The Eye

What a marvellous sense ability which we have, called the 'vision' or 'sight'. That is the ability to see the world around us. And the eye makes it all possible. The eye is sometimes described as the outwardly visible part of our brain. Each waking second the eye sends some one billion pieces of fresh information to the brain. The human eye can sense some ten million gradations of light and seven million different shades of colour. Eyes are responsible for about 75% of all that we perceive. Few creatures could boast of eyesight as powerful as a man's. An Astronaut orbiting the Earth could spot the Pyramids of Egypt.

Today I have learned that there is a part of the human body that receives most of the oxygen directly from the atmosphere rather than from blood!! What a wonder!! The 'cornea' in the eye receives most of its oxygen directly from the atmosphere through tears! If it were to be from the blood that would diminish the transparency of the cornea...

In 1957, intrigued by the dual purpose of tears [irritant tears and emotional tears], chemist Robert Brunish analyzed the ingredients of irritant and emotional tears.. Tears induced by onion fumes and strong wind, he discovered, contained a lower concentration of the protein albumin. In the 1970s the biochemist William Frey began investigating whether this protein was related to the chemical changes in our bloodstream caused by stress. Tears might well play a role in filtering out the body's stressful chemicals. The machismo ethic of suppressing tears, Frey thinks, might induce peptic ulcers and other stress-related diseases. By not allowing himself to weep, the strong, silent male might not take advantage of natural relief. Guys, don't hold back your tears... let it flow naturally.

Happiness is...

Here is a nice quote I read on the first day of 2006 which made me very happy about everything.

"Happiness is not a destination. It is a way of travelling."

A few days ago I saw Ozu's "Early Summer". What a spiritual film! No wonder Tarkovsky admires Ozu so much. It was astonishing to see how he managed to make space and beings/objects into one whole. That is unique to Ozu. I think that was achieved both through the lensing and the elevation of the camera. He is not just keeping a low-angle shot!!

And I was also somehow thinking of music... Why man invented music? I believe it was to overcome the tyranny of time. Music allowed man to conquer time, rather music allowed man to travel parallel with time... and cinema allowed man to conquer space and time.. and who said space and time are one entity?

“To live -and die- without regret”.

It has been 48 days since I have written anything here. It also looks like yesterday! I wanted to write about death, after I heard about the road accident which put my dear friend Pamela Rooks in a coma. And I never sat at the computer to do so… I was not able to concentrate... may be I was reluctant to be face to face with the only definite thing in our life.

Suddenly I was remembered of another accident which happened during the shooting of the film "Train to Pakistan". We were on the banks of Sutlej river near a rail bridge preparing for some early morning shoot. It was still dark. As we were discussing about the shot standing on the tracks looking towards the bridge, I heard a loud shout from my assistant… “Sir…jump...move away”. He was in fact sitting on the rail and warming himself with a small camp fire he made. Pam and I suddenly moved away from the tracks and within a second or two a goods train zoomed across the bridge. I still tremor about that instant. Unfortunately one of the production assistants in the unit was walking on the rail bridge, against the instruction to use the parallel road bridge to cross the river. His dead body was found in the river after 10 days.

We were told by the production people that there will be no train traffic along that bridge till 8am in the morning - supposedly after confirming with the railway authorities! I am still doubtful about that. The train was approaching the bridge frighteningly silent! If my assistant Vinayan was looking towards us, even, he would not have noticed the approaching train. Luckily for us he was looking the other way. Unfortunately Vinayan died of asthma a year later. I still miss him. He was such a help to me. I am sure he will be wishing me all the best from the heavens.

With in a fraction of seconds the fate saved our life on that fateful day. As I understand it was a strange accident which happened to Pamela. The car radio which flew away from the other car which met with an accident came and hit her on the head. I pray to the God for a speedy recovery. Pamela, be a brave women as you were always.

Accidents are always a matter of a split second. Of course, none of us can avoid death. It is inevitable. And we don’t know when it will happen. All that we can do is to live ‘now’ with total awareness. In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. As Tibet’s famous poet saint, Milarepa, said: “My religion is to live-and die-without regret.”