Talent is a Four Letter Word



Talent is the most useless thing to have. Because being talented doesn't encourage you to change yourself and adapt. But it still gets you the results. But what happens when things change and require you to adapt. The results stop coming and then an amazing realization dawns upon you - 'Change is very hard to make'. To put it short, you are in the middle of nowhere and stuck without a map or a compass.

So am I arguing that talent is totally not required? Not at all. All I am saying is that talent is over-rated. Take a cricketer as an example; you don't have to master all the shorts to become a good batsman. Sourav Ganguly mastered the drive and the cut and ended up scoring more than 10,000 international runs. His talent wasn't even comparable to Sachin's or Dravid's, but he was as popular and successful too. His attitude led him to cover his weaknesses and use his strengths. His success only proves that talent is useless unless you know how to use it.

Nothing drives home a point than a comparable analogy. Here is one for this. Talent is like water in a bucket and attitude is like the bucket that gives shape to the water. A bucket without water is of no use and water without a bucket is lost. My point: even a small drop of water needs a bucket to give it shape.

This article was inspired after watching this video by Harsha Bhogle.

The Vanilla Theory And Carnatic Music

The book Freakonomics inspired me to think of reasons beyond the obvious for everyday phenomena. And as an amateur classical musician I often wonder why Carnatic music, arguably the most evolved art form in the world, is not popular with the masses. Interestingly Steven Levitt (author of Freaknomics) and Thomas Friedman (author of ‘The World Is Flat’) combine in ways that they not of to offer a solution to this phenomenon.

The obvious reason that any Tom, Dick and Harry would give for this trend is that Carnatic music is boring to the average listener. While empirical evidence would support that view, it is my opinion this is only half the truth. And you know what they say about half truths?

“Vanillas simply don’t sell in today’s world”, goes an expression used by Thomas Freidman in ‘The World Is Flat’. Simply put, it means that you would rather gas up your car at a station where your car’s glasses are wiped for free, where the air is checked for free and where you can have the option of shopping or guzzling down a pizza, than at a station that only fills your tank. The latter variety of petrol bunk is simply a vanilla. The former is like vanilla ice-cream mixed with black forest and with chocolate sauce and nuts as toppings and also served in a fancy cup that carries the logo of your favourite actress. Should I even ask which one made your mouth water?

Apply the same analogy to music. Carnatic music is a vanilla - plain, simple yet delightful to taste and something that is easy to relate to. And film music like the ones made by geniuses like AR Rahman and Ilayaraja resemble the second variety of ice-cream – it has vanilla and a lot more. Go back to what Thomas Friedman said – “Plain vanillas don’t sell in today’s world”. And that, I believe is the reason why the high degree of evolution in Carnatic music does not add up to popular appeal. There is no problem with the vanilla; it is simply that the vanilla doesn’t sell by itself anymore.

This is just my view on this issue. It may be correct or it may be wrong, because it is just a hypothesis.

So where do I stand on my own explanation? Obviously the second form ice-cream with all the chocolate sauce and nuts, appeals to me. But the taste of the simple vanilla is lost in this. And nothing beats the simple vanilla ice-cream. Vanilla need not be a hot favourite for it to be mine. 

To My Valentine, With Love

When I first saw you walk past me,

I knew you were special.

When I first spoke to you.

I knew you were a delight.

When I first held your hand,

I knew you were the one.

But when I wondered how to call you,

I didn't have an answer.

Friend? Crush? Girlfriend? I don't know,

Wonder how we still keep going though

without giving this a name.

Will it still feel the same,

if I give it a name? Or

will it restrict the freedom we always had?

I can't count the Feb 14s that have gone by,

and I can't count the numerous chances

that I have had to call you my valentine.

Will I have another chance? I don't know.

So here goes. My sweet Valentine,

Let's make it through for another year.

I Lost Her To The Wind.

I knew her for a few months only.

We laughed and fought like never before.

She spoke to me like none ever did.

Life was bliss, till the winds of change started to blow.

Walking by the side of a lake, a strong gust of air blew past us.

Her hair was dancing to the tunes of the wind, when she broke the news to me.

The winds of change blew too fast for either of us to stand ground.

And before I knew it, she was sending me forwards from a far off place.

Beside her, I wanted to stay for a long while. But why is it

that the wind blew away only her and left me standing.

Will it ever blow her back to me? - If only I could ask the wind.

I lost her. I lost her to the wind.

Ravanan Sequel - 2 (The Plot)

The Plot:

Prabhu and Veera had never been away from each other for more than a day. Since the day Veera was born, Prabhu was his caretaker. He stood with him through thick and thin. Veera always had Prabhu as his consigliere. But the recent events brought about a distance in their relationship. Prabhu did not like Veera running after another man’s wife. He felt it was ok to kidnap and kill another man’s wife, but not steal her away from her husband. So he decided, for the first time in his life, to part ways with Veera. He was happy that Veera was up and running again but refused to be a part of his next move. He went back to the village to live with Ranjitha. (She’s back..!)

The sun rose over the Mettukudi Police Head Quarters. It was a typical day for Commissioner Dev, until his private cell phone rang. It was Sanjeev, the trusted forest officer. He had some news about Veera’s whereabouts and wanted to know if the Commissioner was going to go after him again. Dev hung up. He closed his office door and walked up to the blinds. He did the math, and it was very obvious to him that Veera had leaked the information about his location to Sanjeev. He did this so that Dev would come to that exact spot and be sitting ducks for him to kill. Despite the fact that he guessed the obvious, Dev decided to go for it. He knew that if he surprised Veera, he would get him for good this time.

Veera splashed water from a rivulet on his face and flashed his characteristic smile. He drew happiness on seeing his reflection in the water. He knew Dev would come after him. And he knew that Dev would spring a surprise on him at the last moment. But Veera was well prepared. Come dusk, he knew what he had to do to complete a bloodless revolution.

As the sun faded away behind the mountains, it was show time. Dev moved into the forest with a heavily armed group of cops in mufti. Sanjeev was by his side and guiding him through the rough terrain. Veera, meanwhile, slowly slipped into the rivulet. He tenderly waded his way through the water. He knew he had to swim for quiet some distance and wanted to conserve his energy. It was nearing seven o’clock now and the forest was very dark. The only light came from the torches of the cops. Dev stopped a kilometer before the spot of the encounter. He briefed his men about the plan. There was almost complete silence as he spoke. The only noise came from Sanjeev as he helped himself to a fruit from a tree top.

Veera, occasionally looked on the sides to see if he was attracting any attention. It was quiet but not completely silent. He knew that the dice had started rolling. With renewed adrenalin, Veera continued swimming. He was only a few minutes away from the spot he had in mind. Dev and his men took their positions. Their first step was to wait for some kind of noise or movement. Sanjeev did the aerial surveillance. They stood with their guard ready. Once Veera was spotted, Dev would take the first shot.

Veera slowly slipped out of the water. He made as little noise as possible. He couldn’t risk being heard or seen, especially with the number of policemen surrounding the area he was in. He worked the lock on the back door and moved in stealthily. He opened the door to what he guessed might be the correct room. And there she was, resting on the ground. Her legs were closely tucked to her body and her hands were supporting her face. Aishwarya was lying tenderly and sleeping off the warmth of her self. Seeing her was worth every bit of the pain that Veera had endured. Things had come a full circle since the last time he had last seen her. He had to wake her up before Dev came back.

It had been almost thirty minutes since Dev and his men took positions. There was no sign of Veera anywhere. Even a cow herd had passed once. It was becoming increasingly  clear to Dev that this whole thing was a fake. But why, he kept wondering. Only then it struck him, that Aishwarya was alone at home. He quickly called off the plan and rushed towards to Forest Officer’s building. He wanted to call the policemen at his house as quickly as possible. But Veera was ahead of Dev on that count. He had worked the telephone wires before slipping into the rivulet. Dev was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no telephone and no signal to call from his mobile. It would take him at least an hour to reach a place with mobile connectivity. By that time Veera would have been long gone, with Aishwarya.

As he moved towards her, Veera was brimming with happiness. What he felt for her was not love, was not lust. It was special bond that transcended the realms of a conventional relationship. He had never felt anything like that before, and that was why he risked everything to be there. It was a one shot chance and he had done very well so far. As he neared her, Aishwarya woke up. She looked at him with mixed emotions of surprise, happiness and fear. She had spent months coming out of those gloomy fourteen days she spent with him. But now, on seeing him again she was back at the same place. Mixed feelings of anger, joy and desolation swept across her face. Veera hadn’t said a word, but already she was a changed person. Aishwarya’s fragile notion of normalcy once again collapsed. But, despite what she felt, Aishwarya turned away and refused to look at Veera directly. She walked away from him and he followed her. He moved to her front and looked at her in the eye. She refused to look at him. Her coldness caused Veera to lose his composure. The voices in his head started screaming once again. For months he had lived without them. She stepped back a few steps and with this Veera lost all the strength he had magically gained. The realization that Aishwarya wasn’t going to come with him struck him hard. All the effort that he had put in was going to waste. He had disconnected himself from his family, people thought he was dead; he managed to keep Dev on the run, and yet he was about to fail. He moved towards the door once again. He turned to look at her one last time. But she didn’t even look at him. Veera didn’t want to stay there a second longer and walked out. He slipped into the rivulet and headed towards the forest.

Dev drove as fast as he could. He still hadn’t reached a place with mobile connectivity. If only he could magically jump like Sanjeev.

Aishwarya leaned against the wall of her room. There were times when she wished she was dead. Her strong notions of good and bad were torn apart. Just as she was she was forgetting everything that she was uncomfortable with, Veera had arrived; and with him all those feelings. She knew she had done the right thing by not going with Veera. But the burden of the decision had taken a big toll on her. She had to live with the choice she had made. And she wasn’t comfortable with it. Of the many times that she wished that her life had ended, now was when she really felt it. As she lay against the wall in her darkly lit room, an earthquake struck the picturesque town of Meetukudi. Though not massive, it was strong enough bring down city’s tenderly built houses. Aishwarya’s body was recovered from the rubble the next day morning. Fate, it seems had heard her prayers.

Veera reached a secret location inside the forest. He sat there all by himself, not knowing what to do next. It was not often that a man like him didn’t know the directions of life. He laid himself on a long bed of rock and looked into the sky. Out of nowhere a gun popped into his vision. He looked up and noticed that a man was holding a revolver with one hand. Priyan had tracked down Veera and knew where he stayed. He was tired of Veera ruining his life. It was his marriage first and now his hand. He wanted revenge for being impaired for life. Veera looked at him and just as he was about to make a move with his leg, a bullet pierced his flesh. He had known the pain of a bullet before. But last time, he had a reason to live. The hope of a new journey kept him alive. Now, he was a resigned man. He looked at his nemesis one last time before closing his eyes forever.

Ravanan Sequel - 1

I saw Ravanan yesterday night and ever since I came out of the movie hall, I had been wanting to write a sequel to the movie. But why a sequel to this movie? I was inspired by Mani Rathnam’s audacity in portraying traditionally accepted good characters with negative shades. Such multi-hued lead characters are typical of Mani ( Nayagan, Dalapathi are a few movies in the same league). Also, the show Prison Break had a big impact on me. The show lived on the kind of thing that I am attempting to do.

(I know it's really long for a blog post, but since the story is a known one, reading this shouldn't be a problem)

For the sake of interesting reading, I will name the characters as follow,

Aishwarya Rai – Aishwarya

Vikram – Veera

Prithviraj  – Dev

Prabhu – Prabhu

Karthik - Sanjeev

My adaptation starts from the scene where Veera falls from the cliff. He is hit by several bullets, but is smiling as he falls down. He is not yet dead and Prabhu is waiting at the bottom of the cliff with the villagers, all holding a well spread net to catch Veera.

Veera lands on the net, the fall made him unconscious. But Prabhu could sense pulse in Veera’s hands and took him for treatment. He could not believe that Aishwarya would come back just to kill Veera, and help her husband settle score. He vowed to strike back at her some day.

Aishwarya was devastated. She could not believe that Dev would use her like that and get back at Veera. She didn’t know if she had to feel happy for her husband or sad for Veera or feel disgusted for being used like a pawn. As the smoke from the gun shots cleared, Dev ran towards Aishwarya and hugged her. He whispered in her ears, “I came for you”. If I didn’t do this, he would come back and get you once again”. He looked into her eyes with all the love in the world, hoping to see at least some of it in her. What he saw was a plain and a bland reaction.

Aishwarya had been through a lot over the last few days. Her world changed from being snow white to shades of black and white, interspersed with no apparent meaning. She had strongly hated Veera till a few days back. But the side of the daredevil that she saw in the last few days, combined with Dev’s harsh words, changed her world for good. The experience made her see black on a white canvass and white in the dark night sky.

The villagers who rescued Veera gave their best in treating him. The bullets were no more in his body. But the bleeding didn’t stop. He needed a special herb located on the other end of the forest. Though he knew where to find the herb, Prabhu needed someone to bring them in a couple of hours else Veera would die of blood loss. Going to the hospital wasn’t an option, as that would only risk Veera’s life. So Prabhu walked to the forest officer’s building. He knew that the one man who could bring the herbs quickly was inside.

Officer Sanjeev, always had a liking for Veera. But he felt that Veera had crossed the line by kidnapping the wife of police officer Dev. So, it took Prabhu some time to convince Sanjeev to get the herbs. Sanjeev didn’t like helping Prabhu, but couldn’t go against the word of the head of the village, where he had to live. Reluctantly, he agreed. And in less than an hour, he fetched the herbs from the plant Sanjeevi and gave them to Prabhu. He knew that Veera would be alive with these herbs and so had to inform the developments to one other person.

Dev and Aishwarya had re-started their lives. The last two months were hard for them as a couple. But they fought their way through the travails. Aishwarya immersed herself in dance. And Dev encouraged her. He thought that dance was the ideal distraction for her to bury the past. But Dev, though he never followed Aishwarya’s dance, started noticing the increasingly dark themes that Aishwarya started to present. He got a feeling that he was losing her for good. He had come to know that Veera had survived the shoot-out, but couldn’t find him anywhere. To the outside world, Veera was dead. Only the villagers in the forest, Sanjeev and he knew that Veera was alive. He was wondering if Aishwarya also knew.

Enter Veera:

In a cave, deep inside the forest, Veera sat with Prabhu alongside him. Veera was recovering well but the gun-shots and the poor medical care made his body weak. But Veera fed on a new kind of strength, one that was previously unknown to him. The strength of conviction made Veera look more majestic than before. Previously he was just a soldier fighting for the down-trodden. Now he was a crusader; someone who had a purpose and a cause to fight for. The happiness that he derived when he saw Aishwarya before being shot, kept him going through all the pain and suffering. He remembered her saying that she wanted to stay with him before he set her free. Aishwarya’s presence on the cliff subsequently led him to conclude whatever he had in his mind. He was pretty sure that she would never be happy with Dev again, after the way he manipulated her. Veera was waiting to be up on his feet once again and bring Aishwarya back. To him, her life with Dev now, was the same as her life with him for those fourteen days. She lived under his captivity during that time. Now she lived in society’s captivity – a married woman had no choice but to live with her husband, even though it she didn’t like it. Veera was not the one to care much for society. He was waiting for the right time to strike. The hunter became the hunted and vice versa. The strange quirks of fate had made everyone circumstantial criminals.

(The plot is in the next post, click here)

A Case of Karma & Animal Instinct

For as long as I could remember, I used to crib about my life’s failures to my parents. I used to complain about how I could have become a successful cricketer, if only I had pursued it. I grumbled about how despite being a smart student, a good college and a good job had eluded me. I always felt that I never got my due in life. Whenever good things happened to others, the grumpy old man in my 20 year old body opened up to my parents.

My parents dealt with this very calmly. They never felt I was any less of an achiever than the people around me. They were staunch Hindus, the kind who never get perturbed about results but keep doing their job. My father kept telling me that Karma was the reason why good things eluded me and kept urging me not to worry. But his explanation of Karma did little to reassure the grumpy old man in me. My father had the habit of reading the scriptures to search for an answer to life’s problems but my belief system was different from his and consequently, I found no solace in either his words or books. But all this changed on the day Julie gave birth.

A few months ago, my nine year old cousin, Varshika, stayed with us for a week during her summer vacation. She was crazy about pets and somehow befriended animals within moments of interacting with them. Her most famous conquest is a deer, when she was living in Japan. One afternoon during her stay with us, she saw a cat running in the backyard and within a few minutes she was feeding milk to it. She even named her Julie. For the brief period of her stay, Varshika played with Julie all day. My parents and I never got close though. We were too uptight to let it come close to us. Julie found herself a safe place in our portico and kept showing up everyday. When Varshika returned to Bangalore, she had left us with a hungry cat that kept running around our legs.

Neither my parents nor I liked pets. We were too involved in our lives to provide an animal a proper home. But Julie left us with no other option but to take care of it. My mother’s job was starting to squeeze her but still she found time to feed Julie with milk every morning and night. Julie realized this and came to our home only when we were about to feed it. This worked for us, as we didn’t have to take care of it, but still had the joy of feeding it.

Meanwhile, Varshika’s constant pestering for a pet bore fruit. Her parents got her a well bred dog. Varshika named her Willow. Willow was the cynosure of their family’s life. She had the liberty to lick her masters and defecate anywhere in the house. She was a part of their family.

After a few months, at about the same time, both Willow and Julie were to become mothers. Julie returned to the portico and kept running there all day. She used to leap at us whenever we entered home, apparently in need of love. She had developed a rash on one of her legs. Though we wanted to take her to a vet, we never found the time or interest to do so. My mom had lost her job by this time and was terribly upset. Though she was too depressed to respond to Julie’s changed situation, she never stopped feeding her twice a day. After a few days, Julie’s excitement also reduced but she had made her home in our portico.

Willow, meanwhile was living the high life. Her nutritious vegetarian diet would have been the envy of most dogs. My aunt took her to a vet every week for vaccination shots. Varshika even took pictures of pregnant Willow and uploaded them on Orkut.

As time passed, Julie probably realized that she was due any day and start scouting for a place inside our house. We drove her out every time she came in. Sometimes we had to lift her up and drop her off in the portico. We didn’t like ourselves for it, but there was no way we could start sheltering her now. It would be a bigger responsibility with the kittens due shortly. On a particular Friday night, she was last seen when we were feeding her. Her playful moan had gotten coarse over the last few weeks.

Julie didn’t turn up on Saturday morning for milk. She was nowhere to be seen for the whole day. We assumed that she had found a safe place to give birth but didn’t know where. When I returned from work on Saturday evening, I was shocked to see Julie with six tiny kittens under my bed. My room was located on the first floor and the door was closed all day. Somehow she had found a way to enter through the open window and ensconce herself in what must have been the only safe location she knew. The sight of the once playful Julie, now looking scared made me feel happy and sad at the same time. She was clinging onto us, even though we never gave it proper care.

The sight of Julie covering the kittens with her body and looking at me with fear in her eyes made me wonder about the difference in the lives of  Willow and Julie; both domestic animals and equally worthy of love. In our case we didn’t give Julie the perfect setting for giving birth, but my cousin showered Willow with all the love in the world. Why didn’t we do more to look after Julie, even when we had been seeing Willow all along? Somewhere here, I was able to draw a parallel between my life and Julie’s. I had been constantly cribbing about not getting my due in life. My father always said that it was because of Karma but I never bought that. But when I juxtapose the image of a scared Julie protecting its kittens from the people of the very house it had chosen, and the image of Willow returning from the vet, I could think of Karma being the only reason for the difference. After that, my dad’s words sounded a little better than blah blah blah.

Julie is now safe with all her six kittens. We tucked her into a cardboard box underneath the stairs. We still feed her twice a day. No, we do not plan to raise them. When the kittens grow up a little bit and are able to defend themselves from stray dogs, we plan to let them run off.