Children of Heaven: Soul-stirring

"Baby know all manner of wise words, 

Though few on earth can understand their meaning."

"I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's own world."

These two lines from two discrete Rabindranath Tagore poems (though they were written on babies, yet I am extending their understanding to children in general) aptly imply why he has written them, once you see the movie "Children of Heaven".

"Children of Heaven" is a 1997 Persian film. A parable of pronounced moral nature, it is a tale worth watching by anyone and everyone living on this earth, specially in these times when "selflessness" is an apparition of the allegories.

It is a story of two siblings, a brother and a sister, from a poor family, where the father works hard to feed the three children (the third one was just born) and the mother has problems in her spinal cord and could not do even the household chores for fear of making it worse, do most of the household work as well as go to school and study. The allegory starts with the loss of the girl's shoes. While purchasing some grocery, the boy, Ali kept the shoes that he had brought to the market to be fixed up, near the shop. Unfortunately, the garbage collector, thinking the polythene to be garbage, takes them away. Hence begins a story that revolves around those lost shoes, portraying all the virtues that we as children might have had, but have now probably forgotten. 

Because they knew that their father would not have the money to purchase another pair of shoes, they worked out a mechanism by which both of them could wear the same shoes to school, even though it required both of them to run all the way (the girl from the school to home and the boy from the home to school). At times, Ali was late, and gave various excuses to the principal, who would not see the boy coming late to school, but never once did he tell the principal the story of the lost sneakers, not telling him that it was because he was poor and his family could not afford the shoes that he has to come in late everyday, after his sister came home and returned the shoes. (Though MBAs here would make a case of operational inefficiency: The boy could have come to the school when his sister's classes ended. But then MBAs are MBAs.)

The cherubic innocence with which the boy gives various gifts to his sister, including a golden fountain pen that he got from his teacher on getting good grades, to prevent her from telling his father is a joy to watch. The viewer is left spellbounded by the unworldliness of the boy when he asks his father to buy shoes for his sister when his father found an alternative source of earning money, despite his father promising him different things. 

Not only the innocence of the boy but the maturity with which both children deal with the situation is hard to see in an adult. When the girl finds out that her shoes were with another girl in a lower grade, she takes Ali to the girl's house. But on finding that the girl's father was blind, both children quietly go away without bothering for the shoes. And when Ali cries in front of the teacher to get a chance to win sneakers as a third prize for a race (which was announced when he had not reached school in time), it takes your heart away. 

I would not like to spoil the plot by telling the entire story, but the way the story has been handled is majestic. Excellent performances, good direction and a fantabulous plot ensure that the viewer is glued to the story till the end. The story makes you believe that children are really from heaven. Probably, I could tell my Ethics teacher now that if not telling the truth is not ethical according to Kant, then let him watch this movie and then write his theory.

Watch this movie and relive your childhood. Probably the crowning glory would have been an Oscar in the foreign language category in 1998 for which it was one of the films nominated, but I am sure it would have been a very close second. 

Let me end by speaking a few words about childhood.

"Lord, if ye gave me place in your Kingdom,

Let me be a child forever, I plead.

The Lord replies: Ah, ye not need say that,

Only children reside in the Kingdom of Heaven."

The Forgotten Lamp

I am the forgotten lamp;

I am the damp lamp.

I burn; People are happy,

I bring light to their lives;

While I burn, people enjoy

Praise the beauty of my burning.

And when the fire in me dies,

They forget me, abandon me,

I wonder how people soon forget,

I brought light to their lives.

Konnect 2008: Konnecting the hostels of IIMK

Sorry folks.. I wrote this someday and stashed it away thinking that I will post it sometime.. And then I forgot.. Now that I have found it, let me post it.. Here it goes..

It is said that a match is interesting only when equals compete with each other. And so it was, equals competing with each other, some with vigor poured down on them by the seniors, some rare self-motivated souls, but all competing to preserve the name of their hostels. Lots of games were played, lots of skills came out and lots of shy people came out of the closet. After all, that is the impact that a group has on you. The things you would not do alone, you would easily do it if propelled by a group. Maybe that is why governments discourage mobocracy. However, this was a day when mobocracy was encouraged in the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. The event Konnect was spread over a period of 3 days, with different events on all days. 

One of the most spectacular sub-events of Konnect was a tug-of-war contest, where 25 people from each hostel were supposed to pull 25 equally well-built people from another hostel into their half. The event brought out the passions of all the participating teams, with people from each hostel showing their enthusiasm by shouting, encouraging teammates (even while pulling), strategizing during the breaks, and bursting into whelps of joy after winning. Even the losing teams were equally well-spirited; after each round, there would be an informal sledging competition between both the teams, each shouting slogans proclaiming their hostels to be the best.

Contrast a team event like the tug-of-war with an event like Just-A-Minute (JAM) where individual skills led a person to victory. How much an individual can understand and adapt to a situation determined the results. It is obvious that in a game like JAM, it is more beneficial to catch the errors of others rather than trying to speak more. Some people were able to adapt, some were not. And those who were able to adapt won. However, the passion here was visible in the behaviour of the person. Here, a person would not shout at himself for motivation. Rather the motivation comes from inside. And the strategy too. And of course, here you do not have anybody else to blame if you lose. But then, you do not have anybody else to rely on too if you are not playing well. Also, individual victories are not recognized as much as team victories because it is tougher to synchronize a team.

The different skill-sets of the different genders also came out. And some were in stark opposition to the established beliefs. Hence we saw girls beating boys in some physical tasks, while the top three teams in Antakshari, considered to be a feminine favorite, were all boys. Some games like "Who eats fastest?" involved a lot of strategy. While some games like LAN gaming required gaming skills and comfort with the laptop. Some hostels were extremely ecstatic about each game, while some hostels like the K hostel, where no seniors were present, saw an extreme lack of participation, probably because of lack of seniors there, and corresponding lack of enthusiasm.

“Winners don't quit and quitters don't win.” Moral of the story. Period.

(Yours truly also won 50 points for his hostel K.. Ensured that hostel K didn't end up last.. Since these were the only points hostel K won :-(  )

The Voice of Enigma

Esoteric.. Spiritual.. Arcane.. Recondite.. Words that come to your mind when you seem to be floating in the outer space, exploring what everyone on earth is impotent to reconnoiter, while listening to the music: The Music of Enigma...

I do not know the origins of Enigma or the people who formed the band or regarding their association with any cult or religion. I write this article based on the fact that the songs of Enigma are nonpareil in the field of music. In this world where everything that comes through to us these days is some mix of the same instruments, producing the same type of music, where you can't even understand the spirit of the music. I may not be even a novice in music, but then music is universal, ubiquitous, catholic. Everything that exists is music. Hence because some people (and those people have produced some creative music) have lived a glamorous life, a life that others want to emulate, so anyone today with a even a little sense of how to work on the instruments comes forward and produces songs which, after hearing them, you don't even understand why the people who created them did so. Of course, I understand that the hit rate in any creative activity is extremely low and requires a great deal of work on the subject. (The terms amateur and novice would have been created for some purpose.) But it seems that the aim of these people is not music but its aftereffects. Unfortunately, the test of a successful musician (or any creative art for that matter) is not how many people remember you while you are living in this mortal habiliment but how many remember you after you come out of it. 

Simply listening to Enigma is so energizing.. Whether it is "The Return To Innocence" or "Silence Must Be Heard", almost everything that they have produced is worth listening to. You see songs having a spirit of their own, exhorting you to go into worlds within you, where life prances in front of you, and you realize there is much more to life than just the daily wont. The music refreshes you as much as it enthralls with its quality and more amusing, its mysteriousness. No doubt they chose Enigma as their band name.

Indeed the ictus is on music; with voice being used sparingly, unless it is to produce even more music. And even where words have been used, they have been used in such a way that the music and the words consummate the purpose immaculately.

My personal favourite would be "Out from the deep". Some 20 words make this song, but you would not listen to a song that is extreme with profundity.. "And that's why we're here".. Of course, it is more the words that cut your soul and affect you philosophically and spiritually.. It makes you feel as if you are watching a macro-view of your life.. And comparing it with the song and the underlying theme: the purpose. Let me end by reproducing some words from the song. 

We came out from the deep

To learn to love, learn how to live;

We came out from the deep

To avoid the mistakes we made;

That's why we are here.

We came out from the deep

To help and understand, but not to kill;

It takes many lives till we succeed

To clear the debts of many hundred years

That's why we are here.

So true; yet the absolute opposite of what most of us do in practice. Of course, the growing tribe of agnostics and non-believers would not agree to some words, but most would agree that the music is delphic. And even if it forces us to think about ourselves once a day, it serves the purpose of creating an oeuvre of such songs. Kudos to Enigma!

Kiss Me... By P B Shelley

Folks, this one is one of my favourite poems... Short, simple and sweet

The fountains mingle with the river, 

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In another's being mingle-

Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower could be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea;-

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

Such a sad story that he died at such a young age...