What if I realise I am one of them?
Would you be able to understand me if I say that distances feel too distant in my heart, yet they have somehow filled all the gaps in between?
You’re just one decision away….
In a time filled with uncertainty, anxiety and insecurity, related to almost every aspect of an individual’s life, are we even undermining or neglecting, the options we have over controlling our lives? I strongly believe that we’re just one decision away from “being closer” to everything we desire. And whether you’re going to take that decision or not, doesn’t matter as long you’re constantly aware that you’re just a decision away from being at least an inch closer. How cool it is to know that even though you may not control your dreams, there are a few things, that you can control in the journey towards your dreams? How cool is it to know that you’re just a decision away, from ‘being close’ to everything that others around you, are trying to be – Rich, Popular, “successful“, influential, blah blah blah – and yet you decide to weigh what is right and wrong according to YOU, the self-sufficient individual, and you choose your path in your own way? How satisfying it is to know that you can measure your life based on the decisions you take and not time, and thereby you can minimise the effect of the unforeseen circumstances by patting yourself at the back saying “At least I was screwed up by my own decision and not some illusion called time based on which everyone else seem to be operating”? Will this mindset work? Honestly, I don’t know. But again, I believe that it’s not about whether it’ll work, but it’s about deciding and pursuing it to see if it works and having this thought in your consciousness. Believe. #Decisions
“…And what is done in love is well done”
All my life till now, many people have told me this – “Bhuvanesh, your interests are very scattered. Why don’t you fix something you love and do that thing very well and be successful in that field?” And every time I heard this, I either told the other person or wanted to tell them that “I don’t do anything that I don’t love and hypothetically, even if I did something out of coercion or out of hate, I wouldn’t be talking about it all the time with you with such zing and passion” All my life till now, I had to give up one thing to be able to pursue another. When I was in 4th standard, I had to choose DCA (computer application course) over Karate as an extra-curricular. While growing up I had to choose one particular sport – Cricket/ Football/ Table tennis/ Badminton. Table tennis and Badminton went out of my life in the same pace it entered and then I chose Cricket. My close friends would have definitely heard, at least once, about the love-hate story between me, my cricket and the decisions which screwed up my cricketing dreams. I have taken innumerable decisions like that right from my schooling days. What hurt me more was, when I thought of the opportunity cost that I incurred in taking up one option. What if I put equal effort, time and dedication in all sports? What if I learnt karate from some other academy and not from my school? What if I had chosen the other one and became successful? “What if, what if, what if”. Other issues such as financial factors, transportation, time, etc. added more logs to this. All these anxious thoughts brought down my self-esteem and somewhere down the line and I found myself as just another person who was just average in almost everything. During those days, the parameters of measuring whether you are average or below or above were if you were exceptional in it, whether you being exceptional in it, was a popular thing, whether you have participated in competitions and won any awards. Things are changed now. The stereotypical questions still linger around me, I still need money to pursue the art forms I love, but my perspective about my interests and passion has changed. People still tell me to “Be passionate about only one thing and be great at it”. But I have started to ignore it as this pressure to be great is what withheld my inner strength all along. I write, I have started to paint and I will make a film someday. But I am not doing it to be a great painter or a great writer or a great film maker. I am going to do it because I LOVE it, because I want to EXPRESS myself and because I really don’t care about the parameters anymore. I believe that if you put in love and if you make art with dedication and if you expressed yourself honestly, greatness will come and knock your doors until and unless someone else with your identity, your love, your pain, your experience and your mind is born somewhere else in this planet. Bruce Lee said “I don’t fear for the man who practised 10000 kicks once, I fear for the man who practised 1 kick 10,000 times” and what I am trying to say is if you love all the 10,000 kicks, never hesitate to practise all 10,000 kicks, a 10,000 times or more. People have ridiculed me for this opinion I carry. “Who are you trying to impress?”, They ask and the answer is I want to impress my own consciousness and I strive every day to be as free as I can of the numbing social conditionings in my life. I am going to say this and be done with it – I want to make films; I write and I want to write more, I have started painting, I want to learn Violin someday, I want to travel a lot, read a lot, I want to buy a proper DSLR camera and pursue photography, I want to learn Jeet kune Do someday, I want to learn to cook, I want to set up my own company, I love learning about Firearms and I love flowers as I think they are very personal, beautiful and genuine as gifts ( literally, Guns and Roses 😛 ) and I want to have lots and lots of real conversations with many honest souls. I want to and I’d love to do a million more things. Bruce Lee said “I don’t fear for the man who practised 10000 kicks once, I fear for the man who practised 1 kick 10,000 times” and what I am trying to say is if you love all the 10,000 kicks, never hesitate to practise all 10,000 kicks, a 10,000 times or more. Thank you for reading keeping aside all your judgements. If you believe that you will love to do something, then by all means please do it. Van Gogh says – “If there is a voice inside you which says you can’t paint, and then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced”. A few days ago I spoke about this at an open mic and someone came up to me and informed about a quote which has been very highly misquoted. The original quote is – “Jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than master of one”
Can we be F.R.I.E.N.D.S?
Can we really be F.R.I.E.N.D.S? Much like every other Friends-a-holic, I started fantasising and comparing me and my friends to each of the characters from the superhit sit-com, right from the time I fell in love with the six of them. I would behave like Joey/Chandler and I’d pretend that my friends were all those characters, who had some similar character trait. I even fantasied how it would be if I had such a group of people in my life. I am sure all of you did that and If you have one such group, I am really happy for you. But giving it a much deeper thought, I asked myself, “Are we out of our minds!??”. Did we really compare ourselves to them? Okay so, for a second let’s step out of reality and go into this fictional world. Well people, to us it may just be 256 episodes of a sitcom, but for the characters in the show, in their world, it’s about 3650 days at the least. All 6 of them were together for more than 10 years and some of them had relationships with some others right from highschool or from kindergarden. But even so, if we live in their world, Can ‘we’ really be F.R.I.E.N.D.S? Okay, Think about this – How many of you people accepted your friends as however they’re – With all their strengths, weaknesses, egos, insecurities, decisions and heart breaks? How many of you would’nt judge or bitch about a friend who had a very bad break up or a divorce, because he said the wrong name in the altar or because his wife realised that she was a homosexual and not a heterosexual? How many of you would’ve still chosen to be friends with a person like Joey, who mistook your offer for a lemonade as an offer for sex, in your first meeting? Well, would you have at least been in any equation with a guy who sleeps around and not call any of his dates, even when that date maybe a person you know? Would you have been there for your friend who just ran away from her wedding altar and would you have taken any initiative to help her find her own foot? But yes, Monica was there for Rachel. How many of you people would have been friends (at the least) with a person who once ridiculed you for being fat or for being a loner? or with someone who accidentally cut your toe and because of which you were called “Sir-Limps-a-lot” ? Would you even think of being friends with someone like Rachel who has a very unstable relationship with your brother and who flew all the way to London to express her feelings for Ross just before his marriage, knowing very well that it might destroy the wedding? She even encouraged Bonnie to shave her head so that it might create some disturbance in Bonnie’s relationship with Ross. Imagine being a Joey when Chandler kissed Kathy or imagine being a Chandler when Joey asks him to get into a wooden box as a punishment. I don’t really see myself having any friend like Chandler, who would pay me money endlessly for all my needs, without complaining or even hesitating, and also when he fully knows that I don’t take up my job as an actor very seriously. No friend would do that, but hey maybe that’s one of the reasons why they’re BEST BUDS, which we may never be. And hey if I were Ross, and if I found out that it was Phoebe who mugged me as a kid, you’d have seen a “Ross sized hole in Central Perk’s door” I really don’t know what I’d do if I fell in love with my best friend who just had a kid with another best of my mine. I could go on and on like this, taking examples from every episode and even if we all could do all those things, yet we may never be like them. Just visualise this – Take away all those jokes, the audience laughter, the hanging out sessions and the different relationship scenarios and what’s left is a group of friends with very sad lives. Ross, with his failed marriages and his amazing flirting skills. Chandler, with his bad childhood, his commitment issues and the fact that everyone thinks he is gay. Monica, with all the fat shaming she had to endure, a constantly criticising mother and irregular romantic relationships. Rachel, a Daddy’s little princess, who transforms into an independent women and battles with career choices, and personal relationships. Joey, with his poor acting career, his responsibilities as a brother to his seven sisters and with dating women who eat his fries ( Ughh!!). Phoebe, well….everything? – About which she gladly jokes about. These are people like you and me, but “no one told us life CAN be this way” and so they entered our lives and our hearts, and they’re always there for us. May be that was the whole point – “We may never be like them but we can be much more than what we are” This show was there for us even when we were as alone as even Mr Heckles never was. This show was there for us when we had anxiety issues, anger issues, relationship issues, career issues and the times when we wanted to strangle all humanity and live in a planet far away from the earth. This show was there for you because, “Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A. It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear and it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year” And I think it is because we always desire to have such friends in our life and deep down we know that it may not be possible ever in our reality but yet we still cannot avoid that teeny bit
To The ‘Idea of You’
The Idea of You It’s been a long time and I still can’t believe that I even thought of writing something like this. I don’t even remember the last time I thought about you. Human mind is so strange isn’t it – All those memories, and after all that effort I had put in to forget and after moving on, in a minute it all came back to me like some kind of a flash back from a 90s dramatic movie and here I am, writing about the one thing I always thought I wouldn’t write about – The idea of you. After you deserted me, it’s quite obvious, I guess, that I did throw in a lot of curses at you for everything you did but after all these years, this Idea of you inside me, never faded away, but instead has somehow convinced me that maybe it was hard for you to leave me too. Just, Maybe. How much ever distant it is to reality or how much ever it really relates to you doesn’t really matter because it’s much more comfortable for me to think about it this way. After all, all that remains of you is just an abstract thought. I have changed so much ever since that I don’t even remember how I used to be. People have left me because they thought I was not being me and that I changed too much, for them to find whatever they wanted to find in me the 1st place & people came into my life because they resonated with the changes that happened to me. Hell, some people left me because they judged me as being the same old person and some stayed because they thought I was the same. It’s fair to say that even you would have changed but this idea of you, the idea of the person I loved never changed in me, but only grew very fond of me. I convinced myself that you had “died” because I really couldn’t find the person I loved, under this same old Chennai sky and all that was remaining was nothing like how you used to be. But somewhere down the line, this whole idea of the person that I once loved grew up with me and it said, “I’ll never leave you, Bhuvanesh. Even if you will “- Only that this time I truly knew it in my heart that it might actually turn out to be true. Ironical to all those poems I wrote about your looks, sometimes I don’t even remember how you looked unless I see that one picture that you sent me once. But I didn’t think a lot about you because, ironically, life was way too beautiful for me, than I ever imagined, to think about you. Life gave me a lot of souls to think about, than to think about you. Strangely, I was no longer alone in my dreams, I was no longer alone in conversations, I was no longer singing my songs alone and I never sat in a corner of a coffee shop all alone. Life gifted me many opportunities that I think you never deserved a minute of my mind space to think about, but strangely, I believe that this “idea of you” waited patiently, hiding behind some mystical memory waiting for something that I am still not very sure about. Things were so ugly back those days that I seem to carry a stern opinion about it. I think it’s obvious that I wanted to stab this idea of you. I have cursed you more number of times than I have ever thought of you in a loving way. But this idea of you, endured it all, and kept convincing me that maybe the real person would have done all that nonsense, but this idea of the person I loved was never guilty, but guilty of love. It endured everything I threw at it and it has become a part of me. I do agree with V, from “V for Vendetta” – Ideas are bulletproof. I still do remember those goodbyes you used to say via your eyes, those late night texts, the way you proposed me, those many last conversations we have had, those idiotic dreams and the many heroic things I used to think to get you back and now after all these years, that favorite song of mine doesn’t remind me of you that often, that song ( Kal ho na ho) which I introduced to you and which you listened the entire trip you went with you friends, never bothers me; your name doesn’t remind me of you as much as it reminds me of that actress with the same name and yet today, this moment I seem to share too many memories with this “Idea of you”. Do you know how beautiful it is to know that such painful thoughts with someone can still have such beauty inside it? Do you know how it is to think and have an idea of someone, that you know will never disappoint you? With a one whose maybes mean maybes? Everywhere I go, I search for this idea of you inside the people I meet. Many people came into my life and many of them wanted to replace you, and I did believe that some of them will replace you but let’s face it, you’re replaceable but my love for this idea of yourself can never be replaced. All the romantic drama that happened in my life after you, never made me fall in love. I was truly in love with you and that has given me the hope to look out for love with whomsoever I will spend my life with. “A girl like you deserves a prince charming from the heaven”, I said. “Bhuvanesh, you’re my prince” you said before calling and expressing your love to me for the very 1st time. But maybe all that you ever
Happy Madras Day
This is a writeup I wrote last year for Madras Day. “சென்ட்ரல் ரயில் நிலையத்தில் ரயில்களின் எண்ணிக்கை மெரினாக் கடற்கரையின் தூரம் கூவ ஆற்றுப் படுக்கையில் குடிசைகளின் எண்ணிக்கை. தினம் நடக்கும் போராட்டங்களில் பங்குபெறும் மக்கள் எண்ணிக்கை தினம் தினம் பேருந்தில் பயணிக்கும் மக்களின் எண்ணிக்கை…. என்று…. அனைத்தையும் அளந்து கூற முடியும். வெளியூர் சென்று ரயிலில் வரும் போது, சென்ட்ரல் நிலையத்திற்கு முன்பு மெல்லிசை போல், கரைசேரும் படகு போல் அந்த ரயில் சென்றடையும் பொழுது வரும் அந்த உணர்வை வார்த்தைகள் கூற முடியாது, நெகிழ்ச்சியை அளந்து கூற முடியாது. துன்பங்கள் ஆயிரம் தாக்கினாலும் பெசன்ட் நகர் கடற்கரையில் நண்பர்களுடன் சென்று போடும் அரட்டையில் வரும் சந்தோசம் எவ்வளவு என்று அங்கு அருகில் இருந்து அரட்டைகளை பார்த்து கொண்டிருக்கும் ஏழைச்சிறுவனின் சிரிப்பில் காண முடியும். எந்த ஊரில் பிறந்தால் என்ன எந்த ஊரில் வளர்ந்தால் என்ன தவிப்பது நம் சகோதர சகோதரிகள் என்று எண்ணி இயற்கை துன்புறுத்திய போதும், ஒன்றாய் நின்ற அந்த இரண்டு மாதக் காலத்தில் ஒவ்வொரு நொடிகளும் பொன்னொடிகள். காலத்தால் அழிக்க முடியாத அந்த ஒற்றுமையின் ஆழத்தை எண்ணி கூறமுடியுமா? புதிதாக வரும் வெளிநாட்டு வீரர்களையும் பாசத்தால் நெகிழவைத்த “சென்னை சூப்பர் கிங்ஸ்” சட்டை அணிந்து, காலணி கூட அணியாமல் , சுட்டெரிக்கும் சூரியன்கீழ் மைதானங்களில் நண்பர்களுடன் மட்டைபந்து விளையாடிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் சிங்கங்களின் கர்வம் இந்த ஊர் மீட்டர் போட மாட்டேன், போட்டால், மீட்டருக்கு மேல் எக்ஸ்ட்ரா என்று சொல்லும் ஆட்டோ ஓட்டுனர்கள் இருக்கலாம். ஆனால் அதிலும் பாசத்துடன் , நேசத்துடன் பேசி பழகி வாழ்க்கையின் அங்கமாய் திகழும் ஆட்டோ ஓட்டுனர்கள் பலர். வாழ்க்கை எங்கு சென்றுகொண்டிருக்கிறது என்பதை எண்ணி காலம் கழித்து இளையராஜா, ரஹ்மான் ஆகியாவரின் இசையில் அடைக்கலம் பெற்று பேருந்தின் ஜன்னல் கம்பிகளில் சாய்ந்து, வெளியே மாறிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் வெவ்வேறு சென்னையின் அடையாளங்களை வர்ணித்து கொண்டு செல்லும் அனைத்து நல்ல உள்ளங்களும் கர்வத்துடன், பாசத்துடன் சொல்லும் வரிகள், தான் ஒரு சென்னைவாசி என்று… “நீ சொன்னதெல்லாம் பொதுவாகவே பெரும்பாலான ஊர்களில் உள்ளவை தானே” என்று நீங்கள் கேட்கலாம். அது தான் உண்மையும் கூட. ஆனால், ஒரு மனிதன் தான் பிறந்து, வளர்ந்து, பழகி, சிரித்து, ஒவ்வொரு துன்பம் ,இன்பம் ஆகிய அனைத்தையும் பெற்று, பகிர்ந்து ,கற்று, தன் வாழ்க்கையில் நடைபெற்ற ஒவ்வொரு நிகழ்வுகளையும் ஒப்பிட்டு, நினைக்க வைக்கும் அவனது ஊர் அவனுக்கு கோவில் ஆகிறது. எனது கோவில் மெட்ராஸ். பெற்றோர், நண்பர்கள், சகோதரர்கள் , சகோதரிகள் என எனக்கு பல தெய்வங்களை அளித்து கோடிக்கணக்கான சகோதர, சகோதரிகளை பெற்ற என் கோவிலுக்கு 378 ஆவது பிறந்தநாள் வாழ்த்துக்கள் <3 இப்படிக்கு, அ. பி. புவனேஷ் சந்தர்” Happy Madras Day 🙂
From Letters, Stories and Memories, to Molaga Bajji and more…
Maybe having “Molaga Bajji” with a sip of “Kaapi” in between the bites is too old school for you. Maybe doing that when it’s pouring heavily outside and when Ilayaraja is trying to take you to cloud nine with ‘Raja Raja cholan’, is indeed too cliché a thing for you. That wasn’t the case a few years ago but I do understand that people have overdone it and that it doesn’t interest you any more. But somehow I feel our generation is missing out a lot as they try to hide away from indulging in a lot of things which, the masses consider as “cliché” Maybe a scene with a male protagonist posting a letter to the female lead is too overdone according to you, but when was the last time you wrote a handwritten letter to someone? To someone who need not necessarily be your romantic partner. I bet that most of you are thinking about the answer Katradhu Tamizh Karunas gave about the same, but seriously do think about it again. If not before, just write a letter filled with positivity and love, and send it anonymously to someone who is super close to you and to that person, whom you feel will be able to guess you using the hints you’ve dropped in the letter. At the end of the letter, just ask them to give some hint acknowledging the receipt; for example, ask them to upload a Batman Whatsapp DP for a day. Do share with me how you felt after it. I’ve done it a few times and neither did I nor the people I sent it, ever talk about the letters. Neither Sarahah nor Whatsapp or Gmail ever gave me such an experience. Apart from all the novels you read how many of you’ve relished the art of hearing someone recite stories? Yesteryear teens had their grandparents reciting stories to them but because of the change in the composition of a family, we don’t get such exposures as we live in this new “Nuclear families” set up. But whenever you get some free time, do go to the story telling open mics and participate in it. If you and your buddies are too bored, fix a time period, let’s say, a week, to write stories and later meet up in some beach after that week and share your stories. Robin Williams wasn’t wrong in the ‘Dead Poet’s society’, my friends. There have been a plenty of jokes about the scene in Autograph when Cheran travels back to his hometown and relives his childhood memories. But how many people actually went back to all the places they lived in, to collect back the scattered memories and to relive their life one more time? Sounds like a melodramatic one is it? Do it once and you will understand that any drama involved is just a magnifying image of your own reality. It’s fun to write about Dejavu and Nostalgia in the social media, but experiencing it is yet another story. Travelling and exploring about yourself can sometimes be about taking your old diaries, your old photo albums and travelling back in time. There are plenty of things we are missing out on and for that, for this one time, I’d like to lean upon the side which says that too much of indulgence into the digital world is not so good for ourselves. From outdoor games, to foods, to relationships, to socialising, we have grown up but we’ve left a lot too. I’ll add up more to this list in the future. Now that you’ve read this, what matters is what are you going to do about it?
Relationships – Big Boss?
In any kind of relationship, whether it is with your best bud from school or a new colleague in your office, it is always going to be hard if you are going to have a mind-set which is definitive about everything you share with people. Such people are always noticed defining things, for example, like what is closeness, what is care, what is expression, how much you should express, how much time it should take to declare out as being close and so on, everything based on all the relationships they’ve had previously. This creates a tendency in their minds to extract out what they want from the other person in the equation than understanding what they actually are. In such types of relationships, “Being yourself” is a luxury spa zone, which you get to enter only when the other person is not much into the equation. It’s just like a Luxury Budget prize which you get to win once in a blue moon (just adding something for the Bigg boss fans) Few equations just click instantly and a yeah few other equations may take time, no doubt, but having a predetermined mind-set about it is only going to create some unwanted tension. This mind-set is often confused with “Having Expectations”. Let me inform you, that this is an entirely different topic. Having expectations out of someone will turn out to be something very natural, as time goes. In simple words, if the issues relating to these expectations are like Speed breakers in a relationship, determining and commanding as to how the other person should be and how they’ve to behave or any such definitions, is like a road block. It might open up sometimes, but if you’re going to travel in the same road, you’ll be left to pay a hefty toll fare someday. In most cases the “victim” in such relationships is the person who believes that “it’s completely normal and that it just means a few adjustments for the other person and which by the way is also normal”. It is not normal and you shouldn’t fool yourself using this “Adjustment Trump Card”. If you have to forego this in order to sustain a relationship, pay a heavy Toll fare that leads you to nowhere or take a detour and let that surprise you while you keep yourself intact.
Na Muthukumar – Return If Possible
“இன்னும் ஒரு இரவு” என்னும் பாடலில், இன்னும் ஒரு இரவை தேடி அலைந்து, “வழிப்போக்கனும் வருவான் போவான், வழிகள் எங்கும் போவதில்லை” என்று கூறிய கவிஞன் நீ, அதே போல ஒரு வழிப்போக்கனின் பார்வையிலிருந்து “வழிப்போக்கனின் வாழ்விலே நிழலாக வருகிறாய் நான் கேட்கும் முன்னமே இளைப்பாற தருகிறாய் தருகிறாய்……… நீ இளைப்பாறல் முடிந்ததும் போதும் போ என்கிறாய் புலனைந்தையும் கொல்கிறாய் கொல்கிறாய் நீ…” என்று காதல் பாடினாய். இன்று நீயும் ஒரு வழிப்போக்கனாய், கண் காணாத இடத்திற்குச் சென்று, வழி தொலைந்து விட்டு என்றோ ஒரு நாள், வந்த வழியை பிடித்து திரும்பி வருவாய் என்று நம்புகிறேன். அது வரை, உன் வரிகளில் வழியைத் தேடி யாவரும் ஒரு வழிப்போக்கனாக பயணிப்போம். #ReturnIfPossible #NaMuthukumar
Taramani
“Motta thalaikum mozhankaalukum mudichi podradhu” A work of art need not be politically correct. Many a people would’ve felt like the story had lots of flaws but the way I see it, with what Ram states in every interview, a work of art is indeed one person’s truth being conveyed in different forms and the story is just a document of that person’s truth – It need not be politically correct to everyone. What impressed me a lot is how honestly he has depicted even these small incorrectness and thereby further proving his strong point. Taramani is more of an ‘account of the events’ that happen in the lives of the characters, which touch upon certain issues that the plot encounters. Yes, Ram did not give any direct conclusion about any of the issues he touched upon nor did he dive into each of them and preach which was right or wrong. The dialogue in the film “Unakku advice panna naan yaaru?” is what he states too regarding this. How these issues affect the “love” story (or how he states – A story about love) is just what is being conveyed and the voiceovers of Ram stating us as to what to expect next after every juncture itself acts as an evidence to this. I feel that right from the 1st word he penned down for this script, Ram would’ve been very clear with what he wanted to convey in this film. The well written characters fleshed out so beautifully and the actors have played an applaudable job. Maybe some people might feel that the metaphors shown in the film could’ve been made a bit more subtle but nevertheless they did make a huge impact. Contrary to most of the online reviews, I loved Director Ram’s voiceovers. With gripping background scores and perfectly curated cinematography keeping us engaged to the sequences, Taramani was indeed a TARAMani Ending this with what he said about Taramani in an interview, “You will either hate this movie or love this movie but you won’t be disappointed and you won’t neglect this movie”. Hopefully.