Truly. The Greatest.

When I heard the news of Ali’s passing away, this is what struck me – Boxing was a sport then when he used to play it. Well, that sums it up. Muhammad Ali for me, was one of the greatest sportsman who bought glory to perhaps the ugliest and nastiest game in our sporting history. Rest, I don’t want to know. Rest, as they say, is history.
Prudently, I am not a big devotee of the sport itself, have never been. Boxing for me, is Raging Bull and Rocky Balboa. I watched a glimpse of his heydays in the documentary, ‘Facing Ali’. Honestly, I have never ventured beyond the cinematic versions of the sport that itself is on its way to redemption. But, I know who Muhammad Ali is. I always did.

Influential people have always inspired me. I look up to them for achieving the glorious applause of life, and their way of conducting themselves towards the pinnacle of life gets my adrenaline flowing. Muhammad Ali is perhaps, and quite courageously, the man of the moment.

He doesn’t belong to my generation, he retired from the sport when I was at the peak of infancy. The sport he played and conducted himself in is a dying art today. But Ali has been a patriarch of the sport itself that possesses very few superstars – am leaving out the self-acclaimed ones for a different chapter. Yet, the fact that Ali stood out in my memories through history and my education of sports is in itself, an enormous tribute to his stature.

Muhammad Ali has been a saga of adverse episodes and staggering accomplishments. His emergence as Cassius Clay, conversion to Islam, being jailed for refusing to participate in the Vietnam war, his unsurpassable feat of winning the heavy weight championships a record 3 times, his iconic bouts with contemporaries like Joe Frazier and George Foreman, being a civil rights activist and ferociously outspoken sportsman (one of his kind in his generation), being at the helm of propagating and encouraging medical institutions to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease (PR). He just wasn’t a sportsman and a boxer, his fight lasted outside his ring and his victories were far greater and noble than what he achieved within his squadron.

My take on Muhammad Ali is that of his adversaries. (Borrowed from ‘Facing Ali’) A fierce competitor, a through professional and a gentleman who held the sport in high esteem. He fought hard, in the rings and outside it.

Very few can garner such respect, even in those evergreen days. This is my derivative of Muhammad Ali.

Image Courtsey: Time Magazine Cover, June 2016 edition.

red rays of life

Bustling vehicles, day settling down with the magical fervor of a juggling magician. Human traffic, a serenade of a metropolis with the advent of never ending tales. Fun, attraction, jubilation, never ending little packets of joy, waiting for those irresistible new beginnings. It’s a wait for life, by life and to live life.

The Judicial Jeopardy

Regional films are often relegated to the sidelines when compared to the more glamorous and perceived world of cinema. Well, that’s the choice you and me have made (grins!). But, now and then, I have seen quality scripts coming out from the regional world of cinema that deserves subjugation of twin elements – money and media. ‘Court’ is one such film that inclines me towards the deprived vicinities of this glorious silver screen.

A local artist who claims himself to be a folk singer and a teacher with a past of tiny little political affiliations, 2 lawyers and a judge, slithering appearances of ad-hoc nature. With such an abysmal line of casting, it’s quite amazing how the film begins to shape itself with the judicious realities of life. The plot is not about the characters the actors play, the characters are in itself a plot that courageously spades through the context of each other’s lives. They don’t collide, but have this inconvenient resemblance in terms of how their lives have been raised amidst colossal grapevine.

It does have this unscrupulous similarity with the classic ’12 Angry Men’, though the spectacular film cum documentary witnessed some iconic conversations that define the law book in terms of questioning skills and eliminating the veracious factors. ‘Court’ is more of a monologue fabric wherein the characters are generally submissive about the facts but intention is to be fair and kind. It is also the ultimate reflection of our famed judicial system that’s so hopelessly driven by toothache evidences and situational grievances.

‘Court’ clearly established the consortium of values and relationships that form the very basis for a human being to judge, navigate, negotiate and conclude. On the contrary, the ‘accused’ isn’t the only accused around. The judge, the lawyers, the cops, the witnesses – all involved components have their own derivation of justice, and in a society rammed by diversities, our conclusions are the remains of how, why and who. Inclusively, these components arrive from the respective layers of the societies each of us belong to.

‘Court’ is a tribute to the world of cinema. Equally, it’s a disdain to the laws we are governed by.

 

playing days

Rain. Football. Wet legs, wetter grass. Dirty shoes. Hot tea. Don’t go home. Get wet. Complete package.

ghosts of surrogacy

The verdict is unanimous. Motherhood is the most valuable, cherished and celebrated role a woman can ever adore. But, are we only talking about emotions or emotions that perk their way out amidst growing impotency and manufactured behaviour?

Difficult questions but of late, the insurgency amongst the growing existence of surrogate mothers brings us to a more intricate and uncomfortable question – is it all about the result alone or the more viable human intelligence that’s embroiled in a tornado of emotions – the body, the pain, the bonding, the togetherness, the feeling of being massively responsible for a beautiful off spring.

Renting a womb is serious business – well, scary business. Yes, I hate to say that but we must live in gross reality and that I am deemed to dwell upon. If you are trying to pounce and retaliate, then you have a big world outside your window and its time we creep out to understand how disasters have changed in to a blessing. Last week, I did read about a very disturbed article on how surrogate mothers are a popular trend today – yes, disturbing for me as however contemporary I may be, I still belong to the old school especially if we are talking about childbirth.

I totally appreciate the advancements done in the field of technology – not in medicines alone. But the ability of creating test tube babies is giving is the moral incentive to go beyond the standard nomenclatures and lure people in to pseudo reproduction techniques. I admit, that such techniques can be a boon but finding genuinely pure cases is an impossible task. No, I don’t find it detrimental since it gives us a way to have children without the culmination of 2 individuals of opposite sex. I am happy with the advent of our science but this has led to an improbable state of migrant relationships with awful meanings.

Add to the dilemma, the target audience are the less financially capable families but immensely fertile to endure the organic remains of a complete stranger. In short, the womb is mine, the pain is mine, the care is mine but the associated semen belongs to an unknown, preferably called the ‘customer’. For few lakhs (sometimes even less), our women get in to this ordeal as ‘baby producing machines’. Little is thought about the aftermath or as matter of fact, how reliable is this source of sustenance that’s getting them in to this world of reproduction is a question that will seldom have answers.

For a moment, say, I channelize my thoughts and become this insanely progressive person who believes in the phenomenon of surrogacy. The organisations affiliated with such cause must be certified and recognised (either by the government or privately), governance needs to be established and transparent. ‘Come and fly’ approach is demeaning the concept of surrogacy, more significantly when our mindset and ground circumstances don’t sit in the same place.

Way forward or not, we must brace ourselves with the integrity first, let the other conglomerate factors follow later.

perfection lives through ignorance

Perfection does not lead you to oblivion, it gets you closer to it. Doesn’t matter how long you practiced it, you will fall short as long as excellence chases you.

It isn’t naïve to believe am not perfect, no one is. When people say ‘I am Perfect’, it means the individual is good at something that you are not. He is better, probably much better, but isn’t God. You are good at something he almost doesn’t practice but you don’t tell him. You either don’t care or you can’t. You are mortal.

I say ‘am perfect’ 100 times in a day. The other person across doesn’t respond, not because he isn’t perfect but he fears that revealing the core definition of perfection might self-inflict a sense of animosity towards the integration of human behaviour. Saying ‘I am’ is much easier than saying ‘I am not’.

Nothing is perfect, at the sub conscious level. Work without policies, roads without rules, night without day, shade without trees, achievements without failures. All of these is something we all would like to happen but the tide is never on your side, so is the story here.

Perfection has no alibi. You can be near prefect, be the champion in what you do, encapsulate theories through the palm of your hand and be a master story teller. But, yet, still, no alibi. No persuasion. No stimulants.

Random genius, an act of isolated phenomena, an occurrence coming out from lady luck, camouflage, acts out of prejudice. None is perfection.

Being despicable isn’t an invited proposition, never with perfection. But can glide over, when required. Not inane, but certainly susceptible.

Yes. I agree. My days are far away, and reachable. 

being posthumous

‘Celebrate people when they are alive, gives us a reason to believe why they deserved it’. @msksmiles

It’s time we push ourselves to a notch higher were people and their achievements are acknowledged on time. My anguish is pretty much in terms of our award system, be it in/for excellence in any field. I would love to believe that most of the coveted renderings aren’t manufactured, yet it makes sense to award someone when he/she realises and is able to cherish the fact that he/she is being awarded/appreciated/lauded. At the outset, we still have a long way to go when it comes to recognition of human achievements and their monumental impact on the world affairs.

This is familiar characteristic in the media industry, especially films, since it happens to be the most visible and popular. It pre exists in the field of science and politics as well but it isn’t as imperative as the achievements and their acknowledgement is often deemed implicit. But does it demand anonymity is a question to be asked. More significantly, human achievements are not bound by or for laurels, they are a work of magical minds and herculean efforts. If they cant sit on trophies, I don’t think trophies can sit on them. They would rather grace them with their enamoured hands, with a smile and a sense of umpteen satisfaction.

Food for thought?

‘Mother’ of all happiness

You do have many names – Mom, Amma, Ma. But all of them get equated to the same level of dignified poise that you continue to epitomise throughout our lives. We were born, we grew up, we told you we love you and we hate you, we still grew up, we finished school and college, got a job, got married.. the saga of plutonized evolution continued and still continues. But over the years, you have not changed. We have always taken you for granted but your sacrifices never went un-granted. Thank you isn’t the word you deserve because we can never thank you enough. Amma, we just don’t love you, we adore you. You are the powerhouse of our lives.

And, ironically, it will always be an icing on the cake for you – Happy Birthday Mom.

the pious piece

One of my most worshipped places. The goddess of ultimate victory, the sound of lashing waves through the holy Ganga, the colossal view of Bally, the shrine where the famous dialogue took place, perhaps a monologue of a saint is the brimming moment of truth.

Standalone

It’s not the stature that always counts. It’s the attempt to touch the sky that evokes a cacophony of myriad ruptures. Like, fugitives in search of salvation. Like, mortals reaching out to immortals. I like the canvas, what urges brilliance is the modus operandi.

roadmap

Steering thought process, courageously striving through. Not the shadows, rays get me inspired.