Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Eyes clouded by tears

My love, your eyes shall well up with tears (remembering me)
As if dark rain bearing clouds have covered a clear sky

These two lines and so many words have been expressed in just four words -

Nainon mein badra chhaye..

and it goes on..
Bijli si chamke haaye
Aise mein balam mohe
Garawaa laga le


Since I have set the context earlier, I can try my hand at concisely interpreting this song...hope I convey its emotions too

Eyes clouded by tears,
Shimmering like lightening
On stormy days as these
My love, hold me close to thee

The man who in so few words expressed himself in an endearingly touchy manner was a doyen of Indian lyricists - Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. He belonged to the yesteryears of film songwriters with strong roots in Urdu poetry which had such names as Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Shakeel Badauni, Gulzar and others.

However Raja Mehdi's compositions were mostly with a folk touch, not with fancy Urdu words...note words like 'balam', 'mohe'.
'Naina' or eyes seems to be one of his favorite motifs for there is one other beautiful song of his - "Naina barse rimjhim rimjhim, piya toh re aawan ki raat" which again uses very simple rustic words in beautiful poetry.

In Indian poetry - whether Urdu or Sanskrit based - 'eyes' are a frequently used symbol for conveying a wide gamut of emotions and it is corroborated by the sheer number of words to describe eyes and eye related features - like nayan, akhiyaan, chakshu, netra, aankhen, nigahein etc. and stock expressions like jheel si aankhen or nargisi nigahein

Coming back to Raja Mehdi...both the songs mentioned above were given music by Madan Mohan, my favorite Music director. These two formed a successful team in the 50s and 60s. And this song of theirs - Nainon mein badra is somewhat special for me.

This is one of the rare cases where everything about something is so good. Here the film is a well made one - Mera Saaya by a director who specializes in suspense - Raj Khosla (who also made Woh Kaun Thi). Then we come to the placement of this song in the movie and the picturization - a song can be really good, but a director can mess up by not utilizing it properly. In this case Khosla used it so well that even Madan Mohan could not have dreamt it.

In the movie Sunil Dutt is a lawyer whose wife, whom he loved very much, had recently died and is now troubled by another woman, her look-alike who claims to be his wife. And all the while he is unable to forget the sweet memories of his wife.

The song opens with a wide shot of the lakes of Udaipur and the palaces in its midst - white marble in clear water and then focuses on Sunil Dutt - who reclines on a bed in his terrace. The music begins just then - with really rousing strains of the sitar and santoor...its so difficult to describe what it does to one's heart - Madan Mohan's music is captivating right from the start. And Sunil Dutt, suddenly restless sits up and looks around - all around are places enmeshed with his memories of being with her. At this moment the voiceover begins - Nainon mein badra chhaye... and here is Raj Khosla's gem...he makes the song play out in a haunting fashion...as if its echoing (this is not how the song was recorded, but how it was dubbed with the film) - and this is so apt as the haunting note gels really well with Sunil Dutt reminiscing about his wife - its as if that music and words are echoing in his mind not allowing him to rest peacefully and his eyes well up - again so apt for Nainon mein badra

His gaze fixes upon a beautifully carved marble pavillion, overlooking the lake and he remembers their close embrace there. Sadhna is positively ethereal to look at. Frankly she is not as beautiful and fresh as in her early films - but she is too good a performer - her high coiffure with flowing tresses and trademark cowlicks, her light hued yet transluscent, shimmering silk sari all make her look her part - the lost enchantress of his life. Here she sings to her lover reminding him of how she had allured him once. Thats how it fits exactly with the larger story of the film..as at this point of time the hero acutely feels the loss of his wife.

The later wordings of the song are somewhat tantalising, tempting, even playful...Madira mein doobi akhiyan, chanchal hain dono sakhiyan. Madan Mohan brings out the nostalgia as well as temptation wonderfully well with Lata Mangeshkar's graceful yet endearing voice.

I could go on..but as it is I have rambled a lot..u can see the song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ZI824Tlnk&feature=related

Pretty good quality

The song ends with Sunil Dutt crestfallen on a pillar of that same marble pavillion.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Rules of the Game

Two ppl met by accident and started playing a game.
It was a game never played before and there was no "how to" book written on it.
They did not even know whether it could be called a game...they just made their moves.
But then what is a game at its simplest..but a sequence of moves made by two or more persons in response to each other.

In this case every move by the other person made it all the more interesting and they got further involved in it. It was just a matter of responding to each other in a spontaneous intuitive manner with no baggage from past, no worry of future and no sense of anything else in the present.

Between these two it blossomed into the most lively and intriguing game, something either of them had never played afore.
Soon they were sucked into this "thing"...they were caught in a whirlpool...but u knw its like that "ringa ringa-going around" thing...which gives u a heady feeling.
Then one player - the guy (till then there was no need to differentiate - guy, gal etc. but then that need cropped up ..... unfortunately) who had never earlier played anything akin to this wanted to set some rules...the game was growing like some wild jungle, unfettered and relentless.
What the hell were they playing anyway..whats the future of this, how did it relate to things in the past..if it could be clipped this way and that, it would grow in a more orderly fashion...so he thought
The girl was wiser, she had played such games in past, though never to this level, yet she knew better...but she couldnt stop the guy's musings, she couldnt convey to him how it was more important to enjoy the game for its sake rather than making something more of it. She thought there was nothing more to it..the guy thought there was.
Who was right, who was wrong...one never knows, one never will.
Meanwhile the guy happily went about setting his rules but in the process missed playing the game. The game started deteriorating, the fluency was gone, the spontaneity was lost. The guy thought that setting more rules would right the situation, but it only resulted in further downslide. The girl was vindicated in her stand that there was nothing more.

In the end all that was there betweeen them was only rules and no game.

I usually have a final closing with a smart aleck quip or some pedantic shit or some unconcise ramblings..but in this case there is nothing more to the end than - The End.

Friday, August 22, 2008

A Native returns

Being a Tamilian brought up in North (well at least relatively speaking :D ), I have always lived with mixed bag culturally speaking. I was and still am more comfortable as a Northie and at best a diffident Tamilian. I revelled in Hindi music, Hindi cultural idioms, slangs etc and had not much idea of these things in Tamil Nadu.

I prided myself about a few things though...I learned to read Tamil on my own, which was one of the few out of the way efforts in my life. And we did speak some form of Tamil at our home...though Tamilians may scoff at it. Once a Chennai woman found my Tamil so obtuse that she asked me if I was a Sri Lankan Tamil - my Tam was that different.

However I did have a taste for Tamil music. I remember as a kid, at 4 or 5 o clock in the evening, my Mom used to tune the radio to Tamil Short Wave channels (yes when I was a kid, TV, Cable TV and FM were yet to arrive)...those heady Ilayaraja stuff of the 80s...I still have an affinity to them. But by and large I did not listen to much Tamil music..indeed at one point of time I used to sneer at it. I remember at XL, I had Bong and Telugu frnds who were big fans of Tamil music, while I was not...in fact I got some songs for Mom from them.

Things changed when as part of my job I moved to Tamil Nadu...remember those early days...hated everything Tamil, the movies, the stars, the music, that awful dappankuthu - rowdy looking men dancing in their dungarees with their nadas hanging...hated being in Chennai, the heat, the humidity, the water...hated that these people were incomprehensible to me and I was so incomprehensible to them - even though we shared our mother tongue. But then slowly I reconciled and the bridge was Tamil music...I discovered several songs to my taste...I did not understand a word, yet the music was ..um..delicious, I just took to it. Being some sort of poet myself, I cannot let a good song go by without understanding what it meant..so painstakingly I used to go over lyrics again and again, use the aid of a dictionary...I'm always shy of asking ppl for help, for the fear of being ridiculed. My fancy to certain Tamil songs was a private matter to me. Often searching for songs was very difficult..since I did not understand its title word, I either mispelled it or plain simple did not know what keyword to type in. But gradually I found out ways around this handicap.

Now I really like this music...its as if my heart is attuned to it...and on many days I listen only to Tamil music instead of Hindi, even though I have several of my Hindi favorites stored in my laptop. I also learnt to enjoy the picturization of these songs. Some picturizations are really too good...so apt, so fitting.

And through the music I sort of understood the rhytm of this land better. Its not just a sweeping statement...truly in this case I have experienced so...music does bridge the cultural divide, especially for the long lost native who wishes to return to his roots.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

What is Love...Baby dont hurt me

Theories abound regarding the most mysterious yet coveted ailment that human emotions produce off and on - Love.

What gives rise to it? What it is? How is it identified? What does it lead to? and so on...endless questions and ...yes, endless answers. And what answers!!..contrarian views, fierce disputes...no comprehension

Lets take one question and probably the starting point for all others - How does one know that one is in Love??

Literature on love abounds with tales of love at first sight or at least attraction at first sight. Whats the strength of this particular notion...well its just that we do not get attracted to just about anybody...at least women dont.

So if a lady is attracted to you, it means that you are special to her and you can as well make her someone special for yourself.
Nonsense?? Ah, if nothing else...its just a good thumb-rule, but is it something more??

Then there are some who scoff at this attraction theory. There are even studies conducted which say that this attraction has a lifetime like...er...a lifetime free credit card..hmm :) . It incidentally happens to be three years, which is generally the life of a lifetime free credit card...hmm, have credit card companies hit upon something we dont know yet?? Got to think about it.

Anywys, so these ppl..I mean, those who scoff at the attraction theory believe that you got to be really comfortable with the other person. Like, you know ..you have a date at a CCD* one fine afternoon, you just meet outside the joint, smile spontaneously, then breeze in together not at all aware of the curious eyes upon you, still talking to each other you just plonk yourself in any available space...still chatting...15 min, no waiter has come (CCDs are good that way)..still chatting...15 min later waiter hands the menu, still chatting...half an hour later, waiter shows a surly face...ah 2 caffe latte pls, waiter smiles, you dont notice that, still chatting....over another 3 hrs and 2 iced teas later, still chatting...only when ur asses begin to hurt sitting in the same position...or looking at the waiter's hurt face calculating his ROI** of (2 caffe latte + 2 iced teas)/ 4 hrs ...you realise that you should probably make a move ...to the next CCD, or maybe go to a flop movie...so u can er ...'chat' further

Somebody had once exhorted me to be concise...so concisely put the above para is all about comfort. Comfort meaning??...arre baba Comfort vis-a-vis Attraction. You know - rapport, gelling well (thats pretty suggestive), chummy buddy and all that...first you are a good friend and then, only then...you are something more. Of course these days one need not go to CCDs and negatively affect their ROI for discovering a comfortable relationship. With Gtalk, and Yahoo Msgr, you can go online and waste countless hours of somebody's time, allow them to waste yours and hola!! if you dont consider that a waste of time - you are in a comfortable relationship..HOLA..Dance

But then there are some who scoff at this too - 'online dating is not online mating'.
Comfort - what an absurd notion...making love is either too uncomfortable or so pleasurable that words like comfort etc. are superfluous...this would be the opinion of the Attraction theorists who would like to believe in the biological origin of these urges....or those who scoff at both these theories and any others for that matter.

So neither comfort, nor attraction can define it.
Is it then when both happen together??
Well, you may want to waste your time reading that theory, I dont want to waste mine writing about it :|

Now I come to the really serious part...PAY ATTENTION!!!
This is real serious, I bet. The answer is pretty straightforward.

Are you in love?? ... You would know that... when you are in love!!

Hows that for being concise!!!

Well u may wish to burn ur laptop/computer or probably pull a tuft of your hair as evidence of your frustration or better still burn my laptop...though that may only cause you more frustration...bcos u cannot burn my laptop

Yes I agree this may seem like...that response, the Greatest Computer Mother or Mother Computer in the Universe in that forsaken planet of Magarthea gave when asked what is the Ultimate Answer to everything and She, It - whatever replied - '42'

Well, hold on to ur tomatoes yet...there's something important to learn here...for she said that if u want the Ultimate Answer, you got to ask the Ultimate Question ...Fair enough!!!
(Where did this all come from - check out the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" its a far more popular book than the "Encyclopaedia Galactica". Why? Coz it says on its cover in bold letters 'DONT PANIC')

So come back with your Ultimate Question and not stuff like - What is Love?...Baby, you'll get hurt if you ask that

* CCD: Cafe Coffee Day - they apparently sell various kinds of coffee, tea and snacks
**ROI: Return on Investment - a term most abused by MBA types

Why these contrived manufactured references you may ask - Well, just wanted to give an academic feel to all this. I have heard academics can get away spouting any shit and save a lot of tomatoes too...I like saving poor red little things.

Monday, August 18, 2008

A rejuvenated Brahmana

I have long prided myself for my heredity which goes all the way back to Vedic rshis of the ancient ages. After all who else but Brahmanas can trace their origins right back to when our ancient civilization originated. Even today when a Brahmana kid introduces(Abhivadaya)himself to elders, that introduction is a record of his illustrious lineage. It starts with the pravara or the name of the rshis whose descendant that person is. For e.g. my Abhivadaya goes thus ...

Abhivadaye (Salutations O elders)
Angirasa Bharhaspatya Bharadwaja Triya rshiyaye pravaranvida (I belong to the line of Angirasa followed by Brihaspati followed by Bharadwaja. These are the three rshis who start my lineage)
Bharadwaja gotra (My gotra is Bharadwaja)

But today that is all there is as far as one's Brahmanatva or "being a Brahman" is concerned - pride in past lineage, the heights attained by one's ancestors long back in the ancient age - but what have I done to claim being a Brahmana, which is a status that carries such purity. How different am I compared to any other youth out there...maybe my brain stores a few mantras in its labyrinths.

Being a Brahmana meant living life austerely...the rules for Brahmanas were far stricter than those for other communities...they had to live their life in sadacharya or good conduct so that they deserved their place at the top of the society, so that they naturally commanded the reverence of all other people and could rightfully guide people in spiritual and religious matters. But today how many Brahmanas can claim to that level.

Anyways...I may continue on this tirade upon myself and other "Brahmanas" like me indefinitely to no avail. But there is one occasion when I feel being a Brahmana and the great privilege it is. Thankfully God has granted one such occasion every year. It is the tithi or astronomical configuration of Sravanamase Shuklapakshe Paurnamsyam or the day of the Full Moon (Poornima) in the Bright Half (Shuklapaksha) of the Hindu calendar month of Sravana (which falls in Aug-Sept), which in Tamil is called Aavani. This tithi falls under the nakshatra or star of Dhanishta, which is called Avittam in Tamil. Hence this occasion is known as Aavani Avittam (or the day of the star Avittam in the month of Aavani).

On this day, all Brahmanas do what is known as Vedarambam or 'restarting the Vedas' i.e. they start the study of Vedas again. This is accompanied by putting on a new sacred thread and casting off the old one. Mantras such as the "Kamokarshit" and the Gayatri mantra are said a 1008 times to repent for the sins committed over the past year or for not following the right conduct (which we are all guilty of :D)

Last year for the first time I had the Avani Avittam in my native village in Palakkad and witnessed the huge difference of the occasion there compared to how it is done in the larger cities.

Having found it to be an amazing experience, this year I again went there. Waking up and having a bath early in the morning, I first of all went through my Sandhyavandanam book. Having not done my daily rituals in years, I had forgotten the sequences completely and even the mantras at places. But the mantras are difficult to forget. These have been repeated and reinforced in my brain hundreds of times, so they come back at will. Once I was fairly confident that I understood it, I started with it and completed my Sandhyavandanam in around 25 min.

Thereafter I went down the village to another house a few blocks away - it was the home of the vadiyaar. Already several men were sitting in the verandah who having finished their Sankalpam or pledge had already started chanting the Kamokarshit a 1008 times. All looking resplendent in silk veshtis and overdrapes with the mark of Siva - three horizontal lines of vibhuti or ash across their forehead, neck, chest and arms.

Being a bachelor - a brahmachari, I had to do one more ritual prior to that, which was the Samidhadanam which is done around a yajna fire. It is worshipping the Fire God - a Vedic ritual. The young college going son of the vaadiyar handed me the darbha or dry grass. There is one folded in the form of a ring, which is worn around the ring finger. Two straight blades of this grass are folded around the finger. This gives one the authority to say these mantras, perform the rituals and benefit from it. Two other blades are placed beneath one's feet as one sits cross legged on the floor. This signifies the place as a sacred one, where one is involved in performing Vedic rituals.

The boy said the mantras and I repeated them behind him. This is another thing I find fascinating, listening exactly to the words and their pronunciation and then repeating it smoothly behind...this is not all that easy as its in Sanskrit and most of us dont understand the meaning at all. But it is fun and a great experience.

Thereafter there was Sankalpam and of course chanting a mantra 1008 times. After that late in the morning we went to the Siva temple, where the actual Vedarambam and Brahmayajnam are done. When over 30 Brahmanas chant the Vedic mantras in the proper metre one could feel the energy and aura around. The entire chamber reverberated with the sounds of the shlokas.

Thereafter we went to the pond adjoining the temple, the bathing pool of yesteryears and even occasionally these days and there standing in the water, we chanted the mantras, made oblations with the water and changed the sacred thread.

After this we made our way back to the village. A typical village is but a straight road on both sides are houses with tiled roofs, adjoining walls and open verandahs to the front. The people had gathered to their front doors to see the procession of the Brahmanas returning. As we made our way back we were chanting the Rudram...ah it sounds so lyrical. As all the adult men were in our procession, it was only womenfolk and children waiting there. As we made our way, the women bent down and prostrated themselves wherever they were like one does while seeking the blessings in a temple. This procession of Brahmanas is considered auspicious and even widows can seek blessings so I found patis aged over 80 bending down. It was something totally unique.

We went all the way to the other end of the village to the Vishnu temple where we were to perform another set of pujas for an hour and a half. Lunch was only after this at 1.30 in the afternoon.

To me this was one day where I did something, at least a little bit to be in some way the descendant of my illustrious forebears. And at the end I came out, if only for another year - a rejuvenated Brahmana

Monday, August 11, 2008

Every moment

हर एक पल बस आँखें टकि रहती है
सिर्फ़ तेरी परीजाद सूरत पर
हर एक साँस जो लेता हूँ मैं
दिल की गहराइयों में बस जाते हो दिलबर

हर एक दर्स पर गौर फर्माता हूँ मैं
झील सी आँखें, गुलाबी होटों पर
रात कट जाती है, नींद नही आती
सोचते रहता हूँ जब इन चीज़ों पर

मेरी जिंदगी की नूर हो तुम
आते हो तो अँधेरा जाता है बिखर
दर्द भी तुम, दवा भी तुम हो
जो मिलता है, पीलेते हैं हँसकर

तुमसे मिलना सिर्फ़ एक अधूरा ख़्वाब रहेगा
समझते हैं हम, समझता नही यह दिल मगर
तस्वीरों की क्या ज़रूरत है अब, तुम मिलो न मिलो
हमेशा के लिए बस गए हो दिल के भीतर

composed on 11th August at 2 am in the night

Here's the approximate transliteration (for those who cant read Devanagari)

Har ek pal bas aankhen taki rehti hai
Sirf teri parizaad surat par
Har ek saans jo leta hoon main
Dil ki gahraiyon mein base jaate ho dilbar

Har ek dars par gaur farmata hoon main
Jheel si aankhen, gulabi hoton par
Raat kat jaati hain, neend aati nahi
Sochte rehta hoon jab in cheezon par

Meri zindagi ki nur ho tum
Aate ho to andheraa jaata hain bikhar
Dard bhi tum, dawa bhi tum ho
Jo mil jaata hain, pi lete hain hanskar

Tumse milna sirf ek adhoora khwab rahega
Samajhte hain hum, samajtha nahi yeh dil magar
Tasveeron ki kya zaroorat hain ab, tum milo na milo,
Hameshan ke liye bas gaye ho dil ke bhitar

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Women are a labyrinth

Lately I saw an interesting film - The Cable Guy, starring Jim Carey as the Cable Guy and Matthew Broderick as Steven..the script has some interesting quips, especially when the Cable Guy picks out inspiring philosophical one liners straight out of TV shows...sample these

CABLE GUY
So, you're pretty love struck about your
lady, huh?

STEVEN
I miss her. I asked her to marry me, and
she asked me to move out.

CABLE GUY
I hate that.

STEVEN
She said she felt pressured. Can you
believe that?

CABLE GUY
Women are a labyrinth. Can I be frank? I
don't think you listen to her. I think
you try to tell her what she wants to
hear. She wants you to thirst for
knowledge about who she is. All the
complicated splendor that is woman. When
your love is truly giving, it will come
back to you ten-fold.

STEVEN
You're right. That is remarkably
insightful.

CABLE GUY
Yeah, it was Jerry Springer's final
thought on Friday's show.

CABLE GUY
You know what? Women are suckers for
"Sleepless in Seattle." It's on HBO this
month. That's your bait right there.

STEVEN
Robin loves that movie.

CABLE GUY
They all do. Next time you talk to her
tell her you're cooking yourself dinner,
and watching it by yourself. Sound like
you're happier than a pig in shit.
She'll come running. Betcha. Then just
play it cool.

STEVEN
Maybe I will.

IN THE COFFEEHOUSE - NEXT DAY

Steven and Robin are talking. Robin does not look happy to see him.

STEVEN
I don't listen to you. I pretend to
understand but I'm really just saying
what I think you want to hear. So from
now on I'm going to try my best to listen
more because I do love you and am
interested in learning about every detail
about the complicated splendor that is
you.

Robin looks at him, somewhat shocked.

ROBIN
Oh.

STEVEN
I want us to get back together, but I can
see why taking this time might be good
for us. So, I'm not mad.

After a long beat, Robin smiles.

ROBIN
Sometimes time apart is healthy.

STEVEN
You're right. Well, that's what I came
here to say. Look, I've got to get back
to the office.

He starts getting up.

ROBIN
So, are you doing anything tomorrow?

STEVEN
I'm just going to cook myself dinner and
watch a movie. "Sleepless in Seattle" is
on cable.

ROBIN
Really?

STEVEN
If you're around you should drop by and
check out the new apartment.

ROBIN
Okay, maybe I will.

Before this Steve had invited Robin to his apartment for celebrating a big achievement in his job and she had refused then. Wanna read more, here's the link...
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/c/cable-guy-script-screenplay-apatow.html

PS - whats this thing about "Sleepless in Seatle", havent watched it, guess I should

A Psychotic Romance

I may write a few bits of poetry or sometimes put my abstract thoughts to words, but generally my creative output is in terms of stories or rather in their foetal state - plots. My mind churns out plots every now and then, sometimes interesting ones. Some are inspired from real life with characters possessing great amount of similarity to people I have actually met and interacted with, but then the story and it characters take a turn of their own...and in the final heady concoction one cannot distinguish fact from fiction.

So I am now going to narrate a plot that has just sometime back come to my mind. I shall attempt to narrate it in a crisp fashion as I have been accused, and rightly so, by someone close, as not being concise enough. As the title suggests the story is a romance between the lead characters...well anyway there are no other characters in this story for now :D

The lady - lets call her Planet (actually the name of a planet did occur to me, but I wud rather refer to her as Planet) - She is a born loner, and so she was even later among a sea of friends and acquaintances,...left much to her devices as a child, with little care from her parents...she felt it was because of herself and started despising herself...she started looking out for reassurance.

Fortunately she discovered Internet and chatting at the right time. Talking to others online (especially anonymously) and forgetting herself was her way of dealing with her problem. Added to this she came across literature on Psychological disorders and delved deeply into them...slowly she started identifying with some of the cases and somewhere as many people lose sight between reality and imagination...she started thinking that she had a split self within like some of the cases she read about...she imagined two selves primarily. One of them was an adventorous, outgoing, even prankful personality, while the other was a brooding, pessimistic, depressed self and she acted as almost two entirely different persons when either of these selves sought to predominate.

One day as usual during her online sojourns, she came across a rather interesting profile of a guy and pinged him. She waited for a day, the next day he replied back. She found the response oddly interesting and sent her own remarks...lo behold, the guy replied again and it was even more intriguing...so on they went trading messages back and forth till they decided that they were interesting enough to explore more about each other.

Thereafter they chatted almost everyday for hours on end. Planet found the guy to be an intriguing personality...he was as different from her as chalk and cheese...he tended to look at life in a more optimistic picture, even though (as he revealed to her) as a child he had a similar tough time at home...he had great belief in God and Destiny, unlike Planet.

He had an impressive personality - extremely intelligent, knowledgeable and with clear cut ambitions. He also had great deal of courage and confidence. Planet was in complete awe of him. He was as normal as she was abnormal!!

He had an acutely perceptive nature, he could instinctively understand what she thought, he used to second guess her and most of the times accurately. She started spending more time with him and through him she started talking to herself...he became a medium rather for her different selves to communicate with each other.

She found it difficult in his presence to be two entirely different personalities...conversations with him were so long, intense and probing that she was her different selves at the same time. It took not long for her to understand that she was never two or more selves at all. The reasons this happened because of these conversations was that this was a very unconscious process...it was never intended to have the kind of effect it had on her. Now she found that she was more comfortable with who she was. It was not entirely due to this relationship...already in the last few years she had become more confident of herself, especially her go-getter self...but now she was more at peace...she had dispelled her own imagination of various selves. It was a great feeling for her...of course she considered it all due to her online friend ..now we got to name him (as it is that has been unnaturally delayed)..so lets name him - Meteor, ah its somewhat related to Planet and yet contrasts Planet and he was very much like a Meteor.

Meteor - Planet had been able to surmise little about him...the thing was most of their conversations centred around Planet as Planet wanted to talk about herself and Meteor wanted to know more about Planet, though he never shied away from talking about himself. But these were occassional and Planet in her preoccupation with herself did not really pay much attention to the person that Meteor revealed himself to be.

From what she surmised Meteor seemed as mercurial as a meteor...he tended to be emotional and expressively so...his emotional barometer showed rapid high and low movements, but irrespective of that he never receeded within himself. He expressed both his high and low states to her. She also learnt that he was easily hurt.

Now once Planet was more comfortable about her identity, she had no inclination to delve more into these probing conversations...they reminded her of her earlier dichotomy, which made her pretty uncomfortable. She was thankful to Meteor for what he did for her, even if unintentionally and he was really the first person to take such a great interest in her life. She felt overwhelmed at times. But she also sensed that Meteor was becoming more possessive of her, he was demanding more of her time. Actually it was not really more, it was just the same as earlier, but Planet had moved on. With her more confident self, she wanted to take on her problems with renewed vigor and optimism. She looked forward to the future and Meteor made her look behind by his constant attempts to delve into her psyche. She did not have time for that, neither the inclination.

Another complication was that behind Meteor's possessiveness and emotional nature, she detected certain sentiments directed towards her. And she was even more uncomfortable with that. She always had dreams and imaginations about the person she would eventually commit herself to - Meteor though impressive was certainly not that man - and besides she was in no hurry to do commit herself. She was young and had a life of early youth to look forward to, see the world, meet different people and maybe one day find her right choice. While Meteor was an interesting person, she could never think of him in that manner, she did not feel a basic attraction to him. She was also perplexed that he could be attracted to her as he claimed. Anyway all these factors put together made her to keep her distance from Meteor.

Initially Meteor did not understand this at all. He showered her with his usual attention, mails, smses, and what not. The usual downpour kept on all the while making Planet even more uncomfortable. The distance seemed to have made him mad. Planet thought that this was bad, but worse was yet to come...

What she had overlooked in those initial days of her conversations with Meteor was the abnormal time he used to spend with her. She wanted to talk and did not notice that here was a man who had work to do and yet leaving all that he was only listening to her. His questions were very probing...to many people it could have been uncomfortable...but since she was facing a problem, this actually came as a bitter medicine to her disease. He also used to do all sorts of snooping around (with her knowledge), connect various data that she gave him, and used this to good effect in the conversations - his sudden insights using various titbits was crucial for her in finding links within herself. She naturally looked at the result, but forgot to see the cause of it...and then there was his ultra-possessive nature, his almost maniacal interference....maniacal?? A dark foreboding swept her - the man she thought of as totally normal and amazingly great was nothing but a maniac....he really had a psychological disorder, though it was so completely masked...

That is the romance about this plot...it started with a woman who imagined herself having a psychological disorder relying on a totally amazing and normal man...in the process she becomes "cured" only to find that the man she relied on is a psychotic himself...thats why this is "A Psychotic Romance" ...now where do we go forward from here,,,

One thread of thought suggests that Planet resolves to help the man. She returns him the favor and they have long conversations, but about Meteor himself. This was comparatively comfortable as Planet was not required to talk about herself. She really found it fascinating to know more about Meteor. As she learns more she finds herself drawn to that person. Despite his mental state, he had shown tremendous resolve...he had never become a split self...but yet was badly affected by what he had undergone. Gradually he comes out of his disorder and by that time Planet has totally fallen for him. But when he comes out, he finds that he is not really attracted to Planet...

Another thread suggests that Planet makes it clear to Meteor that they have to separate...Meteor descends into further psychosis, which makes him malevolent and he in turn stalks and troubles Planet....he makes her life a hell....she is not able to form relationships with anybody...of course in this eventually Meteor will have to be neutralized.

If you can think of any other possibilities...do let me know :)