jai arunachalam shivam!

some pics of the mountain from here and there. even in pics arunachalam has the power to make my thoughts stop and allow me to travel into the land of stillness and Being.

"burn after reading"

a delightful caper, a total lark of a film. atta boys cohen bros. quite a departure from 'no country for old men'.

with an impressive star cast - must say the males (george clooney, brad pitt, john malkovich) did a far better job of it than the females (frances mcdormand, tilda swinson). clooney and pitt have engagingly entertained us earlier in the ocean's series with their implicit understanding and tacit communication. here they (plus malkovich at most times though not always) amuse us with their comical almost caricaturish parody of their own characters. mcdormand is a lttle too empathic towards her character and swinson swings.


pitt and clooney play their roles once removed and spoof themselves with such aplomb that they carry you with ease into the spirit of the film. but if you can't get into the burlesque lampoonery (at the risk of over-stating) then you might as well walk out for you will get nothing. but if you manage to slip into the farce then there are laughs galore and the kind that make you fall off your seat while holding your stomach.

as the film's caption states 'intelligence is relative'. sometimes you have to lose it to get it. get it?

frida oh frida

frida is one of the finest transpersonal artists i know. she looks at herself in the most uncompromising way possible and depicts what she sees with her consummate skill and artistic ability. she does not shirk, she does not flinch. does she glorify, does she exaggerate? i do not think so. but she is looking at her self under a magnifying glass of sorts, so the focus is clear and unequivocal.

an attractive woman with her unconventional personality shining through and making her look strikingly handsome. in her paintings she often presents herself in traditional dress and hairdo. her inner states of torment, desire, longing, resolve, determination, stoic suffering, endurance, pain, love, connection, tenderness, conflict, acceptance, rage, violence, passion, pride, hope, nurturance etc. etc. are expressed in the most nuanced and detailed strokes of her brush. her unflinching portrayal of her most intimate subject - herself gives her both the opportunity to distance herself from her expereince and the ability to integrate it in such a way that she emerges larger than the subject-object duality. to see her work is to see a testament to the courage and resilience of her spirit.

at the risk of sounding grandiose i must admit that i was very pleasantly surprised to see several common themes and modes of expression in her work and mine. however i must also acknowledge at the very outset that her skill and her craft, her talent and her concentration, her command on her brush and tools is far superior to mine, my attempts in comparison are raw at best. she is a modern day master, i a novice awaiting recognition...

nevertheless i too love to portray both the sun and the moon in one painting many times, i often show the man in the tree and the tree in the man and am prone to depict physical roots on people. sometimes the colours are similar and often the emotions...
i am concerned about gender roles, i see myself primarily in my intimate relationship with my man, i strive for equality on all levels, i am conflicted about my identity in terms of traditonal values and modern ideas, i recognize i am larger than the sum of my expereinces although my expereinces are what constitute me and i need/attempt to look at them with utmost attention and awareness.

frida reassures me that such attention is indeed possible and inspires me on my journey as an artist and contemporary woman...

i am grateful to sfmoma for this opportunity to see her original works though i do wish she were not being peddled quite as much, her status as an icon of our times notwithstanding.

some links on frida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kahlo_frida.html

link to my art works
http://www.digmeart.com/contemporary%20indian%20art.htm

split level poem

i marry one
and love another;

i live with one
and long for another;

i copulate with one
and commune with another;

i wed one
and bed another;

i cook for one
and eat with another;

i clean for one
and mess with another;

i wash for one
and dress for another;

i knit for one
and am warm with another;

i comfort one
and reassure another;

i keep house for one
and feel at home with another;

i am aware of one
and appreciate another;

i taste one
and savour another;

i survive one
and thrive with another;

i complete one
and fulfill another;

i satiate one
and sublimate another;

i entrust one
and have faith in another;

i make a home for one
and belong with another;

i am in fact with one
and fantasize another.

long time no write

i thought with my h'band away i would write and paint and generally flourish. instead i watched films on dvd and tv serials and read. occassionally i checked emails or played games on the internet - favourites being word games like text-twist, bookworm and puzzles - mahjong is up there on number one then bejeweled, jewel quest, tetrus etc. i used to be a big fan of ceaser-III but have not got around to that in a while.

anyway one of the reasons for not blogging was that i wanted more anonimity. the kind of thoughts and feelings i was going through i did not really want to post them up there. but that is the whole idea of the blog to be honest with what is. yet thoughts and feelings are such ephemeral beings i may not feel the same tomorrow but it will be up there on the blog and if tomorrow's feelings have not been written and put up then people will assume that is the way i still feel. not that that many people read the blog anyways, but even then more anonimity would mean i could be more honest. contradiction in terms? i wonder!

i saw a wonderful film called 'adaptation'. it is about the adaptation of a book into a film. the screenplay writer is a fat balding socially-challenged guy, who is kind of stuck in his life. so he wants the film to reflect that where nothing much ever happens and his twin brother is staying with him and writes a script for the first time packed with hollywood cliches and churns out a successful potboiler and our film too incorporates all of that while spoofing it in such a subtle way. i find the ouroborus comment very fitting. it could have been too self-explanatory but the way it is done, it fits. the film stars meryl streep as a new york journalist and nicolas cage as the script writer. but the exceptional acting comes from chris cooper, the orchid hunter, who got an academy award for his performance.

another film i enjoyed watching was 'jane austen book club'. i guess i enjoy most films where life reflects fiction reflects life. for example 'stranger than fiction' and there was 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind', though not quite the earlier theme of fiction/life being one, but it sits on the edge of reality and questions it or looks whimsically at it and that is fun. that finds a parallel with my inner reality and both reassures me and challenges me at the same time.

short

my stomach is rumbling and i realize i ought to keep my posts short and simple. so that is it for today. :)

peace - a choice and a responsibility

recently i recieved this email

"
Subject: Taken off most Internet sites because of threats

about muslims -- very scary be sure to watch (in capitals)

This is the film that has the EU and the Muslim world in a tizzy right now. Most web sites have removed it, including You Tube. All bowing to threats. Google still has it posted as of today but, will probably bow to pressure soon. Can be tough to watch in spots. But this is really what we are up against.

http://video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410 <~~~Click here for the video

Video: Fitna the Movie: Geert Wilders' film about the Quran (English)

Send this to your home computer to watch---it's 16 min...but is very scary about what is going on around the world with Islam & the Muslims. The credits are at the end. We must be aware of what's going on, to protect democracy for our kids, AND ourselves. More people need to see this.................

Have heard about this film & now understand what the uproar is about. Stick with it to hear the imams preaching and the Iranian president.

If you are not aware of it, this is the film by Geert Wilders. He's a Dutch writer who is now under protection from the Islamists in the Netherlands.
"

and this was my response

"
hello XYZ

What can I say? This is a complex problem and the film is just presenting one aspect of it and generating more fear. Some statements in the film are taken out of context and put in another context to sound threatening, example the statements by Iranian president. Most iranians i know are gentle, warm and loving people. The worst part is that Islam is made out to be the enemy.

I think that the Bush regime did a lot of harm to tarnish Islam and generate fear among Americans. It made all followers of Islam into ‘the bad guys’, ‘the hateful other’. America has done unspeakable damage in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it seems Iran is being made the next target of American wrath. Thousands, nay millions, nay many more innocents have suffered because of American bombings and other attacks. And what was the justification in Afghanistan? To weed out one Osama-bin-laden, and a few followers, hundreds of entire villages were wiped out. See the film “earth and ashes” if you ever get the chance. It does not make America into an enemy, but you get some idea of the damage that was done there.

In Iraq mythical weapons of mass destruction were chased only to come up with nothing, but causing widespread havoc and destruction in the process. The Americans who are fighting there and losing their lives are suffering too, aren’t they? and over what? If I believe Michael Moore and in part I do, it is over the oil interests of a few powerfully rich Americans and their millions. I do not deny that there are many Muslims out there, who are reacting in a violent and gruesome manner. In part it is a reaction of indignation, in part it is stubbornness and an unwillingness to change. But where and when does it stop? Where and when does it end? To brand the entire community as terrorists, to look on a part of the picture and consider it the whole is unfair, to say the least.

I have several Muslim friends and many have been victims in the hindu-muslim divide and that too is unfortunate. Anytime we set up someone else as ‘the other’ and become intolerant we are heading for trouble. I am also concerned about what is happening in Netherlands. I recently read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “Infidel” and got some insight into the problem they are facing. It is a very complex problem, if you take in thousands of muslims and do you allow them to practise their faith even when it goes against the cultural values of your own country, in a spirit of tolerance; or do you impose your own cultural values on them and make it a condition of their stay in the country. where does one draw the line? where are the boundaries that are healthy and respectful?

I repeat it is a complex problem, but I believe there is a solution and it can be found, if we all stay calm and focused on finding the solution. If we buy into the fear psychology often the reaction is ‘shoot first and talk later’. So let us refrain from activating one’s fears, look at all the facts out there, not just the fear-generating ones but all our expereinces of these 'other' communities and use our heads and hearts to find a way.

Deeply concerned,

meenal
"

terrorism cannot win if we do not give into terror. a trifle trite no doubt, but i go on. aggression is the mask over fear. do not succumb to terror and fear nor resort to aggresion. think out of the box and find a way that transcends the problem.

easier said than done? sure, but then we have to evolve to a higher consciousness, don't we? or do we want to fight and indulge in war-mongering for the rest of our lives? inner peace leads to outer peace. it is a choice. make it now and know that you are responsible for whatever choice you make. and you can hold on to that choice of inner peace even when you face the so-called "enemy". the next choice then is to take up arms (a la bhagavad gita) or to practise gandhian non-violence. either way if you are unattached within, unafraid, if you are at peace inside yourself, then you are evolving to the newer, higher consciousness.