LAST SONG OF THE SOLDIER

LAST SONG OF THE SOLDIER

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH



As I lie under this gigantic maple tree,
Listening
To my breath fading
With each syllable in time
As these leaves shuffle over me,
Let me remember things past

We had reached the boring topic of love
You my betrothed
Played with the hourglass
On your deft palms
Spilling immeasurable time
Through sand and memories

This act,
This thing between a man and a woman
Which divides time
As before and after
Breeding timelessness.

As the last lights fade
Against a yellow landscape,
And time ends,
I hear footsteps
Near my dazed head
As blood trickles into blood
And my breath fades.

.....................


PS: The pix above shows the handsome couple Sudeep Parambath and his wife Siji Rehana, perfectly complimented professionally as well. Sudeep is an architect and Siji, an Interior designer.
Siji can be contacted - sijirehana@gmail.com

They are clicked at my brother's beautiful house on the outskirts of Bangalore on New Year Eve.

TELEVISION INTERVIEW on SATURDAY 6th FEBRUARY

The MANORAMA NEWS Channel will be airing an interview with me on SATURDAY in the 7 - 8am slot, in a tete a tete with Abhilash Nair. Watch me go for it!

Yes, the interview has been defered till SATURDAY morning, as Actor Devan takes precedence over me as his movie 'Yugapurushan releases today. So its tomorrow folks. I know it is a dampner! But such is the nature of things.

So tomorrow it is. Do watch.

THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE

CHANDINI SANTOSH

Reviews

THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE

ORHAN PAMUK


Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel, ‘The Museum of Innocence’ opens on a perfect spring afternoon in 1975. The first paragraph reads like a classic case of reckless passion in collision with Turkey’s bourgeoisie conventions.

It begins thus: ‘It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.’ It is a dissertation of love laced with obsessive passion.

Kemal Basmaci, scion of a wealthy Industrialist family in Istanbul is about to become engaged to Sibel, a suitable woman from his own class, who has already – as Kemal puts it – ‘given me her virginity’, though only because she trusts in his honor as her betrothed. But all dreams of ever happy union crumbles when Kemal falls deliriously in love with a distant cousin of his, a poor relative, the déclassé Fusun Keskin, who is a shop girl working in a boutique. Fusun too deliberately elects to give her virginity to Kemal, entering the taboo realm of Turkish bourgeoisie. Pamuk writes with lyrical passion about the deflowering ceremony juxtaposing images of lambs being slaughtered on the Feast of the Sacrifice. Outside the apartment, all over Istanbul, in every corner, many many lambs are being butchered. Kemal comes to believe that he can have his cake and eat it too. This dichotomy creates a rift between Kemal and the society he moves in. As the engagement between Kemal and Sibel take place, Fusun goes into hiding.

It takes almost a year for Kemal to find the whereabouts of Fusun. But by then it’s too late as Sibel senses Kemal’s withdrawal from her, both emotionally and physically. Though she is sympathetic to the point of defying society, she has already become a culprit of the jaded system of sexual politics that the Turkish society is immersed in. From then on, Kemal’s life becomes a long torment of all consuming passion.

For nine years Kemal finds all manner of excuses to visit the other Istanbul, a house in the impoverished backstreets that Fusun shares with her parents and her childish husband, who has dreams of making it big in the Turkish film industry. As Kemal falls into the middle class pace of life in Istanbul, enjoying the consolation of the dinner table in front of the television, he also begins to drink like a fish, perhaps to anesthetize his passion towards Fusun. Kemal resembles Devdas.

Women in gilded Istanbul do not necessarily want arranged marriages, yet they do no know how to find men on their own either. Kemal the protagonist and narrator is a gawky and shy thirty year old who has never seen a couple kiss off screen in Turkey. While Turkey’s elite send their daughters to Paris and London on shopping sprees, while also being told in no uncertain terms that they must be virgins on their wedding night, or at least restrain caution albeit discreetly. In the novel we glimpse a Turkey which is torn between an ambition to be liberated, even as it is reluctant to let go of conservatism, mainly of the male chauvinist variety, the brutal model of masculinity prevalent in Turkish culture. Ultimately this makes for an unexpectedly conservative position on Kemal’s (and perhaps on Pamuk’s) part.

Pamuk has described Innocence ‘as anthropology of my own experiences.’ This is obvious as the first narration is taken up by the author himself, a technique Pamuk had experimented with in his earlier work My Name is Red and Snow with panache.

Nine years of obsessive passion also makes Kemal a compulsive collector of objects, the everyday objects of ordinary lives collected and shown in ‘The Museum of Innocence.’
……………………

PS: However much I would like to desist from making these tailpiece remarks, I am forced by habit to look at all reading with a minutely critical eye. As minute as my reading finally is.

Pamuk’s taking over the narrative from his protagonist smacks of gimmick. Like Hitchcock and several Bollywood directors like Subhash Ghai and Karan Johar, Pamuk has an affinity to present himself in most of his novels, which did not jar so much in his earlier works. He promotes himself blatantly in the concluding chapters, reveling in the now famous first line of The New Life, which he says has been bought for an advertising jingle, preening himself in the hallowed status of Turkish elite that he straddles. Out of the mammoth 530 odd pages of the book, more than two hundred pages are devoted to the nightly dinner ceremonies in his girlfriend’s lower middle class household, though some of his narratives are humorous and similar to Marquez.

That Pamuk is actually making a museum comes as a comic faux passé. The many interviews splashed all over also bring on a quirky smile. But let us also not forget the harsh manner in which Turkey treated Pamuk when he aired his scathing remarks on the Armenian genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Kurds. Though he escaped a fatwa, Pamuk has been criticized for misrepresenting the Turkish spirit by the conservative bureaucracy of Turkey.

VIGNETTES OF COLLEGE LIFE

VIGNETTES OF COLLEGE LIFE

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

The moment we met after decades, we chattered like little humming birds, as though we had parted just yesterday after our quaint and long drawn out byes. That was in college and much water had sped beneath the bridge. We were classmates for three years as undergraduates in the best known college of that era.

Some of us sat on the same bench for three whole years, but parted as easily as we met. Just like that, after having said our byes, in our usual style. We hunted around for autographs, ( I was not much into it, though I penned melodrama stuff on yellow blue and pink tinted paper with relish) we laughed riotously and left innumerable initials of our names etched on wooden desks and doors, which perhaps we should not have. But what is time if it is not stamped on lingering memories? We broke into immeasurably soulful songs, mostly from Hindi movies of the time. We moved to the dusty corners to whisper to our heartthrobs.

Life inside a college campus is like that. When I look back, I realize that our sorrows were minuscule and laughter manifold. The stray Gulmohar trees with orange flame flowers and the gossamer shadows beneath it. The drone of teaching in those dusty classrooms and the grazing cattle in the middle. The dark and lonely library with empty shelves, where I sat reading the ‘Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ many times a year. The wide corridors with hexagonal shaped pillars, from behind which I looked at the grass swaying in the wind on hot afternoons.

All was not as idyllic as we would have loved to believe. The day I joined college, after a hectic homecoming from New Delhi, where my father was employed, there was abrupt violence between the youth wings of two political parties. Violence has spilt out into the open now. Colleges are merely breeding grounds for political jingoism. For more than a decade, violence has been the trademark of our small town, the cradle of Communism.

Perhaps I sound sentimental about college life, which is not as it should be. Fun and lighter moments are the lasting impressions that I have in my memory. But all that in the next edition.

……………………

PS: The pix above show four of us, who shared our lives for three years. From Left to right: Krishna, Veni, Myself and Pravin. Pravin and Veni, as is evident in the pix are married to each other.

The very best to you, my dear friends…

SEVENTY SEVEN LETTERS

SEVENTY SEVEN LETTERS

By


CHANDINI SANTOSH



Before I left home,
I flung the sheets off the bed,
And shook the mattress

Instead of dust,
Letters flew out
Seventy seven of them
With moth eaten words:
The ones which moths love

On an island - You wrote:
Swimming under the cluster of an archipelago,
Where no memory exists
There my love,
We shall build our sand castle,
Ou house of cards
While water flows above us.

........................


This pix was clicked by my classmate and friend alonside another classmate and friend. Confused? The story behind the pics - next time!

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

BY CHANDINI SANTOSH

My sister took me to see Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’ when I was in school at Delhi. She did not know what she was in for, although I must say she might have had a slight inkling as to what to expect.
I remember that it was a brand new theatre with plush push back seats. I wore a sleeveless lilac frock that my uncle had bought for me and which I grew out of in a matter of months.
As in reading, I watch movies from frame to frame, word to word. As the titles unfolded, you could imagine the excitement that welled inside me. From the moment the movie began till it ended, I was on a roller coaster of laughter. I literally rolled on the red carpets that smelled of newness and life. People seated beside me were aghast at the abandon with which I laughed. My sister must have pulled me back fifty times before the movie finally ended.
She would not hold my hand while we walked back home... I would have loved to hold her grouchy hand, though she walked much ahead of me. My shoes pricked me. The frock tightened over my chest.
The roads milled with traffic. Dusk has an incalculably beautiful way of descending over moving vehicles in a simmering city, as lights began to come on all round us. The colonial lampposts, the flowering trees shedding myriad colored flowers, the cement benches between the trees and the houses on both sides of the road with manicured gardens … I remember that I walked with a limp by the time we reached home.
My sister swore she would never ever take me to the movies, definitely not a comedy, no not again.
I could not wear the shoes again, dear readers, I had grown up. But yes, I still laugh riotously while watching a comedy.

………………..

ON A HIGHWAY

ON A HIGHWAY

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

At dead of noon
My car braked on the highway
Where your house stood

The dilapidated stone steps
The dark porch
And the darker well

Those droopy flowers
Climbing up trellises
The bucket of water
Descending at breakneck speed
From your mother's calloused hands
As her catarract doused eyes
Rests on mine

No water
Can quench my thirst
My love,
The gash I left at your doorsteps
Remind me
Of what might have been.

........................

NEW YEARS EVE BASH AT BANGALORE

This years New Years Eve Party was the best ever I attended in all my life. My brother Bubbles has so many friends that I cannot remember any of their names. But since I am good with faces it makes up for lost time.

But what a party, let me tell you. Chicken barbeque manned by Sudeep, Beef Fry cheffed by my brother, Mutton and potato stew prepared by me and umpteen snacks, all prepared By Siji Rehana. Siji can be spotted posing in a yube top with hubby Sudeep and dancing away later. Vyas and his wife Vandana were the most innovative dancers, followed by Vyas and my sis-in-law Latha. Then we went berserk when Travolta songs came on from Saturday Night Fever. By then the party was at a fever pitch.

Since I do not drink but did not want to appear antiquated, I carried a goblet of red wine till the time I could pour it down my brother's ever waiting throat.

But I missed my friends back home. All of them were busy. Journos were on the terror trail and the English Professors were busy catching up with the lessons.

But yes, I enjoyed. Did all of you enjoy this New Year? Do.

EXHIBITION PICS

Here are some pics from my Painting Exhibition. Eminent painters and artists like K. K. Marar, Sarat Chandran, P. S. Karunakaran, Eby N Joseph and Selvan Meloor can be spotted. My friends Dr. Sajan, Haroun Rashid, sis-in-law Latha Chandradeep, our family friend Advovate Vijayan, Abdul Gafoor, owner of City Center and Publisher of Kerala Kaumudi can also be spotted in some of the pics.

Yesterday I was invited to inaugurate a Childrens' Art & Cartoon Camp at Tellicherry. I am overwhelmed.

This year has begun well. Hopes spill out of my bag of dreams. Hopes.

MY BOOK LAUNCH

MY BOOK LAUNCH

BY

CHANDINI SANTOSH


And here comes the invite of MY Unisun Anthology. I think the cover definitely looks both evocative and inviting. Eight of MY sizzling personal poems inside.

All are invited.

Loves

CHANDINI SANTOSH

ON A RAILWAY PLATFORM

ON A RAILWAY PLATFORM

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

We sat
Below the hooded parapet
On a creaking bench
While trains stopped
And hiccouped away

You may come with me
You said,
Or else
Just stand here
And wave
I understand

You would not share
If I opened the world
In my palms
You would still stand rooted to this spot
Without waving
With just a hint of a smile
At the hinges of your mouth

.........................

ARTISTRY MAKEOVER

FACE TRANSPLANT

BY


CHANDINI SANTOSH



Look how Kishore, ace makeup artist from Bollywood transformed my plain homely face into that of a rock star, if I could call myself that!

I had attended Artistry's two day workshop at Hotel Blue Nile along with forty others in my batch. I was chosen randomly to get a glamorous makeover while a very pretty girl got the subtle makeover.

Kishore is the person who did the makeup for the likes of Kamalhasan, Rani Mukherji, Jyotika, Rajnikant, Nagma and the like. I received compliments galore from my makeup artist on my skin and body language.

Artistry is the leading cosmetic multinational marketed by AMWAY Corporation. I have been using Artistry products for more than three years. You may see the obvious results.

Last week was a magical one for me as two sides of my talent could be showcased. I felt like I was being ushered into another era from the mundane and pathos filled phase of my life.

The mellifluous traces of hope can be found even in the saddest of songs.

AN INDIAN BRIDE

AN INDIAN BRIDE

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

The serpent headed bangle
You slipped on my wrists
Before you made love:

The ruby red convex eyes
The conniving filigree
The heaviness
And the gleam of night

As the serpent bit into my hand
I felt your weight
And my weightlessness

…………………………..

UNTITLED II

UNTITLED II

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

While walking
Beneath those harsh cashew trees
With the wind moaning around us
You slowed down
As I stood still

Your eyes were hooded
Mine moist
Like the remains
Of an untold story

Let me dream of flower framed windows
And gleaming parallel tracks
That runs to nowhere
Like hope that spirals down
To hopelessness

……………….

My dear friend Sune took the above sketch that you see, done with ballpens.

........................

UNTITLED

UNTITLED

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

Those rusting lampposts
The wooden slatted benches
On which we sat
Facing an eccentric sea

At times
I get this sneaky feel
About this monster sea
Perhaps
The waves can read
Our minds

………………………………



The pix above was clicked by my friend.

MORE PAINT REVIEWS

INDIAN EXPRESS

The new Indian Express carried this review of my Paint Exhibit on Saturday 21st November.

PAINT REVIEWS

PAINT REVIEWS

CHANDINI SANTOSH


The reviews poured in before, during and on the last day of the Paint Exhibit. Well I am dumbfounded!

This one is from the MATHRUBHUMI. Those who cannot read Malayalam may contact me for translation.(ahem!)

I am zapped by all that media frenzy that my exhibit brought on. I believe one mediaperson said that they had not seen a person like me at the Press Club of Kannur anytime. Well, well I am silenced.

Thanks folks. You really went all out. I am speechless. I have no clue as to what hit me.

More tomorrow.

Loves

PAINTING EXHIBITION

My second Painting Exhibition is slated to be held at the Town Hall, Kannur from November 20th to 22nd. Here is the brochure and invite.

On Satyrday a Seminar will beconducted at the same venue on 'The Role of Art and Women in our Society'.

I request all of you, dear friends, to attend and support my creative venture.

With immeasurable Loves

CHANDINI SANTOSH

ISMAIL KADARE

CHANDINI SANTOSH

Reviews

ISMAIL KADARE’s

THE BLINDING ORDER

I read Kadare’s ‘Agamemnon’s Daughter’ last year and was impressed with his pithy novella. Yesterday I read another of his work, ‘the Blinding Order’ and was mesmerized by the political statements he made through a compelling fantasy.

Almost all Kadare’s works dwell on the Iron Curtain and the human tragedy that lay behind them. He writes: Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible. The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship…

Kadare often sailed perilously close to the wind and many of his texts were banned. He had to smuggle out some of his manuscripts in a wine bottle. But his witty, sly and moving panorama of a universal history made maintained a glimmer of hope that even in the worst of times, things can still be done with style and intelligence.

Kadare’s writing is a striking reminder that great literature does not depend on circumstances, but overcomes them. Ismail Kadare won the Man Booker Prize in 2005.

An essential read for serious readers.

…………………….

THE FINGER TRICK

THE FINGER TRICK

BY

CHANDINI SANTOSH

When we visited O.V.Vijayan, the legendary writer and cartoonist at his Delhi residence, his son who was in his teens showed us a trick I remember to this day. He held a Nivea cream tin can in his right hand and whispered conspiratorially to us:
Take a look, he said.
My friend Gita and I whispered back in the same conspiratorial tone.
What is in it?
Murali opened opened the lid of the cream jar and a dead finger of a child peeked out. Aghast as we were, we spoke in awe.
How did you manage that?
I was at this accident site and that is where I managed to get the finger.
Liar, we shouted. Logic was beginning to dawn on us.
Murali gave up a little later and proceeded to show us how he managed the rigmarole.

I tricked several children of my area with the above trick, though I managed to hold on to the secret for much longer than Murali could. In fact, I managed to camouflage my little finger with dabs of brown so it stood out from my own. I also revved up the accessories, making the cotton look like blood encrusted. I won every time.
My niece to this day hollers at me not to show the ‘dead finger trick’ though she knows well enough it is not for real. You can well imagine the effects I produced.

I go about everything I do with the same diligence. And yes, I get the same results as with the finger. Every time. All the time.

………………………………

Seen above is the brochure for my first Paint Exhibit done in 2008. The next one which is to be held for three days from November 20th at the Town Hall, Kannur shall be put up as soon as they are ready.

..................

GEOMETRY OF LOVE

GEOMETRY OF LOVE

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


Once you told me
Counting waves
Is an absurd activity
I can only laugh
At the absurdity of it
I have done weirder things
I have loved you from all angles
Though I am not good at playing
At the likes of love
Where geometry does not fit in

My mind
Dolphin like
Dives at the scent of love
As I sit at this curved beach
With a large and round sun
Plastered on the horizon

Do you see
That black rock
Sharp and slanting
On which the waves explode
With such disdain
And come back for more?
Absurd

Love
Is the flicker of hope
On a sordid sky
The image
That flits past a smiling mirror

One day
We shall sit on the cold of this stone bench
With just a hint of moon above,
Our thighs barely touching
And an ache hanging between us
Till the night
Tortoise slow
Grinds back to reality

Let us count all the waves
On all the seas
To the very last of them
On unarmed shores
Where the sea and the sand
Are plaited into one
And all absurdities dissolve

……………………………..


This is one my favorite poems, published by UNISUN PUBLICATIONS, BANGALORE in their annual anthology THE SILKEN WEB 2007.Above is the review carried by the DECCAN HERALD on the poetry colleciton. I remember reciting this at the launch of my third collection of poems, VOYAGE SERIES and getting a tremendous applause. Though I have a small voice not suitable for poetry recitals or public speaking, I assure you I do so with total confidence.

One day I hope to put up bits of the video footage of my book releases on my blog, though I shall feel shy doing so.

NEVER NEVER LAND

NEVER NEVER LAND

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


Not a single hand
Rise towards me
To lead me to nowhereland
The never never land
That a dream conjures up

This circular night
On its way down
Has a tuneless song on its lips
And an iridescent fragrance
Of unimaginable love

......................

The pix above was clicked at the launch of my anthology MOSAIC, published by UNISUN PUBLICATIONS, Bangalore last year. I received the copy of MOSAIC, a hard bound lovely book from the young and budding poet Anjum Hassan.

PAINT REVIEW

Just before my first paint exhibit, I got this review in THE HINDU. Take a look.

AMITABH BACHCHAN

The year I published my first collection of poems, Amitabh Bachchan was reported sick and convalescing. On an impulse I sent a copy to Bachchan and barely two weeks later, a long cream colored cover embossed with the legendary name of AMITABH BACHCHAN reached me.

For days on end I was in a daze. The words in his letter has feeling and joy.

He wrote to me again, after my third collection of poems, 'Voyage Series & Other Poems'.

FIRST BOOK - FIRST REVIEW

FIRST BOOK - FIRST REVIEW

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


I collected umpteen number of words on my journey in solitude. Like so many pebbles in dried gourd. They began to sprout wings and then landed on my keyboard and out came my poems. The words had strung together and made meaning all by themselves.

At the time I did not realise they were poems. They were the angst that had become a burden inside me and I exorcised them by opening the flimsy cage behind which they lay trapped.

Those words spelt freedom and immense joy. INDIAN EXPRESS carried this review a week later.

..........

STARS

I have been hunting around
For the word
That transcribes emotion

..................

DEAF AND DUMB

DEAF AND DUMB

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH



The egg shaped entrance
Amongst shiny buffalo hillocks
That led us to the cave
On the banks of an oily black river
Where a black Narcissus
Stared at his ghost

Remember
The saffron scented nasturtiums
The uprooted trees
The shadows of which
Umbrellaoed over us

You are deaf, my love
And I am dumb:
Your words
Fall on endless rocks
And my wails
Go unheard

………………………..

REMEMBRANCE

REMEMBRANCE

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH



What you said
Had an easy eloquence
What I say
Has dumb meaning

On a night
When a giant moon strode up the sky
And trees moaned against each other,
You put a finger
Where bones ached

I have you, you said:
But you have only yourself
You said it with a smile

Past is a prologue
The beginning and the end
Where ferocious waves
Part a feeble past from the present
Leaving behind,
The sting of your words
And the aroma of our helplessness

…………………………….

LITTLE JOYS - BIG SORROWS

LITTLE JOYS – BIG SORROWS

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH




Around four years back, my cousin Priya and husband Andrew had come down from New York to OM along with my aunt. My brother and family drove down from Bangalore. My sister and son drove down from Kannur. My mother was living with us at the time. OM wore the color of festivities and joy for three days and nights.

We slept on mats, quilts and whatever else we could lay our hands on, spread on the floor in the living room. We talked of old times and new ones.

Early the next morning I put up a Vishukkani for them in the traditional style. Each of the members was brought blindfolded to see the Vishukkani in all its glory. Each of them was given money, unniappams and firecrackers. We lit so many firecrackers that our neighbors came to watch the shimmering lights lighting up our long driveway. It was a Vishu to remember for long.

We were invited for dinner the same night to our elder brother’s house in Kannur. I wore my newly stitched beige chiffon churidars with large cherry red flowers on them. Beige and red striped pushups beneath and a diaphanous shawl over my shoulders. I wore a dash of lip gloss. My eyes glistened.
We bundled ourselves into three vehicles, one of them driven by me. As soon as I reversed our car, Santosh called out to me. Ominous shadows began to envelop me.

You don’t go please, I’m not feeling well. Says he.
You seem alright. Says I.
Don’t go.

Tears would not come. My eyes stayed dry. Dear readers, all eyes were on me, how could I let myself go?
All of you carry on, say I.
Such is life.

I never ever wore the shimmering dress again. The day I left OM I gave the unworn dress to my pretty assistant.

I have never looked back. But the languid feel of the starry night, the smell of festivities, the damp sweetness in the air and the brittleness of wasted happiness haunt me to this day.

………………..

JOSE SARAMAGO

JOSE SARAMAGO’s
ALL THE NAMES
Review
By
CHANDINI SANTOSH


Saramago reminds us time and again why he won the Literary Nobel Prize after his most read work, BLINDNESS. His works are living proof of what great writing does to people and why he is considered the most influential of living writers.
Titled ALL THE NAMES, the book strikingly and ironically holds only one name – that of the protagonist, Jose, doubly macabre as the name is the author’s own. I have yet to read a work in which the central character is named after the author, except in memoirs.
Senhor Jose is a lowly clerk by day and an explorer of famous lives by night, a take off on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One day he chances on upon an index card of an ordinary woman whose details hold as much fascination for him as any other celebrity’s. Rising like a phoenix from his own humdrum existence dictated by regimentation, Jose begins to track the woman down obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from ‘an oblivion deeper than the grave’.
As in all the works of Saramago, what stands out is not his vast repertoire of unhesitatingly alien words or his by now, infamous punctuation, but the eternity in the subject and the way Saramago goes about narrating the same with tongue in cheek humor. ALL THE NAMES is remarkable, both unsettling and delightful, perhaps the hallmark of true literature.
Every page in the book, though undeniably grotesque, has an multiple insights into life. Each paragraph stuns you while the hazardous string of words opens up the vistas of human nature, each path traveled upon by all great writers many times over, but nothing as momentous as Saramago’s, since they are laced with black humor.
You do not need a passport or visa to be transported to the realms of unadulterated human imagination. I chew on these words, the parameters of my intelligence and the translucence of fiction filling up like a hydrogen balloon.
Apart from Saramago’s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS CHRIST, no other work of his stray so much into the realm of fantasy as this one. But when we realize the state of the mind of the character in question, all fantasy dissolves and becomes part and parcel of reality. His apocalyptical words on loneliness can be preserved for future generations, it is that enlightening.
Here are some jottings on the novel from all parts of the world.
‘The roots of Saramago’s tales run deep, tapping into a European tradition of exemplary fictions, in which the human soul resists the encroaching forces of dehumanizing bureaucracies. ALL THE NAMES is a fine successor to BLINDNESS, a work worthy of a literary Nobel Laureate.
LISA JARDINE, The Times

‘A fantastic tale of a cowed clerk defying the power of his monolithic employer. It’s the breezy wit which Saramago challenges a world where Love and Death must be catalogued and explained away by the dull – minded that makes his book so compelling’.
CHRIS DOLAN, Glasgow Herald

‘A lovely adventure, a search for an unknown woman, floats on sentences that topple over one another like waves’.
ROBERT WINDER

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LOST SONGS

LOST SONGS

By CHANDINI SANTOSH


There are no words
That can measure upto silence
While the world grinds on its axis
And while
The epileptic sea snores,
The scent of your absence
Assails my nostrils

As I watch a nickel plated sun
Going down on all fours
And snatches of lost songs
Hum in the background,
Unbridled time runs its course
On its own.

.................


I wrote this poem right here in a jiffy. Will read tomorrow. And also my latest pix posted with elan!

PLAYACTING

PLAYACTING

By


CHANDINI SANTOSH



Being pint sized, I had to sit it out on the front bench, first row, throughout school and the most part of college. As a bright undergraduate I could take my chances with being lazy and laidback. But not too much as I learnt after an erratic teacher caught me – Not taking down History notes. British History at that!

Where are your notes, he barks at me.

What notes Sir?

Notes, says he.

Well, you mean Richard the II and Henry the IV and their innumerable wives, Sir, say I.

Same, he thunders.

Well, I haven’t been taking notes…

So start now!

I put up my right hand. Shall I go bring my notebook, Sir says I.

Dead sure. Period.

Now I did not know what I was getting into right? So I walked while the giggles and the chuckles broke out in our college classroom.
My house was a five minutes of solid walking under a blazing sun. I did not walk. Instead I ran.

My mother saw a short comet dash in and dash out through the corner of her eyes whereas my father did not notice anything amiss. As I rushed back to my classroom, where my teacher had gone overboard with the nuptials of the aforesaid Kings, I was again greeted with a spurt of goggles. I sat down to write his dictation and that was that. Though my wisdom teeth had not erupted, I had the commonsense to keep a dozen pages blank before I started taking down the notes.

Friends, comrades and fellow bunglers, my notes when it finally got finished could have been collector’s item, what with my best handwriting, written half a millimeter over the blue lined notebook. I wrote fervently, feverishly.

One evening I was summoned by the same teacher to the Department room after classes.

Bring your notebook, barked my teacher.

Now what, thought I.

I will have to punish you for what you did earlier, says he.

But Sir… I write with precision and balance, says I. Not a word here or there. All commas and semicolons in place. Period.

Even then, it is only fitting that I punish you, else what will the other students think?

This was the last straw. Dear readers, perhaps I drink much too much water since my tears flow abundantly. I did not cry. I wailed like a child.

He must have got a huge fright as all the staff stared at us amusedly.

No …no…no… he says, my punishment is… that you are going to act in the One Act Play I am directing for this years’ Inter Collegiate Arts festival.

Sir… You may hang me, but this! Most cruel, Sir.

He became serious all of a sudden. No crying and no more exhortations, the rehearsals start NOW!

Throughout the rehearsals, I played my naughty jokes with nary a word from my teacher. Within a month we were ready with play. Would you believe dear readers, the One Act Play was an out and out comedy and all the jokes were on me. I was the guest who was overstaying and the hero summons all his clever schemes to oust me from his aunt’s guesthouse.

I am this great lover and connoisseur of food – shucks, not in real life please, and I had to eat British style with forks and knives.

By the time I went up on stage, I was a pro and game for all the lights and sounds of college. I wore very short tight skirt, screaming red colored and a white shirt on top, whose sleeves had been wrenched off. My hair was painted gold and cheeks a bright cherry when one of my drama troupe mates commented that I looked like a doll – though painted.

Suffice to tell you I did my part with élan. The first time I had to run all over the stage I did it with super confidence what with my legs looking like a dream come true. On for the Finals at the Calicut University Campus, I ran with gusto, swishing past the kreiglights first and the dining table and chairs next. (Psst…my friends had told me to take advantage of the lights and my bare makeuped legs.

When the top honors were announced, mine was right up there. I won the Best Actor Trophy in the Female category. As I strode up to lift my trophy from the Vice Chancellor’s hands, I was grabbed from behind by co actors.

Let go, said I.

You can’t.

Why not?

Your back is not in order. (This in short whispers.)

So what, says I.

Come on, your back would be on show.

My tears have nothing else to do, they flow like crazy. I want my trophy.

My classmate and official makeup woman removes a printed lungi from her collection and drapes it over my churidars, pinning it stylishly at the back like a sarong.

I went up the stage riding on a thunderous applause.

Tailpiece: After marriage, when I showed the certificate to my husband, he said and I quote: Oh! So that’s where you learnt to act.
Dear Readers, I have never acted again, not in a comic role. I was playing this mega serial of a comedy in life, right?

Life!!!

UNTITLED

UNTITLED

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


As a door closes
When another opens
Or some such thing:
It’s a Machiavellian notion
Doors closing and opening,
A window is enough, my love
Above which
Lies the preamble of a sky
Stretched taut over the sea
As one good word
Could read your mind:
Like sand sieved in time

………………….

LONELINESS

LONELINESS

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


Loneliness
Is not having to say
You are sorry
It’s paradoxical,
I know:

A diaphanous rain
Envelops the side walks
Otherwise,
We could have taken a walk
Over cobbled streets
Zebra crossings

This vertical rain
Needles my face

I remember
We would have lain
Under warm blankets
One on top of the other,
Like humming birds
And not talk about
The grocery bill,
The letters waiting for reply,
The maid swabbing the hallway

Ignore the plumber
Whose tun tun
Stabs at the rain collage
……………….

NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI



By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

After we left Delhi in the seventies, I had two occasions to revisit. The first one was with my classmates of Journalism just before we appeared for our final exams. By then I had got married. The second time was when Santosh and I went to buy furniture and other knick knacks for our upcoming new house.

The second journey was memorable for many reasons. Since we did not have a proper honeymoon, both of us looked forward to the trip which would take us far away from our daily routine for two whole weeks. Because Delhi was new to Santosh, he acted like a lost child. A lost child was uppermost in my mind as well.

Every evening after sightseeing, we plonked ourselves at the underground centrally air conditioned shopping mall, Palika Bazaar, at the heart of Connaught Circle. We went round and round the complex, hand in hand like children who were afraid of getting lost. We had taped our local guardian’s address and number to our wrists, which did not prevent us from locking hands. At times, he would press my hands a couple of times in sheer happiness. At times, I would hug him and rub my face all over his shirtfront. He wore a stylish black woolen coat when we went out, while I covered myself in a Kashmiri shawl. He ran his fingers over my flushed cheeks. It was wondrous that nobody stared at us. We were strangers in a teeming cosmopolitan city.

I was definitely more flippant of the two. Well versed in Hindi and also used to bargaining Delhi style, I had a field day at Palika. Santosh would not leave my hand even for a second. He told me half jokingly that if he got lost, he would not be found again. It was winter in Delhi and flowering trees wore a riot of colors. We slept under huge blankets while the sights and sounds of the city seeped in through the ventilators.

I bought half a dozen churidars a Kashmiri embroidered kurti in crimson, which I am wearing in the above snap clicked at our cousin’s apartment at Delhi. Looking at us no one could have imagined that we had problems galore though we looked like a normal young happy couple.

Perhaps that is what life is like. Normal on the surface and paranormal underneath.

……………………..

VULTURES

VULTURES

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

This evening I went to the terrace of this multi storey building. The sky was a somber gray blue but the breeze, insistent and enlivening. As I stood looking at the azure sea and the swaying palms, I sensed large birds which I assumed to be vultures, circling over me. How could they spot me and harm me was the first thought that came to my mind when I was reminded of a similar scene ten years back at the KMC Hospital at Mangalore.

I had gone to the terrace in similar fashion and while looking out at the cricket game going on at one end and the huge furnace incinerator on the other, a large bird the size of a kite swooped down on me. I ducked through sheer intuition or perhaps involuntarily, but I remember my panic when I realised how near the bird had come to. The force of the flight of the huge killer bird had thrown me out of gear then. I flew inside, bile rising to my throat.

Now I know I must not take chances like that day a decade back, since I have no one who will come to my aid if I eyes are plucked off by a vulture. Not that people dont love me, but nobody can love me more than myself.

As I have told you more times than one - I am an orphan, left alone to fend for myself, and if this sounds alarmist to you, you are merely being polite about the whole thing. My life, my dreams, my writings and my paints should not be orphaned like me, so I am careful with myself.

Will always be.

...........................

COMPASS

COMPASS

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

Like a mountain stream
Without a compass
I have got lost on these hillocks

I will take my time
To reach the sea
Here,
Under thick foliage
I might lie down
Like a coiled and sleepy python

And dream
Of the kiosks I left far behind
The protruding stalagmites
Those white flowers
Glistening in the rain
And the chaotic blue of rocks
The leaves
Falling one by one
In a slow drizzle
From the silver oak
With ghost white trunks
And the song of gray birds

The river must pour down the sea
Like a leaking faucet
Though there are no rules
Which say
At what time they should arrive.
…………………..

MEMORY FLOOD

MEMORY FLOOD

BY

CHANDINI SANTOSH

I have torn away
Your memories
Like an old muslin cloth
And carried them to the beach last evening
To be thrown into the sea
Where endless sand
And slanting palms
Get wet in the rains

Between a hysteric sea
And a hypnotic devil
The muslin shreds
Have stuck to my mouth
And peripatetic soul

……………………

ONAM

All Mallus of the world unite! You have nothing to loose except some flowers! It is that time of the year we mallus become all nostalgic and sentimental. Yes, it is ONAM!


Wish all of a Very Happy Onam.

ETHNIC PROFILING

CHANDINI SANTOSH
on
ETHNIC PROFILING



Ethnic profiling has been in the news in the past few weeks after Shahrukh Khan was detained for more than an hour at the Newark airport in USA. Though the visual media tried to milk it of all the hidden tribulations the mega star must have gone through, it did not succed as Shahrukh Khan did not relent. Rightly so. Bigger stars had been hounded in the same fashion earlier by the US, Irrfan Khan and our own Malayalam Superstar Mammotty(seen in the cbove photograph clicked along with Santosh and myself during a function at Tellicherry) included. And then the real BIG name surfaced: Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, the Former President of India who had been searched right here at the New Delhi Airport when the whole world knows that he falls into that category of people who are exempt from this rigmarole. But as is usual to our former President's nature, he refused to let the matter blow up into an unmanageable size.
Many non entities go through this ordeal without a beep from them, probably realising that what the officials are doing might save their own lives at one point or the other.
I wish we practised some of this in our daily lives. our freedoms may be precious to us, but it is only the politicians and other VIPs who enjoy the benefits of our secular ideals. Why not make equality impartisan instead of selective?


................

MY NOVEL

CHANDINI SANTOSH

ON

MY NOVEL "BELONGING"




As I said earlier, words and paints are flowing out of me and the good news is that Penguin Books have asked me to send in my novel. No, it is not as easy as it sounds, I have already received their rejection letter for the poems that I had sent in. But it is in the trying that beginners like me have to find hope and pleasure.

So I am asked to send in the Detailed synopsis, Chapter outlines and any two chapters of my novel 'BELONGING.' I have already decided on one chapter which is titled 'TIME WARPS' but have yet to decide on the second one.

BELONGING has twenty seven chapters and the action takes place in North Malabar as well as DElhi and Manipal. Some scenes also feature Kolkota. All the chapters except the last one six to seven thousand word strong, which means the total number of words is nearly one and a half lakhs.

So many words! Sometimes I am surprised at myself. Some chapters have very lyrical titles:

LAST SUMMER OF CHILDHOOD
WATER DANCE
HEAD HUNTING
CENTER OF GRAVITY
VALLEY OF DISCONTENT
PAST CONTINUOUS
THE PENDULUM
PAUSES IN TIME
SCENT OF SURVIVAL ..... and many more.

For the time being do look at this oil pastel I did this afternoon. To take my mind off the tension of sending the manuscript as well as the sheer joy of it. I have now been writing my novel for the past five and a half years. So what is three months of waiting, right?

This too shall pass. That is what I tell myself most of the time.

PHOTOGRAPH

Here is my niece photographed by a professional. The light coming in from the left and the shades playing on a young, eager and confident face.

I am deeply attracted to photographs which have a professional touch, though the subject remains candid.

CHEMISTRY

CHEMISTRY

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH






Chemistry has a mind of its own
It does not listen to Physics

Like a somnambulist journeying through life
These words vanish like smoke
The paper on which it is written,
Will be engraved with
Traces of meaning
While life slips away
From its bones and muscles

…………………

PS The sketch above is done with felt pens.

VALUE OF MONEY

VALUE OF MONEY

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH

On the eve of the millennium, when the world was celebrating the dawn of a new era, I sat forlorn on the cold of a wooden bench in front of the ICU of KMC Hospital at Mangalore. Save for a few doctors and nurses the multi specialty hospital was quiet, though not empty. Santosh underwent a fourteen hour surgery to remove a tumor in his colon.

I had twenty five thousand rupees in an unopened bundle and around five to six thousand in my bag. I went to pay the surgery bill and realized that the money I had would not last for a week. Medicines worth four to five thousand rupees were prescribed for him on a daily basis. Santosh lay in coma all this while.

I do not know where I got the strength for managing a critical patient, a doctor at that. I managed. Money was the biggest problem since I had already placed my trust on the surgeons. I called up my mother who shelled out Rs. Forty thousand which sufficed for a week or so. I asked my financial advisor to get me Rs. One lakh, after exiting from a prestigious share holding. He promptly did. No questions asked.

This lasted for about three weeks. In the meantime, Santosh would be brought to back to our room, but then some complications would develop and he would promptly be shunted to the ICU. Another major surgery followed and the lakh vanished. This was when I thought up the best course of action. I went to the jeweler from whom I had bought diamond studs.

I remember I took a taxi to the jewelers. He took back the diamond studs and quoted a price which was much les than what I had expected.
It is worth more, I told him, and I need it badly.
He said I am giving you the maximum price that you will get anywhere. I hesitated only for a second before pocketing the money.

After three days I was back at the jewelers. This time I removed my ‘Mangalsutra’ which Santosh had tied around my neck at the time of the wedding. It weighed all of five sovereigns plus a sovereign worth of a pendant, with OM carved on it, considered sacred and irremovable according to Hindu traditions. I flicked it off my neck and asked the jeweler to evaluate the cost of the same. He promptly began to unclasp the pendant to give it be returned to me.
I said, take that too.
He was horrified. His expression said it all. No madam, he said, we are god fearing people, we neither do nor play around with mangalsutras. Our business will not prosper that way, if we buy the sacred pendant back from our customers with their tears splattered all over it.
I said, there are no tears. Please take them.
Nothing is more valuable than life itself.

He did not relent.

We stayed at the hospital for more than fifty days and the final bill ran into lakhs. I paid up the whole bill one day prior to our discharge and I was walking down the stairs quietly after dinner when I noticed this notice stuck on the partition to the billing section. It read thus:

The bill does not include the amount of surgery. It will be given to the patients at the time of the discharge.

I stood rooted to the ground. I ran literally to the Medical Superintend and poured out my problem in choking words. He said he could only give some discount on the bill as Santosh was a former student of the medical college. The balance amount of Rs. Fifteen thousand stared at me.
I did not have the required amount.

In a flash I knew what had to be done. I tentatively picked up the telephone and called my brother-in-law who worked at Dubai, but was on his regular holiday back home.
I said, we are getting discharged tomorrow and I need some more money to pay the complete bill.
How much, he asked.
I said, I will pay you back as soon as I come down there.
How much he asked?
I could have cried listening to him. I said I would need at least Twenty thousand rupees.
How do I get it across to you, I leave tomorrow evening, he replied.
No problem I said, my driver is coming to take us back he will come to your house and get the money.
No need, he says, I will stand near the highway near this medical shop and give it to the driver.

On the day of the discharge, I got up early, fed and changed Santosh’s clothes. He seemed happy and eager to be going back to our home after what seemed to be an eternity of medical and surgical procedures at the hospital. The driver came in our car and I paid the whole bill and I heaved a sigh of relief.

After our return I wrote down the money I had borrowed. I made arrangements to close down our clinic, for which I had paid an advance of Rs. Forty thousand. I sent my driver with half that amount to my brother-in-law’s house. As prompt as that.
To this day, he tells our banker friend that if you should lend money you should lend it to someone like my sis-in-law. I repaid my mother after exiting from some of the share holdings. I had little money left by then.

When I restarted the clinic a month later I took on its reigns single handedly. I was accountant, pharmacist, nurse, compounder and assistant to my doctor husband – all rolled into one. I had learnt the best lesson in my life. Manage your money all by yourself and that will teach you the value of money.


…………….


PS The pix above was clicked right after starting our clinic at home. The clinic was built in a hurry, though the main door took a long time to be fixed. A little more than six months and we had a full fledged clinic fitted with an airconditioner, X-Ray reader and a pharmacy which I managed on my own.

A TRIP TO THE WOODS

WOODS

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH


Under the hiatus of
These trees
And the murmur of leaves
The hidden stream
And its painless gurgle

Here I stand
While eternity
Takes a dip in crystal waters

..................

ICE CANDY

ICE CANDY

By


CHANDINI SANTOSH


So then
Let us retract those words:
I mean those steps
Serpentine steps,
Thirteen in all
Sunken from umpteen footsteps

Words are tricky things
Those left unsaid
Are like the remains of an ice candy
Licked off all its sweetness
And spat on the grass
Words

………………………..

NADEEM ASLAM's MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS

CHANDINI SANTOSH

Reviews

NADEEM ASLAM's


MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS



Nadeem Aslam became famous after the publication of ‘Maps for Lost Lovers’ in 2004. He had published ‘The Season of the Rainbirds’ in 19993. Born in Pakistan, Aslam now lives in England.

The story is about an honor killing that takes place in an unnamed English town. Jugnu and his lover Chanda have disappeared. Rumors abound in the close knit Pakistani community, and then on a snow covered morning Chanda’s brothers are arrested for their murder. The book tells the story that unfolds in the next twelve months.

‘Maps for Lost lovers’ opens the heart of a family at the crossroads of culture, community, nationality and religion, while expressing their personal pain in a language that is almost always poetic.

Honor killing is nothing new to sub continental readers, it keeps happening most of the time.
‘In this book, filled with stories of cruelty, injustice, bigotry and ignorance, love never steps out of the picture. It gleams on the edges of even the deepest wounds…A remarkable achievement.’ Kamila Shamsie, Guardian.

It needs great courage to turn one’s back on one’s culture and religion, as some of us would certainly understand. Some of us have gone through all this and perhaps more. As against people who show the courage to seek and find truth, there are those who dare not step out of the circle of religious and cultural bias, but live with their convictions, however tormenting life might be. It is this irony that is captured well in the ‘tender and vivid portrait of the strict Islamic mother, isolated by her unassailable belief.’ Alan Hollinghurst, Guardian.

‘It depicts an extraordinary panorama of life within a Muslim community…Thoughtful, revealing, lushly written and painful, this timely book deserves the widest audience.’ David Mitchell, Mail on Sunday.

Critics go breathless revealing the intricacies of this book. The telling commentary of expatriates in the UK is as disturbing as it is revealing. It is not coincidental that the story also depicts the clash of religion.

The story is exotic and is written in a nuanced language full of lyrical images. In fact, so thick are the interwoven imagery that the violence seems out of place and context. But as I completed reading the Map, I realized that if not for the lilting imagery, the brutalities pictured here might have been too much to digest. Though Aslam’s poetic language jars at times, I come to the conclusion that it was necessary, not because neither is violence restricted to the subcontinent nor to any community or religion throughout the history of humanity. As I look at it. History is the retelling of unimaginable cruelty practiced in the name of religion and ethnicity. As is evidenced from another book I am reading at present: FROM THE HOLY MOUNTAIN by WILLIAM DARYMPLE.

No religion is exempt from violence and bigotry.

…………………….



P. S : As I completed reading Aslam’s ‘Maps for Lost Lovers’, there were reports that an honor killing had shook a village in Haryana, which is fast developing district in the northern region of India. Haryana was formerly a part of the Punjab Province, but later broke away as most people belonging to that area spoke Hindi rather than Punjabi. Punjab is the prosperous district on the Indo – Pakistan border, which had achieved self reliance in food decades ago. Their agricultural poweress are well documented. Their love for the good life, their good looks, their millions, and their zest for life also are well known. In matters regarding health too Punjab has come up brilliantly. Punjab is richest state in The Republic of India.

But this does not naturally mean that the state of Punjab is the best state of the Union. You might wonder why. Let me explain. Kerala has the highest literacy in the whole of India. Population growth stands at zero. Health indices are of world standards. Cleanliness is a way of life. But all this is wiped out when you realize that superstition and religious intolerance have slowly crept into the fabric of our society. Joblessness is rampant, as most of the IT related educated youths come from this rather small state, thus the ensuing high density of population. Kerala is a major tourist attraction, as its beaches and greenery are both exotic as well as industrious. Yet, the locals always stare at foreign tourists, worse, they harass them too. We may be tolerant towards other religions, but not to ethnic minorities. We are willing to practice only white collar jobs, but the moment the working class arrive from our neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, or Karnataka, we raise a hue and cry. It is very funny, as what the proletariat demands is the reverse of what you may imagine. They say why the Tamils should work for the less wages instead of the grossly upward swinging labor wages that we practice over here. Sikhs are hooted for their turbans, without understanding that they are practicing what their religion demands of them. The whole of South India is as different from the North as chalk and cheese. The country is so diverse that one cannot keep up with the several languages and cultures. There are twenty six official languages at the last count.

Being a secular and thriving democracy has its benefits. In fact, I firmly believe that it is this democratic and secular set up that has foisted India on to the world stage.

………………………………

Dr.SANTOSH

SANTOSH

BY


CHANDINI SANTOSH


I sketched Santosh with charcoal and a dash of oil pastel. I believe I have captured him rather well, though his smile and his essence have been lost.

Today is his first death anniversary.


What can I say about someone who died much before his time? Except that he was husband to me and life giver to many.

STRANGERS

STRANGERS

By

CHANDINI SANTOSH



We were total strangers on the day of our wedding. Strangers in the morning, husband and wife by mid - morning, friends by afternoon, lovers by night and companions for life. But it was not as rosy as it sounds. No way.

Well, you cannot ask for the moon, right?

While on the way back to his house after the wedding, he removed his large sunglasses and asked me to identify whether they were power glasses or not. Out of sheer ignorance regarding glasses, I said, yes, they were power glasses. He laughed and said no - they were a masquerade to keep his patients from straying. Some patients took one look at him and flew from the clinic, thinking, my good god, such a young guy cannot be entrusted with my life! But ALL of them came back, regardless of his youth and inexperience. He was a doctor par excellence, and the most famous one in the history of that thickly populated village for about three decades.

Remove it, I told him. You look so much better without them. He did not wear them again.

At night, he said, I want to test your English, you are a postgraduate in English, right? Go on, I am best at spell checks, I told him. He said I will write it somewhere, and then you have to read the same. Easy, I said. He hugged me and drew some figures on my bare back. I said, do that again please, I mean write that again. He wrote it a couple of times before I could read what he had cored with his nails. Just three words, mind you. I could read it even before he had written it.

He has never said those three words to me all his life, never spelt it out, but I seem to know that he loved me more than anybody else.

..........................