*From To Sathish* - Thread 3 - Page 84

Demonitization


A few days after the announcement that 500 rs and 1000 rs would not be valid and that they needed to be exchanged,i found myself standing in a pretty long queue and along with me stood my fellow indians and there was no bar on sex,color,caste or creed.The funny bone tickled and i knew instinctively that i was going to lose control over what my mouth was going to spew,spout and throw out and desperately tried to control my thoughts and alas to no avail and the joker came out loudly and took a long,hard look at the people standing in the line and smirked ' appada,ippo thaan naama ellam otrumaiya indiansa nikkarom'. For in the line stood iyers,iyengars,sardars,sikhs,muslims,christians and a priest from the local shiva temple.And my plumber,vegetable vendor and the guy from the pharmacy too were there and i thought to myself what a glorious moment it was.

Kaasu,panam,dhuddu,money,money.The lyrics from soodhu kavum kept ringing in my ears and like old times when i had stood in queues for everything and everywhere (electricity bill,water bill,telephone bill,railway ticket booking,flight ticket booking,film ticket booking,darshan in the temple) i put myself in a trance and hibernated as the line gently progressed.

Demomintization aside,i thought of the larger picture of life for this year i lost a few good people and it really hurt badly and hit home the truth.The truth was just like 1000 and 500 rs being devalued,demonitized,our lives too will be like those currencies and will have no value of any sort at the counter of god and unlike Modi,he God does not inform us beforehand when our lifes currency will be demonitized.

A few days back,i was in the kitchen washing some utensils when i heard bloodcurdling screams and wails which i knew only comes with bad news,really tragic news and i looked to the building nearbye and wondered if the grim reaper had come with his own version of demonitization and whispered a prayer to the family he had come visiting with grave and sad news.

The next day as i was entering my street at about 6 in the morning,i saw many people standing quietly and their expressions of helplessness and lost,vacant eyes confirmed what i thought had happened the day before.

I enquired and one guy told me that a young man of just 38 years old had died of a heart attack the day before while he was stationed in the gulf and his body had just reached the airport and was soon going to reach the house.My memory flashed to the fit and healthy man who wore cargo shorts and played shuttle with his two children,a tiny tot and a kutty girl and went " W*F GOD?" and as always God stayed mum,silent,null and void as if in silence he was telling me that answer would not be and could not be understood by a mere mortal such as me and other lives.My eyes went up to the dead man's wife who stood in the balcony and we both looked at each other i saw the same lost,vacant and confused look reflecting in both our eyes.

Sellathu,sellathu.intha kaasu sella kaasu.One more life demonitized my people and time flows on.

A few months ago i went along with my wife to see her gynecologist and i saw this beautiful couple getting down from their swanky 5 series BMW and later came to know that they were trying hard to have a child and they have been trying for nearly a decade.I smiled to myself and thought ' here me and my wife dont want to have a child and she has been using protection and on the other hand here is this couple and so many like them trying for a child.'

I thought of that family that sleep on the platform outside the compound of skills,chandralekhas dance school and of the five children that lie next to their parents with torn clothes and matted,brown hair.Life really is an illusion,a joke,an ongoing mega serial and its effects go on and on and filter from top to bottom.

I came out of my trance hearing the voice of one of the oldies who i meet daily in the beach and he very joyfully boomed ' how much are you depositing satish? must be a couple of lakhs.Ha,ha,ha'.

I smiled and suddenly realised that he was looking at the bulge in my pants,my wallet sillies for i always place it in my front pocket and i always wear tight jeans.well,pickpockets beware.

I shrugged my shoulders as everyone who recognised me had that smirk and knowing look which if converted from mind voice to audible format would have gone thus " periya kattu,neraya dhuddu.Ellam 1000 rupee notes pola irukku.'

Much to their disappointment,i reached into my shirt pocket and brought out 7,000 rs in 1000 and 500 rs denominations and all the while,everyones eyes were on my wallet and after finishing my transaction i triumphantly turned and sniggered ' all my payments are done by cheques,PAN NUMBER noted,TD deducted and only then handed over to me'.

The last post titled Demonitization was posted via a cumbersome process. My internet service provider ACT Fibernet has informed me that it will take another week or more to restore services. So, I wrote on my desktop and then transferred the file to my mobile via memory card reader and then mailed it to my email account. Then drove down to the browsing center and opened my mail,copied the text and finally posted it in our forum. Phew, what a process. Now,I will repeat it again for my review of Dangal later today. Be well.

DANGAL

Dangal in hindi literally means wrestling and well you don't get any prizes for guessing what the film is about.A film can be about anything from sports,crime,romance,tragedy or just comedy but what makes it good and worth watching is the characters and the story they tell about themselves and their lives.

Each and everyone of us have a story to tell and the point is whether it is interesting enough and worth spending time listening to it,reading about it and watching it.Well,that is life and that is how the cookie crumbles.

Dangal is a simple story about a family whose head,the father is a wrestler who had to give up his dreams of winning a gold medal for India because of lack of sponsorship,lack of motivation from the government and simply because wrestling is not such an attractive or lucrative sport when compared to cricket in our country.

Dangal means wrestling and though we see lot of wrestling and really well choreographed bouts,the real wrestling takes place between a father and his daughters,between a family and their cliched village neighbours and between a family and the sports governing bodies which is made up of babu's bureacrats,failed sportsmen and corrupt and the lecherous.

Within the first half an hour of the film,a squirming question is posed very subtly to the audiences and a question which might largely go unnoticed or even over certain heads of those who belong to the patriarchal society and i am sure that makes up a large base all over India.

The question is ' Do parents have the right to burden their children with their unfulfilled dreams? Do children have no choice when it comes to choosing what they want to do and simply have to follow what the parents want for them?'

In today's world where every child is forced to study for an engineering or medical seat,in todays world where many tots and boys are forced to take up cricket for the one and only reason that his dad wants him to become the next Virat or Sachin,in todays world where tiny girls are made to wear makeup and enter talent shows and singing songs such as "choli ke peeche kya hai" or other songs of similarly lewd and loud variety.

Well,if it ends well then okay but what if it doesn't? The answer is blowing in the wind.

Having seen Sultan and left only with a headache for the film was all pomp and no splendour and a film that was just mass,i can tell you Dangal is all mass and all class.A perfect blend of all ingredients and the film is served to you like a perfect dish and well ' Bon appetit ' for the direction is 'Haute cuisine'

Gone are the days when actors indulged in histronics and over the top acting and made you choke with all the drama for now it is all about casting,the look and when it comes to acting just being subtle and natural although for many actors subtle and natural just does not come easy.Example me,myself,satish.

Thanks to Director Nitesh tiwari who has steered everyone perfectly and has brought home a really good film that makes you cheer many a times and also leaves you with a nice feeling and as you leave the film hall,you look at your fellow members and exchange " good na,really good no".

But all though everyone has done a tremendous job,special mention should go to Aamir,Zaira wasim who plays the young Geeta Phogat and the boy who plays the young nephew of Aamir khan's mahavir phogat.I mention them because they were really good and their performances reached out and touched me.

See,it is a true story,a family story and a fairly predictable story and that does not handicap or limit our viewing pleasure and in the end the film passes with flying colors.

The most important moments of the film are the wrestling bouts and your jaw drops amazed at how well the girls go about fighting and with such skills and you wonder if they are wrestlers in real life and not just actors who were trained well by the very champions whose lives they are portraying.

Dangal is not about wrestling in the mud,on mat or in national and commonwealth games but it is about wrestling your limitations and overcoming hurdles in life to reach your goals.That is the message and that is what the film is all about.

yes, portraying the coach as a seedy,seedha saadha villian was a bit frustrating and the same with the australian female wrestler who delivers a nambiar kind of performance.

All said and done,Dangal is good and that is it.It really does not matter if it breaks sultan or PK'S box office collection for numbers are not a reflection of a good film.Quality will always triumph over quantity and dangal is quality and i believe is also quantity and seems to be raking in the moolah.

This film is a wakeup call to all indian actors who think punch lines and mass entries are what films are all about.It is a reminder to all actors that an actor has no image or just should not be trapped in a cage of his own making and should shift and change colors in every film he acts in.PIPE DREAM SATISH.DREAM ON.

Thank you Aamir khan.He has not only acted in the film but also produced it.Double decker.Bravo bro.

At age 51,Aamir has been able to do magic with his body that is the dream of teens and those in their 20's.It is truly remarkable for we see the fitter and younger Aamir for a fleeting few seconds and the transformation is simbbleee superb.Crap,my mallu wife is going to make curry meen out of me.

My internet service has been restored and my connection to the world and other lives has hence been restored.

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be." Abraham Lincoln

Every year seems to be passing faster and faster and before you can actually look back,wonder about the days that whizzed past you the new year with a new number is before you and it actually takes a bit of energy and concentration to write 2017 instead of 2016.Well,that's me.

In the field of Astronomy,great minds still wonder and ponder as to why everything in the galaxy is moving farther,further away and they gather more momentum as they move away and soon some say,the whole universe will be ripped apart and that means down to the sub atomic level.

Just like that theory,i sit and look back as to the speed the past few years have sped by and sometimes i am at my wits end and try desperately to hang on to the moments that are called the present.Impossible.

The years have taught me to simplify life and well now i have begun to value my life and judge it in context to happiness and sadness.

Sadness i can do and understand it for it flashes and reveals itself with incidents and scars that burn and fester but there are no scars for happiness and damn it,they just fade away and holding on to its memories is like holding water in my palms and just like the water,they drip,drop and fall away unlike memories of sadness that cling,creep and crawl deep into the mind.

Photos,videos are some good ways to remember lifes good moments and times that were worth living for and breathing for and frozen in those pics are you and your loved ones and they might just remain long after we are gone.

Facebook,really as the title suggests is only about ones face and that limits it to ones physical appearance.
Wonder,if someone will start a site called Soulbook where everyones souls can meet and talk and not be judged by ones looks and physical dimensions.If a site called soulbook should exist,i just wonder what i might use as my profile pic.Okay,maybe just words or maybe just my eyes.

UNSPOKEN THOUGHTS

We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.


Love unlike hate is a pretty sad state to be for unlike hate which fuels you with a rage,vengeance and a kind of poison that seems to thrive on its own,being in love means vulnerable,weak and also being taken for granted.


The love i am talking about is not just between lovers but the love we have in all our relationships.The one thing that really kills love is disrespect and even the tiniest bit of it sometimes has huge ramifications and makes cracks that never heal and can never be sealed. Like the saying " BIRDS OF A FEATHER,FLOCK TOGETHER" we all find ourselves in friendships and relationships of our own making and that stems from our own desires.

I sometimes think that many broken marriages,relationships and friendships do really break from this simple emotion of disrespect and that which stems from EGO.

It actually is very surprising how often in a day this disrespect happens in our house when we choose to ignore those that we love,when in reality all that is required is a simple show of affection or a kind word of acknowledgement.But,even worse is not saying a simple sorry when you know you have screwed up and let the tension simmer,fester and become an unbearable,open wound.For many,the situation is too late for a simple sorry.

Love like god is an abstract thing,an emotion that is a mixture of happiness,respect,trust,faith and loyalty and when life should be actually easy,people tend to take those important people who really love and care for us and ruin it and them by ignoring them and more importantly disrespecting them.

Think about it and ponder on it.

Tit for tat,Touche or just Fax paus


Wife- I hate that ungrateful beggar

Husband-why?

Wife-I gave him food yesterday and today he gave me a book on how to cook

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Mother- Who is Tipu sultan?

Son-sorry,no idea

Mother-you need to pay more attention to your studies.

Son-do you know who chinku aunty is mom?

Mother-no,who is she?

Son-you need to start paying more attention to dad.

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A letter from a teacher to a students mother

Dear parent,
Your son doesn't smell very good in class and maybe you should teach him to bathe better.

Reply from parent to teacher

Dear teacher,

My son is not a rose.please don't smell him and just try teaching him better.Thank you.

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Husband comes home totally drunk and to avoid getting a shelling from his wife,sits down and starts working on his Laptop.

Wife-are you drunk again?

Husband -no,not at all.

Wife-Idiot.then why are you typing on the suitcase.

Remains of the day

A cool and quiet morning,which it is usually at 5.00 am in the morning and with Chennai and the whole of Tamilnadu facing a severe water crisis and with terrible hurdles to be crossed in the next few months,i thought that i would enjoy every bit if this chill and pleasant weather that embraces my city and what better and how better than walking along the beach with Ilayaraja playing in my ears.A small bowl of cornflakes nestled in my belly and assuring me that they will keep at bay hunger pangs for the next couple of hours,i left with the skies still dark and sunrise still half an hour away.

Jogging like mike mohan and suhasini did through Cubbon park for the song Paruvame,puthiya paadal ondru,i too jogged but frustratingly without the paruvam or paadal and then it got bright enough for my eyes to see and breathing heavily,i looked at my feet and asked them where they wanted to go and they said " broken bridge"

Well,time on my side and with ilayaraja once more torturing me with an inappropriate song " raasathi unne,kaanatha nenju" i headed towards the broken bridge.The feeling of the sand under your feet is really a sweet and delicious experience and one just has to be careful to not mess it up by being too adventurous and approaching the sea and that too the waters edge which makes its way up to urur kuppam for then the soft feeling will become mushy and one will be doing moonwalk dance steps as one scrapes his shoes to remove the remains left behind by the many assholes who tan their private parts as they take their morning dump right on the shore.


The noise,smells of urur kuppam fell behind but for the noisy two wheelers who flood Besant nagar and broken bridge every weekend and they kept whizzing by on the road leading up to the bridge.But i walk the line,right in the middle of these outsiders and the shore of the insiders and right through the boats and small huts and since i am known to most of the dwellers and importantly since most of the dogs are familiar with me and my smells,i walk without being disturbed and stop only to ruffle coats and get kisses from cold noses of the canines.

A bag lay half buried in the sand and within the reaches of the waves and it lay open,battered and torn but the picture on it still remained unblemished and untarnished.It was the face of our Amma our late chief minister.

I stopped and looked at her beautiful face and the smile that played on her lips and asked her " my lady,what are you doing here? and she said " got washed away from marina beach and here i am."

I sat down and we looked at each other and then i asked her " are you well?"

She said " I am in a better place.No worries."

I nodded acceptance " you are right for any place else is better than here."

We looked at each other and then wishing her goodbye i left her with her bewitching smile still fixed and i guess it will remain thus forever.I stopped to take one last look of her and a wave ran up the shore and gently deposited a pile of sand all over her face and my heart sank and then another wave quickly ran in and washed her face clean and i stood frozen and still for i felt in the deepest part of my mind that the universe was sending me some kind of message and my lips formed the words

Wave after wave,time after time
it comes,it goes
one with love,one with death
one with joy,one with sadness
wave and time are one
and they cycle and turn
round and round and what goes away comes back around
and so it continues for nothing lasts forever
not even sadness and pain
day is followed by night
and night is followed by day

And with these profoundly confusing answers i walked on into light and towards broken bridge and towards the remains of the day and the remains of our lives.

"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows
it is only when the mind refuses to flow with life,
and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem"...

REDEMPTION-170

"When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly."? Patrick Overton, The leaning tree


The shrill cry from the skies alerted all on the ship to a large bird of prey circling overhead and everyone wondered what kind of bird it was and also worried for they knew that birds of prey usually meant bad omens.

The ship's captain looked at Thenmozhi ' Mother,that is a land based bird and i think it is some kind of eagle and i am just wondering what it is doing so far out at sea.But it is a good sign for that means we are not very far from the shores of Malaya and maybe we will see land before the day is over and maybe tomorrow we can all step back on to land which my feet are desperate to stand on."

The large bird glided on its massive wings and glided round and round the ship,making shrill cries each time as it passed the vessel and then it suddenly dived at great speed and everyone ducked and covered their heads and waited for the eagle to pass by and fly back to land.

But the bird slowed its dive and in a beautiful and graceful move landed softly on Thenmozhi's left shoulder and bird and human locked eyes and the bird whispered in her soul ' Welcome my queen,i have been waiting for a while now so that i could fly to you and i am here now at your bidding.'

Thenmozhi eyes bloomed with tears and the eagle gently nudged her ear lobe as if it was trying to comfort her and telling her it was all going to be ok and there was nothing to worry for now.

Thenmozhi looked deep into the eagles eyes ' Thank you.I am honored and in your debt and i hope i can be worthy of your friendship.'

The eagle whispered back ' I am the lord of the skies and will be your eyes and as for the land,the mighty one and the king of his domain waits your arrival as does the whole forest.you have come at the turn of the tide and you will remain rooted in this land and they will sing your song long after you are gone.Now my queen,follow the direction i am going to fly off to and soon you will see land.I will fly ahead and alert all those who wait for you.'

The huge eagle pushed itself and a gust of sea wind gave lift to its huge wings and effortlessly the bird soared high and flew in a straight line towards th east.

Thenmozhi called the captain of the ship and pointed to the fast vanishing bird and asked him to steer the ship in the birds flight path.

The old monk slowly made his way and asked Thenmozhi about the eagle which had come and gone.

Thenmozhi smiled ' gifts from the three eyed dancing god and he graces us and blesses us with his protection and love.'

The monk accepted 'yes,truly you are blessed by the almighty and we share the grace that you have been bestowed by the creator.The eagle that just came and went is revered as garuda in my land and it is said that when he descends and comes on his own calling,it means strange and powerful miracles are going to happen.And i and the rest of us have already seen all the miracles you have performed and remain in awe of it.Maybe someday,you will be able to explain to me in detail as to who you are and where you get your power from for that is a mystery i want to solve before i breathe my last breath.'

Thenmozhi smiled ' master,if it so happens that you come to your last breath,then i will try and tell you what i know.but i am not sure if it will be of any help and just might end up confusing you even more than you already are.'

Then she suddenly ran towards the rear of the ship and stared at the west and in the direction that they had come.They were coming and there was nothing that could be done to stop them and they would pursue even on land.But what was it they were after for the young Yeshe could not be so valuable for he was just a tiny child.
She screamed orders to the ships captain that they should reach land as fast as possible and disappear into the jungle where they could make a stand if it came to that,for she knew that on land she would be more formidable than on water.

Her mind was full of questions as to the origins of their pursuers and where they had originated from.

But little did Thenmozhi know that the pursuers were from the middle east and had been sent by the caliph himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkwcIf1vAsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZjZ0J7f4Qg



Watch this amazing scene between nagesh and VKR from the film RUTHRA THANDAVAM that is filled with comedy and at the same time answers many questions in a simple manner.