prose – SKR Web

Tag: <span>prose</span>

‘We’ for Valentine: Patterns within our Kaleidoscope

February 14, 2022February 14, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

As February dances to its love tune for obvious reasons, have you ever wondered what color and shape is your heart taking this Valentine? Is it the heart that is crimson for you or is there space for other palettes and patterns to take over? Almost like a game of cards with different shapes speaking for themselves, can we allow ourselves to think differently? At its peak, Greek society painted its culture with the colors of comedy and tragedy. Catharsis or not, the impression has been deeply ingrained through generations of audiences from The Odeon to The Globe of Shakespeare to continuously evolving modern means of storytelling. People continue to fall in love overcoming barriers of ethnicity, color, race, religion, class, language, or gender. The structure of that love may have shifted over time, but the roots have remained firm. Across films, music, art, literature, or poetry, the sense of affection has floated with blurred boundaries, but the palettes and designs of love differ with time, but emotions have adamantly stood the test of time.

Humming to Sting’s Shape of my heart (where he compared these shapes with separate identifications), are we ready to put a name to those individual shapes that carry our emotions? What if Cinderella’s masquerade did not wait for the clock to strike at 12? Would she still have got her prince charming? Perhaps if Snow White had not eaten the round red apple, her heart would not have experienced that eternal kiss of life! When we connect romance with the heart, we forget that its hypothetical shape is a mere figment of our imagination. Sorry to burst the bubble! Despite the knowledge, the innumerable amount of content that we see, hear or read, relates to that picture-perfect ‘heart’ shape. There are so many of us who believe in love in different forms. The existence of this one shape of the heart seems to be uniform to all of us. Most of us wear a mask that incessantly identifies with our existing view, constantly suppressing the inner voice questioning its weird, cliched existence. Perhaps we fear the potential loss of human emotions that may end up unfolding the reality.

This Valentine when you think of experiencing or reconfirming your thoughts about emotions, don’t ignore the ones that run wild. All shapes and forms of love in and around us need our focused thoughts. Let them act as lightning bolts, spread like wildfire, and enable us to think out of the box! The game that humans play with each other whether romantically, personally, emotionally is as risky as that game of cards. A spade is not just a spade it acts as a sharp weapon for soldiers unwittingly trapped in the battle of hearts. This Valentine, we can experience ‘clubs’ or we can buy ‘diamonds’, the cards on their own don’t have a value. While it has been associated with decadence, we should not undermine the kind of effect monetary independence brings. As we progress in this claimed month for love and tenderness, friendships, and happiness, connect and progress, we must try to understand the importance of understanding that shape. The size of our emotions does not matter. What matters is that we play the game with patience and fairness for the stakes are always high!

While it is now being argued that the mind is flat, there is still scope for acceptance of some ideas of thinking developed through studies of the mind over the past century. The geometry that surrounds different shapes reveals their intended inferences. For instance, shapes like squares and rectangles bring a sense of stability, balance, structure while circular shapes tend to bring about the concept of wholeness, self, timeliness, and completion. Then there is a triangle that even inputs its emotions to emerge with ideas of enlightenment, revelation, brightness surrounding ourselves. It’s heartening to see that the world is moving towards an acknowledgment of the individuality and uniqueness around us. The enforcement of uniform color, shape, and type is not justified when we start attaching emotions with them. These angles of possibility can be surrounded by stereotypical ideas and ideals, yet the result of any relationship can be completely new. What’s more, they can evolve into unthinkable complications, pretty much like these shapes and their mysterious psychological patterns.

The physically fixed-shaped heart has done its fair share of somersaults from films, music, to logic. Wh

en we take literature as well into account, we will find that its journey has been quite adventurous. The characters in books have been brought to life quite often with the awakening of love in their ongoing existence. From early on, this shape has gotten accustomed to the development of the plot, characters, and dialogues. Books bring with them elements of surprise and many times play with the readers’ emotions. A classic or contemporary literary piece of work has its romance. Different angles of this love have played their mystery games in quite many of them.

This Valentine as we think about the shapes and colors our hearts are ready to acquire, are we ready to dance on our own, or do we need our kings and queens to pop the champagne? Perhaps it’s time that we have the same love first for ourselves. With all due respect to our partners, there should not be any illusion as I am not trying to lessen the value of this day but am merely adding a corner of self-love to it! Just like any romantic film’s protagonist, we can very well play the part of characters having mutual affection. However, it is equally important to know that we do not crave a singular dimension. The endgame is perhaps the acknowledgment from ourselves that we matter. We unconsciously long for this confirmation from others rather than ourselves. This ever-trickling loss of self-worth keeps gaining momentum without a counterbalance. It latches itself onto our desires for freedom of thought and expression, self-love, mutual respect, unconditional devotion for our relationship with our surroundings. Instead, we can make it a day for loving ourselves too while respecting each other. Perhaps we may find the real shape of our heart that we can color to our heart’s desire!

Literature in Life

Mowgli of This Jungle Book

January 21, 2022January 21, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

While looking out of my French Window in the City of London, it occurred to me that the struggle to make it in life has become so intense that this part of my whole has engulfed me with a strength that cannot be easily captured in images. But then I turn around and realise. However, the view outside made me see nothing but buildings, roads, and people on roads going towards buildings again. It was a jungle for me and for anyone struggling to carve a road ahead. The concrete jungle is all but a reality now not only in its physicality but also in its emotional, mental, and existential occurrence. Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ in 1894 has been an interesting piece of work for me. But it resonates deeper now when I am in my 40s and realise, I am free to interpret the title and characters according to my whims and fancies in my life’s reality. Now I understand that I am not the only one in this muddle. There are so many of you standing in this line with me. Sometimes you may not even be realising yourself, but I find myself in the same race with most of you. I may sound narcissist to many; it may sound false to quite a few but the truth is, the levels may differ, the intensity may vary, but the core remains the same. We are all searching for that piece of peace that seems to erode with the harsh winds of human fatigue and rationality. For me, and for most of us, the Jungle Book is a story that follows the journey of a wild child named Mowgli. A pack of wolves found him as a baby and was raised among them. However, he had his struggles to fit in and survive. The story follows how he was raised among wolves and survived through it all without any human connection. However, I am not here to find a perspective and take on white colonialism or characters representing the involved symbolism. What I want to concentrate on is my journey or anybody else’s as well, who is sailing in a similar boat. This life around all of us and outside our vision is a Story like Rudyard Kipling’s above mentioned Jungle Book, where like its main character, we too are that wild child, who is left alone to fare for his survival. In this life, we find our journey, our story, our jungle book!

Every morning when we wake up, you and I find ourselves in a forest of ambiguity. We try to clear our morning blur because for some it is just a puddle, for others, it is a marshy land. For few, it is a bridge to cross over, but for most, it is a journey across wonderland far and wide; crossing through deep rivers, dragging over deserts with their parched throats. All of us are in a desperate search of a mere glass of cold water to smoothen out our parched souls. As we grow in life, we move ahead on the paths that we have dug for ourselves and with age comes the understanding that in dreams begins our responsibilities! But the Mowgli in all of us is still that frightened little boy who is trying to make it every single day by keeping a brave face. Every day brings a new hurdle and by the end of each evening, he finds a solution to overcome that. He must survive because that is what he was made to learn. His pack taught him what needs to be done. But they have not held his hand and drilled in him how to reach the finish line. Just like Mowgli, all of us are afraid to cross over. The end of the tunnel is dark. None of us knows what dangers lie ahead. There may be many ‘Sher Khan(s)’ along the way, with accompanying conniving hyenas, to lure us to our tragic end. But if we will ponder more, we will never be able to take that leap of faith. There is always that hope that on the brighter side we may along the way, meet a couple of Bagheera(s). These will be our guides to bring us out of our troubles and may pull us by our neck to carry us safely across the barbed wires. The Baloo, Sher Khan, Kaa, King Louie and even the Hyenas inside each one of us need to agree with what the Mowgli said in Kipling’s story; ‘we be of one blood, ye and I’, The moment we realise that we come from one and shall go back to one, we might be able to cut through the thorns of this jungle safely. We can dream to roam free when our actions will speak louder than our words. A little push there, a subtle pull in several positive directions, is enough to emotionally gratify and physically satisfy our individual Mowgli(s) within.

The story of Rudyard Kipling may have a different focus while bringing Jungle Book to life; still, we as individuals can write our own stories. We may make errors along the way but if we are ready to be an editor for each other and proofread the written content in our lives, our Jungle Book will also have a happy ending. We are sure to gain the same freedom and respect that Mowgli felt in his craving to roam about freely, with a sense of belonging to the roots known to him. The concrete jungle outside our homes, visible through our windows is equal in enormity with the jungle within us. We need to get past our racial, religious, gender, social and economic differences to bridge the divide that is our own doing. The differences that we have created for our own and the gap that is wide enough for ourselves to stumble and fall in this never-ending pit. It needs to be pushed close with a consistent effort. We desperately need to recognise the entryway but even more, what is needed is to hold each other’s hands to take us through the dark forest to see that light at the exit. Our story – your and my Jungle book needs to reach its end as well. Our Mowgli(s) need to meet each other and live in this magnificent Jungle of our own making in harmony. We can bring out the Rudyard Kipling in each of us to write many more such wonderfully wild tales!

Films

Literary Supplements and Films

October 15, 2021October 18, 2021
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

The film Pride and Prejudice has a quiet humurous yet reflective dialogue that explains character of Elizabeth Bennet’s father in terms of his opinion and respect of her decisions and self-worth. He said, ” Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.” The same dialogue in the film gave a very visual perspective of the written lines when we as audience watched the film. The character had so much of body and voice expressions as-well-as body language on screen, in the same film to assist the imaginative power during reading the novel. This definitely increase the interdependence and infuence capacity of the literature and cinema manifold. Viewers can identify with the script while being able to place themselves in the same position. Man has been a storyteller since the beginning. We have our inspirations to impart our thoughts, views, philosophies, beliefs, and opinions though various form of literature. But the moment we talk about use of literature in films, we attain an entry into the world of that is creatively so bifurcated that here the films become the text themselves. This line of thought has its own area of study where if one goes deep within, we will see that cinema borrows openly as well as subtly from the field of literature. Characters are built from the text consciously and many times subconsciously by film makers and actors give life to them with the aid of technology of film making for the productive consumption by the audience.

Cinema has been carrying art in its womb since its inception. Art, be it in any form has been a soul sibling of movies as it opens the doors for film makers to venture into the creative mind of writers. They have chance of entering make the audience at large see through their own point of view, the concepts and imagery that the authors have tried to pen down. Films have been able to spread the creative outlook even without literature however, if the latter enters in movie making arena than the view and genre take an altogether a different panoramic view. Even though literature and cinema are two separate aspects of art, still they carry equal weightage since their spread during 18^th-19^th and 20^th century respectively. They both can take viewers and readers and make them escape into a different world full of thought-provoking ideas and creativity.

The strong aspect that can make films take somewhat of a precedence over literary body is its capacity visualize and the character, situations, scenes, and the script. It has a greater reach towards creating a relation with the audience who can resonate with the moving images way better then literature because there is limitation with reading capacity of individuals too. Where literature has the power to carry its readers into the world of imagination while films have its own strength to be able to bring that imagination of words back to its viewers!

This literature and cinema both have a disconnect in their language majorly because of their difference in the platform. There is difference the occurrence of events due to the placement of time where a particular incident happened. In cinema there is the currency of that incident, many times even borrowing those from the literature where the acts have already occurred. Despite this disconnect literature is a strong supplement to these films because they most of the times become a base to the script, screenplay, and character sketch of these moving images with substance and content. These films may not be a replica of the books as far as its visual representation is concerned, but the kind of explanation and meaning that both these strong aspects of art portrays as they intermingle with each other, the resulting factor justifies the importance of each and clarifies literature to be a strong supplement to cinema!

Films

Existentialism of Films

October 13, 2021October 14, 2021
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

When ( Javier Bardem) Anton Chigurh character is projected in the film “No Country for Old Men”, he is shown to be a hitman who was remorseless. However he had a strange concept to perhaps justify his act of killing. That involved his belief in chance and destiny. During the span of whole film, he is shown to decide the fate of his victims by ‘flipping the coin’. The desined flip decides whether the person dies, even if the he is told in the movie by one of his client, “you don’t have to do it.” The movie which is based on the bool of same name, written by Cormac McCarthy, is infact a powerful example that seeps deeper into the psyche of audience and people at large and manages to stay alive long after the show is over.

Those who are in luck to have the capacity to decide, may not use the same for doing good. When we try to talk about the concept of existentialism in any form, we need to make sure that we lay down the basics of the philosophy clearly Then we can apply this idea in any possible field. When and person is free as well as responsible to take care of self-development keeping in mind the point of freedom, choice, individuality, responsibility and consciousness towards self, the boundary of this philosophy is understood to be covered conveniently. This has been forte of thinkers like Soren Kierkegaard and Jean Paul Sartre. Many others have followed the suit and have become a great help to peep into its relationship with other fields.

When we talk about other fields, the one that comes to mind is cinema because it is one medium that is persistent and consistent most of the individuals’ life. One way or the other we all are consuming, and synthesising the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, views depicted via this channel. Philosophy of films agrees with Deleuze that film has power to provoke the thought process Coming of Sartre into it provides an opportunity to explore cinema in a different philosophical context. His idea of existentialism has developed a very productive working boundary while interpreting a film. The early forties and early fifties need to be given visible credit for bringing the idea of existentialism in film upfront. The pallet of shooting these films was majorly in black and white with a rich texture to it, with dark shadows hindered with the neon light dribbling through blinds. The characters were evolved to be hard hitting with deep and hitting dialogues. Their character sketch was drawn to be almost living on edge surrounding with deep sexual tension. This was even termed as ‘film noir’. The genre which even today has the capacity to rise a feeling of emptiness and unrest in the audience watching and experiencing it. Since the budget was low and had its own set of complications while releasing due to the censorship restrictions regarding the deep depressive projection of life. However, despite these drawbacks, the films used to end up profiting and bad backing from the historical and political situations of the times. With the economy of the time being down the drain and people drowning further into the aftermaths of World wars and bombings and emerging and existing racial discrimination, that was the perfect timing for film noir to prevail and thrive over the bodies of broken political and human existence!

Amazon.com: 2001: A Space Odyssey : Douglas Rain, Frank Miller, Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Gary Lockwood, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick,

Writers, actors and directors like Joel and Ethan Coen, John Turturro, Steven Soderbergh and Woody Allen and many more have credibly taken the idea of existentialism forward in their own very creative formats. These films have made existential not just due to them catering the theme but also because of the prevailing culture all around at the time which have touched not only the elite but in fact even the common man, thus resonating with population at large. So, by concerning the happenings around, the tradition has still the capacity to flourish and become a stable part of cinema to understand the idea of philosophy of ‘existentialism’. Another movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) which was an experimental venture of Stanley Kubrick. Herebthe dialogues and the plot of the film takes a back seat because the audience is awestruck by the powerful effects and visuals which dispalys the travel in space and its mysteries that are ready to unfold. For writer Pedro Blas Gonzalez this movie philosophise his idea of an “existential odyssey” Where the character Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) tries to quench his thirst to explore space thus representing the neverending search for knowledge. Such movies may have wierd and sensless endings, however they make the viewers find their own logical meaning to it, justifying the concept of existentialism in a way. These are just few snippets of what the films hold and what is their actual capacity to impart a particular understanding that can enlighten, develop and even challenges the viewers so that they can move further as far as their understanding of different concepts and theories are concerned, even if unconsciously!

Literature in Life

The Serpent and her Dark Jungle

September 21, 2021September 21, 2021
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

Sorry son if I have borrowed your story book title! I know it is your personal literature, but the moment I read it I knew that serpent is me and the jungle is mine. I claim it totally because I need to. I cannot do without this jungle. It is a big solace for me! I can hide like a deer; I can be the lion here. The monkey inside me can swing freely in its boundaries. And that long lost hyena can for sure bare its teeth for grasping the dead meat of my being. Many unsaid animals are raring to jump out of me the moment I think of entering this dark territory. Thank you for inspiring me without knowing. As I sit by my window in the fake warmth of my cosy home, I look at the red light over the construction buildings. I wait and I wonder where has this life gone? Was this the turn we as women are supposed to take every few years? Every one of us who try to pick up the pieces of their life, what are we actually thinking? What is the real reality of our existence? And I am not talking about those who have touched their pinnacle of self-satisfaction. Kudos! you all have done it. I am conversing about those who have not. The supporters, the nurturers, the lovers – So many tags are associated with to become part or whole of our identity. The identity that perhaps many of us do not even want. Still, we chug it down our throat of acceptance and revel in the title of being a real woman! When I talk to my maid, I see her perception of life quite like mine. We both need to take it all in! She has no other choice and I have made this as my choice. Big difference! When everything is fine and When I have a freedom of my speech, still there is a continuous feeling of something being just not right. The road below my apartment slithers and run to its pre-decided destination. I am that road that has accepted that decision so smoothly and with pride, that I did not even realise when I was falling too deep in the river beside.

I am that serpent which is so smooth to touch that water slips over it and flows away. The serpent that is raring to not feel the sadness and guilt of being not able to do something that satisfies the other. This slick reptile in me desperately wants to go and hide in the hole that is further hidden in the jungle of my freedom and happiness. The morning comes but there is still that darkness in here. Its comforting yet disturbing. It calming yet brings in the feeling of eeriness. I can see the skyrise across my window, I am sitting in one!

But they seem clearer and much higher. The sun there is shining brighter today. I want to be there, don’t everyone? I try to move ahead while the darkness behind me pulls me harder. I can see the cars, trucks, pedestrians crossing the bridge at their pace longingly. I want to do the same, cross the bridge at my pace. But I am running against time. I want to do so many things at one go, I need to do another set of things is a different matter. I can hear the hiss… come to the jungle deeper, faster! Do I listen, do I stay or for once should I stray? Move down the road, cross the barriers and reach there where I can see the light of the gem I have been thirsty for? The green grass up the hill calls out but my dark mossy patch is more comfortable. I know it. I have been here done all. It suits me. But the heart desires something riskier. Something that is far more dangerous that what I am comfortable with. There is a vast difference between what I want to hold on to and hat I should cling to. The comfort of my home is so deep that it becomes almost impossible to move away yet my heart wants more. It longs for what I feel is my due. The sense of respect that my kind deserves but never able to attain lurks like a burning fire deep down. Those around me tell and don’t tell me to go for it. I need to challenge me more then them. It is definitely about me not them but they always end up mattering more to me then myself. The love for universal acceptability it so high that it is almost like an adrenaline rush for me. I need to be them, loved by them, approved by them. Do I really need to? Is my jungle enough for me or do I need my holiday homes as well? I guess I do because it gets very claustrophobic sometimes being in my comfort zones. I need to go out more often and explore further, may be risk a little less a little more as well. Who know I just like it there despite it being a big bad world out there. I just might make it too.

This serpent and her jungle is ready to let go I guess. Slithering and dragging her damaged soul she is finally peeping out and ready to push her body and soul to carve her way ahead to better pastures with all the dangers as part of this package. So, let this serpent move in and out of her jungle at her pace while diminishing the divide on the side. The exclusivity needs to merge with the inclusivity of our mind to see the serpent as less evil and more of standing on the defence land in order to protect its identity. For that very ‘I’ is ‘We’.