My Angel

When I was down in every way
You saved me a little everyday.
The answer to all my prayers
My little Angel you were there.

The good times are great
The bad ones not that bad
My Angel when you are here

Even when you annoy the hell out of me
I love you
At that very moment, I'm getting annoyed
And loving you to pieces
Because my Angel you are here.
Stressing and loving me
My Angel you are here.

You have redeemed this world for me
Just when I had given up on it
I have forgiven its cruelties and little disappointments
Life is worth living again
My little Angel now that you are here

I'm writing you this disjointed poem
To show you I do care
That you are here
My little Angel you are here.

For Sneh

You left me walking in the rain,
Cold and alone, and the pain
Was like me
A bit unsure of itself..

What happened, how?
Who knows, who cares
Its so cold, I'm so wet
This blood on my fingers
It won't go away

Things left unsaid
Echo about this abyss
Left in your wake
This trail of crimson
These tatters I rake

To the heavens have you gone
From where you had arrived?
To nurse my ailing heart
Such lies I contrive
But still it weeps

I cry all bunched up
Like you were when inside me
Tears fall till I fall asleep
And forget, then I smile

I had dreamed of you
Long before you had come
To live within me
As I dream you now
The last remains
Of a tainted love

I watch you
Lying next to me
Crying
Eating
Sleeping
Smiling
Laughing
Walking
Running...away
And you disappear

I'm awake, and it starts all over again.

Truth bent but not broken,

More dangerous than the lie not spoken -Rohan Sarode

Gagan Judge, 23.

Things I have learned this year:

1. My sister is a completely different person and I have to accept that as a fact.
2. I need to keep my mouth shut sometimes to avoid getting into trouble.
3. I am smarter than most people but they don't like being told that.
4. I love food and I hate exercise. I will never be as thin as I was in high school.
5. I like watching movies and talking about them more than I like making them. Teaching might be a good career choice.
6. I can't keep a job because I get bored easily and am too whimsical. I need to be my own boss.
7. Being in love and being in a relationship with someone are two completely different things.
8. Writing requires more discipline than talent. I have no discipline.
9. I may not be as creative or as talented as others, but I have my own unique way of looking at the world and understanding its people. The day I find my voice and I really want to express something, it will all come to me.
10. Time spent living is not time wasted.

whatever...

Happy Independence Day!!!

Sixty four glorious years of butchering minorities, blatant corruption, bigotry, rapid industrialization, casteism, green revolution, white revolution, insurgency, emergency, MCVeggie and Maharaja Mac, animal rights protection, humal rights violations, no first use nuclear policy, bullying of neighbors, wannabe superpower, extreme poverty, non-alignment, non violence, honor killings, equal rights for women, female infanticide, great food, religious extremism, discrimination, spineless foreign policies, moral policing, Bollywood, regionalism - and still going strong! This is India, folks. Take it or leave it.

And hey, atleast we are not doing as bad as some other countries(Pakistan). No terrorism, military rule, failed econonmy, failed state, heroin trade, child rape and obstruction of justice here, so shut up! We rape only grown women, and there are no gay people. We are all Hindus. We are all named either Raj or Kumar. All of us are vegetarians. We all speak English, albeit in a funny accent. Like us. Please.

Our forefathers who fought for our freedom; those people who went to jail, were tortured and beaten with clubs and then hanged without a proper trial. Fasts unto death. The Salt March. Civil disobedience. They envisaged a nation of freedom, made by free-thinking people that would be a shining beacon to the rest of humanity. What a shame.

On missing you...

I miss you in parts. Never as a whole. I miss your hair. Coarse and wild and golden, a lion's mane. Miss how it split the morning sun into a thousand shimmering sparkles. I miss waking up to your sea-green eyes looking at me. Those sea-eyes that had drowned so much sorrow that I could see my love in them, floating helplessly on the surface.

I miss your smell, that used to linger on the sheets long after you went into the shower. I miss the texture of your calves, the shape of your back , the back of your neck, the soft skin behind your ears and I miss kissing them. I miss your long, tapering fingers(you used to say you got them from your father) and the way they used to feel on my lips. I miss being. Just being, existing, in your arms. Those mornings were so warm. The world is so cold, now.

I know it wasn't perfect. Except my love for you. So unwavering in its stubbornness, its vanity. What went wrong I do not know. Those are the parts I do not remember. Or maybe I choose not to. It is there still, stubborn and vain. My perfect love.

I miss our mornings and I miss you and I miss loving you. In parts. Always in parts.

Nate's note on Facebook...

If my Memory Serves me Right: Sinulog
by Nate Zona on Monday, April 11, 2011 at 1:58am

When I was in the Philippines, there was a lot of buzz about this upcoming festival called 'Sinulog.' It is the biggest celebration of the year, and I just happened to arrive a month before it happened. The weeks flew by and before I knew it I had made plans to go to a "rave" the night before Sinulog. This "rave" was really more of a house/ebm night, and it was held at the Cebu International Convention Center. I went with my new friends Rozie Reyes, from Australia, and Vũ Ngọc Phượng, from Vietnam. I was very excited to be going out on the town, since I had basically just arrived, and to a rave nonetheless! We took cab to the venue and paid 500 pesos to get in. (Hunter told us later that we actually could have gotten in for free with our IAFT passes! Damn!) The night was still kinda young so most of the crowd was sitting in chairs surrounding the dance floor. It reminded me of a high school dance, but in a much bigger scale. Well the music was playing and Rosie, Vu and I laughed to ourselves at the shyness of everyone else, went directly to the middle of the floor, and just started dancing like fools! Everyone else started slowly making their way onto the floor and soon enough the place was moving! As the night rolled on and the music got "harder," the producers of the show brought out these four ladies in bikinis, holding chains in each hand, with a little cup at the end of them. They stood at the front for some time, and then a guy with a lighter came over and lit the cups on fire one by one. When they were all on fire, the music hit a crescendo and the chains began swinging! The lights were flashing, the music was pumping, the girls were swinging fire back in forth in a hypnotic gyration, and then along the sides of the stage fountains of sparks erupted high into the sky! The crowd was alive!

The night, however, was just beginning for me.

So we partied, danced, drank, and what not until about two-thirty. At this time Hunter Prescott and Gagan Judge had showed up and asked if I was staying until the end (4am or so.) Vu was ready to go home so Rozie left with him, and I ended up leaving with Hunter and Gagan around 3:30. If I remember correctly, Hunter is from Austrailia, but spent some time in the US as well, namely Texas. Gagan, or Sky as he is called, is from India! Both these dudes are super cool, and I had become kinda friends with them over the previous weeks. I would say more like acquaintances really.

Well, at this point, they decided we should go get some food at a fast food place called Andok's. When we got there they told us they weren't selling beer, so of course we went to a gas station, bought some and went back to Andok's!

Hunter and Gagan were adamant that I try Andok's version of the popular Pinoy dish "Sisig."

Sisig, let me tell you, is DELICIOUS! It's a fried/sizzler meat dish, served on a really hot metal? plate. It smells like bacon and has onions, red peppers, and really tasty spices! Needless to say, I loved it. (Only later did I find out sisig is made from carved pig's head meat, chopped liver, and traditionally, pig's brain! I'd still eat it, haha) The night was not over, and we hopped on a jeepney to get back to the IAFT campus. By this time, the school grounds were abandoned, with only the guards patrolling. We walked to the back of the school where the tiki bar is located, and on the way back there we crossed paths with one of the security guards. Hunter was immediately friendly with him, and they shook hands and happily exchanged pleasantries. I was surprised how well they seemed to know each other and as we walked to the back, Hunter said something I will remember for the rest of my life. "Dude, you gotta make friends with everybody. The cleaning crew, the security guards, the lady who does your laundry. When you step out of your own shoes and let other people in, you free yourself, but most importantly dude, you remember you're not alone in this life."

We sat, the three of us at the now abandoned Tiki Bar in the back of the school. The Tiki Bar sits up against a fence that overlooks the Bay of Magellen. You can see a breathtaking amount of sky from this spot. As we drank our Tanduay Rhum and A&W rooter, and our cans of San Miguel and Red Horse, we watched as the sky began to leech color from the sun. Gagan turns to me and says, "Dude, you will never forget this Mactan Sunrise." Even if he had said nothing and I had been there alone, he was absolutely right. The warm air gently blowing though the palm trees, the black water of the bay, slowly turning red and pink and orange, reflecting the clouds above which puffed in the sky like rolls of marshmallows. The sun slowly but unstoppably rising above the horizon, into the day. It was something I'll never forget. I tried to take a picture with my camera but it just didn't look right, and Hunter and Gagan said to me, "This is something that cannot be captured by our gear man, only with your memory."

of Tears and Rain...

Raining in Cebu, raining in Mumbai - pathetic fallacy. Can never tell when someone is crying. Raindrops or teardrops. We humans are already so good with hiding emotions(even from ourselves). Rain is just another handy tool. Mummy Nature is soooo clever!

Thanks for making emo look cool.....

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!!!
Thank you soooo much for this wonderful life that you have given me, ma. I'm really loving it and I can do the things I really want to do.
I am happy and very satisfied the way things have gone so far. No regrets. Thanks for bearing with me all those 'growing up' years and helping me out when times were tough. Thanks for indulging my tantrums and giving me everything I ever asked for. Because of you I can never get disheartened by the difficulties and challenges that life throws at me. If I take a wrong step, if I falter and lose my way for a bit, I know that you are always there for me.

As a mother, you make me believe that there is still goodness and innocence in this world, and the pure selflessness that you exude is something that I could never do. Nonetheless, because of you, I can still tell stories about good, selfless people and believe in those stories myself knowing that even if they don't exist elsewhere, those values exist in you. Believing in the values of one's stories is very important to an honest storyteller and that's where you inspire me, ma. I can be confident that no matter how much evil and cruelty propagate in this world, the sanctuary given by a mere hug with the slightest whisper of assurance from you can take all that misery away. Warmth. There is still hope. Everything will be fine. Good triumphs over evil. I start believing again.

As a human being, you have taught me how to love. Anyone. The love you have for me is the purest form of love anyone can, and ought to, have for anyone. I can only aspire to love someone so unconditionally as you love me.

You are my little piece of heaven, ma. Thanks for being my best buddy, my best pain relief and my best cheerleader eva!!! I know the only way I can pay you back is by living a good life myself and I will leave no stone unturned in making your creation a success!


Love you, miss you
Bettu.

Mere ghum gar aapko miltey...

My Love, had you faced the sorrows that have befallen me,
you would have lost your senses long ago.
It is my stubborn heart that has held its own for so long;
you would have lost these tears long ago.

Fellini on Fellini

Just saw Fellini's 8 1/2.....I confess I know absolutely nothing about filmmaking.

Disheartening thought, one might say...but now I know where I stand and everything is so much clearer now. I'm actually rejoicing in the loss of my ignorance!

THE GEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH!!!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/07/i_am_a_brainiac.html

Mr. Ebert puts so lucidly and eloquently what I have been trying to say for so long...love you Mr. Ebert. No homo.

More on it later, busy making some movies right now!

The Oneironaut Part ll

I came up with my own way to cope with bad days when I was a kid. I call it idealist daydreaming. Whenever I get too fed-up or feel confused about the world around me I go into my own dream world, which is just the way I want it. It is a place where childhood friends still live next door, where the first kiss I ever had still lingers. A place devoid of war, hatred and deceit. A place which feels as warm and snug as my mother's hugs felt when I was five. When I used to run to her when it hurt inside-out. A moment of sanctuary, peace and solace. When I wake up from this vivid dream, I find it much easier to accept the sometimes harsh realities of life. Call it escapism if you will, but I am not really running away, its just a temporary refuge, a place of comfort, to rest a while along the way.

That is how I write most of my stories too. The films I make will always be inspired from personal experience but will also contain certain elements of imagination, because after all, dreams are experiences too. Most of my stories have a happy ending(the jock-gets-dumped-and-the-geek-gets-the-girl ending), or at least a sense of hope. The world that 'could be' or 'ought to be'.

What is reality anyways, if not a sum of our ideas, beliefs and experiences? You are what you choose to believe. How does a child cope with sexual abuse? Pretend that it never happened, and then start believing it never happened. The Olympic athlete wins the race he has already won so many times in his mind. He remembers the familiar smell of the air, the faint noises of the cheering crowd and the bare curve of the track. He has been here before, countless days and nights.

This is how we start believing in the reality of our own creation. I used to have a bad reputation as a bluffer in high-school, and many people still consider me to be a lying bastartd, although thats a different story hehe. That first crush never kissed me on that first date....but then, she did....so many times, over and over again. Her taste still lingers on my lips, as if it was only yesterday.....

Yin-Yang and the Hegelian Dialectic.....

I used to be a staunch Objectivist(the Ayn Rand type) for some time. That phase happens when you read The Romantic Manifesto at nineteen years of age. Rationality, Idealism, Empiricism, Logic. You make fun of your parents because they are religious. You have endless arguments with yor granny over the (non)existence of God. As you grow older, though, you realize that although some of the principles of Objectivism are truisms but the whole thing offers a quite limited view of life.

Then I read Henry Flynt's work. Anti-art, Nihilism, Existentialism, Solipsism. He is on the other end of the spectrum from Ayn Rand. I saw a short film by Louis Bunuel and Salvador Dali titled 'The Andalusian Dog'. The film makes sense because it intentionally makes no sense. You try to make sense of it, try to connect the shots and make a story where there is none, and therein lies the concept of the film: everyone WANTS to find a story in it and everyone comes up with a unique interpretation. Its a classic!

I read Ray Carney's papers on film criticism, who says that plot is the enemy of a movie. He is on the other end of the spectrum from Roger Ebert and Robert Mckee.
So can there be a balance between these two sides? Can you believe in both? Can you appreciate both James Cameron and John Cassavettes, and everything in between?

I think so. The trick is to merge the Thesis with the Antithesis and create a Synthesis. To hold two opposing ideas in your brain and still retain the ability to function.

The world is beautiful. It has a dark side that adds to its beauty. Evil is necessary for us to appreciate the good. The balance between Yin and Yang. Although religion is outdated, a society needs a philosophy(a system of moral values) to exist without chaos. It is common sense that murder and theft is bad behavior. One doesn't need a childish story about there being a big grumpy guy up in the sky watching over you who will judge you after you die. Both Heaven and Hell are here on earth. You will get what you deserve in this life itself, call it karma or causality or whatever.

I'm still learning, and the gaps will be filled along the way.

The Prophet's Parting Words...

"...farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and its no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day and we must part.If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.

And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.

And not in vain will I seek."

To My Favorite Taurean, On Her Birthday...

I am the tipsiness in your eyes,
The vanity of your passion
I am the secret, knowing smiles
Which still, sometimes, take hold of you,
Whether you remember or not......


My taste still fresh on your lips,
As if that autumn morning was only yesterday
The fumbling, awkward first kiss
It was so right, it was so new,
Whether you remember or not......


You see I am near still, though I may seem to be far
Indigo key chains, junk bracelets
A chewing gum wrapper, an old guitar
I am with you, around you, inside you.
Whether you remember or not......


A thousand dreams, memories that remain
To be lived still, who knows
We just might meet again,
But 'silence and tears' just won't do
Whether you remember or not.....


You used to like that Shania Twain song
'I'm keeping you forever and for always
You still know the words, sometimes you even sing along
Only, when I sang, I sung it true
Whether you remember or not.....

The Oneironaut

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving." -Waking Life

You should challenge your notions and beliefs about existence, life, reality, love, morality, rationality etc etc every once in a while. Create a "crisis in consciousness" as Krishnamurty said. Sometimes you need to sweep the firm ground you usually stand upon in everyday life and, well, free-fall! Then go salsa dancing with your confusion. Every once in a while. I've been free-falling for a few days now. Its been a free flowing stream of surrealistic films, cheese, classical music and sleep. Exploring alternate realities, like in a lucid dream. I never really was much into drugs but this is the closest I have come to tripping, yet.

It all started when I got my hands on some really cool previously-unseen DVDs through a generous friend(such a boon to have those). With nothing to do except wait for Sunday when I leave for my film-school in the Philippines, I decided that it would be a nice prelude to the whole thing if I caught some experimental, challenging movies. An overture of sorts, just to set the mood. I started with Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange', which really set the ball rolling. A cult classic, its a surreal, deeply offending, black humored work of art. Simply loved it. It is interesting how we can get so easily offended by any world-view that is different than ours. Its not a case of narrow-mindedness so much as it is a fear of the unknown. Thats exactly the idea behind free-falling. Letting go of the concepts and the definitions that restrict us and, for a while, look beyond. Exploring, venturing, letting the imagination flow freely.

Thats where art comes in. And surrealism. I was introduced to the movement quite early; the first director I worked with was an avowed surrealist. Making promos for MTV-Vh1, various ad-films, music videos and stuff, I was hooked on to his office-library that boasted of works by Floria Sigismondi, David Lachapelle and our very own Tarsem Singh. He couldn't see anything beyond these three and it showed in his considerable body of work but he was good at what he did. Really good.

Anyways, coming back to the topic, I finished watching A Clockwork Orange. On to the next one. Monty Python's Meaning Of Life, an even more offending, dark,extremely satirical pure work of art. Lovely. Then it was Adaptation by Spike Jonze and Richard Linklater's masterpiece Waking Life followed by (the most offensive of all) Un Chien Andalou, the genre-defining classic silent short film by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel. All one after the other. Exhausting? Yes! I slept for a couple of hours, woke up, and started reading about the phenomenal films I had seen, eating a rather large piece of raw cheese stolen from the fridge. The reviews and different interpretations.The philosophical themes behind them, the between-the-lines. Existentialism. Solipsism. Nihilism. Hedonism. Nietzsche. Flynt. Ebert. Everything I could find. Views and counter-views. Phew! Slept again, this time for fourteen hours straight. I woke up in a dream-like state, all the theories and counter-theories muddling my head. Had to clear my mind. Made some green tea(Mom has learned to leave me alone during such times) and listened to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on loop for an hour. I was free-falling. My definitions of what a film should be had been destroyed. My perception of reality lay shattered. My mind was still reeling from the
aftershocks. I was feeling what Neo feels in The Matrix when Morpheus says to him, "Welcome to the real world...". A whole new world of possibilities had been shown to me. A new dimension had been opened. Like when the Sphere first visits Mr Square in Flatland.

Siting there, listening to 'Beets', I felt a sudden surge of creativity inside me. I just started typing. My mind was buzzing. my fingers were ablaze. Within an hour, I wrote one of my finest poems, wrote some new movie ideas and fine-tuned some old ones. Just like that. I returned to stories I had thought of , filed and forgotten.I had really become an Oneironaut: a person who travels without physically moving. Explore new realities and dimensions. I was doing just that. I found new stories to tell where there were none. New insights. What an experience, what a prelude to film school!

Looking forward to discussion with friend and mentor Shreyas. Man, I will miss those conversations over hot Maggi.

I intend to keep falling till I fly - on Sunday to film school!


Following are the films I recommend to fellow and wanna-be Oneironauts. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. Only the ones that I have seen:

Adaptation
Waking life
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
A Clockwork Orange
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Paprika
The Matrix
Trainspotting
Waltz With Bashir
Apocalypse Now
Un Chien Andalou
Monty Python's Meaning Of Life