Showing posts with label Journal-Serious and Trivial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journal-Serious and Trivial. Show all posts

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Dan Brown's Inferno

Dan Brown’s Inferno (2013) is quite unlike his earlier books in that here the author turns an environmental activist in that he constantly reminds the reader of the global ecological crisis and the problems of overpopulation. It reads more like GB Shaw’s plays that carry some social message or the other.

Though in the earlier novels, it was possible to suspend disbelief at the kind of code-cracking that Robert Langdon practiced, this time it becomes a little bit tedious with the population problem that is part of the discourse of the novel. He makes use of the character of a slightly eccentric scientist Bertrand Zobrist to offer a solution to the overpopulation problem and this is by creating a virus named Inferno that has got serious consequences to the entire humanity.

The apocalypse is near and the scientist being a fan of Dante has written all the codes in poetry. The allusions and history reveal a lot about the culture and heritage of art work as usual, the fun element is replaced by a seriousness quite unlike Brown. Like all Brown heroines, Sienna Brooks is also quite smart and independent but she turns mushy and cries on Langdon’s shoulder. 

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Déjà vu

Monday brought its blues
The pull between dreams
And the bitter reality
When you had to face
The same music, in the past

The fear of an ending
When there’s no beginning,
Without anything to say
Except a few bitter words
And as you say my lies

What can I say except
That you have no clue
What mess you will be
When all this finishes
Because I know well

Sometimes the heaven
Offers some warning
Some strange signal
For the weary traveller
To run away for life

There are no endings
Nor any beginnings
In a love like this
Only a pervading sense
Of our seamlessness

Skeletons in the Cupboard


There is nothing left in the cupboard
Except the daily household items,
Coffee, sugar, bread and tea,
A few broken loves from the past,
A dysfunctional family of inferno
In time replaced by another

While time is spent in words
A precious gems that began
A few songs of silence followed
A few songs of remembrance
A purple riot that ran and bled
And the silence that it brewed.

Days of humdrum and misdom,
Always balanced by fantasies,
In colours of midnight blue
That brought out all old stories
The years that buried the dreams
And no secrets left except you.

Sunday, June 07, 2020

Sprout

You are the sprout that demands my pelting rain of affection, my tiny green whose footsteps fill me with pride with words that come right from the heart.

You are my sprout that loves everything green and creeps over all these broken walls of old houses and old loves and broken dreams.

You are my sprout that cuts through words, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, born out of a green dream of having a name to leave behind.

Friday, June 05, 2020

Beatrice and Virgil






Yann Martel's novel Beatrice and Virgil is an allegory that represents the Holocaust using animal characters. The novel is about writer's block and has the character of the writer Henry L'Hote talking about his writing experiences and also of his encounter with a taxidermist called Henry. This metafictional novel has it all in terms of its several inserted genres including a play, an essay, a brochure, a short story, extracts from Flaubert's short story "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator" , a poem in the form of a list and a set of imaginary situations called Games for Gustav. These inserted genres were written by the taxidermist Henry and later recreated by the writer Henry while on the hospital bed after being stabbed by the taxidermist Henry.


Just as in Life of Pi, Martel manages to create more than one dimension of the story and the story flits back between the story of animal extinction and that of the horrible massacre of the Jews during the Holocaust. Martel, through the voice of the writer Henry remembers the six million Jews who were killed during this historical event of genocide. As survivor testimonies show those who survived were no better than those who perished. Martel brings in echoes of several survivor testimonies including that of Primo Levi.


The animal characters Beatrice and Virgil are named after the poet Dante's guides through heaven and hell in The Divine Comedy, the medieval allegory about the state of the soul. From the innumerable allusions to several allegories, it can be deduced that the allegorical form was deliberately chosen by Martel. The allegory commonly spoke of the state of the soul and also gave lessons about humanity's place in the whole scheme of things. Here, Martel brings in an allegory that can be read in both ways and due to the metafictional nature of the novel, there are clues as to read the allegory in terms of animal slaughter and racial purification. Using this allegory, Martel blurs the line between cruelty to animals and cruelty to fellow-beings, showing a belief in the unity of all beings in the universe and an exhortation to live and let live.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

A Spring without voices





On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962 was about the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the environment . It is a fable on the environmental apocalypse of the modern age. The title denotes the silence that comes over nature as the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird species have become extinct.It was a spring without voices.

Carson, a marine biologist pointed out that the reason for this destruction of the environment in the United States was the uncontrolled use of organic pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and dieldrin used to control pest insects in agriculture. Though these compounds led to agricultural benefits, they posed serious threats to animal and human life as Carson proves by giving scientific evidence.

This book was a clarion call for greater awareness about the great destruction that human beings were causing to the Earth.

The Name of the Rose


The good of a book lies in its being read. A book made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb. This library was perhaps born to save the books it houses, but now it lives to bury them (Eco, 396).

Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose is a historical murder mystery set in a medieval monastery in fourteenth century Italy. What moves the story forward is the attempt of a medieval Benedictine monastery to preserve the aura of knowledge within its boundaries. Such an attempt to keep a work of art hidden, in this case, the second book of Aristotle’s Poetics, is not just for preserving the aura of arcane knowledge but not to destroy the order of the Benedictines. The book, which is believed never to have written or lost is in the library of the monastery but its existence is a secret as the library is not open to outsiders and functions by strange customs of secrecy. There are many secrets related to the library, which nobody know mainly because only the librarian knows about the contents of the library. The monks can only ask for titles but are not allowed in the place where books are kept. The library makes copies of the rare books with the help of illuminators and scribes but then the books are given only for that purpose. Murders happen because of this secret book of the ancients on laughter is lusted after by the scholarly monks. To investigate the murders, a Franciscan monk William of Baskerville arrives at the monastery along with his novice Adso of Melk. This monk, in a very Sherlock Holmes- like fashion deduces the truth of the matter from accidental incidents.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

For us


Not wrapped in glitzy sheets
Nor given with graceful words
A gift casually made out of 
A used personal belonging

The thought behind the gift
Were purple hearts drawn
And scrawled on pages that
Looked like reminders

You could have pinned it 
And showed it with pride
Than make purple hearts
And make others laugh

The deep red of a riot
Soul colour of a shade.

Friday, November 08, 2019

Stepford

There were forgotten words and broken promises;
Hues matched, songs played and dreams shared
From a springtime of love in another sacred space
That comes back in full riot in your shining eyes.

A world that was lost for not being a Stepford,
With long hair, obedience or even a loyal heart,
A world that was built upon years of dreams
That this elemental water had lost in time.

In the meantime, our definitions have changed;
From two strangers lost in a strange dream;
Obeying rules and breaking no boundaries,
Going from day to day without any joys.

With you, I am a sun that needs to rise and shine,
That meets your mischief with a matching hue.

Independent

You call yourself a strong woman while you are as human as we all are: strengths, weaknesses, mischief and complete dependence on your significant other. But day by day, you feed on our frailties and paint yourself strong and independent.

In your eyes, I see myself as being labelled messy, irresponsible and different yet I know that it’s the same longing to escape this maze of life that’s in your heart as well as in mine. But at times, I laugh when I see that you are too scared to walk alone in the dark; while I have lost even my longing to lean against a loving shoulder. 

Saturday, November 02, 2019

Songs of Sunshine


When the heart chose its path
And burnt all the other roads,
Reason was silent and sore,
But the heart hoped and loved
More than everything else.

In the days of radiant sunshine
Free and uncensored thoughts,
Effortless talk with smiles,
Laughter, kisses and love,
No bitterness was foreseen.

Now the sunshine is gone,
Replaced by the rainy days
Just like the pre-sunshine age
Each day after the other
Again an uneventful life.

The clock has been turned
Back to the mixed times,
Bittersweet and mundane,
Where no dark clouds were,
It is raining incessantly.

The days of sunshine are over,
With no hopes of coming back,
Angry words and accusations,
No daily downloads of news
Only spite and seething anger.

Yet this heart that forgot itself,
Became rougher and tougher
Day after day remembers,
The melodious tunes it knew
In the days of bright sunshine. 

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Teaching

Once upon a time, for a short while,
Teaching meant trying to scream above
The aeroplanes taking off nearby
 And the trains that screeched past,

While in this noise girls chatted
On the much prohibited mobile phones;
It also meant counting own mistakes
And losing your voice by Wednesday.

Now it means being silent when it rains
More because it is impossible to talk,
And may be it disturbs the lovelorn dreams
That flit across so many dreamy eyes.

The rain takes them away somewhere
An my voice drags them here back again. 

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Rebus

Miss those days
When people texted more than
Yes, No, ok, and what?
Sent meaningful long sentences,
Properly capitalised, spelt
(For the Purists only) 
And spaced meaningfully

There were friends
Who could match wit with wit
Anger with anger
Repartee with repartee
All in matter of seconds when
SMS Alerts were from people
Not spam sent from machines.

Miss those days
When people texted in words
Sent invites, reminders
Missing U msgs not just in rebus
like "need2seeu2moro" but
"I missed you a lot today, my dear
and want to see you tomorrow
Near the white plumeria.

Thursday, March 07, 2019

Soul Friend

I haven’t had a true friend in years, one that listened and criticized and encouraged and beat the shit out of my foggy two-mind. But you are that wonderful find, one in a million, who looks at things in the eye, takes the best and ignores the rest. I feel the difference when I speak to the rest who speak twisted truths and create stories out of nothingness. I have been bearing this cross of life for years but it feels lighter when your hands support me and your prayers encourage me.  You are my best wine, mellowed and intact that keeps me chin up during the toughest of these times. 

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Humdrum


The days have been so humdrum,
With blue sleepless hazy midnights
Words in blank ink scattered across
Scores of white scraps of paper.

You needed a few words from me,
Just to chase away the wild blues;
May be I was at a loss for words
With boundaries drawn around;

Now the colours are out on show,
In purple, indigo, green and white;
The shades of blue and black
Ink scattered on these blank pages.

Two spheres in  their orbits are
Two fools who can’t be fooled.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Silence


There is no perfect life around;

Once there were limbs, dark

That should have been entwined

In embraces and songs to be sung

To cheer up our spirits low,

And fights that ended in kisses.



It was a perfect life that went by,

But these eyes mirror falsely

What once was so true for us,

Smiles for smiles, tears for tears

Not these shadows on the faces

That sense the imperfect us.



If it were that simple to set right

All the imperfections in me,

All the imperfections in you

No words are good enough;

For it all began with a smile;

And ended in perfect silence.

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