Just thoughts that came up in light of my Mother’s uncle’s death…

Why do relationships become more distant when you get older? I’m sure Amma knew her Chithappa just as well as I know mine now, when she was younger … why then is his death not important enough to drop everything and go there? Why is it so complicated? Maybe she is justified in not going… I don’t know… but why do relationships fade in importance when you are older? Why does it become ok to not fulfil some basic obligations? Obligations that to me seem most imperative at this point of my life. I can’t imagine,  doing this if God FORBID I was in her position … But when I’m older… Will it actually become alright and forgivable that I don’t? I’m so… distressed by this. . I’m still somewhere in the entrance of this ‘Adult World’. Each day I learn new things about it that only dismay me. My opinion of it falls lower and lower each time … lesser and lesser do I want to belong there…

If I could fly

I’m starting a new category of works :- poems for children . More will come.

If I could fly

O what would I do?

I’d zoom out my window,

Up, up into the sky,

I’d take my paints,

I’d take my palette,

And I’d take all my brushes too.

I would paint the sun blue.

The sky would be yellow,

With pink fluffy clouds,

you could eat like cotton candy.

I’ll fly…. fly out to sea

And play with the waves

And dance with the foam

I’d race the fishermen’s boats

On and  on..

until the moon comes up.

I’ll swish and swirl in the briny breeze

Then up again

To the moon l will go

And I’ll throw in the stars,

to sparkle like jewels

 In a silver sea

To a night sky

A million, million dots,

suspended spots of light

in utter blackness.

Timeless, eternal, beauty unspeakable,

a speckled vastness to guide the soul.

Silent spectator of a thousand stories,

a million lives.

Far beyond reach,

yet close enough to touch

with thoughts intense… and true.

Did He, my God

Make you too  in His image

That you so overwhelm me?

Small, insignificant, vulnerable and yet….safe

I feel before you.

Gustave Courbet

Just wanted to put this up that’s all. We had to copy the painting given to us and analyze it in about 500 words.Its very basic.

Stone Breakers – Gustave Courbet

An overview

“….show me an angel and I’ll paint one”

- Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)

The quote surmises exactly, Courbet’s philosophy of painting and the movement to which he belonged.

The Realist Movement began in the mid 19^th C in France and Courbet was one of its leading figures. Realism in this conjuncture simply meant representation of the things belonging to one’s own time. The focus was on the elements of contemporary life; what people can see for themselves, only these were considered ‘real’ and hence represented. Subsequently the painting of historical and fictional subjects was rejected.

Those considered unworthy of representation, as mundane, such as labourers and peasants suddenly became the subject matter of 19th C paintings.

Courbet’s ‘Stonebreakers’ (1849) is a “complete expression of human misery”. Here two men, one young, and the other old, are depicted in the act of breaking stones to lay a road. Courbet is supposed to have witnessed this scene while on his way somewhere and it struck him as so poignant, that he called these men to his studio and proceeded to depict on a large canvas the absolute drudgery in which the lowest of the low in French society lived.

Courbet’s style neither complies with the strict linearity of Classicism nor with the flamboyance of Romanticism, but defies both with in it’s unerring naturalism .He like Caravaggio before him leaves out no detail in the wretched state of his humble subjects.The men are depicted with honesty; unidealized, and faceless, they are the anonymous embodiment of their class and their dreary lot in life. The monotony of their existence is brought out in the dull, repetitive nature of their task. The almost mechanical aspect to the older man’s stiff posture, calls to mind Louis McNeice’s shrill protest:

“I am not yet born;O fill me

With strength against those who would freeze my

Humanity,would dragoon me into lethal automation,

would make me a cog in a machine,a thing

with one face…”

His colours, mostly unflattering, such as various shades of brown convey and highlight the event’s dismal nature.

‘Stonebreakers’ does not merely represent a rebellion against the day’s artistic trends. It is also reminiscent of a Revolution. In 1848 the labourers fought the bourgeois leaders for the redistribution of property and better working conditions. Both the Revolution and the painting (done the very next year) place its commonplace subjects in centre stage and make their servility an issue of national concern. In all, it is a fantastic documentation and a truly realistic picturisation of life as it was in the 19^th C for those not born in the elite circles of French society.

Growing up

I want to be a child again.

Those times when getting hurt

Meant scrapping your knee,

and tears dried in minutes.

When nights meant sleep and rest.

and days never seemed too long.

When Faith was never a difficult test

and God never too far off.

When Love and Pain could never mean the same

and unhappiness lasted at the most a day.

There was safety then in being so vulnerably young,

and happiness in ignorance.

The lesson of growing up

Seem to be,

The more we know,

The less we believe.

Love Matters

Losing the people we love is the greatest pain the Human heart is ever called to bear. Nothing is more crushing. Either by circumstance or death those we give our love away to are torn out of our lives leaving us emotionally crippled.

 

But Love as such is pure, divine and breathtakingly beautiful. It grows even in the vilest of hearts .Yet for all its wonders it is dangerous. Nothing else I’ve known can render even the strongest of us defenseless and bring us to our knees.    

 

In its very purity and beauty lies its danger .It is a hopeless irony that the most wonderful thing that can happen to our heart, can also with deadly effectiveness destroy every last shred of peace and happiness known to us.

 

I can’t understand this infernal emotion. I am both awed and terrified by it. Awed by the magnitude of sacrifices one is willing to make on it’s account and terrified by its ruthless capacity to breakdown every wall of defense that I build around myself. I try to dodge it but still want it. It really is, at least to me, unfathomable.

When I Fall

When I fall,

Before those around me notice

Your Hand reaches out to me,

Helps me stand.

And leads me through the Pain.

Who are You?

 

When I cry,

Your love surrounds me,

Wipes my tears away

Yes I feel You,

Standing right beside me,

Who are You?

 

When I return,

After running away,

Hurt and bruised

Sore from walking alone,

Your heart still forgives me

And takes me as Your own.

Who are You?

 

Your anger passes like the breeze

Your love lasts for an Eternity

You form the Beauty that surrounds me,

The sky, the mountains, the seas.

Flawed though I am,

Insignificant midst a million.

You notice me

O, and Love me

You’re my God, my Saviour

My Father and my Friend.

Storm

Tears run down, trickling…

Into the ocean of misery

That surrounds me,

It’s waves crash and roar

Tossing the Boat,

Threatening to swallow it.

Drown it,

In it’s merciless depths…

Doubt thunders,

In my ears.

Booming, it declares my loss

Deafens my Faith.

Muting it, killing it.

Trying to destroy it.

Shaken by the Storm,

Silenced ,overwhelmed.

I wait…

With a dying Faith.

For the Mighty Voice of Heaven

To calm the raging waters at His feet.

“Not all who wander are lost”

This is a continuation of sorts of my previous post. I recently had a ‘discussion’ with my father about what I’m going to do with my future and how instead of spending every waking moment planning for that far away day, I was, O horrors! Relaxing. During my vacations. Ah…I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details and move on to what I have to say .For both our sakes.

 

The point I’m trying to come around to making is this; why plan, down to the very last, minute, microscopic detail for a future you’re not even promised of?

 

All we do is march forward, our eyes set on the proverbial mists of tomorrow, never seeing what today has to offer. For all you know, so focused were you on getting there, following your compass of ‘plans for the future’, walking straight ahead, that you probably missed that little signboard that said ‘turn left’.    

 

Now don’t jump at me and say “You think one shouldn’t ever plan for the future?” I never made such claims. But we could try not to plan to an extent we banish our present into oblivion.

 

Sadly, this very moment that could well be our last is forgotten in that scramble to the future. Which by the way moves further and further back as we move forward. After all tomorrow is another day away.

 

I will never ask anyone, including myself to stop thinking of the future or preparing for it. But to spend every minute of the present arranging things for that one perfect moment you define as the “Future” is surely something that stems from our misguided notion that we can, control and etch out the rest of our days on earth exactly as we want. We can’t and we never will be able to.

 

To make a Star Wars reference (yes, my all time favourite set of movies ) ‘Be mindful of the future, but not at the cost of the present’

 

I would want each moment of my life to be lived to my hearts content as much as possible, not spent in preparation for a tomorrow that’s always an eternity away.

 

We can make decisions about the future. We must. But we can also wait for that moment when life gives us the best cue to help us make that decision. Until then (another proverbial reference) do stop and get a whiff of those lovely roses (and at the rate our biodiversity is vanishing they might just become extinct)

 

  I hope that by now you’ve got why I put up that particular quote as my title.

Of Means And Ends

Aristotle believed that man always seeks to achieve some good either as a means or an end .All our actions are meant to achieve a certain purpose .They have a definite direction and a preconceived result. This result is met either at the end of the said action or during the course of it.

 

Wise words. He has described Humanity as it is. We always need to have a reason to do something. That is to say, what we do must achieve a purpose and if it fails to do so then the action is considered useless. A waste of time.

 

I’ll give you an example so you can clearly get what I’m driving at. I wanted to take ‘Principles of Immunology’ as my General Elective paper in College. Now I’m a Fine Arts student. “Why do you want to take this? What good is it going to do for your course?” was my Mother’s question. Fair enough. And in all probability nothing much. But for me it was knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge that made me want to take that paper.

 

Sadly, not many agreed with me on this. Apparently Knowledge for its own sake doesn’t amount to much. It has to be subordinated to a higher cause. So silly of me not to realize this. 

 

Sarcasm apart, I would like to know why we always suffer this immense urge. It seems to have become an established law of actions. An enterprise without a cause is time wasted. But, why not do things for the sake of doing them? Why must things always achieve an end? Why can’t the means be an end on it own?

 

So often we spend our time in getting somewhere, moving towards a particular goal and adjusting everything to ensure this, that we forget to live life simply because we have one.