Siva...Siva!!

The Kapaleeswarar temple in Chennai is just awesome.Specially during sunset when the sky hangs low and casts its shadow on the towering pillars.A pretty musical sight though, to hear and see koels and crows, croon into the blue venom throated Siva's ears.As HE is seated with his family and friends, the ganas, aghoris and the rich natural grandeur painted into sculpted silence, the spiritual canvas, just gets brighter and better! A tapestry of stories running in its own levels of pattern, the essence of all nature echos in the chants from the walls of the temple within.Still unaware of its historical significance, but overwhelmed by its sheer spiritual space, the visit does establish a stirring of a quest that matches to its depth of quantum of solace.

Losing English, The Artistic Way

'I lost my English': (17th Feb, Pettachi Auditorium,Luz Church Road) A fusion of West African dance forms in line with the Indian, “I lost my English” is a non-narrative stream of consciousness adapted in dance form. A mixture of dual voices belonging to varied cultures, finding one single language that consummates themes like alienation, frustration and loneliness is its core of creation. The artistes Tim Winse, a multi-instrumentalist from Burkina Faso plays the Kora, a 21-stringed West-African Harp and the Lolo, with Choreography and Dance credits from Serge Aime Coulibaly (Burkina Faso) and Kalpana Raghuraman (The Netherlands/India), the trio blends to arrive at a new paradigm of freedom of expression, albeit parallel nativities. An exploratory art work in the form of communication and the many voices lost in it is experienced through a common music and dance in the “Duniya”- A word meaning the “World” that paradoxically connects the West African and Indian (Hindi) language culture. While the West African dance in creative collaboration with the Indian Bharatanatyam, goes beyond the structure and grammar of the art form, the transformation of the ancient through the contemporary reaches out as an intensive quest.

Naan Kadavul

Iam not a regular movie buff, but the stunned acceptance of the factual documentary that "Naan Kadavul", the movie can actually do to the audience is proof enough.And being one of those laidback viewers who has been cynical and creatively compassionate of the regular run of the mill, the essence (or the lack of it?) did manage to churn things down my own set of life theories... Used to identifying with clinical acceptance of existence and closing in from the inside, the rawness that attacks those lying low (In forced contentment, thanks to meltdowns caving in) with sheer openess found in the movie's naked truth(s), makes it worth a watch. Its like going into the darkest of hours (The last show for the day,an add on extra effect:)) in motion picture platform that travels from darkness to light. The ugly face of our country, in remote villages specially, where poverty vandalism with beggers being bought for a sum and sold off, umnimdful of their family connections and roots, forms the core. While beggers by themselves are not "supposed" to buy material happiness, by way of their karmic existence, what they manage to do is render those giving them alms debtless and make individual accountability possible, as per the religious beliefs ruling India. Whether the aggressively detached and self proclaiming God, Rudra (Aarya), an Aghori, gets back to his family that abandons him in his early childhood days, (owing to astrological reasons that predict impending doom to his family), reclaiming him from programmed tenets "Aham Brahmasmi", forms the rest of tne story. And caught in the vagaries of the nomadic poor and their day to day lives is another such begger Hamsavalli (Pooja), who is bought to this part of the village where her visually challenged world becomes more darker and disfigured and begs for release from life in itself.Rudra's reason to be,to do just that and move on to higher realms of his calling for life is a befitting ending.