Friday, June 29, 2007

kafka's idiom - space left for communication


Through the various interpretations of the parable that the priest and K. discuss in the course of ninth chapter (Kafka, Franz – The Trial, Picador, 2001 ) one understands the limitations of words and communication itself as a strategy. Kafka through the insertion of this parable in the story alludes implicitly that there is a passage to Justice, to law, to truth but in the act of taking permission, in this thought that he ought to take permission the countryman finds the doorkeeper ordering him not to. The doorkeeper, the priest stresses, does it because it is his duty and he may not be actually suggesting that but language plays the trick or as this following interpretation from a Kafka scholar elucidates - it is the inefficiency of the language or its ambiguity because each word can be subjected to multiple interpretations, can hold multiple meanings.

“This seeming contradiction, between a door intended solely for one person and that person's inability to use the door, is decided by the prison chaplain as common, to be expected, even natural. According to the chaplain's reading, which is also one of Kafka's readings, a proper passage (e.g., meaningful communication) is always subjected to certain torments of its logic (e.g., polysemia, overdetermination, etc.). On this reading, the law, due to the very fact that it leaves the borders to its logic open, will always drift to a degree. And its borders cannot but be open, at least so long as it is being read.”
(‘Kafka, Language, Pain’ by Colin Koopman, part of the Kafka Project).

The real communication would be a passage which will lead to truth, which will give an understanding of the meaning of one’s existence, one’s purpose, one’s responsibilities, the knowledge systems in life but such a passage or space for communication shrinks on its own account, it suffers from its own inability. As long as K. waits asking for permission, trying to see whether he can get through, he goes on waiting not asking the important questions to himself nor the others he runs into. In his tortuous ruminations also he never ponders over his guilt and as to why the court is not addressing that openly. He does not seem to be bothered about that. He wants to escape it, keep it ensconced somewhere, resisting it, still trying to dabble outside the realm of real understanding and communication.

A short excerpt from my paper, do have a look at Das Schloss's site on Kafka and also the essential Kafka project website.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

repetition is seductive - What causes this repetition?


Rajnikant's film opened in Pondicherry in the Ram Cinema Hall, Anna Salai Rd. The last Hindi film which opened in Pondicherry in the same hall was 'KANK' and I was told, before that had come 'Fanah'. For consuming Bollywood stuff, we depend on trips to Chennai and Bangalore. During other times, a compromise follows with personal laptops acting as halls playing the un-original DVDs picked up from roadside sellers of the Sunday evening bazaar.

My Bengali colleague S. who also speaks Tamil cajoled me into coming to see the BOSS film - first day third show. I was interested but apprehensive, not sure how much I will understand it. After work, as we checked out of the ICICI ATM and hailed an auto-rickshaw, discussion with the driver immediately centered on 'Shivaji'.

He said the tickets are running 700 rupees. S. reassured me, he will handle the sellers, we will get the tickets in black cheaper. By the time we had reached the hall, the same driver was of the opinion that tickets are now 300 rupees. We finally got them for 120, only to find out they had no seat numbers printed on them. We were told to take our seats in the passageway. There were many like us seated alongside, grateful to catch the star on the very first day. The air-conditioner was thankfully working.

For a student of film and media studies, it was a lesson on fan culture, on audience reception theory. The film was every bit entertaining. It was both a Rajni as well as a Shankar film. I had last catched up on Shankar's Nayak and found a similarity of structure in the screenplay. Problem 1 is wholly or partly solved with Solution 1 to encounter a transformed problem requiring a different solution . A sequence of such problem-solution series follows...song-dance sequences fascinate as do Rajni's acts...the film proves once again that repetition is seductive

What causes this repetition? - the star says he has a responsibility towards his fans. S.V. Srinivas has through a series of articles taken the facade out of the belief that 'fans are passive - they are controlled, they do not control'. By throwing light on the activities of Fan Associations (FAs) both political and apolitical , Srinivas has partly reversed the case. Fans play perhaps the key role in the star's film turning out the way it does. Their role in the commercial success of the film too is pivotal as through their control of public spaces like halls, cinema toilets, wall graffiti...through their acts of hyperbole, exaggeration and excess they often govern the popular perception of a forthcoming or just released film. So at the end of the day, whose film is it?, is a tricky question...

Friday, June 08, 2007

confront the dream within anxiety



Stressed out he lies, on a bed deep in thought, about nothing

When subjective answers decide one’s choice, the choice being a black or white 'objective', a binary flip flop

The unfairness of the system, the final judgment : A make or break, leaving one with an 'ah' or rather an 'oh' with exclamations

Lying, he keeps lying. What will he do, getting up?

Another day in that place where one looks into a screen, involved in a maddening fetish where
one finds those objects facing each other who just cannot stand each other’s face


He will be late for the bus, He will have to rush through a hurried breakfast, The auto rickshaw would make haste, He will be denied a look at that school girl, at that 9’o’clock rose

Even the summer sunlight has found its way through the curtains so early, Even in its morning softness, glaring at you, as you wake up

Living that shipwrecked dream, The dream to start all dreams, The dream to end all dreams
Still unfulfilled, uncertain the dream

The dream which causes the anxiety, The dream infected by pathogenic schizophrenic anxiety
a part of you - this anxiety, it came , stuck and stayed creating an anthill, a spider's web, a viral network

A whole new day that dream and that anxiety, eating and filling the time in the mind, within and between its perspiration, broccoli food, scampering feet watching out for the dog poodle, the noise of wordy people car horns, and dizzying bikes

goes to bed again, hearing a lullaby on a Windows Media Player to confront the dream within anxiety and the anxiety within dream yet again

Sunday, June 03, 2007

the story of his false starts and promises


----

he has little intuition for birds

leave alone the butterflies

is blind to a cat’s stealth

and the sad look in a dog’s eyes

---

he is an interior person

opens the door of his house

only on steamy summer evenings

for the breeze from the sea to waft in

---

ever since he has taken up

this broadband connection

he has left the idiot box

and watches only buffered news

---

he is an unapologetic bachelor

with a lot of false starts and promises

goes for lonely walks and writes poetry

imitating bukowski without a typewriter

---

reading the Myth of Sisyphus

he asks himself an existential question

why does he not contemplate suicide

living a nothing life as he is

---

he dreams up a reason that

he wants to marry one day and

he wants to tell his daughter someday

the story of his false starts and promises

----

For Charles Bukowski