Kids and Dreams

I was reading this book, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, in the train, as I returned from my office. It’s a long journey, back to home. Almost 45 minutes. I average 40 pages per hour. So I would read 60-70 pages a day in the train. So obviously I am reading a lot these days. I don’t read a thing at home – let alone the novels.

I am not going to say anything about The Lovely Bones now, in this post. By the way, if you had known about this novel, probably you would have also known that Peter Jackson’s next project is The Lovely Bones, being starred by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz. I like Mark Wahlberg in a way, particularly in The Departed. I enjoy the scene in which he irritates De Caprio by questioning. He has got a character.

When I was reading this novel, The Lovely Bones, I came across a line that triggered my thoughts. The girl named Susie Salmon who is the central character in the novel, wishes a career. She dreams of a career – A Wild Life Photographer.

When we were Kids our dreams were entirely different. Our ambitions were high. Our hopes were Ideal. We thought anything is possible. But as age falls over us, we realize our potential. We define reals. We draw lines, circles and rectangles. And we stay with in those structures defined by us from that time onwards. Forever.

Kids are always the same, where ever they are. Indian kids too have different career dreams. Apart from those whole lot induced dreams of becoming Doctors and Engineers, some still dream of becoming Reporter, Photographer, Gardenist, zoo keepers etc.

But as the time flows by, they become software engineers.What ever they study, electricals, electronics, mechanical, civil, whatever, they become software engineers. They get inputs from the endusers for First Name and Last Name and then, they store to the databases.

Of course, they write the program to retrieve those details too.

Sivasri , Paulo Coelho and De’Javu!

I read a tamil short story named “sethalum” (even if you die) written by Sivasri, some time back, must be 8 or 9 months back . I was very much impressed by the story that I sent a mail to the author, praising her new – at least for me – story telling technique. In fact, the background she selected for her story itself is new. It is about a girl who tries for suicide. But fortunately she is saved. Thanks to the different medical techniques available to get rid of the poison she had taken in. The story starts as she takes in the poison. And revolves around the tortures she goes through, as the physicians try to get the poison out of her body. She at last regrets for the suicidal decision, which so far proved to give so much agony than her normal life would have given her, if she didn’t attempt suicide. Really any one, who reads this story, would never try for suicide, at least by drinking poison. I was so proud that a Tamil author could imagine this kind of new environment for a short story. And she had succeeded in story telling also. Ironically, this short story, rather than being grim for the theme, had so much wit in it. I felt so sad and so happy at the same time for the stupid girl. That is the success for the author and the story.

But then after a very long gap, I started reading “Veronika decides to die” written by Paulo Coelho. I respect this author. It is said that his most successful, thought provoking novel, “The Alchemist” is being produced as a movie by Laurence Fishburne. Fisburne is Paulo Coelho’s one huge fan. He is doing this for him just like our actor Prakash Raj did for Balachandar. Let me come to the point.

This veronica decides to die, starts very much like the short story I mentioned in the first paragraph. In fact the novel itself is about the girl who tries for suicide and got saved and about the agony she faced during her life saving process.

I got nothing to say. It happens sometimes. This is De’Javu, I suppose!

Poets

If I was a poet – done worry,in any case I wont become a poet, somehow this poetry stays as a mystery for me like an unbreakable algorithm – like Ka, the hero of the novel ‘Snow‘, written by Orhan Pamuk and translated by Maureen Freely, I would write poems in the mid of my programs. And my poem would be stuffed with if and elses. Ka writes poems often, however he starts writing after a long gap of 4 years. When he starts it is like water released from a dam. The flow is spontaneous. The poem comes to him – he says like this – from everywhere. He sees everything in the form of poems. He relates everything to anything. And he writes them.

Poets are the people who lives in two worlds at the same time. There are two types categories, as I see. There are poets whose body live in the present and their soul in the past. Most of the poets are of this kind. And the other category are those, whose body live in the present but their soul in the future, like Barathi. Poets never have their body and soul at one place. If it is in one place, they cant be poets, after all. Poets have to dream. Dreams may be of any kind either nostalgia or futuristic. Of course, You can not dream the present. Can you?

There is one more category of poets, very rare of course. Their body live in the future and thier soul in the past. That means they are one step ahead, or atleast one second ahead than all of us. These poets are very rare. And they shape the future.

I write programs. I develop softwares. I draw plans. But not poems. Poems never come to me, as they do for Ka. So obviously I wont write them.

LOTR and Ponniyin Selvan

This is the third time I am seeing Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. This time I watched with my wife. My wife is seeing it for the first time. After seeing the first two parts, she cant really wait to see the The Return Of The King – the third and the last part.  We just finished seeing it.

Its awesome, totally fascinating and most importantly fresh. All the time I watch this, I get the same feeling, same smile and the same tears(Ok, different tears!). I live with them. PeterJackson took me to their world, and I spread myself in Middle Earth and fight the orcs. And love the shires.

I dont really think that a movie of this much impact can be produced later. May be technically, it is possible, but would it implant such lingering thoughts? Quite doubtfull.

But one thought always comes in my mind, whenever I get a chance to see this movie or just a scene from this movie. That thought is to produce Ponniyin Selvan as a film. Ponniyin Selvan is an epic in Tamil Language. It was written by Kalki.R.Krishnamoorthy and it is considered as one of the best historical novel in Tamil. Even though Pudhumaipithan had different opinion about Kalki, one cannot deny, Ponniyin Selvan is a master piece.

Ponniyin Selvan is about Chozhas (Pronounce as Cholas). Chozhas were one of the three kings, who ruled TamilNadu, in a particular time, long back. (The other two were Pandiyas and Cheras) Ponniyin Selvan means Son of The River Ponni. And the son, referred here is, Raja Raja Chozhan, one of our greatest kings.

History says that he is really brave, that he fought all the way to Ganges and brought the water from Ganges. Even it is said that he brought the water, by forcing the kings of the north India to carry it on their heads, to south. And thats why he is referred as “Gangai Konda Chozhan”. (The Chozha who had Ganges!)

This epic novel “Ponniyin Selvan” is about RajaRajaChozan (Ponniyin Selvan) , Rajendra Chozhan and Valavarayan Vandhiyathevan. RajaRaja chozhan and Rajendra Chozhan are brothers and Vandhiyathevan is a king of a small kingdom, which was captured by the Chozhas. And Vandhiyathevan helps the chozhas in some part of their mission, so that they would give back his kingdom. It is impossible to fight and win them, the chozhas. The entire novel is about the betrayal and treachery done by the inside men in Chozha Kingdom, to get the kingdom. Those inside men tries to kill RajaRaja Chozhan and Rajendra Chozhan when they were away from Trichi (the Captal of Chozha kingdom), on a mission, a war.

The story revolves around this treachery and how RajaRaja Chozhan beats them to dust and gets back the throne, with the help of Vandhiyathevan and his dearones.

I wish, Manirathnam to direct this movie. It is said that Manirathnam had written screenplay for this movie. And I want Kamalhassan to play the lead role of RajaRaja Chozhan. And most importantly, Rajnikanth playing Vandhiyathevan. Oh, I love that role, Vandhiyathevan. And I would love to see Rajnikanth in that role.

And I want Ilayaraja to score the music. The villain role must be played by Sathiyaraj and Nepolean, periya pazhvetarayar and chinna pazhuvetarayar.

It is said that Kamalahassan is having the rights for the movie. It s sait that, the rights for the movie, was with SivajiGanesan and it changed hands to MGR and now it is with Kamalahassan. I dont know how much it is true.

When Kamalahassan, Manirathnam, Rajnikanth,Ilayaraja and Sathyaraj join hands, what could stop them? May be ego?