What’s your passion?

I watched the ‘Million Dollar Baby’ yesterday. For the zillionth time. Every time I watch it, I feel Maggie Fitzgerald’s passion so strongly. She’s a raging bull, more in the head than in the body; her interminable struggle and intensity concealed in her reclusive calmness. She’s the one you’ll pass a hundred times on the street and probably never notice - not her, not her struggle, not her pain, not her passion, nothing; we don’t have time for the below best; how can we spare for the inconspicuous and mundane? An inferno grabs attention, not incinerating garbage.

As I watch the screen, with each punch she delivers, not to the crunching jaw or a rupturing cartilage of an opponent, not even to a punching bag but to the oppression of circumstances, I see a tiny fighter dancing in her footwork trance against a twin headed Goliath called destiny and life, not giving up, not giving in but just growing and growing and growing with her tired beautiful smile.

And for the first time, I wonder; why boxing of all things? Sounds unlikely and a bit unrealistic for a downtown waitress, doesn’t it? What got her to it in the first place? Was it just a survival instinct to fight back; well she had enough reasons and opportunities to do so. Fight, fight, fight. Destroy, break, suffer, die, win! Did the monster of revenge whisper this every single day in her innocent and naïve ears?

No matter how many times you pull a web down, a spider relentlessly constructs it again, painstakingly or otherwise. Is web building its passion then? And does it enjoy it; can it survive without doing it? Your guess is as good as mine. We, robotically wake up every single day and go about doing our chores, going to office, earning money, eating, sleeping and repeating. These acts of necessity, are they shards of passion? I hope not.

What defines passion then? Do we find it or does it find us? Can passion capriciously change from one thing to another; does our ability to be successful at it or not explain it? How does one identify it? Does it just strike us one fine day, like love and lightning? Is it something that we’ve loved for a very long time? Are the reasons for loving it selfless; do the reasons matter? Is it something that we’re good at? Is it self-driven or imposed?  Or have we just trained our mind like the thousand other things to tell us that this is it?

I think the answer lies in how truthful and honest we are to our feelings when we do things. There are very few times when we are really ourselves, and not what the situation wants us to be. We just replace masks, one after another as we move through the proceeds of life; abandoning passion among other things in the crowded alleys routine.

To me passion is something that invigorates you from within. Other factors and others become inconspicuous when you are at it. It is one of the few things you enjoy and do even when no-one notices or is interested; it’s unpretentious. Learning, falling, being broken and disappointment are inevitable, yet you nurture it. It will entice you into that meditative trance difficult to break free from; it’s important to feel that connection.

Unconditional love couldn’t find a better example. This love, if real, is one of the purest and interminable forms. The world, its disparaging taunts fade, as obdurately you refuse to budge and give in. It makes you feel good about yourself. It’ll test you though, rest assured, time and again, relentlessly and demand nothing less than all you’ve got. And the rest depends on how much you are ready to give to it.

That faint touch of the extended chest at the finish line, the completion of the last piece of the quartet, that final punch that brings your opponent down to his knees; the satisfaction cannot be recorded – it is not the last, it never will be the last. It goes on and even when one is incapable later in life, it stays in the mind till the last breath.

Pink Floyd were passionate about their music; they didn’t create music for the world.  They believed in what they were doing and just created lasting melodies that have made them so beautiful, unique and enchanting.

Passion - you can’t physically embrace it, it can’t smile back but the pleasure it can give is like a mental orgasm.

So what’s your passion?




Picture courtesy

© Million Dollar Baby image - https://www.altfg.com/film/million-dollar-baby/

© Pink Floyd image - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pink_Floyd_(1971).png

© Runner image -https://www.boston.com/news/boston-marathon/2019/04/15/boston-marathon-2019-photos

The end of the affair by Graham Greene – A book review

A few days ago, I met a gentleman or rather the gentleman met me. As I sat quietly with a book, about to start reading it, he settled himself in the seat beside me. It was rather eccentric of him to start speaking the very next moment and say that he knew a lot about me and my thoughts. I smiled at first and knew it was now time to look the other way but he persisted. He kept speaking without looking at me. And what he said with each utterance not just intrigued but shocked me. I sat there, hypnotized, listening helplessly.

Just as he had come unannounced, he left after his soliloquy, without bidding adieu and I sat there feeling naked and exposed, feeling heavy; my emotions, thoughts, doubts, affairs, my love and hatred, jealousy and pity whirling in eddies of wind right where he had sat.

And as I finish this engrossing book, I know it was Greene that I’d met.

And I know that I will read this book again; probably ten times, even more. It’s a treasure that I’ve not had to hunt for; it’s a treasure that has found me. I usually highlight beautiful thoughts in books and weave them in my review but amusingly, I ended up highlighting almost the entire book. It’s pure in its beauty and ugliness and madness. It’s for everyone in love, out of love, married or just human. It’s for everyone who loves and has innumerable questions for God. It’s about your fight against love, for it, against and for your understanding of His mysterious ways. And as you’re left deprived of answers at the end of this mental entanglement, you inanely end up grinning that there are others, like you, who are capable of the same immorality in the helplessness and powerlessness of the situation, as if that is even justified. It’s a mirror for lovers and what you see, isn’t physical.

I’d thought I dare not write a review for this one but have ended up doing just that, if this can be called one. All I feel as I keep it back on my shelves is the universe trying to tell me something; something very strong. And it isn’t a whisper; it’s a loud and constant yell asking me to suspend judgments and believe. I’ve been made to read this one for a reason.

I love a butterfly. Should I just watch and admire it from a distance even though my heart longs to possess it? Or should I attempt to capture and keep it or should I let it go? Will it ever come to me, to stay forever or just tease and flit around? Maurice Bendrix never got his answers, why would I; surely the orchestrator has.

My rating: 10/10


Image copyrights

© Graham Greene - https://www.businessdestinations.com/bd-portrait/graham-green-our-man-around-the-globe/

© Book cover - https://epublib.info/the-end-of-the-affair-by-graham-greene/

Will we ever learn?

Will we ever learn?

About a thousand and a half people assembled outside a Masjid near Bandra station on the 14^th Apr 2020. And by any mean, it didn’t seem to be a capricious move; rather a well planned one. Someone had been messaging them since the last 4—5 days to gather at Bandra station; they were to be facilitated to go home. Really? It wouldn’t be distressing news on a normal day, but to see a mob in the midst of a lockdown left everyone distraught. Let’s try and break this up.

Who were these people?

These people were workers and labourers, migrants mostly from Malda in West Bengal. Malda, by the way, is near the India Bangladesh border, so for all we know they might even be illegal Bangladeshi migrants, in Mumbai to earn their livelihood.

And how do we know that they were mostly workers from West Bengal? Because that’s what’s been reported by the reporters on ground. Now, we know that it’s not possible to have asked every person present there where he/she was from and then draw a graph. However, my concern is why wasn’t there a single interview or media coverage of the labourers, why weren’t questions asked directly to them and have answers shot on a camera like is already done; was there something to hide?

And a religious person dressed in green was addressing them and mentioning their God again and again. How did he know that most of them were from a particular religion? If I wake up tomorrow and see a crowd of thousands gathered outside my building, I wouldn’t know what religion they belonged to unless their attire gave it away or unless I was told so. And why would I ask them about their religion in the first place; why should that be my focus?

Why did they gather there?

Was it a protest? They had been receiving messages for the last 4-5 days on WhatsApp asking them to gather at Bandra station if they wanted to go home. They wanted to go home and be with their families.

To empathize, they were probably cramped up in confined spaces, 4-5 living in each and if they were daily wage labourers, where were they getting their food from. I don’t think they were even carrying their ration cards.

We, amidst this lockdown are safely tucked in our 1,2,3 BHK houses, cleaning our sneezes with tissues and throwing them in a lidded dustbin like Amitabh Bachan says, some are working out extensively and vulgarly displaying their bodies on online posts, someone’s showing a mosquito bite – wow, and a few are exploiting and rediscovering their culinary skills.

What do we really expect from these poor people though? Die before they die? Starving to death in confinement? Was food really being made available to them?

Were they foolish enough to not know that there could be lathi charge by the police, that there could be a stampede? Educated or not, I find it a bit difficult to believe that these poverty stricken workers braved the act on an impulse.

Even the quietest and calmest of children break-down or give it back at a certain point to the bullies; there is always a trigger. What was it in this case? And who provided it? And why was it provided – a political move, to bring unrest or to really help these people (that really sounds ridiculous in the current circumstances)?

Having said and asked that, none of them looked to be in a hurry; they seemed to be dressed well and more importantly it wasn’t inconspicuous that they were there without any luggage. Isn’t that surprising now? And why gather outside the station? Did they really intend to be sent home or were just masquerading for an ulterior agenda?

These are the questions, I think we should be asking before passing our judgments.

How did they get there?

Now this is one of the million dollar questions. We step out today and there are police barricades everywhere asking questions, discouraging social interaction, policemen carrying lathis, making arrests. So, how then did around fifteen hundred people appear all of a sudden outside the Masjid; how were they allowed. Could it be possible without the complicity of authorities? Now who are the authorities? The police, politicians, religious leaders, fake news specialists?

And why should they believe you?

And while all this was happening, the concerned rulers of the state were safe in their barricaded and protected houses thinking why this happened and what’s to be done. They surely took their time. A few blamed the centre. They were probably conducting internal meetings to decide on what was the best thing to say to the camera. The best thing!

It was frivolous of them to address the crowd on television saying that they’ve come to our state, were welcome to stay here and would be protected. What a farce. Why should they be believed and trusted? Didn’t they do everything possible to drive away these very people from the state? And would this have happened if these workers felt protected in the first place?

My friend works for an NGO and they’ve tied up with a food delivery company to create a platform where the needy can request for food during this lockdown and people who want to give donations can reach out to them. Daily, on our television screens, we are seeing lot of NGOs and good Samaritans doing the same. Shouldn’t the BMC, one of the richest governmental institutions, be interceding and doing more in this time of crisis? We aren’t asking for much – let the skyrocketed toll money you’ve collected from us go to them. At least that; it’d suffice.

And what are the opposition and other parties doing?

Is the task of an opposition just to oppose and excoriate the government in power? Can’t they get their hands dirty and be on the ground lending a helping hand or do they deem it enough to denounce others on television screens in pointless debates?


But there’s a more basic issue here. Things like these have always been orchestrated, probably a million, zillion times in the past. And every time, the people of this country or any country have seen who suffers finally. Read and listen between the lines when people of God and people of power invigorate you to go overboard, apply that uncommon common sense. Don’t make WhatsApp your God of information. Think when something is said to you, think of the repercussions, think if there are other ways to highlight and condemn things. Have love for the country; in no other country are people of all religions let to thrive.

Is this virus, pandemic showing us the true us in more ways than one?

Be a rebel but with a cause. Don't cause panic, don't let people suffer because of you.
Image copyright - © https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/migrant-workers-keen-to-return-to-villages-gather-outside-mumbais-bandra-station-defying-lockdown/article31340674.ece

When we were orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro – A book review

Christopher Bank is a celebrated detective in London but the one case that has always been haunting him is the mysterious/enigmatic disappearance of his parents when he lived in Shanghai. As an investigator, he relentlessly gathers facts and clues to substantiate his theories and connections; and after all these years he is closer in his pursuit than he ever was to reveal the truth and get them back, he thinks. He thinks! But little does he know, for the puzzle box he’d opened years ago and the pieces he’d been putting together, the rules of the game had been changed and the actual picture had already been put together, stacked somewhere unsafely in one of the horrendous dusty shelves of life. That he was a part of this altered and orchestrated puzzle never occurred to him; how would it? 

What he finally finds out is not just tragic but horrible. He himself is a case that has been solved years ago. An intelligently written book, I liked the style where every character is introduced in a sort of casual and informal manner as if you knew them from before.

And in these meandering lanes of search are intensities, a love for someone not liked, a passionate hatred for a true yet unrequited love, and a loathing nurtured to grow so strong that the result is a shattering of all boundaries of moral cognizance.

We are lucky. Most of us, in our lifetimes, are fortunate to get away committing small atrocities of power, hatred, jealousy and the likes. And we are forgiven. Or they’re never found out. Or they’re forgotten. We are indeed favoured to not be presented with empowered situations where we realize our power over someone or a situation and are equipped to exercise it surreptitiously. If this weren’t true, the number of encaged lurking demons within ourselves would surprise us, they with their evil piercing fiery eyes and devilish grin, swooshing around in an unsettled trance all ready to tear down and rip apart at command. It would not only scare and shame us as we sit there lost in despair, finding it hard to believe we were ever capable of this abominable mess.

Beware and be thankful.

My rating – 8/10

Images courtesy:
Book cover – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28923.When_We_Were_Orphans
Kazuo Ishiguro - https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/15/557217635/nobel-laureate-kazuo-ishiguro-once-wrote-a-screenplay-about-eating-a-ghost

Troilus and Cressida by Geoffrey Chaucer – A book review

Written in the 14^th century, ‘Troilus and Cressida’ is considered Chaucer’s greatest poem, the other of his works of imminent importance being ‘The Canterbury Tales’.

Very few love stories are straightforward; well, are there any at all?

The time is during the Trojan war. Troilus, a Trojan prince sees the beautiful Cressida, a widow and instantly falls in love. Cressida is allowed to stay in the Trojan city, in spite of her father Calchas’s act of treason.

In this story by Chaucer, neither Troilus nor Cressida plays as strong and important part as Pandar, Cressida’s uncle and Troilus’s friend. It’s almost ugly and reprehensible how Pandar plays a pimp (it’s not me, it’s Pandar who calls himself one) to Cressida and guilefully lures her to the arms of Troilus. The kettle seems hotter than the tea as he creates situations and orchestrates incidents to make them come together, even to the extent of getting them to bed. His motive for this excitement is unclear. He deceives not only Cressida but also the hands that feed him, his master, the king and his family.

Troilus, the bravest of warriors, comes across as an incapable weakling, leaning on Pandar for everything, a pushover who wants in the smallest of difficulties of the heart to die than to face and fight. But who’s to blame in the matters of the heart when questions are many and answers few and unconvincing.

“If love is naught, O God, why feel I so?

If love is aught, what nature then hath he?

If love is good, whence cometh all my woe?

If love is bad, it seems then strange to me,

How every torment and adversity

That comes from love, itself with joy doth link,

For still I thirst the more, the more I drink.”

It doesn’t take much for Pandar to entice Cressida to fall for the great Troilus and she’s even ready for a secret affair, hidden from society. No mention of her dead husband, no memories, no guilt is presented to the reader. Her selfish justification for falling in love with Troilus is:

“What should I do? Shall I not have some fun?

Shall I not even love, if so inclined?

Why not, I’d like to know! I’m not a nun!

What if my heart a resting place should find

Upon this knight, the best of all mankind,

If I preserve my honor and my name,

I see no cause in that of harm or blame!”

And then comes the betrayal. Cressida has to go back to her father in Greece as a war exchange. She very easily convinces Troilus against his wishes of eloping and promises him to return but once there, her heart changes as easily as the hues of the approaching sunset as she settles for the Greek Diomedes. Convenience and needs become more important than the dear’s feelings. She even forgets the favour the Trojan Lords had done to her when they gave her shelter and protection in spite of her father’s betrayal. Like father, like daughter! And to wreck havoc to the lover’s heart, she gives the brooch gifted by Troilus to Diomedes.

Debating on her soul aye up and down

The words of this impetuous Diomede,

His high estate, the peril of the town,

Her loneliness and all her pressing need

Of friendly help, and thus began to breed

The reasons why, the simple truth to tell,

She thought it best among the Greeks to dwell.

This is yet another story of betrayal, of how convenience, practicality and an uncaring self obsession, without much time to lose, without much effort, without much remorse or guilt, shamelessly shuns love and defends itself in its doing. Can it get any more heartless? Practicality, hahaha – thy are death for the lover, a piercing arrow for the soldier guarding a heart full of love, a dagger of brutality. If Chaucer were alive, he’d have known so many Troilus’s and Cressida’s still exist out there, only their ways and expressions have changed.

Everything can be justified but what do we do with it? You justify your broken promises but does the pain understand that, does it grow any less? No.

…Recalling, too, that love to widely known,

Yields bitter fruit, though sweetest seed be sown.

 A prayer for all lovers of this world.

And pray for those that dwell in love’s despair,

From which they never hope to be restored;

And pray for them who must the burden bear

Of slanderous tongue of lady or of lord;

Pray God that he the faithful may reward,

And to the hopeless grant a quick release

And bring them from unrest to lasting peace.

My rating – 6/10


Image copyrights:

Book cover - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/26563/troilus-and-cressida-by-geoffrey-chaucer-translated-by-george-philip-krapp-introduction-by-peter-g-beidler/

Geoffrey Chaucer - https://www.sunsigns.org/famousbirthdays/d/profile/geoffrey-chaucer/