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Her back complemented
 The darkeness as he cloaked
 Her torso with lust.

Earring in good contrast, 
Locks spun in a bun upwards,
 She mellowed him for the night 
With the flickering of the light.

Lust thus subdued he listened. 
As she taught him, that
 Her body, to be had, 
Must be cherished at first.

So she let him quench his thirst
 With each passing hours, 
Dimming light after light.

Neither to tempt nor to enchant
 Was her intent, but to instruct: 
To consume her with love not lust.
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The discussions after the state awards for the best actor are mainly revolving around two themes: Following Prakash Raj’s provocation, one proposes an inversion that the National Awards does not deserve Mammootty, and provides an implicit assumption that the state awards are better than national awards. While not false altogether, this binary does not add anything to our perceived assumptions, which almost every other audience would agree with. The second one, more curiously, is about the seasoned veterans being an obstacle in front of the deserving youngsters. This is an interesting argument as it provides more than an obvious statement.

The most commonly used adjective along with Ikka these days is ‘updated’. What does it mean to be updated? People use updated mostly as an empty adjective, often as a stylistic adjective to refer to his attire, outfits, technological obsession and various other forms of obsession. With all the truthful information it serves, this stylistic usage is often emptying out of its actual social-historical content. What does it actually mean to be updated? Is it a mere-formal obsession over the sartorial sensibilities of the changing time? Or is it something more than that?

It would be interesting to consider the term ‘outdated’, which can be used as an antonym to the word ‘updated’. Why do we feel ‘cringy’ when we watch an actor, who would have been considered as the par-excellence of that time? The obvious answer is that art, and acting, is historical and is informed and influenced by historical factors. Certain forms of what we now see as exaggerations were deemed not only legitimate but desirable at particular phases of historical transitions-for instance from the theatre to the silverscreen-and these forms were not really considered as aberrations but the norm. But these formal registers, subjected to the larger transformations, often change, adapt and take new forms- which would leave the older forms of aesthetic expressions stray, as ‘exaggerated’ and therefore ‘outdated’. This has been generally the way with the industry. This outdated-ness, which is often viewed as an exaggeration, mimicking, or even bad acting in general terms, is not a personal failure, but more like a historical transformation of aesthetic that subjects the body to its form.

But in the case of Mammootty, this ‘outdated-ness’ never occurs precisely because of his careful attentiveness towards the changing forms of the aesthetic production. He transformed himself in order to adapt to a time when the cinema itself became a ‘content’, by castrating the excess of his stardom, which was a need at a time. Thus, the question of exaggeration would become a thing of the past [where some of his old acting would seem as exaggeration] because he transformed and self-disciplined his body, gestures, speech-acts as expressions of time, that embodied the qualities of Kerala’s changing cultural geography. It is in this sheer refusal that he finds himself, again and again [തേച്ചാല് ഇനിയും മിനുങ്ങും, to quote from him]. This act of refusal, curiously, allows him to turn the past as a form of historic accumulation, the base on which he makes performances look ‘easy’, ‘walk in the park’, as the people who argue for the youngsters argue. It is in this history of seeing that he places himself, in everyone of his performances, and allows his audience to take himself as a reference, as an archive of performances.

He won his first state award in 1984. Now after forty long years, he wins it again. Yes, it is unfair-it is an unfair game of dice that he plays. A heavy misproportion that he has himself carved out by subjecting himself to the historical transformations and letting his body get off any ahistorical elements out of it. What is in him that makes him likeable for a generation whose content consumption pattern has no aesthetic similarities with a generation of people who might have hailed him as their hero, forty years ago?

In dialectics, lies the answer.
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I just finished reading Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. Earlier, when I read and reviewed her novel Utmost (I’d once seen a humbug mock it), I had noted that her writing spilled over with anger and intensity. Now, in this memoir, she lists the reasons for that anger. She shows that her sarcasm springs from both deep rage and complete helplessness—yet, like all intelligent writers, she remains unapologetic.

What she explains feels like a backlash against how the Indian male world (both political and cultural) treated her. In this one matter, mother Roy and daughter Roy think alike. Their truths sit well with them, and almost always, they are indeed right. Indian society, even now, lacks the breadth to fully accommodate her kind of female intellectual voice.

Even if one disagrees with her, look at how many like the two Roys—who fought against the system—actually succeeded or even managed to shake it (privilege plays a role, but that too they fought for and won). Among our contemporary writers, how many can step away from mere emotion and safe-zone wordplay, and instead approach issues with true intellectual rigor?

In every country, intellectual material becomes the source from which writers and cultural icons emerge—but in our society, it seems we are destined to put up with fools. Just look at the ongoing poetry debates: some people try to shut down intelligent observations with nothing more than mockery and sentimentality.

Roy is a hundred times more sophisticated. She waits for no one’s validation. Recognition and stature—like being admired by figures such as John Berger—come to her instead.

Her clarity (in some matters) is astonishing. At the same time, knowingly or unknowingly, her flaws seep through as well—that’s the distinctive quality of this book. But it’s also true that there isn’t a single writer or thinker in our country today who matches her sharpness of thought and writing. Had she written in Malayalam, she would likely have been forced into a diminished existence as “just abother woman writer.” Remember Madhavikutty (Kamala Das)? But she had a “reality distortion field” around her, Roy doesn’t—but still, they seemed to have understood each other.

It wouldn’t be wrong to call this book the political version of Ente Katha (My Story). Like Annie Ernaux, Roy writes about undergoing an abortion—but immediately after, on the very same day, she barely escapes two potential rape attempts. It’s there that you realize how unlikely Ernaux was to face such an experience, and you also see the roots of Roy’s peculiarities and raging anger.

That’s the only angle from which I can read this book.
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Everything in my room is blue. Teal walls. Curtains. My sheets. I console myself that it is a middle-class canon event to own floral bedsheets. Even my bath towel is blue. Blue is the color of the sky, and the sky, of vast, limitless things. It’s fitting, I suppose, with life being an ocean of choices, of turns taken and paths left behind.

Does anyone ever become what they wanted to be?

You start out with a clear picture in your head, a child’s handwriting on a piece of paper, a promise of becoming something. But life, as it turns out, is a master of illusion and redirection. Smoke and mirrors. The path isn’t as straight as you think. Some things just don’t work out. And that’s okay. Jobs, friendships, that exam you wanted to crack, and even the love your family can give you have their own shelf life. You think about those dreams buried under what you thought were better choices. Lost connections, people who were once so close they felt like family. You hear a song, and it takes you back. You drive past a street, and memories of shared laughter, midnight pizza runs, movies, and sleepovers flash in your mind.


Yet, you don’t linger. You can’t afford to linger.

What’s the point of dwelling on what could have been? What’s so good about revisiting the past, picking at old wounds until they bleed again? Reminiscence is a sadist’s business. We label it nostalgia and sell it with a whopping discount and a free dose of regret. Because it’s not always worth it. All it does is make you feel like you’ve been left behind, that your best days are in the rearview mirror. So you don’t linger. You let the ghosts of those possibilities, memories, and lost dreams pass through you. It’s like being pricked with a pin to jolt you back to your senses, to reality, to the road in front of you.

I’m not who I thought I’d be, but I’m here. The way ahead is confusing, and I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m here. The realization that you exist, you prevail, you survive, is a staggering spoiler for life. They say your hurt is a reminder that you lived, you cared; it proves you aren’t numb. But now, I don’t look back at what could’ve been, I don’t smile at old photos, I don’t think about mending those lost connections. There is a strange comfort in accepting what’s lost, that you don’t become everything you wanted to become. And maybe I’ve outgrown this blue. Maybe blue isn’t my color anymore.

പ്രണയത്തിൻ്റെ വിചിത്രതകൾ

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പരസ്പ്‌പരം പ്രണയിക്കുന്നവർ പല അസാധാരണ കാര്യങ്ങളും ചെയ്യുന്നു, ഒന്നുറക്കെ സംസാരിക്കാത്തവൻ ബസ്സിൽ വെച്ചവളെയുരസിയെന്ന് സംശയം പറഞ്ഞവനോടുറക്കെ കയർക്കുന്നു, ആട്ടിറച്ചിയോർക്കുമ്പോൾ മുട്ടനാടിൻ്റെ പുടയോർമ വരുന്നെന്ന് പറഞ്ഞവൾ അവനോടൊപ്പം മുട്ടനാടിൻ്റെ സുപ്പ് ആറ്റിയാറ്റികുടിക്കുന്നു. ധൈര്യമില്ലാത്തതുകൊണ്ട് പലപ്പോഴും തിരിഞ്ഞുനടന്നവൻ സീബ്രാ ക്രോസിലേക്കിറങ്ങി നിൽക്കുന്നു, ചീറിപാഞ്ഞുവരുന്ന സ്റ്റേറ്റ്ബസ്സിനെ കൈകാണിച്ചു നിർത്തി-യവളുടെ കൈ പിടിച്ച് റോഡ് മുറിച്ച് കടക്കുന്നു, കടൽവെള്ളത്തിനുപ്പു- വാടയാണെന്ന് പറഞ്ഞവൾ കഴുത്തറ്റം വെള്ളത്തിലവൻ്റെ കൂടെയിറങ്ങി നീന്തുന്നു, തിരകളെ തൊടുന്നു പ്രണയമെന്തൊരു വിചിത്രമാണല്ലേ?
കരുണ, ദയ, ദേഷ്യം, ചിരി, രുചി
കഠിന വികാരങ്ങൾക്കതൊരു
നേർത്ത വേദന പകരുന്നു!

The picture that remains

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Losing someone close is an experience/event unique and universal at the same time. You will never be able to explain the hollowness of it to someone. One seeks to find their outlets by indulging in certain activities, like what I’m doing now. But it can’t be explained, it can only be understood.
Like the creature Thestral from the Potter World, you can only see it if you have felt it. Thestrals in the real world are fear, the fear of seeing it over and over, the fear of it happening again, the unknown fear that clutches you in your sleep, the tip of an iceberg. You become apprehensive to get close to someone, you feel exhausted cos the brunt of love tires you.
Over the years, one may find their closure or perhaps may not. The cycle repeats and the coping mechanism starts again. Grief is a drug that you get dangerously addicted to and one that may often question your core, one that you don’t want to leave as it has become part of what you are.
But in between these often come the moments of peace, not everlasting, might be even of bubble life. Yet, it is important that those need to be cherished and lived. In those moments you will find your happy memory/picture.
Hold onto that, remember that.
It’s a strange feeling-moving from a city that wasn’t truly your home back to a place that has been home only for holidays. My room feels smaller somehow, as though it has shrunk with age, the walls closing in over the time I’ve spent away.

The piles of clothes on the chair, on the foot of the bed-they mock me, eternal monuments to my inability to keep my chaos contained – every tshirt folded is replaced by two. It’s funny. Chaos always finds its way back here, creeping into the crevices of my space and my mind. I tell myself it’s only because I’ve been away.

The bookshelf overflows with everything I’ve been promising myself I’d read. The dust they’ve collected and their stillness accuse me of neglect. “Hoarder,” they seem to hiss. Hoarder of dreams. Hoarder of plans. A hoarder of all the selves I could have been but am not. The curtains are drawn back, yet the light seems hesitant. Does it know it doesn’t belong here anymore?

I can’t remember the last time I read a book by the window or listened to the music of a thunderstorm in July. Where have the barn owls gone? Did the wind howl this December? I didn’t see the neighbor’s mangoes ripen or pause to smell the jackfruit in the air. I tell myself it’s only because I’ve been away.

This room used to keep the world at bay. Today, the home I left behind has become a relic of a life I can’t recognize, and the life I chased has left me untethered. Who am I? What am I doing? Where do I go from here? Every now and then, when I come home, I sit on the corner of the  bed, trying to piece together fragments of myself, but the seasons keep slipping past. The world outside moves on, and I remain here. And yet, the room doesn’t mourn. It simply exists, holding its shape. These teal walls are unforgivingly indifferent to my absence or return. Maybe I’ve outgrown these walls, unable to fit into the contours of a space I once called home. I tell myself it’s only because I’ve been away.

Another rant

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Some nights you think you might need someone to knock you out cold with a frying pan straight to your head. Because, that’s the only way you will sleep. You try all the quick fixes you know, from affirmations and boxed breathing to muscle relaxation techniques and pacing around your room. Even fishing out your medicine cabinet for cough syrup because that would definitely give you a good night’s sleep. Sadly, even those really tingly ASMR videos don’t work. It’s been a month since your last therapy session. You’ve slacked off. You thought you were getting better, didn’t you? Stop. Don’t go there.
You’re tired of assuming that you are making progress and then finding yourself back at the beginning. Learning, unlearning, again and again. All those pills and sessions for what? All to lie awake for countless nights recalling every mistake, every wrong turn you’ve made and every bit of hurt you’ve felt. All of that effort to just lie there and beg to some unknown force out there to make it all stop. You want it to just… stop.
No. Don’t think about that.
Now that you’ve started down that hopeless path of regurgitating the past, you’re a leaf caught in a whirlwind of regrets and negativity. You roll the dice. Each time it’s a familiar voice that echoes reminders of how insignificant, worthless, and unremarkable you are. That’s not true. Don’t do this again. I’m tired.
Oh, but you do it again. You can wake up early, work out, eat right, be nice, and try all you want. No matter how much you play it by the book you’ll be back here anyway. No, it’ll get better.
You’re stuck in a loop. Poor you, how pitiful.
There is no way out.
Darling, there is. You know it.
No, not that.
Why not? You do keep thinking about it. Breathe… 1, 2, 3, 4. Out… 1, 2, 3, 4
What are you waiting for?
Not tonight. Breathe… In. Out. In…
You’ll be back. I’ll meet you at the end of the lane then.
Not yet. Not just yet.
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She invites him to a dance.
He waltzes in, smiling.
And there she is,
Wearing dancing shoes and boxing gloves.
Thwack! And down he goes.

Picks himself up.
Goes home, wiser.
Slips into his dancing shoes,
And puts on his boxing gloves.
My turn, he says.

He invites her to a dance.
She waltzes in, smiling.
And there he is, Wearing dancing shoes and boxing gloves.
And so it begins…

The story, Of two people,
Trying to dance with each other,
Learning to take each other’s blows,
Winning. Losing. Together.

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BIRTHMARK ABOVE HER LIPS.

LIKE A WAYWARD SUN
OVER THE HORIΖΟΝ.
TEASING REASON.

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wish I could find more words,
but I surrender knowing that
you’ll write for me.
for my silence and our fragrance.
Find a way soon,
for my eyes are waiting.
to find you in the crowd,
as the scent of our poems
bring us closer

We’ll find the galaxies we missed,
and our fingers might read through the words we took so long to put together.

I see you through the unseen.
I hear you through the unsaid.
And I wonder, how your eyes
would hold the sky.

The wait

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two branches converge on the tree of life, growing together, drawing closer.
wind blows, storm lashes, sun glares
the branches bow –  heavier, wearier.

two branches diverge on the tree of life,
kindred spirits parting ways,
promising to grow around the obstacles.
Vowing to  meet again some day, perhaps.

time passes, space expands , seasons change.
wind blows, storm lashes, sun glares.
birds nest, leaves sprout, roots deepen.
the branches sprawl – stronger, wiser, thriving.

they run parallelly, seldom meeting
yet always looking out for each other.
when the wind blows and the storm lashes,
they dance together – far apart yet so close.

one fine day, the first blossom arrives,
reminding them of an old promise.
the branches draw closer once again
they converge, entangle – an eternal embrace.