manzilechar

Love

2011-02-18T03:51:00.000-08:00

Here I see, many who fought and bite each other, behind and in the front, talking all over again with likes and simley's, oooha's and aaah's, fighting that self that wants to hate but yet loves.

Kitchen Window

2011-02-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

Anger melts the butter over the flower lets
a pinch of pepper, a splash of bloody tomatoes
dressed with onion rings
'salt to taste'
Tearful spicy curry severed with love

Lady In Grey, Gentelman In Black

2011-02-18T03:49:00.000-08:00

Somewhere along
the dancing roof top
through the magical door
old friends kept walking in
re sized jumps, hugs
and stiff hellos
all at once
for two people
in love.

Manholes

2011-01-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

Letter from my father to his grandson

2008-09-04T20:41:00.001-07:00

My dear Arjun,
In Hyderabad zoo,a lion lost its tail to the wrath of a panther beside whose cage it was kept!The lion was very massive because of which its tail protruded into the panther's cabin which provoked the pesky feline to bite off its tail.Now the lion spends most of its time looking at its lost pride licking the wound.
So what is the moral?
GRANDPA

If Gauri and Bhuvan Som meet again…

2008-09-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

If they meet again, Gauri will console him. She will tell him that he once again missed the target because there is so much wind blowing making everything look hazy. She will not tell him on his face that he has grown old.

Gauri will once again hold the tree and talk about Yadav Patil’s job. Yes, she will call him by his name, after all these years of marriage. She will complain that he is away all the time. That her life was spent bringing up her children. But she smiles and says she knows that ‘he’ will get pouches of sugar, jam and ketchup that they serve in Rajdhani.

While Gauri and Bhuvan Som are talking, somewhere near the seashore, the wind is blowing across the dessert, just like the way it did, in the film, made forty one years ago.

2008-08-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

I stooped
to kiss
our master's
shiny black boots
there he said:
deeper!

As I stooped deeper
I sensed in me
the masterly
resistance
of my spine
which wanted not to be bent

- 'Of the Inner Freedom' : Erich Fried

P.S. A 'poetic' forward sent to me by Shivam Vij

Cinema Verite

2007-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

After a Shoot
My husband and I
travel back Home with a dead camera
He is quiet.
While wondering ways to ease his pain
I sleep.
And dream about cinema verite.

Messy Room

2007-10-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Messy Room

I find
a wedding photograph
tucked away
in the 64th page
of Poems and Novella
at 22
Amma looked just like me.
Hopeless!

Notes by Amma

2007-04-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Vankaya Podi Kura

Ingredients

250grams Brinjal , 1 Tablespoon Besan, Chilli power ½ Tsp , Fried Cumin Seeds Powder, 3 Tsp Oil, Salt to taste.

Cut brinjals into small pieces in salted water. Take a pan put oil when oil is heated add brinjal pieces.
And fry till brown. Then add chilli and cumin power and besan. Fry fro 5mins. Add salt. When brinjal peices are
crispy are crisp. It is ready to serve.

Of Mother Among Other Things II

2006-12-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

I
It was 4.23 p.m. when she got the call. She remembers the exact time because she was typing the story for her next film. The characters had taken over the course of their lives. Even when she told them to stop beating the boy who was tied to the lamppost at the Naka, they continued. She was reduced to a being a mute spectator. She was no more a writer but a typist in the court, typing along anyone who spoke and accused the young boy of stealing the bicycle. But she knew that she had write about how the young thief died. She typed with greed, moving only her eyes, blocking anyone who spoke against the boy. She dint know who among her character would deliver the final deathblow on the young thief’s stomach. For now, She had forgotten anything that happened in her past. Suddenly, there was a silence. Everybody stopped doing what ever they were doing, they turned back and stared at her. The words stopped appearing on the computer screen. She turned her head and looked. It was 4.23pm. That was when cell phone rang.

Her mother had died.

She suddenly saw her father standing near the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the squirrel. He was sipping his evening tea. The window belonged to drawing room of her house in Mumbai, a place where she spent more than twelve years before she got married. But like a character in her story her father decided to be seen like that, right after the call. She looked around and started at the extra bed lying right in the center of her small apartment in Kolkata. ‘He can sleep there, when he moves in few weeks later. He can go for long walks around the beautiful campus. There were snakes, injured birds and dogs that will keep him busy. He will be happy here,’ she thought.

Her father did bring home an injured hummning bird. It was beautiful with pale wet eyes. He kept her wrapped in soft cotton cloth. He was awake all night. Next morning, when the sun shined, he took her out. She was once again dry and light. Her father insisted that she accompany him when he set the bird free. Next moment, the bird was not there. She did not see her fly off. Her father did. He kept pointing at the bush the bird had entered. He pointed at the flower. But she could see nothing. She felt uneasy. A strange feeling that she often felt, when the characters would stop talking to her for no reason. After lunch, when her father was asleep she forced her characters to get back to action. The characters spoke out of the fear that she would just abandon them. She typed an entire sequence that afternoon while listening to her father snore with content.

Later she realized that the sequence was unnecessary. It was shabbily written. She felt ashamed. She deleted it. She did not regret the loss of all the typed words. She kept staring at the computer screen. She then desperately looked if there were any missed calls from her mother. She tried dialing her residence number in Mumbai. There was no response. ‘Amma must have gone to Majumdar aunty to talk…she should come back before dad returns from office. I have told her million times not to go that woman’s house. Especially at a time when I need her. I need to finish this damm story. Let her come back!,’ she said to herself.

She knew that every time, she went through such moments, there would be a call from her mother. She would ease the tension. She had to just tell her about what her characters were up to and leave it at that. She knew that after she kept the phone down, her mother spoke to her characters, pacified them. Fed them with curd rice and lemon pickle. If they were adamant, she would spend the entire afternoon preparing tamarind rice. The characters had to give and start talking to her daughter while she typed.

She kept staring at the computer screen when a hand reached out switching off the computer monitor.‘You are looking very tired. Will you have a cup of tea?’ her father asked She looked at her father irritatingly and asked ‘Where is Amma?’.

II
Years later, I asked her why she had stopped writing. ‘I really don’t know. I had realized something one day. I could not write after that.’ She said untying my plates. ‘What!’ I asked. ‘ Nothing! May be after you were born I got really busy,’ she told me laughing out loud. She gave me a pat on my back and gestured to get my comb quickly from the shelf. I ran with guilt to fetch the comb. I knew she was watching me. She still does especially when I sit down to write.

Of Mother Among Other Things.

2006-11-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

I look up
search for traces
of letters dropping to the ground
I collect the cigarette ash
Smell it.
It has left a stain
on the mosaic

I watch the Tea
boiling with a comfort
that I wont allow it
to spill out.
It drops
staring at me
with no grudge
It burns
I waste.

I call my mother.
To see a reflection
of myself
beyond words.

Planned Pages

2006-06-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

North west Airlines: Departure A2.
Arrival Terminal A2.
I receive them
My mother. My father.
Their travel plans.

My mother tells me that
she made 160 US dollars
in a casino in Las Vegas.
My father's stories can wait.

I rush back to my
Husband's mother
she needs a silent listener
I stare at her with unsettling eyes
I run around within myself.
Far far away into the world of dogs.
I am happy, she is not.

Just then
I remembered
I had to call you.
A promise to meet
talk about my life.
I stare at my planner
A useless book running into planned pages.

old notebooks...

2006-06-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was throwing away my old notebooks, I found this....don't remember where I had copied it from. My selective amnesia hints at the the film Autumn Sonata....poem or monolouge or text on screen...dont remember. But I like reading it like this....

One must learn to live

I practise everyday.

My biggest obstacle is

I don't know who I am

I grope blindly

If anyone loves me as I am

I may dare at last to look at myself.

For me

that possibility is fairly remote.

re turn ..re cognition...to remember

2006-06-13T02:09:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have gone meeting people, the last one crazier than the one before. Forget the pleasurable world of writing, watching films and reading. The next day is what excites me and at the same time I cringe to peep out from my bedsheet in the morning. I wonder between moments...am I into film making?

...a breakdown is a breakthrough...is a breakout!

2006-04-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

My heart sank when I saw my rushes for a five min film shot on 16mm. My first ever at the film school... My film had minimal dialogues, the characters used two languages- Telugu and Bengali and I had intentionally taken non actors. I did not use any inserts.When my friends saw the rough cut, they walked stood silent and lost.

After days of mourning, I woke up today morning with a strange energy... the film I made presented what I believed in. I might have failed at the craft. But it was a story that I wanted to tell. And I will continue telling the stories I think need to be told and shared. I thought I had failed until I read the posting on what Mighella said,

"Why do we do all this? Why tell stories? Cinema and storytelling is there to smash the jail that we've put ourselves in."

screenplays,stories and structures

2006-03-18T05:54:00.000-08:00

I write keeping a final vision of the story I want to tell. Before I write a word down...I think. The moment I feel uncomfortable or rather being taken over by the story...I stop and review it. I believe in not explaining too much...
I am intimidated by the idea of a methodology to writing scripts.I am not dismissive of the graphs and structures to a story. I too use them to understand a story....It is nice to demystify a screenplay...but would not get bogged down by it ..if I have a good story to tell.

Fear of Forgetting.

2006-03-17T02:43:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago,I directed two films/exercise. The realities of film making not only made me nervous but there was a strange anxiety within me long after the shoot got over....I realized if the idea/central premise is unclear within you, you will fail even if you have the best cameraman or the best sound guy or actors. Also, 'idea' to me means something that you are passionate about. Because as I went around trying to search for the right face and spirit to perform my role....search the exact color of paint I wanted as a prop...as I did the shot breakdown... I felt that the story was slipping past me...had taken a different form and grammar altogether.... sometimes dead in the night I asked myself why am I making the film...
It at such moment when I go back to the quite lake in my institute and ask myself why at the first place I wanted to make this film....I go back to the 'innocent' feeling I began with...I recharge myself....
Also, since film making is an entirely new discipline for me...I am learning a methodology which suits my temperament rather than fitting myself to a rather aggressive and stressful way to make films....
I am comfortable working with non actors. I have no exposure to theatre nor have I read too many plays. And luck never looks at me when I go for theater actors to perform my role. I feel that they ' act' ...or rather 'over act'. They imitate. And I dislike that. I really am looking forward to meeting more actors who can act convincingly enough.
But I love the fact that although, I took non actors for both my films, they were really good. They were not camera conscious. For a moment I felt that they were real. They understood what I wanted to convey. I pat myself to time and again stick to my intuition about their ability to act.
I also feel that I am not a person who craves for drama in my film. People say I fear letting go ...but no! I want my film to have a rhythm I am comfortable with....this has put me in trouble sometimes because in the quest for making a five minute film ...I end up making a 8 min film...I record sounds which last for 13minutes! I know this is a film school indulgence. The reality in the industry is different ... but what drives me is that I have to 'recreate' the idea of the film I had in my head when I set out to make the film...
Also, filmmaking is about people. I swear. The biggest let down would be when I start abusing someone on location because we are running late or fight limited resources...it will be hard to forgive myself if I lose my temper. Since all my attempts are excercises/ projects/ non commercial ventures, I believe that the entire unit has come there because of you ..for the person you are. They have nothing to do with the story or the film....

Until another film....