Phoring

I came to know of this movie from a source I would not trust, but then I am happy that I took the chance. Just a few days back, While I was checking my news feed on Facebook, every next person seemed to “feel happy watching Phoring.”  So I downloaded it to see what the fuss was all about.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a movie after such a long time with such a fresh storyline. Well many others have touched this theme of adolescent passion, but then this one was different. It covered multiple themes, including God and death, as seen by a 14 year old.

The movie begins with Phoring, a 14 year old boy from a small town in North Bengal, fantasizing about a woman, much older in age than him, and waking up from a wet dream embarrassed. He is basically a lonely child, of a drunken father and a depressed mother. Having lost his only true friend, his elder brother, to malaria, he has no one to talk to but the Gods. His “Thakurs”. He sits by the river on a fallen tree and talks to them about everything. Pleading them to pass him in the exams to telling them about his wet dreams. Well, he talks about his wet dreams, “privately” only to the male God, and is very embarrassed when he mentions it to a “ladies” God.

When he fails his annual examination and decides to kill himself, his “Thakur” miraculously sends someone down to this village school of North Bengal, to make Phoring happy. And yes he is happy. No one ever gave him so much love as this new history teacher did. She understood his love for imagination, and suggested him ways to channelize it in to something productive. Besides, respecting this “Madam” of his, Phoring felt a tug at the heart because of this special privilege.

Naturally so, because when all the boys in his class are madly in love with this teacher, and trying too hard to find out where she lives, he gets the special privilege to visit her often, and know her a little more closely than anyone else. The passion and excitement these 14 year olds feel are portrayed wonderfully. The excitement when Madam, touches his hand or lies down on the bed and a little bit of her legs show. Then there is the jealousy. “Who is that man coming to meet Madam often?” “Why does Madam smile so much when she talks to him?”

He can’t accept the fact that Madam went away somewhere with a friend, without telling him. We also see the jealousy his classmates have against him. The way they make fun of him, because of this heart break. But then we also see the priceless smile on Phoring’s face, when Madam comes to visit him, making him feel all important. The dilemma and uncertainty of a child’s mind about how important he is to a grown up woman is very well portrayed by this child actor (I wonder how they make kids act).

This passion and love goes much deeper. So deep, that one can even give up his normal life, leave his home and go away to an unknown city in search of Madam. Work hard, wash dishes and finally find and meet Madam to ask some unanswered questions. Some questions that had been troubling the little mind for long. 

This kind of love, I think comes when one is innocent. Unperturbed by the vices of the world of a grown up. When one knows how to follow one’s heart and not care about what others say and think. But then Phoring had a very strong conscience. That came out when he conversed with his Gods. The Gods’ voice telling him how he is wrong or how he is being silly is just his inner conflict. His inner voice, stopping him from doing something or encouraging him to go ahead. But his innocent self always asked him to be spontaneous and do whatever his heart agreed to.  Not bothering about what people thinks and finally with time, Phoring learns to deal with his conscience and his conversations with his Thakurs reduce in frequency.

May be as people grow up, they tend to wear a mask, starts pretending to be someone they are not. And then with time, as the teacher aptly says, they forget about the mask. The mask becomes the reality and they tend to hold on to it, unless something traumatising happens and the mask falls off. In Phoring’s dad’s case, his mask of a bad father fell off when he realised that he has lost his son.

What is sad is when this innocence of a child is lost; the love of the untouched heart disappears too. As the movie ends with the Madam promising her student, that she would write him letters, and asks him to reply to them, I wonder, how long will the little boy keep his words? Will he fall out of the need to know where his beloved teacher is? Or will he keep his words and stay interested in the same way that he is now? Will he grow out of this innocence and realise that Madam was after all not that important? Will he lose this attachment and will it be for the good or for the bad? However everything depends on the uncertainty. And no one knows what is for the good and what for the bad. Not even the Gods. Even they fail to understand certain things we mortals do and then we should learn to stop depending on them and create our own stories. Phoring sheds away his dependence on the Gods by saying at the end of the movie: “Thakur, jeta bojhona sheta niye kotha bolo na.” (Do not talk about things you don’t understand.)  Or was he just talking to his inner voice?

About Books and Reading Again

I happened to come across this. Generally I ignore such buzzfeed lists, but then this one was about the stages of a “book addict”, so I decided to glance through it.

Yes reading is an addiction, true and as I go through this list I realise I have gone through most of these stages. I have bought a book on a whim either because everyone was talking about it or because no one was talking about it. And I swear most of the times, I liked those books which few people talked about, or cared to read. But then may be people around me hardly read good books.

Then comes the next stage where either I am hooked on to the book and don’t want to put it down, or it is one of those books which you want to beat your head with because you bought it. I had also sometimes taken the responsibility of promoting the book I like among the people around me. I remember how I went around telling each and every one I knew to buy and read Shantaram.  Sadly very few people enjoyed it. I spent hours trying to figure out why they did not like this book, but then someone told me, “It is such a fat book…” After that I gave up thinking. I knew the reasons.

When I like a book, every idle minute seems like a minute wasted. I remember how I regretted not carrying The Little Prince to school, because there were free periods when I could have read pages.  But I agree the best reading happens may be after 11 PM. True, it is very annoying when so many people looks at you bewildered because you are reading a book while waiting for a bus or travelling in a metro.

Then when you are almost towards the end of the book, comes in the dilemma. I mean I know the book is so good that I am going to miss reading it once I am done with it, but then again, I want to know how it ends. This happened with me while I was reading A Palace of Illusions.

Drifting to the world of the book happens to me often, and then getting attached to the characters of that book. Feeling their pain, being sad for them, being happy in their happiness, Feeling their longing, their love. And then the change in opinion about a character as the story advances. Like I am almost done with Cuckold now, and I felt so many things for Maharaj Kumar and so many things for Kausalya (No I won’t go on about them over here. I don’t plan to write about the book in bits and parts in all my posts.).

I am sure some of you will be able to connect to this list and appreciate it may be. But what is sad is very few people read these days. And I will tell you what is sadder. People buy well known books, so that they can just flaunt it. Ask them to talk about it, and they would become very busy. And what hurts "book addicts" like us is the fact that we lend books happily, to encourage reading, but then people either don't return those books or return them after soiling them beyond recognition. For Heaven's sake, when would they understand that books are like a part of the heart we are giving out?!  I think they never will... Facebook-ing and texting and shopping and other trivialities are more important. When I ask my students to write about their favourite authors and books, they look at me blankly. My heart aches…

My Experiences As A Teacher

About two months ago, a paranoid mother called me up to say that she needed my help. She needed me to teach her daughter. She was sure that the kid would not pass her final exams and wanted me to teach her English.

I did not know how I would be of any help. I mean yes I can teach her English but then that doesn't mean that I can assure her mother that her daughter will pass the examination. I did not know her level of intelligence and how much hard work she could put in. And with just a month to go, I was a little sceptical about taking her up. However, since we were sort of related, I agreed to teach her and help her as much as I could.

The kid was not as unruly as her mother had portrayed her to be.  She was a talkative soul and a little bit fidgety. She loved to ask questions about anything and everything she saw in my room and had an uncommon interest for old coins. No doubt we connected soon enough. Being a children lover, it wasn't much of a task for me to get her to like me. Once that was done, I knew she would listen to me. 

We worked hard, her and me for one whole month. She is an obedient child and listened to everything I asked her to do. Many things she did not like, but she would do it because I demanded of her. Like writing with a fountain pen and writing neatly. Making her understand the prose and poetry was not much of a task. She was a fast learner there. She grasped the text pretty soon and did not have much trouble answering questions from them. Grammar was her weakness and the worst thing was she was scared of it. So I knew I had to overcome a big hurdle there. I had to get the fear out of her.

Slowly and steadily she started getting a grasp of the prepositions and the adverbs and the conjunctions (She was actually good with the conjunctions.). We had a hard time trying to understand the tenses. No matter what I did, she failed to differentiate between the present tense, the present perfect and the present perfect continuous. I scolded her, I drew tables for her. I made her repeat after me. But whenever I stopped, she would look at me blankly, and just could not understand the difference. After repeated tries for about forty-five minutes, we were like in a trance. I was going on saying the same thing and she would just repeat after me. I stopped halfway, to give it one last try, and I was surprised that even though she was tired and frustrated, she could finally differentiate between the tenses. She had not realised that I had stopped and went on on her own. When she saw me smiling, she understood that she had done what had seemed impossible about an hour ago. All her frustrations and tiredness vanished and even though she had tears in her eyes, her tear stained face lit up with a smile, and that was the most priceless smile ever.

I felt the warmth of it and realised the joy of giving. The wonderful feeling which comes with the realisation that I have done something for someone. I could make her understand something she feared to explore, and she was thankful for that. I knew I have touched her heart, when she said, “The tenses don’t seem that difficult any more.” What more can I ask for?

Just a day before her exams, I had given her a revision test, and she faired quite well.  When I told her that she should keep studying like this, she very innocently said, “Oh I haven’t studied at all. I just remembered what you have taught earlier and answering this test seemed very easy.” I knew then I had hit the right chords.

My added gift was that her mother had developed a faith in me, and believed that only I could make her daughter study and make her do well. Quite an achievement no?  I know, this faith would demand a lot of hard work on my part, but then when it comes with these small added perks of love and thankfulness from the kid, I am willing to put in my 100 percent.

Teaching as I have understood requires a lot of commitment and patience. May be even more than parenting. When we are parenting a child, we mostly tend to do it carefully because that thing out there is our blood and flesh. So a bit of commitment comes out of that I guess. But then again we have parents like these, so I won’t comment much. Teaching requires a bit of extra care may be because we are signing up for someone else’s child. Someone who is just starting to know us. We are taking that child’s responsibility and promising her parents that we would take care of her studies. Making a child love us, attach to us and listen to us, requires a lot of patience and hard work. The child needs to see that we as teachers really care for her and then the rest won’t be much difficult. Most important is that we should learn to love the kid first.

A teacher leaves a strong impression on her students and hence being a teacher calls for changing or at least controlling a lot of our own habits. Smoking in front of a student leaves a bad impression of us on that child. Children pick up bad habits very soon. If the teacher picks her nose while she is teaching, they will start doing the same. If the teacher is cluttered with her notes and books, the child will pick that up. If the teacher keeps checking her phone while teaching, the child will learn that paying attention to one thing at a time is not really important. So when we take up teaching, it is not only the particular subject that we are taking the responsibility for. We are taking up the responsibility of the child’s overall development; as a better human being.

Rest assured if you can reach out to the child, there is no other job as satisfying as this one I guess. As a teacher of mine, who has been teaching for the last thirty three years keeps telling me, “It is a job where you are the boss and you don’t have to call anyone ‘Sir’. Everyone calls you ‘Sir’.” I am sure after all the hard work that a teacher needs to put in; s/he deserves to enjoy that privilege. I have just started, and since I am quite enjoying this profession, I hope to touch some more lives and do something for some souls. Leave a small mark may be after I am gone. That is the hope which keeps me motivated and going, and of course that priceless smile. Something I will remember for a long long time to come. I hope to get many more such smiles down the years.

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Due to some silly and some not too silly problems, I removed my last post titled, "A warm Thank You And A Request". I will put that up may be next month, when my blog will be four months old. That will be on the 9th of April. Till then do keep reading and keep me enthused with your comments and visits. 

A Book And A Few Things About Love Again

I was musing about love again, and reading Cuckold opened many more new avenues in my mind. In Cuckold, I came across different kinds of love. Maharaj Kumar’s love for Leelavati. How he treats the small kid as her sister and loves her with all his heart. He considers her as his only connection with Sumitra: his sister whom he lost at a very young age to a deadly infectious disease.

We come across Maharaj Kumar’s love for his sister, Sumitra, whom he still remembers and aches for after so many years of losing her. The wound has healed but the last memories of her is still very strong in his mind. How he hated to sit beside his sister when she was on her death bed, yet could not leave because he knew she needed him. How he hated to see his sister die in front of his eyes, yet could not turn his face away. Made me wonder, is it possible to love someone so much, that we do things which we actually hate to do? May be loving is doing things for others which make them happy, and not really thinking about my happiness. May be someday I would be able to love like that.

Then there is Kausalya, Maharaj Kumar’s dai. This character intrigued me the most (well I haven’t finished the book yet. So I must say, so far.). She breast fed the Maharaj Kumar, thrashed him, when he needed it. Looked after him like a mother, loved and protected him throughout, and introduced him to sex as well. Can we imagine such a woman living around us? Very rare no?  Maharaj Kumar realises his depth of love and yearning for his “mother, guide, protector, friend, confidant and lover” much later in life when he thinks he had lost her. The most precious moment for Kausalya, I think was when, Maharaj Kumar lies down on her sore ugly distorted body and says, “I will never let you go away.”

It hurts me to see how much Maharaj Kumar yearns for his own wife. How much he wants her to love him back. He just can’t do anything that would make her love him. It is sad how he tries everything, from praying to the goddesses to beating her up, but in vain. He just can’t accept the fact that his wife could be married to the “blue God”. It is more difficult for him to accept this may be because, he love Krishna as well. He loved Krishna in all forms and all his ages. He grew up listening to stories about Baal Gopal and reading about the grown up Krishna. He often wondered about Krishna’s varied character and more often than not connected with him. Of all the Gods, Krishna was the closest to him and easier to reach out, and now his wife claimed to be married to that God. It was difficult for him to accept that.

To soothe his heart aches he tried to get satisfaction from the washer man’s wife, Sunheria.  Though he wanted the relationship to be only sexual, he got many other pleasures from her. Suheria could put him to sleep, could ease his pain, could talk to him, and somewhere he thought, Sunheria understood him more than his wife could ever do.  He loved her too… For making him believe that he needed to let go off his worries and sorrows at times. For making him realise that, “Self-pity is an indulgence one cannot afford.”

Then there was the princess. Maharaj kumar’s wife. The poor thing couldn't help it. She understood her husband’s pain. She tried her best to make him happy. She did the little she could. But at the same time she knew she could not do any more. How could she do anything more than that? She was betrothed to someone else. She loved him and was dedicated to him. She was forced to marry Maharaj Kumar as no one understood her love for the Blue God. She wrote letters to the Blue God, complaining about his ignorance towards her. She sang songs for him. She was not even concious about her actions when she sat in front of him to pray. Her love for Krishna was something which I would call pure in the truest of the meaning. She worshipped him, loved him and was married to him. The relationship was so pure that she failed to understand why her husband was upset with her and why everyone called her names. She cried out to Krishna and asked him to protect her honour. Such deep was the trust that she knew that she would be protected. Her love, her Blue God would come to her and take care of everything. Take away all her sorrows and make the "Blue Sun" shine. 

I will probably write more about the book later, when I am done with it. It surely deserves an individual blog post and a much longer one.

Love is like a mirage I think. It is an impression we want to hold on to for as long as we can. It is like a belief that keeps us going. It is like the first shower after the scorching summer. When we can’t find that love where we expect it the most, we feel helpless. We look around desperately try all measures and means to find it and get it.  What we forget is that love is not possessing someone; it is all about giving the person we love as much freedom as they want… It is all about making that person happy, enjoying moments with him, understanding the person, passing through difficult times together and looking forward to spending happy times together.

Some people are born with the capacity to love. To love with a warm heart, anyone who seems to touch their heart. Leave an impression on them. But it is sad how these are the people who don’t get the love back most of the times. The fault or the shortcoming is not with them. It is the incapability of the greater mass to understand such depth and seriousness and take that love. To enjoy the privilege. It is however sad that these people don’t feel the loss. They are not capable of understanding the importance of love may be. It is sad how the world is full of these trivial people: People who would live their trivial lives with a pit of emptiness at the bottom of their stomach, and try to make themselves feel important by going to “happening” parties and buying smart gadgets, Only to realise when it is too late, that someone somewhere loved them deeply and wanted something good to happen to them. But by then it is too late and all they can do is sigh and wish that their minds worked differently when they were younger and when there was still time.