Pinter Prattle.

Harold Pinter’s plays are metaphors for experiences of our own modern, desiccated lives. His plays are like ticking bombs, which pulsate with resonant silences and pound with booming pauses. Typically set in a tiny room of a middle class household, all his plays have ordinary people for protagonists. They are often tormented, troubled and wearied by their existence. His characters cringe, whisper, bark and bellow at each other. But they never talk to each other. Yet conversation is the corner stone of his plays. If conversation ceases, the characters too would cease. Malevolent and sinister, there is often an unknown threat lurking somewhere which is never understood or explained. His characters, almost like dangerous predators struggle for identity and survival. Language morphs into a dangerous weapon and beneath the words there is palpable silence of wrath, fear and power. This style, classic to Pinter is what has today come to be described as ‘Pinteresque’.

This is the legacy Harold Pinter left when he finally succumbed to cancer on 24th December 2008. Born to Jewish parents in London, on 10th October 1930, Pinter was multifaceted; an actor, poet, playwright, director and political activist all rolled into one. He wrote his first play The Room in 1957. The Birthday Party (1957), The Dumb Waiter (1957), The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming ( 1964), No Man’s Land ( 1974) and Mountain Language (1988) are the most popular among his output of over thirty plays. He is also remembered for the screenplay for films like The Quiller Memorandum (1965) and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). Pinter was not just a playwright who wrote to entertain. His career was chequered with controversy. An obvious left sentiment often shows through in most of his works. In later years Pinter became more overtly political and a bitter critic of American policies and acts of war. Pinter’s Nobel Speech of 2005 registers his dissent in clear words, “I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever.”

Pinter, one of the greatest comic writers of recent years, took his comedy very seriously. His plays sometimes abrupt, sometimes funny, often inexplicable unravel the absurdities of our own time by forcing entry into oppressive, closed rooms and indulging in precious little prattle. The result, powerful plays loaded with pauses and exploding with silences. It is little wonder then that Harold Pinter will be best remembered for giving us the ‘Pinteresque’ mode of life and plays.

A Rant..

I'm in a madddd mooood.
Mad meaning, fun madddd moood. I want to giggle and laugh riotously! I want to shout "Rubber Chicken" and cascade down with a mass of bodies, hitting ground zero. Every body crashing with peals of laughter.

I want to be mean to De. Crack jokes about how "V is so old" and how bald Mr. Drama is. I want to yell out across the corridor and ask Maddy and Ms.melodrama if they have some food left over. I want to jump over to the other bed and tell Shorty, "Lets watch HIMYM!" I want to look out of the window and see a little fire crackling in the middle of the night, near the stone bench. I want to hurtle invectives at Hipposaurus, only so he returns me the favor and calls me a "fake mallu" who is going to be punished by the Christian God.

I want to sit in a circle with one gold flake light passing around five hands. I want to talk about how daft the VC is and how hot alok is!I want to plop onto a bed with five other ppl around and a couple of budweisers floating!I want to be 5 minutes away from a hot plate of omelette and a steaming cup of tea served on a cold rock at two in the night.

That madness hasn't died. That madness spelt magic.
It still is.

I'm sure there is a fire crackling by the stone bench right now, and a group of mad people recounting such a night that was, just about a year ago.

The Highway Man

Toll lines in my city are long and tedious. I curse toll lines every time I'm in one. I curse the guy in front of me, I want to hurtle invectives at the guy blasting his horn behind me. I throw an angry scowl at the guy who flags down my car and asks me to cough up the toll.

As I drove down the highway a couple of months back, on a ruddy morning, the radio played an all time favorite number on Bombay..Yeh hai Bombay Meri Jaan. How different my Bombay now looked from those forgotten black and white images of the silver screen. My head was in a twirl and I felt a gush of happiness for no apparent reason. Surprisingly, I noticed that there wasn't a queue at the Toll Station. This was going to be a beautiful day.

As I braked, I suddenly realized how doubly boring it must be for the guy collecting the toll from the passing cars. Everyday he'd have to stand at the same spot, waving down grumpy motorists, handing them the ticket and collecting the money. A mere exchange of paper, both worthless, if not for the legitimacy we give it. Not a word spoken, not a glance cast. If at all words were spoken, they would be angry bursts of "chutta nahin hai" from the motorist or a curt command of "dosra note do" from the toll guy. Didn't he have more reason to complain than a grouchy motorist like me, seated inside a car with music playing?

So that day instead of arrogantly handing out the money, while looking straight ahead at the road, I turned to the mechanical hand that thrust the ticket in my face. I gave him the money, he gave me the ticket. It was well rehearsed. We did it everyday. But today, I gave a small smile and I coughed a thank you. He didn't hear. I whizzed past, just like any other car on the highway. As I drove away, the smile lingered on. I felt good. I felt happy that he was the first person I had greeted that morning. It probably didn't make a difference to him, but it did to me. I felt more human.

Since that day I've been dropping by my thank you at every toll station. Sometimes it goes unheard. Sometimes its just heard. Very often there is a suspicious quizzical expression on his face. Sometimes he looks back with a look of surprise, like he didn't hear it right.Some times, there is a "okay madam."
Today, there was a heartfelt, "you're most welcome, madam."

It probably did make a difference. :)
Random acts of kindness never gone unremitted.

Looking for the Calendar.

I've never paid attention to my New Year Calendar. It usually finds its way up my wall sometime past February or March, sometimes by chance, sometimes out of pure desperation, often because I'm gifted one.

Another cycle of twelve months has been ushered in, but the ugly miniature calendar of 2008 still clings on to my blue pin board. The month of December vacantly gazes back at me, reminding me of deadlines and doom. I flip back to a few months earlier and I see crammed scheduling, meticulous calculations and illegible scribblings. Punctuated every now and then in this bedlam, are blank white spaces. I wonder what that means. Was it a happy blank or was it a pensive blank? Was it a blank of clarity or was it an unresolved, frightful blank? I can't remember.

I'm weary of forgetting.

This year it ought to be a little different. My calendar must remind me. I'm not entirely sure what would go into making a great calendar. But I do know, I'm bored of ugly numbers squinting at me through square boxes, against a pale white backdrop. I want my calendar to remind me of some thing I like, dislike, ought to like, should care about, should think about,some thing I'd like to do.

I don't want it to be just another year that whizzes past. I want to resolve and remember and carry it over to 2010, without significant memory lapses.



Majoli,The Spartan Tree, Greece.
January : Hope?
Seeing this M said, "Here's to our very own landscapes of hope behind the screen of smoke filled streets."