THE JOURNEY OF DAS ICHE...THE "I"

this happened to be another great experience with the drama team which we happily call"the urvasi theatre"....during the fist week of this month,aromal chettan and niyas chettan came up telling us that we have got a chance to stage our "bhopal"at vylopilly samskrithi bhavan....the moment i heard ,i felt ,how come it be possible once again...thats impossible...and on the other hand i had to get through my editing seminar and a bunch of mid sem exams...so i said i cant join...then the next day pramod said that plan has changed in such a way that another drama will be staged...that relieved me coz...atleast becoz of me the oppotunity wont be lost...since its a new one they can manage without me....
then all the exams and the seminars were over..i used to go to see the rehersals which were practically nothing....we all sit down and discuss..discuss endlessly that the days went on....i was there to help tina chechi in the choreography...but instead of aromal chettan coming up with new bodly postures ,nothinng big deal happened.the only thing we all knew was that the drama will be based on body art and physic theatre of which all were ignorant except aromal chettan....i just knew that it will be something based on contemporary dance ..which i have only seen in tv....[remember it was that me who was supposed to help tina chechi]
and then came the friday...december 12th...our senior jayakrishnan wrote the dialogues of satan and eve...and sajid chettan[who joined phd justnow,tinachechi and aromal chettan's classmate in ma] wrote another poem on this....then we realised how powerful our theme is......
its just because of the excellent script that we had by jk that we finally took the risk to do the drama...two days before pramod caught fever..bad fever that he couldn't even stand properly....but then due to the need of the time he was ready to do his part of the shadows along with rahul chettan....
but the eventful friday turned the whole thing upside down...all came in such a way that i finally had to accept his role and he became the voice of satan and kalyani chechi ,eve's voice....the next day was saturday which was second saturday and we dint have place for rehersal...actually it was not rehersal..it was the first step into the play..and finally decided that we will have it at my home...
it was planned that we all will meet at my home at 9.30....but our 9.30 turned to be 11.30 without any thing done for the next day's play....and we had invited everyone of our acquientances....then we started...off with the first part...it went on ..i dont know whether it was great ...but it went on till 5.30 that we finally thought whatever happens on the stage we will do it.....and along with the shadow part of pramod i was made to do a dance as the opening scene to depict the chaos in the universe...
the next day i had to attend one of my childhood friend's engagement which i couldn't miss...i went there..attended and came back with my mother driving in such a way that it almost took her breath off...when i reached vyloppily at 3 something was happening...i dont know if any of us can explain the way we were working.....i just had one chance to see how the stage is...a single rehersal just to synchronise my movements with rahil chettan...coz we had to do the same way
and then the time came 6.30 in the eve...meena mam and hariharan sir came to watch our performance...meena mam was really worried coz she dint know what are we supposed to do on stage.....
it started with my performance.....was it a performance? ..i dont know... i dont remember a single thing which i did there...then the stage was grabbed by our everloving satan ..which was done by aromal chettan....to see him performing it was absolutely mindblowing.....i started admiring satan for that only reason...it dint end there...eve was even more powerfulthey were literally competing on stage...the voices of satan and eve ...it still strikes in my mind...kudos to pramod and kalyani chechi...it was all because of the script that was so good...by jk....
and as always joby...our great stage director managed every technical part that...it was exceptionally nice....people came to the green room to congragulate us...it was all a dream...something which we just cant believe happened in such a short span of time....and 14th december marked the second successful play of the team...which not only improved our skills..but also tightened our bond of friendship.........

Alma mater

I have always been lucky to be the best places to study even though i am not that a topper in the classes....this happened when i made my revolutionary decision of taking literature as my subject for graduation.but i realized sooner that its the most appropriate decision that i ever made in my life.
ivanios has always been a dream for me.a place where i just dreamed to be and never thought would be a part of...but then the day came when i finally got admission there after all the melodrama of getting and losing it ....its has been my another resolution to study only in merit seat which was also fulfilled.....three years of living in the dream...its now a golden time that i crave to get back..alas!!why cant the time just go rewind as its in the films......
after getting into another prestigious institution for my post graduation,i could meet my teachers after a long period of 3 months.....it has always been a sad thought in me that i was never able to find out time and go there and be in my evergreen days of fun....but then when our classmates who went to Hyderabad cam for their vacation, we finally found time to go there....i found one of our classmates waiting for us at the gate...the moment i found her ...it was ..i dont know how to express that feeling ...to get your long lost treasure back....
we walked all through the road that leads to our department.....it was all changed....it seemed to me like a very old tharavadu has been renovated to an ultra modern mansion.
we walked through every corner of our college.....met many teachers whom we love sometimes more that our parents....spend time sitting at the canteen ...sharing the canteen lunch which is as always untearable parotta...and the rice....but it tasted so delicious......all the god old days were brought to us...the free hours that were spent chattering ,fighting laughing crying ....all under the old "punna maram"...our "pancharamukku".....which now is almost deserted....
my heart leaped to be there the whole day....have all my friends around me....and just my dream to be true once again for at least a second..............we walked down the steps which wont call us back to the old classrooms,the old library,the old department and the old pancharamukku.........
but...its always a truth...time which went is went....nothing can bring back the moments that are lost.....no matter where i go what i do although my life the dream that i lived would be the most treasured handful of memories......my memories of the Alma mater....

Of Friendship

F.R.I.E.N.D.S- nope you have guessed it wrong if you think that iam goin to write about the glory of friendship and how it helps you throught he thick and thin of life. Nor am i goin to write about the star world series. I guess i must have aroused your curiousity by now, Iam goin to share with you some of my views (along with inputs from some friends) about how parents view friendship.  I would like to reassert that this is not exclusively subjective so that you people dont come to any awkward conclusions. Parents always view friends with their own prejudices and accordingly your friends get categorised. Those of them who dont talk much to parents, are subtle in their manners and have good academic record get into the "decent" category. The others who are bold enough to present themselves before parents in their true colours, of course undoubtedly, get thrown into the "to- be- avoided" category. Its good if parents have an eye on the kind of friends we have back in our school days but when you are 20 years old and still your parens insist on choosin your friends that can be a bit frustrating. They have only our good in their minds but still... Another depressing trend is when children are taught to select friends according to social status, academic grades and so on. Its common knowledge that this world is gettin highly competitive and the race is flagged off right from the kindergarten. I hav myself been victim to very a very bad experience of this nature in my tenth class. I always used to get pretty good grades and I never realised that a so- called friend and her mother had problems with my grades. They went from teacher to teacher seeking for a revaluation of my papers. I incidentally came to know about it. Till then I had lots of affection for that particular friend but after that it has never been the same. It was too painful an experience for me. Even now I wish fervently that her mother had never intervened in that manner. I wouldnt have lost a friend! 

So the point is we should be level heade enouigh to choose good friends and our parents should be sensible enough to understand the subtle nuances of our frienship and if at all they intervene, to keep in mind the fact that those on the receiving end are also just like their wards.

BASICALLY YOU ARE ALL GIRLS!!!!!

It was raining cats and dogs.I had no way other than to take refuge in the waiting shed till she came back from the church graveyard.I cursed my memory which always betrayed me in taking an umbrella.She was my dear friend with whom I spend seven years of my residential school life.Our school was a microcosm where we lived in an entirely different world alienated from the usual school life;where we had to make ourselves fit for the fight outside the four boundaries of our campus.

She was an extraordinary sensible girl who tried to weave her net of life like a spider but was annoyed to find herself already in the intangible mesh of fate.The strict residential school life,even from the age of eleven taught us to follow the Darwinian principle in our life.Though hostel life was amusing at first,things were different after two-three years.

Time flees away cunningly without even making others aware of the changes it make in one’s life.Like seasons change she was also changing.Transformation is somewhat terrible when it shake out the very basement of the self-made framework of presumptions and ideologies.She despised her warden who always chewed the same cud after each and every night roll call,“You know basically you are all girls” giving particular emphasis at the words “basically”and “girls”;as if it was all our fault that we were born as girls,after all she was also a woman.Hearing this we felt like dumping her into a large tumbler with boiling water in it.

It was the day when we were promoted to 9th standard.During those days it was compulsory for girls to wear “dupatta” from 9th standard onwards,for the study time during night at the school building.The echo of boys howling at very moment we entered wearing “dupatta”still reverberates in my ears and this was something she could’nt tolerate.,but I consoled her and told her to take it as a mere joke.But then,there ensued a sword play with words between my friend and one of the quarrelsome boys in our class who always found an impish pleasure in pasting the chewing gum especially in her bench.Unfortunately our warden was the duty-in- charge that day and she happened to hear her shouting at the top her voice against the boy.

After the usual night roll call ‘speech’ she was given a one hour extra ‘moralising class’ by our warden,who was not even ready to hear her arguments;but always insisted upon the fact that “basically you are all girls.”

Amidst the tough hostel life,it was her mother whom she really missed.She could never understand her mother completely and always felt that her mother completely and always felt that her mother had woven a hard shell around her which was really difficult for her to penetrate.Six hours of Parents Visiting day could’nt cement up the gap between them.But they loved each other and always wanted to say something which both could’nt tell.

Vacations were like a cool downpour in the scorching sun.She was always confused with her ‘home’and ‘hostel’.Was home her ‘hostel’or hostel her ‘home’?She felt herself like a migrating bird that always came back to spend a few days at a wonderful place.

She slept with her mother whenever her father went for night shifts and it was during such hours that she gave vent to all her emotions and thoughts.Her mother poured out her ideas about the coincidences in life,about the unconquerable Fate and about the other sides of life.Her mother always said that ‘to get a good life-partner was the same as to win a lottery.’Though she could’nt imbibe everything that her mother said,she never counter-questioned her.But time revealed all the mysteries and secrets behind her mother’s words.

It was during such a vacation that they saw an astologer who was employed in a jewelry shop for identifying one’s birth stones.After learning her birth sign he asked with surprise.”are you still living with your husband?”;for which her mother’s response was a rhrtoric smile.

She could’nt sleep that night.The astrologer’s words echoed in her ears,”its surprising that you are not divorced still.”Each word hit on her soul like a sharp sword and made deep cut wounds.Then she knew everything and realization burst upon her like a bombshell.It was all an adjustment between them.Her parents were two parallel lines living under the same roof with entirely different ideas and ideals,which she could never accept.Her mother never lost equilibrium and maintained the chord from breaking despite all the harsh realities just for the sake of her daughter.

She swithched on the light and took out the ring from the box.It was 12.30 at night.The ring which astrologer gave her mother whichn was ‘destined’ to diminish all the difficulties in her life.He also predicted that all her difficulties will come to a halt after the age of forty five. A mere stone influencing a person’s life was something indigestible for her.

Mazing motion of her stream of thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the harsh voice of her father followed by arguments which ended with her mother’s sobs.

She never dared to ask about the undercurrents in her mothre’s life which made her life a quagmire from where there was no escape unless and until all the ties were broken.

Few weeks later, one night she disclosed her first love affair[which she later told me was a mere infatuation] to her mother.A long silence ensued there after, which was broken by phone call.It brought the message of the death of her father in aroad accident and surprisingly it was a week after mother’s forty fifth birthday.

A cold hand brought me back to reality.It was she herself smilling with an umbrella in her hand.