"Flowers Bloom... and they Fade"
Just saw this curious aphorism by Kunhunni Master, Mal poet (my free translation):
"Mark every month of the year with an Essay!"
Wonder what made him say that. But here is December...
2015 has been a very eventful year; among other things, it made me a filmmaker of sorts. A very short documentary on the derelict building in Tripunithura that inspired my 'Oottupura' post was put together (thanks Vimal!) and uploaded onto Youtube in July. Titled 'Pazhamayude Naduvodiyunnu', it went mostly unnoticed. And the building has continued to fall apart....
---------------
And then came 'Poo Viriyunnu, Poo Kozhiyunnu'. A far more ambitious project, it has been shot and edited by a group of students with my own creative role limited to writing the raw version of the script. 'Poo...' (translation: "Flowers Bloom... and they Fade") will be screened on New Years Day 2016 at Kerala Kalapeetham, Kochi; it documents the 'Sculpture Symposium', a camp of internationally known sculptors held back in 1990, when Kochi was still Cochin. The 'relics' of the symposium are still among us - in Subhas Park, on the Ernakulam waterfront; some sculptures have been damaged/torn apart but most are largely intact and sometimes put to use thus:
---------------
Here is a brief passage from 'Gotrayanam', a long poem by Ayyappa Panicker - lines I hope to live up to during what lies ahead of my own journey.
"The greatest wealth Man can acquire is a spot of Love.
And the source thereof is Sorrow.
Remember, there are little Sorrows - wipe them clean with fingertips -
And there are those that count, the big Sorrows - let them pierce into the breast and get stuck there!
Add to them a touch of kindness, the odd verse and a few laughs and Life becomes as livable as can be!"
Note: 'Poo Viriyunnu...' incorporates two other passages from this (now not very well remembered) work.
---------------
A fiberglass face cast done by Prof. C S Jayaram and a vision that (to my eyes) is uncannily similar - the severed head of Orpheus drifts by, alongside his forlorn lyre (painted by Odilon Redon):
To emphasize the Grecian angle a bit more, let me include another aspect of the same face-cast and a marble face, salvaged from a 20 century old shipwreck.
------------
A close-up of Bouguerou's sensual take on the Io-Zeus story; it reminds me of the wonderful lines from 'Gita Govinda' on how love-lorn Radha wakes up from a dream and eagerly reaches out to embrace the enveloping pitch darkness mistaking it to be her rain cloud-like lover.
------------
The umpteenth rereading of Khasak has yielded a definition of 'Ecstasy': "Ecstasy happens when one is out on a clear night - with just a hint of fog brought by the wild eastern wind - with a friend under a waxing moon on a desolate hillside, bottle of hooch in hand and watching moonshine glitter in moonshine; and when the moon has set and the eastern skies are yet to turn grey, Ecstasy flowers, causing one to stagger to one's feet, look at the stoned out friend and raise a vigorous Aazaan to the Maker..."
"Mark every month of the year with an Essay!"
Wonder what made him say that. But here is December...
2015 has been a very eventful year; among other things, it made me a filmmaker of sorts. A very short documentary on the derelict building in Tripunithura that inspired my 'Oottupura' post was put together (thanks Vimal!) and uploaded onto Youtube in July. Titled 'Pazhamayude Naduvodiyunnu', it went mostly unnoticed. And the building has continued to fall apart....
---------------
And then came 'Poo Viriyunnu, Poo Kozhiyunnu'. A far more ambitious project, it has been shot and edited by a group of students with my own creative role limited to writing the raw version of the script. 'Poo...' (translation: "Flowers Bloom... and they Fade") will be screened on New Years Day 2016 at Kerala Kalapeetham, Kochi; it documents the 'Sculpture Symposium', a camp of internationally known sculptors held back in 1990, when Kochi was still Cochin. The 'relics' of the symposium are still among us - in Subhas Park, on the Ernakulam waterfront; some sculptures have been damaged/torn apart but most are largely intact and sometimes put to use thus:
---------------
Here is a brief passage from 'Gotrayanam', a long poem by Ayyappa Panicker - lines I hope to live up to during what lies ahead of my own journey.
"The greatest wealth Man can acquire is a spot of Love.
And the source thereof is Sorrow.
Remember, there are little Sorrows - wipe them clean with fingertips -
And there are those that count, the big Sorrows - let them pierce into the breast and get stuck there!
Add to them a touch of kindness, the odd verse and a few laughs and Life becomes as livable as can be!"
Note: 'Poo Viriyunnu...' incorporates two other passages from this (now not very well remembered) work.
---------------
A fiberglass face cast done by Prof. C S Jayaram and a vision that (to my eyes) is uncannily similar - the severed head of Orpheus drifts by, alongside his forlorn lyre (painted by Odilon Redon):
To emphasize the Grecian angle a bit more, let me include another aspect of the same face-cast and a marble face, salvaged from a 20 century old shipwreck.
------------
A close-up of Bouguerou's sensual take on the Io-Zeus story; it reminds me of the wonderful lines from 'Gita Govinda' on how love-lorn Radha wakes up from a dream and eagerly reaches out to embrace the enveloping pitch darkness mistaking it to be her rain cloud-like lover.
------------
The umpteenth rereading of Khasak has yielded a definition of 'Ecstasy': "Ecstasy happens when one is out on a clear night - with just a hint of fog brought by the wild eastern wind - with a friend under a waxing moon on a desolate hillside, bottle of hooch in hand and watching moonshine glitter in moonshine; and when the moon has set and the eastern skies are yet to turn grey, Ecstasy flowers, causing one to stagger to one's feet, look at the stoned out friend and raise a vigorous Aazaan to the Maker..."
posted by R.Nandakumar @ 8:38 AM
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