I.

A Honey bee lay lifeless,
in a bottle full of honey.
I tasted that honey,
My limbs turned wings
and I yelled, I buzzed..

Void.

a void in heart, voices in head
a voile wore she lay,
lifeless,
voicelessly my thoughts screamed,
a voiceprint from her phone, voided me to sombre,
voila, I b’cme void,
and,
voices in head,
wore a voile..

A Dream’s Dream.

A humble attempt at flash fiction (very short story).

I consider this humble space of mine as an experimental ground to learn and evolve, by trying to share some of my sparked ideas, which often succeeded – sometimes not – to take birth as words, through the voice I created and exploring (the possibilities) as an author (Ravanan), who love to navigate in his dream and subconsciousness. Intrigued by the nature of dreams and Lucidity, it was my long wish to try on a meta-fictional dream concept. Finally it is here as a flash fiction. Do share your thoughts and views after reading. Love.

 

A Dream’s Dream. (Click to Read)

The Wall.

Stream of Consciousness.

Picture Courtesy -wallpaperswide.com

 

There is only a rock wall that separates us from each other; I noticed it growing taller and shorter sometimes when our voices containing life and vigour entwined each other, and I also noticed it growing wider and thinner as our voices carrying emotions and feelings met half way in between; only to fade into an unheard scream or to become a deafening whisper, and it was the wall that helped my voice to appear human – to her – even when my inner demons were busy in lustfully desiring her voice – which, who knows, might have also been guising as Angel with a tone rich in love, exists and still ringing my ears as a mystery yet to unfold; an eerie feeling sprouted in me when a thought struck, flashed and burst through me, that the voice from other side of the wall could be a reflection of my own – reflecting by the wall, to keep me sane from plunging into clutches of lunacy or may be a hapless life seeking truth like me, and whatever the truth is, as long as that voice ring my ears, I know – that’d keep me Alive!

I shan’t leave you again alone, never.

Picture Courtesy – turbotwister.ru

I was in love ,
every preterite moments;
as rain in monsoon I poured,
like a tree rooted deep she stood in it.

Winds blew me to far away west,
hapless I, lost my sap and vigor;
Big orange ball came in limelight,
fell and withered she stayed there lone.

In murk she sensed the pain that cloaked,
for lights and dark she lay lifeless;
when the wounds were healed and pain melted away,
sprouts the buds of hope and love.

High heaven above to sands and dunes,
sensed I, the silver lining,
the scent of death and lights of death,
winds of death and death came near.

Resurrected the I, to cycle of 360s,
met her – a women in trousseau;
Love poured down as drenched words,
‘I shan’t leave you again alone, never’.

she took me in deep with content,
through every twig in her that thirsts for love;
and entwined our souls in bud,
that blooms into a flower of smile.

Lost Dreamers.

Prose.

 

Last night,
I had fallen into a dream, trapped
as a monolith
and chilselled down
to a form and shape, painful
it was when they carved someone
out of me and built a cage of darkness
to lock him in, confused
I was when they glued hands together
in awe and reverence
whenever their eyes met mine, Ignorant
they became as they never knew
my impotence and their blessings, distressed
I, for my pleas to help were never heard
as the Gods I knew were pleading
to someone in me, relieved
I was when reality embraced me
back onto the cozy bed, amusing
to think about human’s never ceasing
obsession of pleading to stone figurines, pity
on the hapless dreamers who are
trapped in those stones
waiting to get embraced by reality
and longing to wake up to their cozy bed.

Birdman and the question of existence.

Spoilers ahead!

There exist a fucking egoistic bitchy beast inside every head blabbering us to pretend and lead a life as someone who we are not. Like the straggly rolling of a drum it shakes and quivers its feather and spead its giant wings over the reality of true self. As the reality fades away a stingy, nasty and effing fortress of ignorance would emerge, tower over and overlook the existential reality. Leisurely, shall dawn the truth as light, over the gnawing gloom. But when the ruination preceed the truth. And when curses are nothing but blessings in profound disguise – a miracle would then be the outcome of an apocalypse – A new beginning. The unexpected virtue of Ignorance.

Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson.

 

For actor Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) it was the Birdman – the beast inside his head, a super hero he enacted once. Now, at his old age, after being chewed out by Hollywood, after the irreplaceable role had wrapped up over twenty years ago, he is desperately trying to regain his lost glory with a broadway debut (What we talk about when we talk about Love), as both Director and an Actor based on a book. The growling voice inside his head kept reminding him of self-importance, and had constantly, pedanticaly analysed his own plight, “How did we end up here? This place is horrible. Smells like balls. We don’t belong in this shithole.” – resulted in somewhat chronic self-dissatifaction. It was even visible in the dialouge of his character in his play.

” What’s the matter with me?,
Why do I always have to beg people to love me?
I just wanted to be what you wanted.
Now I spend every fucking minute praying to be somebody else
-somebody I’m not – anybody.”

The World is one big stage, we all are performing a role – in a play written by someone else. The stage we present ourselves were once blessed by great people – performers, who had performed their roles in utmost perfection and completeness. There exist only few like Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who become real and spontaneous on stage, like living his role – breathing as the role. The rest wears a mask, or forced to, of some character whom they never can be. Riggan Thomson wants to live in his past, the time when people looked up him with reverie. He couldn’t even accept the swept of time, thus living as someone who is not him, in the shades of a self-obsessed beast.

When actors live on stage!

It was Sam (Emma Stone), Riggan’s daughter, who told him about the ‘Fragilty of lives’. After discharged from a rehab, it seems she was not after fame and glory, unlike her father. Even though leading a distressed life as her father’s assistant in the theatre, she knew her father very well who is over obsessed to become someone he can never be. After a video of her father, running on a busy street in his white undies, became viral all over the internet, she in her composed demeanour had consoled her father, which was an uncanny sight from a all-time-distressed-disshevelled-haired-girl like her.

Unlike Riggan and Mike, Lesley (Naomi Watts) have infinitely more passion for what she is doing – ambitious and self driven. That moment when tears escaped her eyes, after humilitated by Mike on stage, while thinking about her expectation-reality perpetuation there sprouted an immaculate love for her, in me. Meanwhile, Laura’s (Andrea Riseborough) black witty character was like a barque afloating in the brew of emotions. It bobs up and down in the emotional ripples created by people around. Riggan and Jake (Zach Galifianakis) were the voyagers, it seems Lesley barely made in it.

Lesley and Laura.

Birdman marked his palpable presence through out, even though his visible figure was confined only to two scenes. The deep growling voice inside Riggan’s head was so tantalizing and persuasive to both Riggan as well as viewers for establishing the Birdman’s presence, the reason being nobody is free from one’s own mental voice. “Shave off that pathetic goatee. Get some surgery. Sixty’s the new thirty, motherfucker!” The drum rolling in the background throughout the movie distincly created a mental image of Birdman frustling the feathers and spreading his wings, as we look at Riggan’s world through his eyes.

Birdman and Riggan.

By telling Riggan the fragility of lives Sam conveyed the a message about mankind’s existence, making it one iconic scene in the movie. It has to infer that sam had evolved into a thinker after the rehab. When her father came to room after frantically running on streets in his white undies, she showed him a paperroll marked with dashes representing the years that had passed after the birth of universe. By Sam’s inference, mankind’s age of his self-obsessed and egoistic behaviour could be confined to a tiny strip of paper – which is trivial in comparison to a paperroll full of dashes. And when a fervous Riggan wiped his make up with that piece of paper, Sam’s witty and spontaneous reply was, “Dad, you just wiped out the entire human race!”. The fragility of Mankind. If a man’s ego could make him fall, then it could invite tragedy to befall upon the collective human race.

Dad, you just wiped out the entire human race!

When Riggan decided to silence his bitchy beast inside his head with a ‘bang’; when the imminent fall had happened, it was shown to us glimpses of a fire ball in sky – the impending doom, specks of dust – what we really are, superheros fighting and dancing to the drum beatings – helpless human creations, extinction of some species – next could be us, and finally light towering over Ignorance – the dawn of a new era. When the ego, self obsession and vanity had reached at its pinnacle, it result in the decadence of humanity. Literally, extinction awaits us, nothing we created could help us. There would rise, something anew, at the wake of every decadence, if the ignorance was blessing in profound disguise – The unexpected virtue of Ignorance.

“I don’t exist.
I am noteven here
Nothing this even matters
I don’t exist.”
[…Bang…]

[…bang…]

Ending:

The movie ends in an ambiguity about the Riggan’s death. It is clear from Sam’s smile that nothing nasty had happened, but makes more contradictory to that of the metafiction elements (to viewers) happened through the movie was just Riggan’s egoistic imaginations.

When analysing the events before Sam entering the room, it is evident that the Riggan had experienced the presence of Birdman, this time feeling depressed and seems lost his charm. It is because of the fact that Riggan had his face disfigured permenantly and chances are less for people to recognise him as the man behind the mask and feathers – freed from Birdman. So, he bade farewell to his bitchy voice inside head. “Bye-bye. And fuck you” Notably, the drum rolls, which had symbolically represented the frustling of feathers and fluttering of wings was silenced for a minute. And when he saw some real birds flying up high in the sky he opened the window and find his way out.

When sam enters the room, noticing her father’s missing, came to the windows in haste, and looking down to streets worried, and feeling relieved. Drum starts to play and rolls again in background, quite straggly, like the light fluttering of wings. But this time, we could only hope that it wasn’t made of feathers, but of freedom and liberation, from his own egoistic beast.

Rolling Down.

First attempt on Poetry.

Fell through pores and destined to run,
landed on a forest and I rolled in joy,
that went past as time ran elusive and,
reached a steep rumpled ridge and temple.

It pulls me down to the ravines of lushness,
‘It’ – they called gravity – I submitted the ‘I’,
It assured my run to find roots of unknown – me,
It ensued my path through bridge and caves.

Lost in the rugged path – friends in woe,
and mend with ‘I – the restless sole’,
adrift in me – dreams of hordes – to run to know,
through bushes that tasted the tears of ground.

Beats of drum that frissons my form,
through path that bobbed like vessel in tide,
Deeper the ‘I’ went warmer I felt Him,
and made my love with the Lord of the love.

Hanging at the tip of that warm sagging log,
awaiting the imminent fall towards sublimity,
I sharpen my ears to the words of wisdom
– that sprout in Him;
”Every Man has a right to a Saturday night bath”.

and I fall – off words !

Picture Courtesy – Whitehotmagazine.com

Nagavalli, to fantasize about.

Manichitrathazhu series #2 : Firing my Imagination.

          I ponder upon the reason why Nagavalli imprints her enigma in millions of movie fanatic minds across the nation. Why we breathed her in, tasted her sweat that drenched her attire, feared her continually averting eyes that searched for Sankaran Thampi? As the movie slowly progressed towards the end, it was the viewer who got possessed by the exceptionally eerie visuals. Through many a brilliant shot and the narrative brilliance of the writer, Nagavalli was slowly instilling into the viewers mind irrevocably. Its a rare happening that a movie character (Ganga) and all viewers get possessed by another character (Nagavalli). This is the reason why Nagavalli became a glorified wandering soul with flesh and bone, and Ganga is personified as a typical humanoid figure.

          Even if we were at the brim of getting possessed by the character we hadn’t danced or crooned as Nagavalli, but still, as an after effect, some souls would have carried Nagavalli deep in their mind even after the movie fades into credits. One such abnormality I’ve noticed in myself is that, I always got carried away by a brilliant shot which shows the fervor in which Nagavalli ran though the secluded corridors of the Mansion. When Dr. Sunny and Nakulan rushed in to find Ganga missing from her room, they get stumbled upon the clothes stripped off by Ganga/Nagavalli on the floor. A second of sheer brilliant frame was enough to show the complete transformation of Ganga to Nagavalli very effectively. It is not sure whether she had done it on her way to thekkini or not. But I always tried to fantasize about her, running nude, fervently climbing the stairs to thekkini.

Dr. Sunny and Nakulan shocked to see Ganga’s stripped off saree.

 

Ganga’s saree on floor.

I fluttered in my Imaginative realm..

‘She strips off every piece of cloth that did not belong to her (Nagavalli). She then wears her skin as the attire. Her mind is delicate as the drooping voluptuous curved flesh hidden beneath it. She is as strong as the bones that give her shape. She kept busy her leg in task of following the other, climbing each step fervently, muttering her enemy’s name. Her big bosoms and buttocks were bouncing and dancing to the music composed by the anklet-bell she was wearing. Hair strands got tightly glued by the sweat running through her bare back. The sindoor she wore in the parting of her hair got mixed with sweat forming blood like stain on her forehead. It flows down her cheeks. She has bloomed into a ‘vivaciously lustful’ critter thirsting for sap and flesh !’

Nagavalli climbing stairs to thekkini nude – Artist’s impression. (Click to enlarge the image.)

 

The space that the director deliberately left forces the viewers to imagine their own version, thus Nagavalli attains sublimity in the subliminal consciousness of the percipient. The pleasure of such wild imagination make viewers crave to experience the brilliantly made movie, again and again.

Once a wise man said..

Once a wise man said, find the demon in you and tame him.

 

(Click to enlarge the image.)

He started it like a story..

          You were alone.. alone in darkness. In pitch black, you saw a light, far end. You ran hard, as fast as you can, you started to ‘Hope’ ! You reached the physical, conscious realm (or not). You were born ! You were not alone, you befriended a demon – Hope.

          But things were even worse than before, everything seemed different. You thought darkness was even better. You realized how treacherous this world was. You were confused and dejected. You were like Arjuna in Mahabharata. Then came the saviour, a true demonic companion of hope ! He became a close friend of you, he encouraged you, he was ‘Trust’.

” It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is one that is the most adaptable” – so you became a social being. You then got acquainted to a new demon, the most infectious one, ‘Love’.

Time passed, you remembered the good old days in darkness. You thought, what made you run? Why were you still lifeless even though you breathed? You realized, you were still in gloom and you yearned for a light far away. You started to ‘Dream’. You resurrected ! Like the Son of God.

You are now here, growing, running closer to your dream.

He then looked into my eyes. I’ve noticed an eerie feeling in it. I felt the darkness that clouded my soul, I saw it through his eyes. He continues..

There is someone you haven’t met yet. There is a villain in every story. He has no decency and shows no mercy. He lurks in the most safest place, and will wait for the perfect time for an ambush. After you find that you were in his point blank range all your life, you will beg him for mercy.

          You will then realize your enemy is indestructible, because he is ‘WITHIN’ you, in the darkest corner of your mind! He grows with you. He is as strong as you. He infects your mind like a virus, slowly progresses and incapacitates your body. Your brain may fool you. You make rash decisions. This enemy takes control of you! He is calm, slow. He becomes vicious when your anxiety and doubt meets your imagination. He is ‘Fear’, most ghastliest demon.

You lose everything – friends, dreams, society. You become Forever alone !

You pace towards mid-age, feeling regret, admitting the fact that you could have easily defeated fear at the beginning, but you wasted your time by ‘trusting’ and ‘hoping’. At the very moment you’ve come to realize that your dreadful enemy has become the ultimate reason for your survival! The idea is simple. There is an inevitable, exquisite form of fear – fear of losing something, that will keep you wide awake! You regain your senses.

“It is a strange fact that there is always something you could learn and rely upon even from your enemies!”

You should embrace your demons with ‘Love’, tame them. You should build a strong army with Hope, Trust, Fear and Love. Fight hard, endure and land on the door step of your dream. When the door opens at your knock, you will see yourself adorning the throne with a demonic smile.

        You welcome your old age happily and wait for light at the horizon. One day your eyes fill with a serene gloom, and may see the same old divine light. Run for it, you know you were a good runner even before you were born and still at your deathbed too! But now, to where? To a much higher conscious realm? To become a much paradoxical creation? Whatever it is, as long as the light is there, you will keep on running. And you shall keep on taming your demons for success. To meld with the light, and to ‘Be’ the light-

S A L V A T I O N.