Red Wine Heart : The Fate of the Romantic

It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French romance in the company of Italian Opera.

What does it take, to feel that spark to write a true romance? Of the many things, love is the one topic that no author can ever produce with merely ink and no experience.

It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French romance that she has never felt, in the company of Italian Opera that she doesn’t quite understand.

For it is in the nature of Romance to cause yearning, and Opera to cause anguish, especially when one doesn’t understand either.

A longing for something unfamiliar has a strange form, a hazy shape, one that dances only inches from your fingers, so close and yet too far. It makes your chest constrict, and a burn rise in your eyes that you do not want to acknowledge.

It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French Romance that she has found but lost too early, in the company of Italian opera she doesn’t understand the words as much as she does the depth of feeling accompanying the mellifluous lyric.

It makes the air colder, and the room too small and the world outside too large, with something within her that wants to perish; if only it didn’t cause her to perish with it.

It is in the nature of those who have loved and lost, to hate with a passion the age old saying, and any person who dares say it to them.

No, it is not better to have loved and lost.

Because when it is gone, you realise that it has left you incomplete, and no other piece in the world fits in just as perfectly.

It is better to have not loved at all.

It does the romantic no good to hope that they may never love; it is folly, and the knowledge of the inevitable it is far worse a torture than a broken heart itself.

With the hopelessness than drifts through the misshapen pieces than make the romantic, like sunlight through the dormers of abandoned churches, comes the unfailing need to forever wander in search of completeness; made worse by the unflinching truth that it can never be.

The strands of heart warming and cruelly beautiful music will drive one to sin while the passionate and timelessly engraved words may drive one to desperation before.

No, it does no good for a romantic to watch a freshly patched heart be torn apart by memories or longing or loss; and it causes more pain to wrap them up in the gossamer layers of fantastical and yet wanton thoughts.

For it is a role of the romantic to be lost in an eternal loop of destruction and reconstruction, till perhaps there is nothing left to destroy, and lesser still to rebuild.

Till death do us part.

What are you thinking?

Here in the darkness
For oft the mind
Seeks inspiration
From need to unwind
It needs not flowers
Meadow or perfect dawn
Only peace and quiet
To hear itself; be drawn.
With ink or brush
Or paint or quill
Its thoughts at a rush
To be inscribed by will
And want for space
To be observed
And perhaps rephrased
To fit different canvas
And parchment anew
Adjusting by wider Point of View.

Sreedevi

Step by Step

One more and then I’m a little closer;
On the path that is keeping me in the air,
While the ground is crumbling to dust
Around my feet. But I can see
Nothing but the tiny curl of your lips,
Into the closest thing to my heart;
And a smile that will light up my way
Through darkness and despair,
Like it’s keeping my feet in the air.

Sreedevi.

Review : Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Before I go into anything, I must mention that I read all books in a stretch, being a late bloomer and all that. I like the series, and have nothing but good thoughts for all the books except the third and seventh in the series.

Finally, after a year long (desperate) wait for the most awaited summer blockbuster, I made it early to the advance booking section, only to find the line nearly empty. “Oh well, Joy!” I said to myself, and bought the best seats in the house, Gold class, mind you, to truly enjoy the experience of the magic of the movies, so to speak.

After driving most of my friends and family batty with my occasional “WooHoo!” countdown to the movie, I finally had the tickets to the first day of screening.

Mind you, despite the rude wankers in the theatre who refused to turn off the cell phones and talkative mothers who left their husbands at home to catch up on gossip in the middle of the movie, I was charged.

It was my favourite book after all.

The movie started off well, with Yates keeping to the code, and not totally changing Narcissa to someone else more glamorous, that is to say, keeping it by the book, pun intended.

Throughout the movie, I came to the conclusion that David Yates’ heroic efforts at trying to keep the movie by the book and at the same time maintaining a decent runtime, was very much; I’d like to think, in a parallel with Harry Potter’s heroic efforts: Clumsy, Inept and someone dies in the process. No, literally.

Although I have nothing to say about the senior actors’ and actresses’ performances – they were, truly inspiring – but I have much to say about the younger cast.

I would perhaps, give them leeway for having to work with a somewhat confused and scattered script, but mostly I’d sneer at their feeble attempts to make it all look real.

They have much to learn, the younger cast, and one would wonder, that while working many years alongside great people like Gambon, Smith, Coltrane, Rickman, Broadbent, Fiennes, Bonham-Carter, and the others, they ought to have picked up at-least a morsel or two.

Well, there are many things about the movie that ought to have been, but sadly, are quite far from the goalpost.

I would of course, say that Rupert Grint gave an excellent performance, and remains safe from this critic’s sharp quill, magical or otherwise.

The Half Blood Prince was rife with discontinuities, and having a rather non-fanatic companion to the same, I found that it was confusing if you didn’t know the real story. It left gaps, and questions that would put off a first timer. Although it is directed at the non-clueless audience, it leaves the rest dangling.

It quite reminds me of the blind groping of Potter without his glasses.

A noble effort to keep many scenes verbatim, but unfortunately, a failed one to keep the flow.

Not to mention some important jibes and confrontations between members of the order (not to give away things for the reader with no book-knowledge).

On Nth thoughts, the humor, I admit, was spot on. Had the audience cracking up on quite a few occasions, to the credit of Master Grint and the senior actors. Grint has proved himself more than capable of comedy.

All in all, it was rather disappointing for me, having such high expectations for this particular movie. I still think that after the initial fuss over it, it will be one of the quite-forgettable experiences at the theatre. I for one am looking to make up for this damper, with the help of Public Enemies; let’s hope it sticks to the wall with that.

This movie-lover has been turned off. Good luck to the unsuspecting lovers of the books.

Sorci

You lay there in the gloom, in the doom

Watching and quietly waiting
You offer your tears as crystals pure
To the hapless weak who take the lure
And in you drag them, smiling and fine
To your cove where there is naught day
Drive them mad, and into slavery
To do what calls for your bidding
You weave such intricacies in your web
That it leaves them quite astounded
Poor souls, they think the threads go tight
To keep the warmth, and thaw the chill
For they are too blind to find a flaw
In such perfection that you wove
Men are weak and helpless fools
When blinded by their passion
Few emerge, once prepared to go
Where fruits are most forbidden
And so you weave and wait and see
For still other opportune moments
Fortuitous is he who comes to believe
That you are, but the Garden of Eden.

Sreedevi.

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Snowflakes

The water is loud. It froths and seethes as it rushes by.

But among the harsh slaps against the rocky shore and bed, I can hear a gurgling.

It sounds like the water is meaningfully drowning its softer side.

I wonder why.

The grass is wet under my feet, and my soles are raw from the hidden bits of rock in them.

Another spray of mist, a rumble.

The sky is overcast. I smile a little.So damn apt for this.

I can feel the cuts in my palm, I’ve been crushing it too hard. My brain long since gave up warning me of the abuse. It’s strangely numb, and yet I feel the sharp edges.

I can see the picture in my head, and I try not to think of anything else.

Just the picture, till this is over.

My legs are freezing, and I look down at slightly blue toes peeking out from under too-long jeans.

I never did have them fixed. I doubt I’m going to start now.

The water is still rushing by, and I wonder if it is as loud as the thoughts rushing through my head.

A bolt of lightening strikes across the sky beyond, and I can see little spots in front of my eyes.

I can feel the cold metal in my hand, and I absently brush the metal with my thumb. Involuntarily I flinch at the sudden burn and pain.

It doesn’t matter to me.It will go away.

Here, by the water, cold, wet and soaked, and bleeding.

It’s light, but I feel it burn into my skin. It’s cold but it reminds me of warmth.

Warm skin it used to rest on.

I look down at my half open palm. It is, as I thought it would be.

But at the centre, mingled in blood, is a snowflake.It looks beautiful.

Bloody and beautiful.

I remember it on your skin, how it used to tinkle when you turned in your sleep.

How it was so alive on you.

How your eyes shone when you saw it.

How it seemed to shine brighter when you smiled.

Here it lies, glimmering in the dim light. And it reminds me of you.

Only you.

A few drops of rain fall in warning. It is time.

I panic. I’m not ready yet. Not yet. But I must. I cannot hold on anymore.

It’s been so long, and the house has grown cold. Too cold.

Like the diamond in my hand. Cold droplets burn the skin.

I clutch the diamond and remember. One last time.

You made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything stupid. That I would let you go.

I lied.

The chill of the water is like knives on my skin. The water filling my lungs is like knives inside me.

I can see the snowflake, and think of nothing else.