: the tension between the single and the many. The dynamic relationship between Saleem’s individual life and the collective life of the nation suggests that public and private will always influence one another, but it remains unclear whether they can be completely equated with one another. Throughout the novel, Saleem struggles to contain all of India within himself—to cram his personal story with the themes and stories of his country—only to disintegrate and collapse at the end of his attempt.

Politically speaking, the tension between the single and the many also marks the nation of India itself. One of the fastest growing nations in the world, India has always been an incredibly diverse. Its constitution recognizes twenty-two official languages, and the population practices religions as varied as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and Buddhism, among many others. Indian culture is similarly hybrid, having been influenced by countless other cultures over the millennia of its development. At the same time, however, maintaining India’s sprawling diversity in a peaceful fashion has often proved difficult: India’s division into the Islamic nation of Pakistan and the secular, but mostly Hindu nation of India—a process known as Partition—remains the most striking example of the desire to contain and reduce India’s plurality. In Midnight’s Children, the child Saleem watches as protestors attempt to do divide the city of Bombay along linguistic lines, another attempt to categorize and cordon off multiplicity.

Saleem, a character who contains a multitude of experiences and sensitivities, stands in stark contrast to the protestors who demand their own language-based region, the strict monotheism of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi’s repression of contradictory dissension. His powers of telepathy allow him to transcend the barriers of language, while he himself—with his English blood, poor background, wealthy upbringing, and eclectic religious influeces—reflects India’s diversity and range. The Midnight Children’s Conference that he convenes is, in its initial phase, a model for pluralism and a testimony to the potential power inherent within coexisting diversity, which is a natural and definitive element of Indian culture. In Midnight’s Children, the desire for singularity or purity—whether of religion or culture—breeds not only intolerance but also violence and repression.
The Unreliability of Memory and Narrative

Factual errors and dubious claims are essential aspects of Saleem’s fantastic narrative. He willfully acknowledges that he misplaced Gandhi’s death, an obviously seminal moment in India’s history, as well as willfully misremembers the date of an election. He frets over the accuracy of his story and worries about future errors he might make. Yet, at the same time, after acknowledging his error, Saleem decides to maintain his version of events, since that’s how they appeared to occur to him and now there can be no going back. Despite its potential historical inaccuracies, Saleem sees his story as being of equal importance as the world’s most important religious texts. This is not only his story but also the story of India. The errors in his story, in addition to casting a shadow of doubt over some of what he claims, point to one of the novel’s essential claims: that truth is not just a matter of verifiable facts. Genuine historical truth depends on perspective—and a willingness to believe. Saleem notes that memory creates its own truth, and so do narratives. Religious texts and history books alike stake their claim in truth not only because they are supported by facts but also because they have been codified and accepted upon, whether by time or faith. The version of history Saleem offers comes filtered through his perspective, just as every other version of history comes filtered through some alternate perspective. For Saleem, his version is as true as anything else that could be written, not just because this is the way he has arranged it, but because this is the version he believes.
Destruction vs. Creation

The battle between Saleem and Shiva reflects the ancient, mythological battle between the creative and destructive forces in the world. The enmity and tension between the two begin at the moment of their simultaneous births. The reference to Shiva, the Hindu god of both destruction and procreation, reflects not only the tension between destruction and creation but also the inextricably bound nature of these two forces. Saleem, as the narrator of Midnight’s Children, is responsible for creating the world we, as readers, are engaged in. He represents Brahma, the god of creation. What Saleem creates, however, is not life, but a story. By delivering Saleem into the hands of the Widow, Shiva is responsible for the destruction of the midnight’s children, and yet, by fathering Aadam and hundreds of other children, he ensures the continuation of their legacy.
Motifs
Snakes

Beginning with the snake venom that saves Saleem’s young life, snakes play an ambiguous and complicated role in the novel. Saleem often refers to his favorite childhood board game, Snakes and Ladders. In the game’s simple formula of good and evil, Saleem learns an important lesson: for every up, there is a down, and for every down, there is an up. Missing from the board game, however, is the ambiguity between good and evil that he later detects as a natural part of life. Generally considered to represent evil, snakes are, in fact, much more complicated than that simple generalization might imply. While venom has the power to kill, it also has the ability to bring life, and it does so not once but twice in the novel. Snake venom represents the power of Shiva, who is both destroyer and procreator in the Hindu pantheon. In Midnight’s Children, snakes are also associated with Picture Singh, Saleem’s closest friend, whose career is both dependent upon and destroyed by snakes.
Leaking
Throughout the novel, the past finds ways to mysteriously insinuate itself into the present, just as Saleem’s personal compulsions and concerns find themselves inexplicably replicated in national, political events. Perhaps inspired by his own constantly running nose, Saleem uses the term leaking to describe this phenomenon. The lines separating past, present, and future—as well as the lines separating the personal and the political, the individual and the state—are incredibly porous. When Saleem begins having dreams about Kashmir, for example, the stirring images of his dreams seems to seep into the national consciousness, and India and Pakistan begin to battle over possession of the beautiful region. In Midnight’s Children, the interplay between personal and public, past and present, remains fluid and dynamic, like leaking liquid.
Fragmentation

Saleem claims that, much like his narrative, he is physically falling apart. His body is riddled with cracks, and, as a result, the past is spilling out of him. His story, spread out over sixty-three years, is a fragmented narrative, oscillating back and forth between past and present and frequently broken up further by Saleem’s interjections. In addition to the narrative and physical fragmentation, India itself is fragmented. Torn apart by Partition, it is divided into two separate countries, with the east and west sections of Pakistan on either side of India. This division is taken even further when East and West Pakistan are reclassified as two separate countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Within India, language marchers agitate for further partitions based upon linguistic lines. New nationalities are created, and with them come new forms of cultural identity that reflect the constant divisions.
Symbols
The Silver Spittoon

The silver spittoon given to Amina as part of her dowry by the Rani of Cooch Naheen is responsible for Saleem’s loss of memory. Even when he has amnesia, however, Saleem continues to cherish the spittoon as if he still understands its historical value. Following the destruction of his family, the silver spittoon is the only tangible remnant of Saleem’s former life, and yet it too is eventually destroyed when Saleem’s house in the ghetto is torn down. Spittoons, once used as part of a cherished game for both old and young, gradually fell out of use: the old men no longer spit their betel juice into the street as they tell stories, nor do the children dart in between the streams as they listen. The spittoon is the symbol of a vanishing era, which, in retrospect, seemed simpler and easier. And so, although Saleem may not be able to recall the specific association between the spittoon and his family, the spittoon maintains its symbolic quality as both a container of memory and source of amnesia.
The Perforated Sheet

The perforated sheet through which Aadam Aziz falls in love with his future wife performs several different symbolic functions throughout the novel. Unable to see his future wife as a whole, Aadam falls in love with her in pieces. As a result, their love never has a cohesive unity that holds them together. Their love is fragmented, just as their daughter Amina’s attempts to fall in love with her husband are also fragmented. Haunted by the memory of her previous husband, Amina embarks on a campaign to fall in love with her new husband in sections, just as her father once fell in love with her mother. Despite her best attempts, Amina and Ahmed’s love also lacks the completion and unity necessary for genuine love to thrive. The hole of the perforated sheet represents a portal for vision but also a void that goes unfilled. The perforated sheet makes one final appearance with Jamila Singer: in an attempt to preserve her purity, she shrouds herself completely, except for a single hole for her lips. The perforated sheet, in addition to preserving her purity, also reduces to her to nothing more than a voice. The sheet becomes a veil that separates her from the rest of the world and reflects her inability to accept affection.
Knees and Nose

The seer, Ramram, predicts the birth of “knees and nose,” which represent Shiva and Saleem, respectively. In addition to symbolizing each boy’s special power, knees and nose also play another role. When Aadam Aziz first kneels down to pray, his knees touch the floor and his nose hits the ground. Knees and nose, in this instance, represent an act of prayer, as well as the submission and humility necessary faith. After hitting his nose on the ground, however, Aadam rejects that submission, and a hole opens up inside of him. Knees and nose also become significant with Farooq’s death via a sniper bullet. Shot, Farooq first drops to his knees, then hits his nose on the ground. Just as Aadam bowed before god, Farooq bows before death. Shiva is suspected of killing a string of prostitutes with his powerful knees, while Saleem uses his nose to discover the most decrepit prostitute in the city. Knees and nose—just like Shiva and Saleem, destruction and creation, faith and humility—are inextricably related.