A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

A CINEASTE OPENS UP: CELEBRATING THE FORCES WITHIN CINEMA.

I feel a surge of inimitable joy, committing my words to this betokened collection again that helped me pour out musical and cinematic - and by extension cultural - musings on works, personalities and places of great agency through the written word , all in the vein of collecting a cinephile's love for the artistic medium and taking to fertile grounds with fellow readers and writers here.

This is after quite a gap of around six months but rest assured I was never separated from my foremost sanctuary of creative churning, dedicating my time to reading and discovering more diverse works here as also taking leaps of faith with my blog AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA: TRACING WORDS ON THESE FILIGREED, DISCERNING FINGERTIPS that continues my love affair with the cinematic universe and its approximations of life. Frankly speaking, as a writer, both forms have kept me in effusive spirits and one never distracted from the other since I have shared all my blog posts on my profile here as well. Never one without the other as for me, it's a full fledged compendium of my written output that means so much to me, realistically as per my sensibilities and choices and symbolically as regards my progression and versatility as a singular writer who finds comfort in tales culled from real life and always tends to gravitate towards the poetic in the prosaic milieu.

Also 2018 has been a turning point as several of my poems, essays, letter to the editor, film reviews were selected for publication and adorned national and international media, giving further credence to yours truly's belief in the written word as encompassing the very idea of expression . As another poem will be published soon in a journal hailing from a prestigious college's literary society, I think these nods of approval for my dedication and hard work have only gone on to humble me. The pattern of continuity calls for great restraint as other areas of life sometimes threaten to submerge me but I'm glad the constancy has remained. My kindred writers and readers have made it possible by their enthusiasm.

So as I return to my familiar form, I will write about three beautifully illustrated approximations of life in feature films LOVING (2016 ), OUTLAW KING and ROMA ( both the latter titles from this year) We have all received the privilege of watching and savoring their true life backlog and the translation to screen irrespective of the space or dimension as LOVING released in traditional theaters but was discovered by me for viewing on NETFLIX while OUTLAW KING and ROMA are original Netflix creations that simultaneously made their presence felt in theaters as well . Hence in the coming writings, I will write about each. It's the humanity in varying degrees that make them stand on a common, elevated ground.

Finally, it's good to be back to A LETTERED SOUL--that old familiar haunt where the aroma of sharing life scripts recreated in cinema and music wafts in the air and the rejuvenation of the mind, body and soul is complete in the varied spaces of the written word. While that promise remains, so do my words on the music that generated stirrings of excellence in a crowd of punctured songcraft, as I had done in 2017 , continuing here in the new year as well.

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