One of the good lines: A couple are hurrying to catch a train. The man (played by the singer S. P. Balasubramaniam, who acted very well) is overweight, panting, too slow. His wife says, "You move like a chariot! Can't you hurry up?"
Several years ago a friend was invited to a luncheon where she was seated between Mani Ratnam and the painter M. F. Husain. Husain doodled something on a napkin and gave it to her (which is about the way I view his very expensive paintings - more showmanship than substance). I was interested in Mani Ratnam - "What did you say? What did he say?" (Nothing much, in fact.) I was envious. Then I realised that I was caught in a very primitive, superstitious notion: if you meet someone you admire, touch him/her, or get a talisman such as an autograph or a few words of conversation, some of that person's quality / talent / charisma will be transferred to you.
I wrote a poem after I saw Thiruda Thiruda the first time. I'm not very happy with it, but that's appropriate to the subject:
I Take Doubt to the Movies
A young girl kneels on a lake bank
frying a silver fish over open fire.
A second girl bursts from still water
where no one was before --
slicking back her hair,
laughing, gasping at air.
Which would you like to be -
one peaceful, absorbed,
humming under her breath;
or the other, depth-ecstatic?
I'm awash in darkness.
The lights shock on, I stumble
into the hot night's shallows.
Filled with bright images,
empty. Burning
in borrowed flame.
No comments:
Post a Comment