nazeemonline

‘Bare all’ is considered as a daring attempt in show business. Of course it is a daring act. To shed ones clothes before a whole lot of people or sometimes a few, indeed needs immense courage. If to believe those who has done it, it is just a technical performance. How many times have we heard actresses describing how their co-stars and directors made them comfortable in performing intimate scenes? But is it necessary to make a movie with very intimate scenes just to give the impression of real life? The latest among such movies is The Dirty Picture, which is based on life of South Indian actor Silk Smitha, who is equally gifted with talent and beauty, but often degraded as a mere sex bomb by the film industry itself. Please, don’t pass the blame on her fans or movie lovers. Responsibility of viewers in giving her such an image is negligible compared to film industry who made box-office hits out of her lewd and lascivious acts and song sequences. Everyone knows Smitha did such r...

No social activist is at hind sight when politicians cutting across ideological lines are very much active in the Mullaperiyar Dam controversy. Where are those Silent Valley protesters or other green groups? Why they remain mute at a time when time demands their involvement? Or are they not active like renowned writer MT Vasudevan Nair has pointed out. In an interview he said, social activism in Kerala is not upto mark. To a question, I enquired about social evils coming back and gripping Malayalees, he said, it shows the degradation of social activism.If a new generation does not understand the importance of rivers, it is because of their lack of awareness and lack of love for their mother tongue. And if sexual abuse against women are increasing in a state known for female literacy, it is because the real culprits are not brought out to justice. He chided noted writer Sara Joseph, and activist K.Ajitha avoiding the ‘middle women’ in sex rackets. He challenged them to bring them out....

Occupation is in the blood of distant colonial cousins, Great Britain and the United States of America. Down the history it is not difficult to see how these two countries were engaged in invasion of other sovereign governments to plunder immense natural wealth and beauty. Now the people of the two countries themselves have taken up the idea of “occupying” what they are deprived of, naturally. And the anti-capitalist movement has spread out to other European nations too. But the fulcrum of the movement is within America; and it centres on Wall Street; and hence the Occupy Wall Street agenda. Let us see what the anti-Wall Street activists have to say: “Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colours, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use ...

Therapeutic value of writing is no longer a myth. But some dare to compare writing to sexual pleasure. It was during a reporting assignment; I met those cheerful, good looking young people in Thiruvananthapuram. I thought they came to attend the function like several who gathered there on that day. A noted writer and an environmentalist were the key speakers. I noticed the youngsters as they were of my age; and they were standing behind the stage all the time. I thought they too were waiting to catch the dignitaries of the function for an interview or a chat. I said hi to them and when I inquired about them, there came a reply, which my ears could not believe that time. "We are sex workers; belonging to ... (they said the name of a group based in the city).” It was during that time, the term sex workers were being used widely to give an acceptance to prostitution. I got shocked, not because they were sex workers, but the pride they showed in being in that dirty job. I w...

Do words fail us? My experience says, yes, sometimes. But my members of family say, it’s not the problem of words, but my own inability to think in a mundane way. And it ends up in total confusion like this incident happened a few days back, which I didn’t share with them fearing to become a butt of ridicule again. One day, reaching home from office, the water bottle I kept outside my flat for refilling went missing. But the money kept under the bottle was untouched. Obviously, somebody who badly needed a five gallon bottle for free took it. I informed the watchman, who does not understand English very well. I told him somebody had stolen my water bottle. And he asked me to explain in Hindi. I tried to get the Hindi word ‘chor’ for ‘thief’. But however hard I tried, ‘chor’ was stuck somewhere down my throat. In my vain attempt to get the apt word, I asked him, “What is the word for someone who takes other people’s things” And he too lost in words. Utter confusion. Somehow I ma...

A person whom I have seen once, and heard umpteen times — that was Jagjit Singh to me. Maybe for millions of his fans. Today, he left this mundane world leaving behind a sea of ghazals and bhajans, as a token of his very existence. A music lover knows what a ghazal means; it is the song of unrequited love, and pangs of separation. And no other ghazal singer was successful in romanticising this pain of love and separation as Jagjit Singh did.  His melancholy-filled, soul searching voice was able to invade any hard-hearted mind. A melting down of emotions that ends in deep agony and tears. How many times haven’t we shed tears listening to his songs! Anyone who tasted love and its darker shades can never turn away from ghazals. And for that “dard” Jagjit Singh becomes a true companion. But is he dead? With his innumerable songs, and act of kindness, which was revealed only after his death, how death could dare to snatch him away from us! It’s true his “deham” or body is go...

Arriving here in a desert land years back, there were so many things that put me in wonder - long fleet of cars resting bare under scorching sun, buildings and apartments without boundary walls, freedom to move around even after midnight, skyscrapers which seemed like matchbox palaces and facades of artificial palaces built during the temple procession at my birthplace...Gradually, I understood all these are features of this booming city, except one thing- the small little birds, chirping and flying up above the sky in the harsh summer. Sometimes they come in a group and use to rest on my clothes stand too. They seem to tell me always- "Look at me, how cool I am! When you, the mighty human being, feel tired and exhausted by the summer, I could fly." Feeling so low by this challenge put by these little creatures, I always tried to find out an answer. And this summer unveiled the puzzle before me. I was on foot going to a supermarket. A man going in a car caught my attentio...

EXISTENTIALISM may be a failed theory in the eyes of contemporary thinkers. Moreover, the world has so much in it for a person to escape from the grip of existentialism. But it seems an expatriate cannot escape from its clutches. As any other expatriate, once I too went for vacation with all that feeling of ‘home going.’ My first trip during all my vacations is to Trivandrum, a city which makes me nostalgic. A usual, I opted for a train journey. I reached the railway station deliberately a little bit early to get that feeling of time wasted and enjoyed on train journeys. Enjoying the fresh air to its fullest; thanks to the lullaby of banyan trees that decorated the railway station premise; I find it hard to believe that no friends are around me now. Before I went into a deep sadness, a woman in her forties, decently dressed, intruded my moments of aching joys. She approached me with a smile and sat near me on the platform bench. Chit-chatting about the train that has to arrive sh...

W hatever you call it, Annaism or Anna fever or Anna mania, the inevitable has happened in India. The relentless fight against corruption initiated by the 74-year-old about 25 years back has finally been taken up by his fellow countrymen. It is the biggest explosion of poetic justice in contemporary Indian political scenario, and that too in the form of an apolitical movement. How long can a man’s sincere efforts be sidelined and go unnoticed? How long the authorities could blink over the real issues of over one billion people and claim growth rate in percentages and dollars? There comes Anna’s magic entry — quoting Prime Minister Manmohan, it is an effort “to trip parliamentary democracy.” By making such an allegation against Hazare and his supporters, Singh was expressing his anguish over the massive protests that erupted across the country. When corruption has become a way of life among the bureaucracy and judiciary, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pres...