Sex no Bar . . . my first documentary....

Eunuch /’ju;nck/ n. 1 castrated man, esp one formerly employed at an original harem or court. 2 a person lacking effectiveness (political eunuch). {ME f. L. eunnuchus f. Gk. eunokhos lit. bedchamber attendant f. eune bed + second element rel, to ecko hold}

from the concise oxford dictionary of current english
---------------------------------------------------------

From the ethos of humanity
Rises a deformed figure
Burn it
We are sexless
We laugh, breathe, cry and scream
Our flesh melts too
Tattoos on our cheeks
Jasmines in our hair
We are dark and even fair
Dignity? We speak and wear our skin on the fore
We walk the streets on which your silent feet tread,
Virgin blood oozes from our wounds
The bruises life marks us with
You suffer too, oh gentle human form
But though perfection reeks from your skin
Our plague ridden deformities blesses thy kin
Make us an instrument of life we pray each night
As neither male, nor female but as the third kind.


Sex No Bar released today, with the sweat and blood
of six movie makers....

Today.... sudden contentment...............

They let us into their worlds,
and helped us discover worlds within us ......

Here's to more movies, more contentment, more eunuchs to find...............
Eye Scream Productions first shot...
first documentary.
first snap of the shutterbug
straight from the iris....

When will such a moment be, when the camera never has to stop rolling......
Oh! gentle human form...

Just. . .

I'm Happy today....

A contented relief....

A sigh of hesitation....

After a long time......

Those wrinkles on the forehead seem to have finally rested........
A gleeful calm smile rests on my lips.........
Irises are weary but are still shining..............

I'm finally finally Happy Today................

Lest I stumble

Fatigue such as this.

Relief such as this.

Emptiness such as this.

I await more such.

When, IF (I will! I will!) I write the book.

And those tenderly harboured dreams of doing a doctorate.

But what I can't grapple with ~
this ineffable, overarching, faceless sorrow.

O what plagues thy little heart that thou hast poured on paper?
that tomorrow will adorn the shelves of the library
for the world to see, for the world to read
O what a remarkable piece of work is a woman
O what stories incense out of derelict gates
and you imped with sensitivity
and you believer in serendipity
O what plagues thy little heart that thou hast poured on paper?

Warped & Twsited-II

Abey yaar! when the hell is this God Damn Term Paper gonna finish and the documentary be all edited...................

Me going out of my head........................

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee................

Kisne bola tha itna complicated subject lene ko......

Bloody no eunuchs are willing to dance or perform and neither is this term paper condensing....................

History presentation too due..........
How the hell am I supposed to condense 50 years of Media, including print, radio and television in under ten minutes.....

I never knew losing weight could be that stressful and 'heavy.....'

weighed in 7 below normal today....... Not good.....

P.S. my normal is usually 10 over ..... No one scared of me now

Newsroom Action...

It may sound weird but I think in many ways journalism is like an adventure sport. Obviously by saying this I don't intend to undermine the seriousness of the profession in any way but just the pace and unpredictability of what lies ahead makes it addictive.

If you've been in the newsroom when there's breaking news, you'll know what I'm talking about.

And not just breaking news, there's a deadline that needs to be met every hour. The pressure, the urgency and the desire to put out the best in as little time as possible. It's like the night before your exam when you can't afford to waste a second. When you drug yourself with caffeine and curse the university board for making the paper so tough. But as you're doing that you're also loving every second of it.
Only in the newsroom there's an exam every hour and the entire team runs around to make sure we pull it off. Just like these last two weeks.

Session's ending and so is the backlog of work suddenly piling up. There's the term paper due in a week. The documentary waiting to be cut on the editing board. The freaky assessmnets everyday. Presentations, tests, project reports..........Argh! If there was such a thing as endless waiting; Im begining to understand the meaning now. But as they say, you do actually tend to work better under pressure and its this thrill of an escapade that is so stimulating. Suddenly, I want to get hold of all those books I never really got down to reading. Just a walk to the bookstore around the corner, or as in this case the 'deadline around the corner!''

I remember my exit interview with Piyush Pandey, the National Creative Director of Ogivy, Mumbai almost a year ago. I had actually gone in to get my work analysed, when he ended up counseling me, with me all looking excited and all. Of course! its the brain behind Fevicol, Cadbury's, Happy Dent White, HT. I had to be jumping out of my mind. (was already doing loops in my head.) Anyway, he'd asked me really passionately 'so does media give you a buzzzz?' I obviously didn't know what the f**k he was talking about but I'd said 'yesss' like it was the only thing that ever mattered to me. If he'd asked me if I preferred a chocolate brownie to a 'sheermaal' god knows I would have said yes with equal conviction. But really today I know what the poor freak was talking about.

If you've worked in media once, you're spoilt for life; because there's nothing else you'll ever enjoy doing.

The Gods must've been playing Holi in the Sky

A play of colours on a placid morning.
A ray of sunshine splitting through the morning sky.
A gust of torrential rain sweeping the blues, greens, pinks and purples.
A shiver of ice running down with each tear of the Heavens.

A breath of the stormy seas waving the skyline.
A sound of thunder cracking the reef of the clouds.
A particle of spectrum bleeding through the air-
traveled through the known to the unknown.

A hiss of the rubber skidding off the tar.
A trail of white gripping the path.
A hue of white frost garnishing rosy skin tarts.

Then suddenly
A rageful spark of warmth in the air.
A hum of sunshine splits midday again.
A puddle of water is all that remains
A melted platoon of little white dots in the fields -
scattered everywhere...

To think its March 2006
And have played Holi on the virgin Kasauli Hills.

Pue Bliss!!

The day The God's coloured the Earth white and then green. . . . .

Scoff

What music is this?
That you keep playing inside your mouth.
Ever so quietly that I can't catch the tune.

What sport is this?
That you follow between the branches and adrift eyes.
Like the winner is somehow superior.

What literature is this?
That you fire behind doors of dignity.
If the only literate were you.

What plot is this?
That playeth hide-n-seek like a weasel.
Only thorns are inevitable.

HOLI

The best thing about painting when your canvas is human is that the dirtier your canvas, the better artist you are. And ofcourse, it goes without saying that if you’re not the best artist, you’re the dirtiest canvas!

Holi-day 2006, my firts splash in colour. and it was fun!!!

A complete kaliedescope...... and I enjoyed every bit of it.......

Would I try it again??? Can't wait to...

And the best part it rained.... The Heavens parted, shed tears, washed away my inhibitions and fears..............

Soaked me in colour. Smudged the fine grey lines of black and white I try so hard to carve into myself.

Techicolour existence against a backdrop of a gloomy sky.....

Poetic? not quite.............Its all real

Nostaligia

Re-reading the words
resting in the first few pages
took me back to when
my days spiraled around you.

Unfolding an old cloth
memories flew out like dust
that gather over time
that nobody particularly put there,
along the creases of time,
in the deepest folds of life.

Two lines of nothingness
a stationary moment
short silences, long walks
strumming guitar
on a cold January night
praying, promising, pizzaing,
mulling, musing, musicing.

I gather my words, memories, dust
safekeeping a time
I hold very, very dear.

I'm a proud mommy...........My human is a nut case.

Ruff Ruff... Grrrrrrrrr.... See my Human, Got her wrapped around me. She my bacon.............

For easy human handling counselling, contact Rusty Bhatti.................

How can you not love him. My mufassa turns 5 today. And yes, he has me wrapped around his pinky. weatherd many storms with me. Been by my side in pain and glee. Slept with me on lonesome nights. Licked my wounds, healed me with affection. Still greets me with whines the moment my wheels hit the driveway. My chocolate brown mutt. The cente of my existence......

Blank verse

end these days quick like a song without a fade.

stop the music. i don't want to live.

unplug the amplifiers. cuz no one listens.

delete the chorus.

i can't sing it anymore.

lonesome as a single small

boat all alone on the vast oceans.

hopeless as the last leaf in autumn

when all the rest have already fallen.

don't catch me.

don't rake me up.

just wait for the first snowfall

to bury.

Silent Departure.

Don't let go...
Don't leave me alone...
Don't let me trip...
Take my hand...
Don't let it slip...
Grab on tight...
Hear my whisper...
My silent call for desperation...

For all my mute cries you were always there.

20 seasons of spring we spent.

Then one day..
Distorted music from the forbidden room...

Window panes come crashing down
Amidst the tears and pain
Vanishing hopes flying away.
Up above through twilight
Shadows cast across the floor
Reflections of the past
Trembling thoughts of one
Dwelling deep within the soul
A mystical sense of reality
Captured by the craze
All in bewilderment
Of the shock in the wave
Creatures of the dimness
Chattering amongst the green
Everything slows in stillness

In a flicker of an eyelid..
reality had changed

You were gone.
Leaving my hand in mine......

Its never easy to lose a friend............

Live Commentary from the Purana Qila

So much drama, so much hype!! Yes PRESIDENT BUSH was here...But no the world didn't stop for a minute, let alone a day. He didn't have the good sense to do any sightseeing (who wants to see that old marble tomb in Agra anyway, right?) Well, we'll just wait and see if he's more "chivalrous" to the First Lady the next time round, as the PM seems to hope.

But we totally lost sight of the bush for the trees here. The protests were all well and good - I'm all for freedom of speech, of course. But the posturing, the posing, the arundhati roy syndrome (wow that woman! I mean, yes she won the Booker, yes she's pretty and articulate and writes beautifully, but how many causes and bandwagons do you jump on before someone comes along and calls you out as a...dare i say it...pseudo!!)

Or is this just a case of sour grapes as a friend and history type seems to think. That you grow so complacent in your inertia that you find fault with anyone trying to do, well anything...

So what did these protests achieve? Jack. They got the media attention for sure and the protestors who knew what they were up to (like DUTA and some of the kids) did satisfy their consciences, and maybe even their bloodlust, but what of the political angle? How many points did the Left and the SP prove? Dragging in villagers by the thousands... And an all-Muslim rally? Puh-leez, like you believe that Bush is the enemy of Islam. Let's not be naive here...gun lobby, check, oil lobby check, and the Jewish lobby, check check, but if the good ol' President and other gora leaders can find any moderate Islamic types ESPECIALLY at this point, they're more than happy to jump in (for the image of it, at the very least)

But I'm digressing. What was disappointing was that there were no Bushisms! Not one was picked up. C'mon mr president! Laura Bush did her first bleeding heart lady bit. But unfortunatley, other than that (and the N-deal, which has been hammered home to all of us, is a REALLY BIG DEAL) he didn't really leave us with much.
The image that will stay with me is the incongruous one of a sign saying 'Bush is a bastard'...the camera pans down to the girl holding the sign, barely like 7 years old or something. Give me a break.

I do think the Iraq invasion was truly appalling and let's not even get to Afghanistan or Gitmo or the human rights violations the US (not just the Bush administration mind you!) is responsible for...

But the fake plastic-ness of the whole organised protest endeavour (except maybe the passionate students calling bush a terrorist and criminal, spouting the same tired old insults) well, for the most part, it just made me feel really old, really jaded.

But that's the beauty of the freedom of speech...you're free to protest and I'm free to protest your protest. Ad nauseam. But mind you if you were genuinely protesting, with some amount of conviction, more power to you, I say. The rest of y'all get carried away way too easily.

Get it boy!

But I have my Biatches and Im Happy.... So piss off!!!

Hazzaron Khwaishein Aisi....

To think it is a piano

and we,

creators of a silent music

We – you & I.

Not yours not mine

ours alone

Woebegone

pastover evening tea

Laughable – un

Timorous lips

Verbose, sore and

then sealed

Bread for a hungry stomach

Not even sympathy for an empty soul

Unjust? Who?

Drop-dripper

Patter-pitter

The roof leaks

and the skyof the stars

Brush my hair

and plait them.

A string of little, white flowers

Make tea

make memories

make stars shoot

make love

Fall in – fit out

Write down – rise up

Finger dance

alternate together

a little music

of silent fame

bas ek ilteja (just one request)

Ink: Incomplete verse

My ethcy pen leaks and lies.
My scrawny fingers scribble random lines.

Naked, raw visions flood my mind.
Broken steel strings pierce, bleed and grind.

My skin cracks, my body wreaths in pain.
My cries hit silent walls and torture me all in vain.

A headless gear - the world adorns.

On pins 'n needles my frame is all borne.

Visions flood the mind the night
As the ink floods the self's might. . .

Guitl-Edged Metro

I know I am lucky to have lived and worked in Delhi - since when I was a child, my mother, a Punjabi to the core moved to Chandigarh and pushed her only daughter into the Media industry(I still don't know whether that has changed to P-u-najbi or P-a-njabi).
Anyway to get back to my mother of western Indian origin (no that sounds wrong too)- Anyway my mother always told us that the streets of Delhi were paved by money from the Punjabi labourer and Bombay taxpayer.
She had a point.
After all, New Delhi has always been this oasis of wide avenues, lush green roundabouts (well sort of!), well painted street signs, and of course the lovely gracious homes built by Lutyens, et al. Agreed its no comparrison to the wealthily adorned forts of Patiala, where my mom spent the netter part of her childhood hugged in royal robes and pampered by smells of sarson. Or for that matter our sprawling little mansion in Chandigarh, where parks are green and roads are wide. But adding to this her theory that people in Delhi don't work half as hard as their cousins in India's business capital- and my guilt was complete.
My guilt has grown over the years- not the least because as I traveled more around the country I realised just how privileged New Delhi is compared to every other part of the country. My emotions on the subject had grown to proportions that compared with post world war II German guilt or post colonial British guilt.... you get the point.
As a result I have never really enjoyed looking at India Gate lawns, or the Purana Quila boat club, or music concerts in Nehru Park without thinking its a bit unfair that we get them, while there in Mumbai people are slaving away just to make sure all our main streets are well lit, and all our footpaths well paved or the land labourer in Patiala who inherits debts yet gives India the wealthiest produce.
So you can just imagine my agony when I first took a ride on the Delhi metro- this was certainly something Mumbai doesn't have. In fact I think the man who built the Delhi metro E.Sreedharan has only got to the proposal stage in Mumbai. I believe the project is stuck waiting for the central government to approve the funding (yuck more guilt...)
But that metro ride changed something for me. As I walked down the well-polished granite steps - I had to clutch the shiny steel banisters as I reeled at the grandeur and cleanliness of the metro station. Organised queues at the ticket counters, escalators that worked smoothly, metro staff that were kind and polite, seats that weren't broken, and trains that arrived with alarming precision.
This was clearly a whole new kind of Delhi privilege (okay I know Kolkattans have had one for years). This was the kind of privilege that brings on raw, naked, unabashed greed. I don't really care if no one else get this- this metro is mine mine all mine......
So eat your heart out Mulund and Ghatkopar, and hop in your cabs old Malabar Hill and Nariman Point- use your suburban trains Bandra and Kurla- It's Delhi that has this dream machine of underground luxury.
And I am sick of listening to people tell us how Delhi is such a dump- an overgrown village of boors, where nobody obeys the law and everyone uses wasta (or pull- "don't you know who I am"). To all those Mumbaiites, Bengaloooruans, Kolkattans,Chenn-aiyoiites etc etc- Who crib, I say- Mere paas metro hai.
And about Chandigarh, with its big snooty Texan attitude that is so easy to fall in sync with and escape from the working and metro, as my mom always say the land of hariyan hariyan chadiyan and chitiyan chitiyan daariyan. Leave your clean open wide spaces behind, for I have 30 sec of fame and peace in the subway.
The Delhi metro has finally released me from my metro guilt- and unleashed the selfish greedy Delhi beast in me.
P.S. But my fellow Cosmos need not feel too bad- as I exited the metro at Chawri Bazaar to make my way through the bustling bazaars of old Delhi- I hit the pavement with the crashing reality that the privileges of New Delhi don't extend to people even a kilometre outside the pristine capital area. Then again bet they don't pay as much in taxes :)

Water, water everywhere. . .

To my left were a thousand yachts anchored along the beach and to my right countless French boulevard cafes. We walked, ate, played ball and made merry. Late at night we escaped the smoky, Mexican party and sat at the waterfront looking at sprinkling lights draped on lighthouses, that France has put up everywhere as Paris contends to be the Olympic venue in 2012. We quickly summed the length and breadth and heights and depths of our countries for each other and wondered where we’d be seven years hence. Thousands of folded sails swayed in the night breeze, hitting against their masts, creating an euphonious rhythm that sounded like spill-overs from another beach, another world.

The next morning we visited the Aquarium. The colours, the texture, the size, the camouflage, the life and being, of ten thousand aquatic fauna and floral specimens from oceans all across was a strangely humbling half-experience of the day. The other half came when we took a boat to travel twenty kilometers in the sea to see Fort Boyard, an old prison now used for treasure-hunting television game shows during summers. Water water everywhere …. recounting tales of adventures on the sea, some real and some almost so. One felt so small against the magnanimity of life.

To be able to shake the albatross off and sail out in the unknown in search of a new land … aye! aye!

That was nearly two years ago, but this time the swim around (un)familiar bays was strangely nostalgic.

The journey to finding nemo in the next post . . .

walk-in-walk-out

My winter internship concludes today.I might never come back to this office again, never use this keyboard with the unsteady grip key, or stare outside these dusty bay windows after an elusive thought, or dip into these sights, sounds, smells, people who are constantly trying to infuse madness into method.Watch hours of raw footage and talk sequence into the mindless jabberings of celebs and pseudo-celebs.

Yet, the feeling is neutral. No sense of an ending or a subsequent beginning. A comfortable detachment. Like walking around the rooms of an abandoned house all night because a rain-storm wouldn't let leave and as the day dawns, tie your scarf and walk out.

Yet I feel an awekening. A charged soul and charred lungs too. Will miss the electricity everytime India lost a wicket or the claps when Daya Nayak walked behind bars. The screaming idealsim of the boss. The excitement, the energy, the enthusiasm. The nights and days spent perfecting the scripts and patching the shots. The lil call, 'Hey! lets catch a smoke and talk of whats wrong and right with the nation...'

The muse has left the building. Yet there is no sense of loss, but of hope to return to the fortress again. This time as a conquered victor, a warrior who braved it all. Wondering if Im the branded journalist yet!!!

My Fair Lady ??

Its been a month of soul-searching, and a lot of sole searching as well!!

Massive deflation of inflated ego (quite painfully might I add!)

Whole lot of accidents (physically too!) But most of all a massive learning experience.

It really is something to live on your own and try and be grown up about it. I mean, come on, for all the goodness in this world at least I can now safely say I've had my share of it, for now begins the negating of the goodness. Why I just came out of my small litlle fairyland (quite a bit like Neverland actually. Even Narnia couldn't possibly top up this one!) and when reality hits, man it hits with a bang.

Wu-hu. . . quite metaphorically speaking, its no devil's playground either. And of course no walk in the clouds. Its just a plain yellow-brick road (with all aplogies to Sir Elton John) And I dont wanna bore ye all with another rambling of what life is and isn't and all sorts of bull. And I don't want this to be one of the most brilliant sentences ever sticthed together on how I, the Queen of the World (my reality of my self is quite conceitedly arrogant. Ouch!!!) fell out of the wardrobe on the other side and realised no body gave two hoots about Her Highness or should I say My Highness. (again with all aplogies to the Chronicles of Narnia!) "Bollocks!" I thought to myself. "This shit stinks bad."

And what does the Queen do when her claim to power is threatened. Why she screams, and cribs and cries and yells and nags and throws her weight around ... (and ironically, she has been so well endowed in that particular beefy department, if y'all know what I mean.) But that made things not just difficult, quite funny as well. Why here's an example...

The day I went out to air myself on national television screaming about child molestation, I nearly got molested myself (and no way could this be a childish one! Oh! and we were not gonna play hide and seek or roll the monkey either).
{- Exhibit A

And the one day I atually got some work to do, tripped on my twinkle-toes, broke the microphone which slipped through my butter fingers (imagine ruining my own mouthpiece when I can scream the house down.)

Suddenly I had no voice. No ear to throw my sounds upon. Wow! now that was some reality-check. Looked like God put a silencer on those vocal chords. Got pushed around, thrown about, knocked my head around the place. The day Delhi made a ping-pong ball out of me.....

But hey what the heck, maybe one day I'll win my deuce and pocket my advantage over this urban swamp on like millions of sons of Adam and Eve (I have got to get over the Narnia hangover) Still no Aslan awaits my aid. No white witch feels threatened by my presence and I still have the 70mm celluloid to capture. God dammit, I don't even have my Gun. Talk about being a big gun...sheesh! The world won't come crumbling down with my rage. (atleast the Greek Gods had that to glaot about!)

Nope! I aint no Goddess. No shocking sheeba. No enchanting princess of my own wood. No smokes will smut the city on my funeral pire. No wolves will howl my death. I won't be no noble sacrifice. Still I will be somebody. And I will be an asset to somebody. (Hopefully!)

Till then, lets just try to fill in shades of grey in this kaliedescope of mine. I'm gonna make it shine. (and we'll go singing this on the yellow brick road.) Think of stories to do and make. Make Anoushka Shankar pour music from her strings. Act more for social causes (I think! recreation for a news story is conscientious work. . .I think!) Don't take our politicians for granted. Amit Jogi, Arun Jaitely and Sonia Gandhi are really nice people. Or atleast in front of the camera. (my own version of two guys, a girl and a chair.)

Anyway, who am I really to judge. I'm just a girl trying to grow up. Find my ground. Be a good journalist. An objective Human Being. (oh wait! isnt it the other way around.)

Whatever it is. One more night to be in my fairyland. Staging My Fair Lady. Trying to act my part a little seriously this time. So go on world, bring it on. Write blogs on me. Walk over me. You're all actors in my stage....Happy to be alive. Belong to this moment. Content to be here!!!