1.
I had been thinking about this quote for some time.
I want to talk about everything with at least one person as I talk about things with myself.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
Is this really possible? How many will find someone else who will meet this criteria? Some of my thoughts may be ugly versions, uncharitable and wouldn’t I filter to present a better version of myself to another? If we unburden in an unfiltered way, would anyone be able to tolerate it? I was thinking about the free conversations where I don’t check myself for political correctness or trying to impress someone, but to talk things out to make sense of what we are thinking about.
2.
I woke up early one morning this week, wide awake and was trying to analyse how I was feeling. I wanted to sit up and write everything down, but couldn’t bring myself up, instead I was drafting it in my mind for an hour or so, never got to write down fully. It started something like this.
“I wake up from a weird dream and am wide awake. It is 4:52 am. It is all still, I watch the play of light on the ceiling, from the electricity substation next door, making patterns of the grills of the windows. I can distinctly feel my heart. I can visualize the contours of the heart inside my ribs, a bloody organ. Does it feel like someone reached in, squeezed and left it? Hence it feels a bit raw? Or does it feel like it bumped against something, like sometimes I hit my foot against the door or the bed and there is a dull pain for some time. Or is it like the sharp pain of chewing on a fresh chilly - it burns.“
3.
I did about ten interviews on Saturday. It depressed me to see the quality of people coming up now in the software industry, about lack of guidance and their awareness level of what they are doing. No understanding of why they are building something, who it is for, how it helps business and how to build quality software. No one reads anything, no passion for the career they are in. All say they are taking it up to learn, looking for new challenges, but it seems to be just switching jobs for maximizing what they can make.
4.
It was Attukal Pongala on Sunday. Preparations were going on for months and there were pandals on both sides of the road right outside our place. We are about 10 kms from the temple and we are still not at the end of the line. We got the payasam in the evening from my sister, they do it at home itself these days.
5.
I am reading two books, half way through both. Thakaran’s Grandhavali by Benyamin (Mayalam fiction) - an experimental fiction where one can start anywhere and read in any order, every chapter feels like a story, but all connected. It is difficult to keep a clear picture in mind, so unless I read at one stretch it gets difficult to remember. I hope the scrambled puzzle will make sense at the end.
Second is a non fiction, 48 laws of power, by Robert Greene. I had bought this on an impulse since it came up in so many recommendations, but recently when I read the list of laws, felt it is pure evil, was disgusted and closed it. But I started reading it now, to know the psychology behind these, with the rationalization that I can at least spot it when some people apply it consciously or unconsciously, rather than being naive and being on the receiving end of it.
6.
Watched two movies. Jigarthanda DoubleX (Tamil, Netflix) due to one of the songs (ever since Enjoy Enjaami, became a fan of Dhee, Santhosh Narayanan and Arivu) and read a review about this movie paying tribute to Clint Eastwood etc. Weird one, “Paandya Western” as a theme/genre, even though I am a little reluctant to watch violent movies these days. It was an explosion of colour and raw life. Nimisha Sajayan pops up in odd movies like this and gives it authenticity.
Other was The Hand of God (Italian, Netflix). Along with Cinema Paradiso, Call me by your name and Malena, this is the fourth “coming of age” story from Italian cinema that I have watched - seems a coincidence though. I had watched a documentary of Maradona going to Napoli and winning the Serie A football league - that was real life superhero story, of a genius going to a beaten down club, making them a national winner (couldn’t finish that documentary since in the later part, when he breaks down with drug abuse and declines, it gets harder to watch). The frenzy of that town when Maradona goes there and wins for them was mad to see. It also seals Maradona’s legend as a revolutionary at heart, winning it for the common man. This story is set at the time Maradona goes to Naples, about a boy falling in love with making of cinema, wanting to be a director (same theme as Cinema Paradiso) and his life getting shattered by a tragedy. So far the Italian movies that I watched were all very bright, sunny, of good natured people, tangled in ordinary problems of life, carefree, open and taking life as it comes. I have to explore more though since Italy has a rich pedigree of cinema and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
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