Anni

 The Two Faces of My Girlfriend (2007 Korean movie)

Anni: Do u believe in god?

Guchang: I don’t know

Anni: This isn’t fair. He created us flawed. We should be recalled.

G: Recalled?

Anni: Yes. He might’ve forgotten about us... Should we remind him?

G: I wish I knew how.

Anni: Its easy. Watch me. 
(looks up to the sky and shouts) I do exist! 
 I..        DO…        EXIST!

 ***

There’s this song called… “Love is like raindrops outside the window”.

Question! Why is love like raindrops outside the window?

Because they evaporate! 
Not only do they evaporate… 
they leave stains behind. 
That’s love.
~Anni

***

You know what? I feel as if I never existed. 
My heart evaporating into nothing… 
You never felt that?
~Anni

 ***

Anni: What’s the relationship between us?

G: You’re the cigarrete and I’m an ashtray.

Anni: Why am I a cigarette?

G: Because I house the trouble that you cause.

Anni: So if I burn all the way, you’ll throw me away?

G: How can an ashtray throw a cigarette?

Anni: (smiles) You’re right.

 ***

Like a Memory of the Universe

My mind is like a clean slate. It is as if I was born today. Nobody taught me any ideas, nobody handed me any religion. I am free from all outside influence. I know nothing. I only see and sense for myself. And what do I experience…?

I find myself alone. I am just me. And there are million others, just like me, alone themselves. But we also have each other for company, for loving, for sharing and for supporting. We call them our friends and family. We see strangers everywhere- all of them with their own stories, each of them with their thousand experiences of life, filled with both sorrow and laughter. I see prosperity and comfort, and I see people sleeping on the roads, while i pass by them at night. I feel this whole cacophony of sounds and sights filling up my senses when I am amongst the world.

I hold a little baby in my arms and I see life that is innocent, alive and absolutely pure- the proof that perfection of life is a reality. I put her to sleep singing an old nursery rhyme and I feel I have lived well.

In the nights, I see the white moon, shining on quietly. It is so still and calm, although I know that it is moving all the time... When it rains, I get hold of a hot cup of coffee and sit by the window, watching the rain drops wet the leaves of the swaying happy trees and I feel intoxicated. While I travel to the hills, I see the clear night skies, filled with a million stars. I see the beautiful green pines and I see wild orchids in the meadows.

Sometimes i hear the notes of a haunting song that fills my heart with sad melancholy... 

I go to the seas and I feel an ancient tug inside me, as if the sea has been there since aeons and I have stood by it all the time – the sound of the waves, the salt in the air, the gravity of its depth, all so familiar. I have been there before… or am I just a dream, dreaming an old dream, in the memory of the universe… who am i, i often ask….

Never Let Me Go...

It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I'd known, maybe I'd have kept tighter hold of them and not let unseen tides pull us apart.

Kathy: I come here and imagine that this is the spot where everything I've lost since my childhood is washed up.

I tell myself, 

if that were true, 

and I waited long enough... 

then a tiny figure would appear on the horizon 

across the field and gradually get larger..

until I'd see it was Tommy.

He'd wave. And maybe call. I don't let the fantasy go beyond that... I can't let it.

I remind myself I was lucky to have had any time with him at all..

What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete.

Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time...

-Never Let Me Go (2010)

Uncertain Story of a Dark Rainy Night

Such a dark night it was, i still remember. I looked up at the sky from my bedroom window, and i could make out no star, no moon, not a flicker of any remnant of a light there might have been in the vast expanse above. Moments later, when i heard the thunder growling angrily, i realised how the dark clouds had covered all the goodness of the night sky. I waited. The rain should come falling down anytime now, i thought. Let it wash away the dust from the roofs of the forgotten cars, from the hidden crevices of the window sills, and from the very soil of the earth itself. Let it satiate the thirsty leaves of the tired trees and let it set free the desolate souls lying awake at this time of the night in their impoverished hopes.

I waited patiently. Let the rain come and play its music in the air. Let it drown all the echoes of the ages that have settled so stubbornly in various nooks and corners of the musty room inside my head. I need to get rid of them. I need some silence... And so i waited quietly... in anticipation and in some graceless impatience.

The very next moment, a lightning flashed and illuminated my dark room for a second. It took me some time to realise it, but i couldnt be mistaken... i clearly saw someone sitting in the corner next to the old wooden cupboard...

He was here. How did i miss it for so long, or did he just come in... I sat tensed and still for sometime in this sudden knowledge, and waited... "May be he will say something, I don't want to be distracted and miss his words. I have been waiting to hear the words for so long..." My heartbeats were gone for a toss, may be to some inhuman rate of pulsation, coz i could not breathe anymore, and yet, i was conscious and sparklingly more alive than usual. Was the oxygen in the air a little manipulated, or was i actually weightless...

Hours passed. We both kept sitting in the dark in each other's presence... not saying a word, yet saying everything..  all our heartaches, the missed tales, the unshared secrets... Rain had come and gone. The night was about to end, and suddenly, i feared the onslaught of the harsh dawn that would empty that corner of my room where he now sat. The bliss of his presence, the overflowing love in the room and his smell..... i couldnt bear to lose them... not again. No, they have to stay.

And even as a slight drizzle continued to wet and patter, I knew what i had to do... it was time...

It is all right and correct now. The world is alright now. The morning arrived, and my room was quite empty...

baarish

Der tak baithe hue,

dono ne baarish dekhi...

Wo dikhati thi mujhe, bijli ke taaro pe

latakti hui boondein,
jo taqub me thi ek dusre ke..
Aur ek dusre ko chhute hi, 

taaro se tapak jati thi..

Mujhko yeh fikr ke bijli ka current
chu gaya nangi kisi taar se toh
aag ke lag jane ka bhayas hoga...

Usne kaagaz ki kai kashtiyaan paani me utaari,
Aur ye keh ke baha di ke..

samander me milenge...

Mujhko ye fikr, ke is baar bhi

sailab ka paani...
Kud ke utrega kohsahr se jab..
tod ke le jayega

yeh kachhe kinaare..

Ouk me bharke wo barsaat ka paani...
adhbhari jheelon ko tarsaati rahi..
Wo bohut choti thi, kamsin thi,
woh masoom bohut thi..
Aavisharon ke tarannum pe
kadam rakhti thi... aur goonjti thi..

Aur main umr ke ifkaar me ghoom...
tajurbe-humraah liye...,
saath hi saath mein
behta hua...chalta hua... behta gaya....

Gulzar (Kab Aate Ho)

The Theory of Constant Count of Souls

I have invented a theory... which, well, i dont believe in much. However, i have thought of this theory, which is as follows:

The total sum of the number of Souls in this world remains constant

over any given period of time.

This theory supports the hindu belief in reincarnation of souls. As they say in the Bhagavad Gita: 'Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and puts on new ones."

So when one dies, there is transmigration of the soul and it takes on another suitable body, with some desirable circumstances, e.g. with regards to situation and family, specific to that particular soul. This theory also supports that all souls are at different stages of evolution. Thats why we see so many different types of people- some so good and some so lost... Isnt that also the reason why all babies are so similar but so different..? They all come with a personality of their own... Some like music, some like to laugh, some are restless, some are peaceful...

So, anyways, the theory says that at any given point in time, the number of living beings on earth is same. When one creature dies, another gets born. There may be some time-gap though, where the soul is 'in-between', getting over the whole just-over-life experience. But all in all, the number of lives on earth is constant over a given period of time.

This would reconciliate the theory of reincarnation with the issue of growing human population. This would answer how we have so many more people now since the early ages, and where these new souls (people) came from. So now we can explain it through this theory: these new souls have been upgraded from the level of plants, animals, insects, extinct species... and likewise, many unworthy human souls may also be downgraded to lower forms of life. And this cycle keeps on happening all the time.

When the human population, which is presently peaking towards a dangerous 7.3 billion by 2030, collapses eventually, it would lead to flourishing of other more-deserving, less-selfish species. The earth shall be filled with truly good souls then...

Well, this theory has an inherent short-coming, which it shares with what the world of science also finds hard to explain. And that is the Origin of the Universe. How, when and why the earth was created? And then, if these x number of souls were created at that point in time (during the big bang or whatever), or if these were created over billions of years, starting with 1, till it reached this constant 'ideal' value x, or if they have existed from eternity.

And if all these souls were created all at once, what were these souls doing when there were no life forms to inhabit... Another question is, what happens to the highly evolved souls? Whereto from here, buster? Since this theory propounds that the number of living beings is constant, the enlightened souls may simply start the whole evolution process again- from scratch... like at the level of a cyanobacteria... err, that prospect is quite uninspiring. Anyways, who am i to have all the answers.

Like i wrote in the beginning, I dont believe in this theory at all. (And the existence of an entity called 'Soul' could just be a wishful myth).

Paradoxes of Life

Questions of life, universe and everything... we may choose to think about them, we may ignore them, and yet nothing changes. Life goes on as it is supposed to go on. We may choose to make life complicated, and we may keep it simple, and neither idea would be false. For, this life is as paradoxical as the word paradoxical itself.

Life is beautiful- extremely, unimaginably, fantastically... magically. And life is tragic- extremely, intolerably, cruelly... Your heart could be full of laughter one day and the next morning, you could be thrown down the harsh precipice of eternal sorrow.

Life is mundane, and life is unpredictable. Life lets you breathe, and life breaks your wind pipe and takes the mortal energy out of you in a whiff. Beautiful life. Cunning life. Merciful. Harsh. Every moment is a new chapter, every day a new beginning. What has happened in the past is dead and gone, and yet no matter how much you try, you cannot forget the past, for you are what you have been, not what you will become. 

The world is so full and all of us are so lonely... Life is long and yet so short. There is god and there is no god anywhere... 

Tears and laughter, love and hatred, everything that you wish for and everything you abhor, this life brings to you all without rhyme or reason. Our minds are volatile and we keep thinking of 'stuff'. We live and we die, and still this life, the universe and everything, goes on and on... cruelly, intolerably, heartlessly...