Suddenly I don’t like Mumbai. Everything that was getting eventually endearing about this place seems to have slowly faded. Life at the local train stations don’t interest me anymore. There is no more a wide-eyed wonder about the expanse of the sea. No more do I venture out to Colaba to shop on my own. Streets remind me of my friends who came and went – the places I haunted with them – Bottles of beer at Mondy’s, burnt fish at Martins, huge amounts of prawn fry at Leopolds, a walk staring at the large mansions at Bandstand, a stroll along Marine Drive – Mumbai has lost its charm – no more do I wish to stay here.
Ips went away – a stable rock solid support was gone. Jai flew off – my school mate was gone. Pix left – my best friend and most comforting factor disappeared. Ktik followed – confidential talks and random dinners flew out of the window. Niv was next in line – my favourite critic and darling friend also went. I feel so voided of late.
I cross Dadar and remember the catering college and Hard Rock. I go to the stations and imagine the tall banana-chappaled woman making her way through the crowd. I visit the book shop at Causeway and remember going there to find research books for Ips’ Phd. I cross Chembur and the days I spent with Adi comes back to me. I see a Subway and remember the two mad sub-lovers.
Very important parts of my life have left. Mumbai was a lot of what it was because of them. Each one brought me joy in a very special way. Suddenly I feel very very lonely. I don’t know if I want to stay here anymore. Suddenly there is nothing much to look forward to. And I am a “social butterfly”, aren’t I? Then how come I find it terribly difficult to make new friends?
I have a comfort zone. Part of that zone came to Mumbai, made it beautiful and left. Suddenly this city is as hollow as it once was. And I am as incomplete.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Caricature Workout
Someone called me a pretty cartoon. That is mostly because, if you have seen me, I have a big head compared to the rest of my body. So in effect, if one looks at me carefully I look pretty much like a caricature – big head, big eyes, big mouth – well, let’s say I am a caricature artist’s ideal subject. And all this started when I announced that I am going to lose weight and then I was told that in that case my body would become thinner and I would look more comical than I do now. Hmm. And so much for thinking that I was sexy and all that crap. Ah well. Sigh.
So anyway, I have decided to join a gym – for which I had gone shopping today. All this is done with the sole intention of motivating me enough to lose weight – you know how it goes…if I spend so much money on getting my goodies together for gym-ing, I will be guilt ridden enough to wake up in the morning and run to the gym – paisa vasool you see – and considering how broke I am right now, spending oodles of cash on the membership and the accessories is a big thing for me. And tomorrow I am going to buy myself a set of three ankle length socks and then draw out a cheque of almost one third of my salary towards the bi-annual gym fee. I have instructed my parents to courier me my running shoes all the way from North India for this very noble and healthy cause of mine. This is quite an event in my life.
You see, this is bigger than you think it is. I am essentially an owl by nature. I love keeping up till ungodly hours of the night and hearing the crickets sing, I read a few chapters out of some book or write some unstructured poetry, I watch an obscure film or I catch up with other nocturnal friends on the phone, I love the silence of the night and I love the sound of my voice in the silence – for me night time is my time – so consequently, I find it terribly difficult to crawl out of bed in the morning…grudgingly I open my eyelids to the morning light at 9 am and run out of the house with a sandwich in my hand at 10…such is my habit, such is my routine. So for me to take an initiative to even think about waking up at 7 for gym every morning is very very very big!
But I am determined. And I have gone and asked them how much will it cost, I have taken the pain and effort to walk into that fitness space (in which me and my flabby self feels totally out of place) and ask for the fitness instructor (who by the way is totally hot and totally indifferent)….I have figured out which membership plan I want, I have decided what time slot will suit me and will make me (hopefully) a healthier and thinner person. I seem to be so obsessed with the idea of losing weight. Part of me blames the goddamn tiny anorexic-designed dresses that are sold at Peddar road that come in from Bangkok, part of me blames the very looks oriented society we live in, part of me blames the fact that I am not fighting the system but falling into it and yet part of me blames the indifference in which I am letting myself bloat up.
Am I fat? Am I thin? Am I fit? More importantly, am I happy? And if losing a couple of kgs would make me happier then I suppose this is a good new year’s gift to give oneself. All I am hoping is that there is weight loss all over and that I don’t end up looking like a bigger caricature – or if a caricature must I be, then let me atleast be a pretty caricature.
With this hopeful note, I pen down my new years fitness resolution and validate my coupon to happiness.
*huff puff*
So anyway, I have decided to join a gym – for which I had gone shopping today. All this is done with the sole intention of motivating me enough to lose weight – you know how it goes…if I spend so much money on getting my goodies together for gym-ing, I will be guilt ridden enough to wake up in the morning and run to the gym – paisa vasool you see – and considering how broke I am right now, spending oodles of cash on the membership and the accessories is a big thing for me. And tomorrow I am going to buy myself a set of three ankle length socks and then draw out a cheque of almost one third of my salary towards the bi-annual gym fee. I have instructed my parents to courier me my running shoes all the way from North India for this very noble and healthy cause of mine. This is quite an event in my life.
You see, this is bigger than you think it is. I am essentially an owl by nature. I love keeping up till ungodly hours of the night and hearing the crickets sing, I read a few chapters out of some book or write some unstructured poetry, I watch an obscure film or I catch up with other nocturnal friends on the phone, I love the silence of the night and I love the sound of my voice in the silence – for me night time is my time – so consequently, I find it terribly difficult to crawl out of bed in the morning…grudgingly I open my eyelids to the morning light at 9 am and run out of the house with a sandwich in my hand at 10…such is my habit, such is my routine. So for me to take an initiative to even think about waking up at 7 for gym every morning is very very very big!
But I am determined. And I have gone and asked them how much will it cost, I have taken the pain and effort to walk into that fitness space (in which me and my flabby self feels totally out of place) and ask for the fitness instructor (who by the way is totally hot and totally indifferent)….I have figured out which membership plan I want, I have decided what time slot will suit me and will make me (hopefully) a healthier and thinner person. I seem to be so obsessed with the idea of losing weight. Part of me blames the goddamn tiny anorexic-designed dresses that are sold at Peddar road that come in from Bangkok, part of me blames the very looks oriented society we live in, part of me blames the fact that I am not fighting the system but falling into it and yet part of me blames the indifference in which I am letting myself bloat up.
Am I fat? Am I thin? Am I fit? More importantly, am I happy? And if losing a couple of kgs would make me happier then I suppose this is a good new year’s gift to give oneself. All I am hoping is that there is weight loss all over and that I don’t end up looking like a bigger caricature – or if a caricature must I be, then let me atleast be a pretty caricature.
With this hopeful note, I pen down my new years fitness resolution and validate my coupon to happiness.
*huff puff*
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Loud and Clear
I wonder who discovered this wonderful thing that I have just discovered. And I don’t know why I didn’t discover it earlier. To think of it, it’s been ten years since it all began – how convenient would it have been if I had been adventurous enough to use it then. It would have been ten years of hardly knowing that every month the cycle with repeat itself – the pain, the mood swings, the lethargy, and the lack of appetite – most of it would diminish and I would have been a happier and a less bothered woman – as I am now.
I remember seeing it first when I was 14. It looked like a little bullet – and we were so fascinated – I mean why wouldn’t we be- after being used to seeing white rectangular lumps, these tiny things the size of half my index finger seemed fascinating – how could that tiny thing soak up so much, it was totally incomprehensible to us. So my other 14 year old friends and I unwrapped one – with wide eyed wonder… as if a mystery was getting solved - and put it in a mug of water and ‘PLOP’ it swelled up in an instant and became more that double its size. I think that that sight was what scared me out of my wits…just imaging inserting it was unthinkable then – and then the fact that it would double up in size was downright scary.
Then one day I grew up. I became 24 and that sight that beheld my gaze and horror ten years ago was suddenly very blurry and the misery of handling the trouble every month with my hectic work schedule very clear. So I went for it yet again, and managed to use it…and now I am relieved, I am happy, and I have almost forgotten the worry that would make me squirm in the middle of the night.
It’s probably the only good thing that man discovered that was a gift to us women. It all started with something to plug in wounds of the French soldiers. I agree there was no intention to make it what it is today – but that’s how the tampon came into being and made comfortable my monthly being.
Hail OB!! Hail the Tampon!! Loud and clear!!! I need to ‘whisper’ no more.
I remember seeing it first when I was 14. It looked like a little bullet – and we were so fascinated – I mean why wouldn’t we be- after being used to seeing white rectangular lumps, these tiny things the size of half my index finger seemed fascinating – how could that tiny thing soak up so much, it was totally incomprehensible to us. So my other 14 year old friends and I unwrapped one – with wide eyed wonder… as if a mystery was getting solved - and put it in a mug of water and ‘PLOP’ it swelled up in an instant and became more that double its size. I think that that sight was what scared me out of my wits…just imaging inserting it was unthinkable then – and then the fact that it would double up in size was downright scary.
Then one day I grew up. I became 24 and that sight that beheld my gaze and horror ten years ago was suddenly very blurry and the misery of handling the trouble every month with my hectic work schedule very clear. So I went for it yet again, and managed to use it…and now I am relieved, I am happy, and I have almost forgotten the worry that would make me squirm in the middle of the night.
It’s probably the only good thing that man discovered that was a gift to us women. It all started with something to plug in wounds of the French soldiers. I agree there was no intention to make it what it is today – but that’s how the tampon came into being and made comfortable my monthly being.
Hail OB!! Hail the Tampon!! Loud and clear!!! I need to ‘whisper’ no more.
Monday, December 10, 2007
On Popular Demand
I haven’t been writing anything good. Actually I haven’t been writing at all of late. As many of you know, my affections have been diverted to another link that I keep hidden from the world. I wanted to experiment with a space where I wouldn’t have to think twice about what I write – and the experiment proved to be quite fruitful – so that’s why the schizophrenic salad hasn’t seen the face of a new post in ages.
But today my wardrobe-critiquing-mojito-sipping friend asked to post something “on popular demand” so I embarked on this mission to have at least a post (even if it’s a lame one) to make an appearance on my blog today.
I think I have stopped writing because mostly I have nothing to write about – nothing really important so to say – no heart aches, no heart breaks, no pain, no misery, no joy, no rains, no trains. I fear I am going through a writers block of the worst kind. Or worse still, I fear that my brain is soon depleting and I have no opinions to throw around anymore.
Yes, I feel out of touch with the world – sometimes I feel myself losing perspective – sometimes I feel mentally lethargic, so much so that even thinking is an effort. My world is cocooned to my work place, my parents giving me continuous flak about the marriage issue, my effort to sleep on time and some television thrown in here and there (ofcourse with the never ending sorrow about my skin and my endless desperate efforts to salvage it).
Life had more meaning when I had more friends. What a dangerous thing to say. I feel sometimes that my identity is a result of all identities around me – who I am is determined by my friends, my boyfriend, my colleagues, my designation at work, my family – in all cases, it is in respect to someone or the other. I suddenly feel terribly afraid…what if that’s it…what if that’s all that my identity will ever be? – determined by people around me – and what am I without those people – I suddenly don’t know.
I feel so drained. Didn’t I tell you? I feel tired to even think anymore. Because silly random questions like these pop up and then I want to just sleep. Take for example today – because I had a huge fight with my parents and my mother chose to call and keep yapping about it, I conveniently refused to wake up and face the day – I sent some lame ass excuse to office and woke up at 11 and sauntered my way into office at 12:30 – rushed around, diligently finished work and made an exit at 7 pm. After which I had sumptuous dinner and headed home in the “proper” time (lest my folks lose it again) and now I am sitting at my laptop typing this – while getting ready to sleep again.
Sleep is the best remedy. I could sleep over most problems. Except when I didn’t have a job – that time even sleep would evade me…eyes snapped open at 6 am sharp – oh those were some torturous days. I don’t even want to think about them right now. Thinking is so tiring. And the week has just began.
And I didn’t even pay enough justice to the fact that this was a post after a very very long time…I just rambled on thoughtlessly – and didn’t have one thread of connection or any structure whatsoever. But then again, this is my blog and writing nonsense is my own business.
I promise to try harder next time. I promise to live upto popular demand. Right now I must sleep my miseries away. Right now I must watch some television and drop semi dead in slumber.
Goodnight.
But today my wardrobe-critiquing-mojito-sipping friend asked to post something “on popular demand” so I embarked on this mission to have at least a post (even if it’s a lame one) to make an appearance on my blog today.
I think I have stopped writing because mostly I have nothing to write about – nothing really important so to say – no heart aches, no heart breaks, no pain, no misery, no joy, no rains, no trains. I fear I am going through a writers block of the worst kind. Or worse still, I fear that my brain is soon depleting and I have no opinions to throw around anymore.
Yes, I feel out of touch with the world – sometimes I feel myself losing perspective – sometimes I feel mentally lethargic, so much so that even thinking is an effort. My world is cocooned to my work place, my parents giving me continuous flak about the marriage issue, my effort to sleep on time and some television thrown in here and there (ofcourse with the never ending sorrow about my skin and my endless desperate efforts to salvage it).
Life had more meaning when I had more friends. What a dangerous thing to say. I feel sometimes that my identity is a result of all identities around me – who I am is determined by my friends, my boyfriend, my colleagues, my designation at work, my family – in all cases, it is in respect to someone or the other. I suddenly feel terribly afraid…what if that’s it…what if that’s all that my identity will ever be? – determined by people around me – and what am I without those people – I suddenly don’t know.
I feel so drained. Didn’t I tell you? I feel tired to even think anymore. Because silly random questions like these pop up and then I want to just sleep. Take for example today – because I had a huge fight with my parents and my mother chose to call and keep yapping about it, I conveniently refused to wake up and face the day – I sent some lame ass excuse to office and woke up at 11 and sauntered my way into office at 12:30 – rushed around, diligently finished work and made an exit at 7 pm. After which I had sumptuous dinner and headed home in the “proper” time (lest my folks lose it again) and now I am sitting at my laptop typing this – while getting ready to sleep again.
Sleep is the best remedy. I could sleep over most problems. Except when I didn’t have a job – that time even sleep would evade me…eyes snapped open at 6 am sharp – oh those were some torturous days. I don’t even want to think about them right now. Thinking is so tiring. And the week has just began.
And I didn’t even pay enough justice to the fact that this was a post after a very very long time…I just rambled on thoughtlessly – and didn’t have one thread of connection or any structure whatsoever. But then again, this is my blog and writing nonsense is my own business.
I promise to try harder next time. I promise to live upto popular demand. Right now I must sleep my miseries away. Right now I must watch some television and drop semi dead in slumber.
Goodnight.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Saturated
It’s a glorious Saturday. I am terribly distracted by the gorgeous music collection I own… it was Cranberries in the morning while I cleaned up and rearranged my room, then it was followed by some obscure numbers that I vaguely do recognise and associate with, even know scraps of lyrics of some but can’t ever place them, then came a flush of RHCP and how its snazzy bollywood numbers! Saturdays are nice when they are so wasted and lazy. On other days I am gallivanting around town for work or pleasure (wink wink!)…hence, today I decided to keep myself within the cream walls of my glorious little L-shaped room and watch a film or two…which for the record wasn’t such a great experience coz I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral and positively hated it – Yes yes the cute boy looks n all sort of redeemed the film – but apart from that…it didn’t catch my attention even one bit. I fail to understand now how come it’s such a "ooooh-u-gotta-watch-it" film. There was nothing exceptional at all. Anyhow, that being over, I treated myself to a delightfully hilarious video of the 4 penguins of Madagascar, at the end of which, even the movie time didn’t seem such a waste.
Apart from all this, I panicked when I saw myself in the mirror and realised that Mumbai will never suit my skin and hence I must be doomed and cursed to eternal ugliness – yet, like all hopeful ladies, I undertook the brave job of mixing some natural honey lemon type things and apply it indulgently on my skin – hoping some semi-miracle comes out of it. I am still caked with it – I am still hopeful.
Also had a talk with my mother, father and brother. That made me happy. Especially after mom wasn’t bickering about my marriage issue so much and especially after I bitched about the ugly photograph of the ugly boy that was proposed to be a prospective groom. Yuck. The good part however in this whole exercise was that my mother happily agreed with me. May god keep making more of such easily reject-able men. Amen.
Then my cell phone bill arrived and literally game me a heart attack – but because it was a detailed itemised bill, I took great pleasure in pouring over it and adding how much I spent on whom on an average in a month. I was shocked how scattered my affections and conversations were – I seem to be part of a long and winding friend chain!
Time spent on the bathroom was beautiful. The thought of scrubbing my feet clean for hours makes my eyes go all wide eyed and sparkly…so such cleanliness exercises were undertaken very successfully.
And now I am alone. Family is out for the weekend to Lonavla. The house is to myself and myself alone – to walk around in negligible clothes and listen to music as loud as I desire. It is indeed a happy Saturday. So lazy. So happy. So indulgent. And so perfect. I am going to watch another film now, and then head for the vegetable store to look for some Aloe Vera for my dying skin – it is indeed a humble cause so I must leave now. It’s a happy Saturday…I am saturated with joy!
Apart from all this, I panicked when I saw myself in the mirror and realised that Mumbai will never suit my skin and hence I must be doomed and cursed to eternal ugliness – yet, like all hopeful ladies, I undertook the brave job of mixing some natural honey lemon type things and apply it indulgently on my skin – hoping some semi-miracle comes out of it. I am still caked with it – I am still hopeful.
Also had a talk with my mother, father and brother. That made me happy. Especially after mom wasn’t bickering about my marriage issue so much and especially after I bitched about the ugly photograph of the ugly boy that was proposed to be a prospective groom. Yuck. The good part however in this whole exercise was that my mother happily agreed with me. May god keep making more of such easily reject-able men. Amen.
Then my cell phone bill arrived and literally game me a heart attack – but because it was a detailed itemised bill, I took great pleasure in pouring over it and adding how much I spent on whom on an average in a month. I was shocked how scattered my affections and conversations were – I seem to be part of a long and winding friend chain!
Time spent on the bathroom was beautiful. The thought of scrubbing my feet clean for hours makes my eyes go all wide eyed and sparkly…so such cleanliness exercises were undertaken very successfully.
And now I am alone. Family is out for the weekend to Lonavla. The house is to myself and myself alone – to walk around in negligible clothes and listen to music as loud as I desire. It is indeed a happy Saturday. So lazy. So happy. So indulgent. And so perfect. I am going to watch another film now, and then head for the vegetable store to look for some Aloe Vera for my dying skin – it is indeed a humble cause so I must leave now. It’s a happy Saturday…I am saturated with joy!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Admit All
Hundreds of people with carelessly folded jeans and dirt splattered feet scramble around and scuttle their way to their respective platforms. Just outside Andheri station you see umbrellas grazing against each other and move in a mad hurry – red, yellow, fuchsia, Bollywood prints with Rekha peeking in her classic Umrao-Jaan pose, distasteful leopard print, boring stripes, exciting dots and if you happen to go in the usual office hour then mostly black. A whiff of “cutting-chai” holds your attention albeit for a few seconds before you glance at the train time-table blinking green in a distance and decide to rush to the fastest one you can jump onto – and it takes you so easily to almost the other end of the city.
For a small town girl like me who apart from my peacefully perched idyllic home in Simla, have only been a fan of the wide smooth Delhi roads, found the very idea of a local train incomprehensible. I could not understand why one would need trains to travel in one city. Was Mumbai really that big? Or the traffic really that bad? After starting work here I realized, the reasons are both and more.
Local Stations, apart from making sure you reach work on time and being the cheapest mode of transport available, ends up giving you a whole new perspective if you are perceptive enough. It’s this heady mix of class, culture, vada-pavs & burgers to the very soulful blind singer who comes in your coach & the fashion designer who struts in with her Louis Vuitton bag. Never before have I seen people so different from each other, share a space so comfortably and actually though occasionally manage a conversation too.
From “Chinchpokli” that still fascinates me with its name to “Bandra” where I love to hop off to head for some shopping – the stations of Mumbai have a flavour to it that I have not seen anywhere else. Two in every three people will guide you if you are lost, one in every three faces will have a warm smile, chances are your wallet will never be stolen from your bag and even if you do manage to drop it, your credit cards & license will be duly returned somehow, by some strange stroke of mumbaiyaa luck.
It is a place where you would be able to survive – whether you are young or old – eager to open up or clamped in a shell – there is a warmth in the musty salty air that melts you down – there is a life to the sea that you gaze at and a music to the rain that mostly bothers you. And there is always that station that gives you the utter independence to go anywhere you feel like going.
The city may be moody - it rains, it pours, it shines, it whines – but the local trains must go on.
Its Mumbai: Admit All.
For a small town girl like me who apart from my peacefully perched idyllic home in Simla, have only been a fan of the wide smooth Delhi roads, found the very idea of a local train incomprehensible. I could not understand why one would need trains to travel in one city. Was Mumbai really that big? Or the traffic really that bad? After starting work here I realized, the reasons are both and more.
Local Stations, apart from making sure you reach work on time and being the cheapest mode of transport available, ends up giving you a whole new perspective if you are perceptive enough. It’s this heady mix of class, culture, vada-pavs & burgers to the very soulful blind singer who comes in your coach & the fashion designer who struts in with her Louis Vuitton bag. Never before have I seen people so different from each other, share a space so comfortably and actually though occasionally manage a conversation too.
From “Chinchpokli” that still fascinates me with its name to “Bandra” where I love to hop off to head for some shopping – the stations of Mumbai have a flavour to it that I have not seen anywhere else. Two in every three people will guide you if you are lost, one in every three faces will have a warm smile, chances are your wallet will never be stolen from your bag and even if you do manage to drop it, your credit cards & license will be duly returned somehow, by some strange stroke of mumbaiyaa luck.
It is a place where you would be able to survive – whether you are young or old – eager to open up or clamped in a shell – there is a warmth in the musty salty air that melts you down – there is a life to the sea that you gaze at and a music to the rain that mostly bothers you. And there is always that station that gives you the utter independence to go anywhere you feel like going.
The city may be moody - it rains, it pours, it shines, it whines – but the local trains must go on.
Its Mumbai: Admit All.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
In Mourning
Lizzy lost his tail. He is uglier than before. Something I didn't think was even possible.
Lizzy had become an essential part of my cluttered room.
Now its Lizzy without a tail. I saw him scuttering across the room to hide himself under the bed - this was the same lizard who would flaunt its meaningless existence by crawling across my walls as if he owned it.
Poor Lizzy must be so ashamed. And traumatized.
This blog will maintain prosaic silence for a short while to mourn Lizzy's tail.
While I will silently pray that I don't step onto the now-detached rear end of Lizzy.
Amen.
p.s: Does a lizards have a soul? If Lizzy dies will his spirit haunt my room? Will Lizzy die of humiliation? Does a lizard think?
Oh no, we are back to that same question. Its a vicious cycle.
Err, also... do those tails grow back?
Lizzy had become an essential part of my cluttered room.
Now its Lizzy without a tail. I saw him scuttering across the room to hide himself under the bed - this was the same lizard who would flaunt its meaningless existence by crawling across my walls as if he owned it.
Poor Lizzy must be so ashamed. And traumatized.
This blog will maintain prosaic silence for a short while to mourn Lizzy's tail.
While I will silently pray that I don't step onto the now-detached rear end of Lizzy.
Amen.
p.s: Does a lizards have a soul? If Lizzy dies will his spirit haunt my room? Will Lizzy die of humiliation? Does a lizard think?
Oh no, we are back to that same question. Its a vicious cycle.
Err, also... do those tails grow back?
Friday, September 07, 2007
Living with Lizzy
Does a lizard think? I have an ugly little lizard that looks like a miniature dinosaur, if not uglier, living in my room – at night it likes to roam around the floor – I am now petrified of walking around without my slippers lest I step onto it - not because I don’t want to kill it but because the thought of a lizard coming in contact with any part of my body – especially my pedicured feet, makes me squirm and send that uneasy feeling down my neck - you know the kind when you feel water trickle down your spine! Eeeeeeks!!
So I have been watching this lizard just explore the walls of my room and sometimes the ceiling too – and I wonder what that damned creature must be thinking. I call it Lizzy now. I might as well have a name for something that has been sharing my room with me for the past one month. I’ve tried chasing it away – it just comes back… and because its so tiny, creepy and slimy, it just comes back from anywhere goddammit!
What must go on in the mind of Lizzy? Whether he likes the cream shade of paint of my walls? Or which house guest of mine should he petrify next by its visual presence? Or whether the switchboard is warm enough for it to go sit on it and warm its hideous arse on a cold rainy evening?
What does Lizzy eat? Fly poop? Fly kids? Yucky Lizzy has no taste.
Where does Lizzy sleep? Below my bed? Over my head? Lizzy go away, make haste!
How does Lizzy screw? Does he stay on top? Lizard sex seems so boring, so chaste.
Why does Lizzy live? Why inhabit my room? And make it look like such a waste!
Dirty dirty Lizzy! He is a dirty ol’ lizard. He is tiny with a curious little head that stays raised for some odd reason – I haven’t been near it enough to analyse the shade and texture of his unsightly skin – I’m sure it must have little beady eyes – snoopy poopy seedy beady eyes of a villain!
Egg shells don’t drive him away. I am going to try peacock feathers next. He doesn’t do any harm so to say, its just that his mere presence is disturbing and is driving me up the wall (up the wall….haha!). But seriously, any lizard who manages to make me write about it AND christen it – must be destroyed!!! But how? I prithee tell me…how? Must I commit bloody murder? But I can't… and not because I don’t want to…but because the thought of being close enough to kill it is killing me!
What should I do of dirty Lizzy? Lizzy is a plague that has taken over my walls. Lizzy is a creature who is a descendant of the evil dinosaurs. Lizzy is a laid back lizard that roves around my room. Lizzy is a curse to make me think about what a lizard must think? Or does a Lizard think? I don’t know. Go ahead, think about it. And tell me if you can think of anything.
P.S: Lizzy the Lizard is up for adoption. Roomie anyone?
So I have been watching this lizard just explore the walls of my room and sometimes the ceiling too – and I wonder what that damned creature must be thinking. I call it Lizzy now. I might as well have a name for something that has been sharing my room with me for the past one month. I’ve tried chasing it away – it just comes back… and because its so tiny, creepy and slimy, it just comes back from anywhere goddammit!
What must go on in the mind of Lizzy? Whether he likes the cream shade of paint of my walls? Or which house guest of mine should he petrify next by its visual presence? Or whether the switchboard is warm enough for it to go sit on it and warm its hideous arse on a cold rainy evening?
What does Lizzy eat? Fly poop? Fly kids? Yucky Lizzy has no taste.
Where does Lizzy sleep? Below my bed? Over my head? Lizzy go away, make haste!
How does Lizzy screw? Does he stay on top? Lizard sex seems so boring, so chaste.
Why does Lizzy live? Why inhabit my room? And make it look like such a waste!
Dirty dirty Lizzy! He is a dirty ol’ lizard. He is tiny with a curious little head that stays raised for some odd reason – I haven’t been near it enough to analyse the shade and texture of his unsightly skin – I’m sure it must have little beady eyes – snoopy poopy seedy beady eyes of a villain!
Egg shells don’t drive him away. I am going to try peacock feathers next. He doesn’t do any harm so to say, its just that his mere presence is disturbing and is driving me up the wall (up the wall….haha!). But seriously, any lizard who manages to make me write about it AND christen it – must be destroyed!!! But how? I prithee tell me…how? Must I commit bloody murder? But I can't… and not because I don’t want to…but because the thought of being close enough to kill it is killing me!
What should I do of dirty Lizzy? Lizzy is a plague that has taken over my walls. Lizzy is a creature who is a descendant of the evil dinosaurs. Lizzy is a laid back lizard that roves around my room. Lizzy is a curse to make me think about what a lizard must think? Or does a Lizard think? I don’t know. Go ahead, think about it. And tell me if you can think of anything.
P.S: Lizzy the Lizard is up for adoption. Roomie anyone?
Coffee-Soda on the Rocks
So I was trying to take a power ‘noon’ nap, when these memories from the past just flashed in my head. I think it all began with my craving for something to drink – I didn’t know what – so I was weighing my options in my head, wondering what is available in the refrigerator and will that be better than freshly brewed aromatic tea? – And then Red Bricks came to my mind.
Red Bricks was our little space in this inconspicuous corner of Kailash Colony in Delhi – a space that made sure that each one of us there has our own little private space to hold, to keep and to return to almost every evening. Large couches and warm wooden tables along with smoking and non-smoking zones, good music and happy hours discounts were all that we young-perpetually-broke college-goers could ask for. The red bricked walls were covered with framed posters of a thousand retro musicians. There was a corner to put up your own personal post-its and there were 4 shelves full of books (including the very curiosity inducing manuals of the kamasutra and monthly magazines like Rave). The menu was fantastic – or at least I felt that way – it had an assortment of coffees and teas (reason enough for me to fall in love with any café), and then had its famous oregano-cheese grilled sandwich – and a 20% discount to everyone from my college – it was our little haven, a respite from the fancy-shmancy baristas and mochas of the world, and a place where no one would kick you out even if you just ordered a coffee, picked up the newspaper and sat playing chess with a friend for hours.
It was my land of escape – when I needed my space – and hell, do I need my space all the time or what – when I had to get out of the kich-pich of the PG I lived in, or the zingbang of college activities or when I simply needed some time to sort out my own little insignificant personal problems that seemed so monumental back then. It was a place you would meet the boys – it was a place where little Friday night concerts would happen and the smog would take over the whole population flocked there for utter indulgence – it was a place where everyone had kissed at least once - it was the only place you wanted to be when an India-Pakistan match happened - it was a place that somehow gave you a sense of ownership and pride.
I have spent entire Saturdays there – downed 4 mugs of coffee and 2 plates of fries along with one good book and maybe a stray game of chess with a boy whose name I never asked. I have had this unique drink there that I have never seen anywhere else till date – this coffee soda thing with lots of ice– strong coffee with soda and the frothy thing that accumulated on top, there would be these 3 coffee beans joined at the hip – it was so strange and it was so fuzzy-fizzy and it was so nice. I miss that soda coffee thing. I miss just having an unassuming little inexpensive warm den to spend time in – I miss Red Bricks and my life back then. It was great while it lasted.
Red Bricks was closed down because of some legal problems when I was in my final year of college. We all mourned it heavily. We all missed it crazily. Something was just taken away form our lives. The coffee-soda drink was snatched away from mine. And never again have I had the opportunity to see so many cute guys just sitting lazily waiting to invite you for a game of ludo. We tried to find a substitute. We found something very remotely similar in Village Café – but it wasn’t walking distance from where I lived and I couldn’t sit there till 11 at night – and it was expensive and eventually became shady.
And then college ended, we all moved to new places, new campuses - NCC became my new friend for chai, Zaika was the roadside favourite for cold coffee – but Red Bricks remained irreplaceable – and the soda-coffee inimitable.
Some things in life…well, never have to change.
Red Bricks was our little space in this inconspicuous corner of Kailash Colony in Delhi – a space that made sure that each one of us there has our own little private space to hold, to keep and to return to almost every evening. Large couches and warm wooden tables along with smoking and non-smoking zones, good music and happy hours discounts were all that we young-perpetually-broke college-goers could ask for. The red bricked walls were covered with framed posters of a thousand retro musicians. There was a corner to put up your own personal post-its and there were 4 shelves full of books (including the very curiosity inducing manuals of the kamasutra and monthly magazines like Rave). The menu was fantastic – or at least I felt that way – it had an assortment of coffees and teas (reason enough for me to fall in love with any café), and then had its famous oregano-cheese grilled sandwich – and a 20% discount to everyone from my college – it was our little haven, a respite from the fancy-shmancy baristas and mochas of the world, and a place where no one would kick you out even if you just ordered a coffee, picked up the newspaper and sat playing chess with a friend for hours.
It was my land of escape – when I needed my space – and hell, do I need my space all the time or what – when I had to get out of the kich-pich of the PG I lived in, or the zingbang of college activities or when I simply needed some time to sort out my own little insignificant personal problems that seemed so monumental back then. It was a place you would meet the boys – it was a place where little Friday night concerts would happen and the smog would take over the whole population flocked there for utter indulgence – it was a place where everyone had kissed at least once - it was the only place you wanted to be when an India-Pakistan match happened - it was a place that somehow gave you a sense of ownership and pride.
I have spent entire Saturdays there – downed 4 mugs of coffee and 2 plates of fries along with one good book and maybe a stray game of chess with a boy whose name I never asked. I have had this unique drink there that I have never seen anywhere else till date – this coffee soda thing with lots of ice– strong coffee with soda and the frothy thing that accumulated on top, there would be these 3 coffee beans joined at the hip – it was so strange and it was so fuzzy-fizzy and it was so nice. I miss that soda coffee thing. I miss just having an unassuming little inexpensive warm den to spend time in – I miss Red Bricks and my life back then. It was great while it lasted.
Red Bricks was closed down because of some legal problems when I was in my final year of college. We all mourned it heavily. We all missed it crazily. Something was just taken away form our lives. The coffee-soda drink was snatched away from mine. And never again have I had the opportunity to see so many cute guys just sitting lazily waiting to invite you for a game of ludo. We tried to find a substitute. We found something very remotely similar in Village Café – but it wasn’t walking distance from where I lived and I couldn’t sit there till 11 at night – and it was expensive and eventually became shady.
And then college ended, we all moved to new places, new campuses - NCC became my new friend for chai, Zaika was the roadside favourite for cold coffee – but Red Bricks remained irreplaceable – and the soda-coffee inimitable.
Some things in life…well, never have to change.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Haiku and I
Atwood talks about the past. When women existed within four walls. Yet without the limitations of imagination. It goes like this:
“Life was more joyful and innocent then, and at the same time permeated with guilt and terror, or at least the occasions for them, on the most daily level.
It was like the Japanese haiku: a limited form, rigid in its perimeters, within which an astonishing freedom was possible.”
I am still in awe of this analogy she has built – of the fact that it has given me a whole new perspective on…Freedom? Life? Haiku? Word play? Me?
I happen to develop a liking to the place I’ve just started work at. Many say it is limiting – without challenges, without creativity – but I look around and in hidden crevices (and in a lot of channel goodies), find a sea of opportunities. I think for me it is also a lot about respect. I need to have a stand in the place I work at. This, now, here – I like it. Surrounded by intimidating feminists, hearing talks about women’s issues, being amongst multitudes of boobs – I feel like one of them – somewhere in some corner of me, I feel like I belong.
Who can kill your creativity? Work? Job? This so called 9-6 routine? Some of the most interesting people I know work at banks, mnc’s, ngos – so does that mean they cannot be funny? They cannot read poetry? They cannot delve into literature? They cannot paint a picture or tell a story?
It’s a great thing if you love your work. I strive for that. Right now I am at the “liking” stage and not the “loving and dying for it” level. But I am striving to earn to be where I want to be – to be able to study without bothering about where my next meal is coming from – that’s something that keeps me going.
And then again – the books I carry on train, the doodles I make in my diary and the way I spend my weekends is life enough for me. I am relatively satisfied. I am not bursting and overflowing with love for work. But I just about love life right now. And that, for me, is a great start. I am hopeful. I am optimistic. I am happy. I am like haiku.
“Life was more joyful and innocent then, and at the same time permeated with guilt and terror, or at least the occasions for them, on the most daily level.
It was like the Japanese haiku: a limited form, rigid in its perimeters, within which an astonishing freedom was possible.”
I am still in awe of this analogy she has built – of the fact that it has given me a whole new perspective on…Freedom? Life? Haiku? Word play? Me?
I happen to develop a liking to the place I’ve just started work at. Many say it is limiting – without challenges, without creativity – but I look around and in hidden crevices (and in a lot of channel goodies), find a sea of opportunities. I think for me it is also a lot about respect. I need to have a stand in the place I work at. This, now, here – I like it. Surrounded by intimidating feminists, hearing talks about women’s issues, being amongst multitudes of boobs – I feel like one of them – somewhere in some corner of me, I feel like I belong.
Who can kill your creativity? Work? Job? This so called 9-6 routine? Some of the most interesting people I know work at banks, mnc’s, ngos – so does that mean they cannot be funny? They cannot read poetry? They cannot delve into literature? They cannot paint a picture or tell a story?
It’s a great thing if you love your work. I strive for that. Right now I am at the “liking” stage and not the “loving and dying for it” level. But I am striving to earn to be where I want to be – to be able to study without bothering about where my next meal is coming from – that’s something that keeps me going.
And then again – the books I carry on train, the doodles I make in my diary and the way I spend my weekends is life enough for me. I am relatively satisfied. I am not bursting and overflowing with love for work. But I just about love life right now. And that, for me, is a great start. I am hopeful. I am optimistic. I am happy. I am like haiku.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Block Talk
“Your internet connection is experiencing problems or your network administrator has blocked Gmail chat.”
What it this I say? I am at home. With slight fever and a horrible headache. Took an off from work. And popped in a crocin. Slept for a while longer. And woke up pretty much okay. But by then it was an off from work so why bother? I might as well stay home. So I log onto gmail and want to chat with some friends. And I get this silly message out of the blue and in the middle of a conversation where I was cribbing and simultaneously gloating about being ill and hence being at home. I call up R to ask “who the hell is this network administrator and what does he think of himself?”, he gives me a nonchalant answer “log off and log on again”… as if I hadn’t done that like a million times before I called him for help – am I a total net retard?...uh NO! Then he tells me, it is guy who came to fix up the net connection at home – aha… I thought as much, but suddenly why would my gtalk be banned? Have I been doing some uncensored wordy exchanges through it… I don’t think so! This is infuriating!
Oh and this rambling reminds me – who the hell is this M anyway? My blog isn’t out for public scrutiny. It’s my space where I can and will say anything – nonsense or not – and then yesterday I had this comment on this earlier post – and I was like…eh who is this? Only my friends have this link and I mostly know their nicknames. So this uninvited intrusion irked me a bit. But I published the comment anyway – maybe he/she returns – this M – to leave some smart ass comment yet again…so if one can bother to comment, I am okay with publishing it. Phhhhbbbt !!!!!!
I went yesterday to see a flat where I may want to move in. It is in a beautiful society – in the heart of Bandra on Carter Road – the sea front is walking distance away, and so is Crepe station and Tangy Tomato. And decently priced even. Just that the deposit is going to burn a hole into my parent’s pockets. But there is nothing called perfection – in that wonderful almost furnished house, lives a girl who has a huge Boxer! I am petrified of stray dogs, I avoid all kinds of poodles and apsos and this is a huge terrifying looking brown and black boxer, for god’s sake! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Hot friend J sent me a mail. Asking why I haven’t met him in so long and why are things so weird. I hate such topics – where there is so much talking and so many explanations. What do I tell him – ah yes, I don’t want to meet you right now and hang out with you because I, indeed, do not want to go out with you, so I am keeping you, my dear hot friend, at bay. What is annoying is that he stays at Bandra – so close to office and so convenient for hanging out – but I shall not and will not cross the line of control! *smug smile*
I had salaami & black olive sandwich for breakfast, with sprouts followed by cold coffee. I feel full, pampered and ready to sleep again.
So how do I solve this gtalk problem? How do I get in touch with the world that is out there again?
I am hoping switching off the computer/modem and restarting everything in an hour should miraculously do the trick. So I am going to try that before I have to call Mister Network fuckin’ Administrator. I am going back to sleep sweet sleep. Any comments on that, M? Indulge yourself.
*Disabling blogger.com also now?*
Let’s kill the network administrator.
Yawn!
What it this I say? I am at home. With slight fever and a horrible headache. Took an off from work. And popped in a crocin. Slept for a while longer. And woke up pretty much okay. But by then it was an off from work so why bother? I might as well stay home. So I log onto gmail and want to chat with some friends. And I get this silly message out of the blue and in the middle of a conversation where I was cribbing and simultaneously gloating about being ill and hence being at home. I call up R to ask “who the hell is this network administrator and what does he think of himself?”, he gives me a nonchalant answer “log off and log on again”… as if I hadn’t done that like a million times before I called him for help – am I a total net retard?...uh NO! Then he tells me, it is guy who came to fix up the net connection at home – aha… I thought as much, but suddenly why would my gtalk be banned? Have I been doing some uncensored wordy exchanges through it… I don’t think so! This is infuriating!
Oh and this rambling reminds me – who the hell is this M anyway? My blog isn’t out for public scrutiny. It’s my space where I can and will say anything – nonsense or not – and then yesterday I had this comment on this earlier post – and I was like…eh who is this? Only my friends have this link and I mostly know their nicknames. So this uninvited intrusion irked me a bit. But I published the comment anyway – maybe he/she returns – this M – to leave some smart ass comment yet again…so if one can bother to comment, I am okay with publishing it. Phhhhbbbt !!!!!!
I went yesterday to see a flat where I may want to move in. It is in a beautiful society – in the heart of Bandra on Carter Road – the sea front is walking distance away, and so is Crepe station and Tangy Tomato. And decently priced even. Just that the deposit is going to burn a hole into my parent’s pockets. But there is nothing called perfection – in that wonderful almost furnished house, lives a girl who has a huge Boxer! I am petrified of stray dogs, I avoid all kinds of poodles and apsos and this is a huge terrifying looking brown and black boxer, for god’s sake! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Hot friend J sent me a mail. Asking why I haven’t met him in so long and why are things so weird. I hate such topics – where there is so much talking and so many explanations. What do I tell him – ah yes, I don’t want to meet you right now and hang out with you because I, indeed, do not want to go out with you, so I am keeping you, my dear hot friend, at bay. What is annoying is that he stays at Bandra – so close to office and so convenient for hanging out – but I shall not and will not cross the line of control! *smug smile*
I had salaami & black olive sandwich for breakfast, with sprouts followed by cold coffee. I feel full, pampered and ready to sleep again.
So how do I solve this gtalk problem? How do I get in touch with the world that is out there again?
I am hoping switching off the computer/modem and restarting everything in an hour should miraculously do the trick. So I am going to try that before I have to call Mister Network fuckin’ Administrator. I am going back to sleep sweet sleep. Any comments on that, M? Indulge yourself.
*Disabling blogger.com also now?*
Let’s kill the network administrator.
Yawn!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Of Bean Bags and Boredom !!
I am bored. Therefore I shall scribble.
What’s there to a place? I wonder.
There was Delhi and my life there. It was so perfect? Why was it so perfect?... because I chose it to be perfect in my head. There were days of despair, or illness, of fights and tears. And there were days of friendship, adventure, smiles and laughter. And yet, in its complete self – it was perfect.
I think we choose our perfection. For me Delhi was it. It was the only place I thought happiness would come to me from. But now I realise, happiness doesn’t come to you. You, take your lazy arse, and go to it.
It is what you make of a place that the place makes of you. It is the vibes you give a city that get flung back to you. No? Yes? Something?
Mumbai is okay… I am getting used to the rains, I am okay with the traffic, I like the breezy nights and the lazy weekends. I like myself. And I like the way I can adapt.
I have learnt the following things about Mumbai:
- To get love you have to give some first.
- Rains is a pain in the ass. Grin and bear with it. Power of toleration, I say!
- Taxi and auto wallas are most fun to chat with
- You must know how to jump onto a moving train
- Therobroma is brownie haven.
- Sion and “sheev” are names of the same place – but I still cant figure out why is it spelled so differently in english and hindi!
- Station is a place you should write award winning books at.
- “Kute” means where and not “kutte”
- The auto meters read one rupee more than you must pay them
- Noone gives a rat’s shit as to what you wear – and this I loouwe!
Apart from that, and apart from polishing my social skills, there is a home – there are warm children who love me – and it is such a warmth inducing feeling (oh me and my maternal instincts). There is utter boredom on days and utter business on other days. There is, somehow, never a time when I don’t have people to meet or something to do…like I don’t know…music to listen to, write a mail, read on the train,cook something new, straighten my almirah, stare at the sea etcetera etcetera!
And then there are the really bright moments of the day. For example when an announcement is made that 2 huge beanbags shall be arriving home… one deep red and one black. The thought of the deep red fills me with so much lazy joy! I love beanbags – all kind, all colour… well, there is just one kind actually…but yes, all sizes, all prices, everywhere and anywhere – be it the common room at LSR or my friend’s house, be it at Village Café or the furniture shop around the corner.
The first thing I want to buy when I have my own place is a bean bag. A huge read bean bag. It will be like this big blob of colour adding life to my room and symbolising my love for just being a couch potato and doing nothing. It is comforting just looking at a beanbag. I have always been so much in love with them. So much so that in the computer game, the Sims house party (you know where design your house, your lane, your garden and all your furnishing – oh even your lover, just for the record!), ya so in that game even, I remember having these crazy fluorescent green and blue beanbags all around my virtual house! Beanbags give me such joy. Much as most things these days do. And sometimes when everything is giving me too much joy, I crib just a little bit to feel “normal”!
I’m in office. And as you can gather from my endless ramble, I am bored. Oh so bored. And sitting in anticipation of seeing the beanbags arrive at home. Pix is on her way. We are going shopping. *jumps in the air, clicks her feet, CRASH*
We shall raid the streets of Bandra. We shall share this experience called “Mumbai”. And after the exhilarating fun of it all, we shall crib just a teeny-weeny bit to get our feet back onto the ground.
What’s there to a place? I wonder again. People make places. And right now my people seem to be here. This is my city now. I have partly arrived!
What’s there to a place? I wonder.
There was Delhi and my life there. It was so perfect? Why was it so perfect?... because I chose it to be perfect in my head. There were days of despair, or illness, of fights and tears. And there were days of friendship, adventure, smiles and laughter. And yet, in its complete self – it was perfect.
I think we choose our perfection. For me Delhi was it. It was the only place I thought happiness would come to me from. But now I realise, happiness doesn’t come to you. You, take your lazy arse, and go to it.
It is what you make of a place that the place makes of you. It is the vibes you give a city that get flung back to you. No? Yes? Something?
Mumbai is okay… I am getting used to the rains, I am okay with the traffic, I like the breezy nights and the lazy weekends. I like myself. And I like the way I can adapt.
I have learnt the following things about Mumbai:
- To get love you have to give some first.
- Rains is a pain in the ass. Grin and bear with it. Power of toleration, I say!
- Taxi and auto wallas are most fun to chat with
- You must know how to jump onto a moving train
- Therobroma is brownie haven.
- Sion and “sheev” are names of the same place – but I still cant figure out why is it spelled so differently in english and hindi!
- Station is a place you should write award winning books at.
- “Kute” means where and not “kutte”
- The auto meters read one rupee more than you must pay them
- Noone gives a rat’s shit as to what you wear – and this I loouwe!
Apart from that, and apart from polishing my social skills, there is a home – there are warm children who love me – and it is such a warmth inducing feeling (oh me and my maternal instincts). There is utter boredom on days and utter business on other days. There is, somehow, never a time when I don’t have people to meet or something to do…like I don’t know…music to listen to, write a mail, read on the train,cook something new, straighten my almirah, stare at the sea etcetera etcetera!
And then there are the really bright moments of the day. For example when an announcement is made that 2 huge beanbags shall be arriving home… one deep red and one black. The thought of the deep red fills me with so much lazy joy! I love beanbags – all kind, all colour… well, there is just one kind actually…but yes, all sizes, all prices, everywhere and anywhere – be it the common room at LSR or my friend’s house, be it at Village Café or the furniture shop around the corner.
The first thing I want to buy when I have my own place is a bean bag. A huge read bean bag. It will be like this big blob of colour adding life to my room and symbolising my love for just being a couch potato and doing nothing. It is comforting just looking at a beanbag. I have always been so much in love with them. So much so that in the computer game, the Sims house party (you know where design your house, your lane, your garden and all your furnishing – oh even your lover, just for the record!), ya so in that game even, I remember having these crazy fluorescent green and blue beanbags all around my virtual house! Beanbags give me such joy. Much as most things these days do. And sometimes when everything is giving me too much joy, I crib just a little bit to feel “normal”!
I’m in office. And as you can gather from my endless ramble, I am bored. Oh so bored. And sitting in anticipation of seeing the beanbags arrive at home. Pix is on her way. We are going shopping. *jumps in the air, clicks her feet, CRASH*
We shall raid the streets of Bandra. We shall share this experience called “Mumbai”. And after the exhilarating fun of it all, we shall crib just a teeny-weeny bit to get our feet back onto the ground.
What’s there to a place? I wonder again. People make places. And right now my people seem to be here. This is my city now. I have partly arrived!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
My Station My Space
The simplest of sights arrest me. I am, increasingly, falling in love with the variety of life that the station has to offer – the diversity of people, the multiplicity of human emotions, the colours of the umbrellas, the smell of the vada pavs, the unspoken camaraderie between the women and the verbal solidarity between the men.
There are moments when I am completely taken aback by a beggar woman – who has exactly two saris…yellow and orange – that she wears in turns…and spreads the pallu out to beg. And she has this incredibly saddened expression on her face. I would want to decide whether it is a practiced expression or a genuine one…except I don’t seem to have the heart to do that. I, having decided to harden myself against such moments, still end up taking some coins out… but I decide however, that when I have some extra money, buying a sari for her won’t hurt me.
One day I saw a young boy, just lying…sleeping?... ( I don’t know), in one corner of the ladies compartment – I wanted to reach out and wake him up, ask him what’s wrong, help him if I could…but I didn’t. I don’t even know why. Maybe because at one level, even I have strangled a part of my conscience.
But today what I saw will stay suspended in some corner of my mind forever. As I climbed down the stairs of the station, I saw a man who was limping – seemed like a case of polio – and with him, was a small child…say four year old…and he was holding his hand and both of them were slowly coming down the stairs…it was such a strange sight – it was so heart rendering – I kept turning around to look at them – to just know that they have reached the end of the stairs… I don’t know who was helping who down the stairs…who was guiding who… a physically challenged man who could hardly climb down the stairs on his own, or the child who could hardly keep a track of his own tiny feet?… I wanted, at that moment, to capture that sight… I wished, at that point, that my eyes were a camera of sorts… I was visually arrested and emotionally moved… I was, again, one inch closer to loving the absolute beauty in such simple sights. I was again in love with the idea of going to the station tomorrow.
There are moments when I am completely taken aback by a beggar woman – who has exactly two saris…yellow and orange – that she wears in turns…and spreads the pallu out to beg. And she has this incredibly saddened expression on her face. I would want to decide whether it is a practiced expression or a genuine one…except I don’t seem to have the heart to do that. I, having decided to harden myself against such moments, still end up taking some coins out… but I decide however, that when I have some extra money, buying a sari for her won’t hurt me.
One day I saw a young boy, just lying…sleeping?... ( I don’t know), in one corner of the ladies compartment – I wanted to reach out and wake him up, ask him what’s wrong, help him if I could…but I didn’t. I don’t even know why. Maybe because at one level, even I have strangled a part of my conscience.
But today what I saw will stay suspended in some corner of my mind forever. As I climbed down the stairs of the station, I saw a man who was limping – seemed like a case of polio – and with him, was a small child…say four year old…and he was holding his hand and both of them were slowly coming down the stairs…it was such a strange sight – it was so heart rendering – I kept turning around to look at them – to just know that they have reached the end of the stairs… I don’t know who was helping who down the stairs…who was guiding who… a physically challenged man who could hardly climb down the stairs on his own, or the child who could hardly keep a track of his own tiny feet?… I wanted, at that moment, to capture that sight… I wished, at that point, that my eyes were a camera of sorts… I was visually arrested and emotionally moved… I was, again, one inch closer to loving the absolute beauty in such simple sights. I was again in love with the idea of going to the station tomorrow.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Sip of Heaven
Am I turning into an alcoholic? Hah! Over dramatic self at its best…it is, at most,
a wine-holic. And that is if you include the very delicious Tia Maria, Peach Schnapps and sometimes a can of beer.
It was Rhododendron wine yesterday. It is fine white wine today. 2 bottles of Port wine were guzzled a few days ago. Some black currant vodka was offered last night. Ofcourse I declined. I hate vodka. I would much rather slowly sip and swim in the silken taste of wine.
Once upon a time, I used to think I am allergic to wine. Those were tragic days. And this stemmed from the fact that I am highly allergic to grapes. But come one trip to Goa and with a few anti-allergic tablets in my pocket and a bottle of wine, I finally realised that I am, in fact, not at all allergic to this drink of the demi-gods! And then began my very stable affair with wine – of all types and varieties – white, red, port, apricot, peach, apple, plum and even the above mentioned, rhododendron wine.
Now you see, Simla, my beloved hometown, is a place for wine lovers. Suddenly a burst of wine making has taken over that side of the state like a plague. Everywhere you go – departmental stores, hotels, tourist spots…there are so many wines…I am amazed at the stuff they make wine out of – every time I go there is a new type to taste and to celebrate to…never mind if there is no occasion for it….drinking wine is an occasion by itself if you ask me!
I am sitting at my laptop – sipping at my sparkling glass of wine, scribbling this nonsense, trying to do a shot breakdown for the film I am working on, and teaching my 8 year old cousin for her exam tomorrow – yes, I am the goddess of multitasking, I am super cool! *narcissistic guffaw*
I bought a diary today – handmade paper et al…I love stationary…never regret or feel a twinge at over-spending on it. I think stationary is meant to be splurged upon and to be hoarded. It is just so beautifully useful. I needed a diary. Well, I always need a diary…but to add to my collection. This time however, I needed one to scribble my thoughts in the train – I observe the most interesting people on the train…old women with such comforting faces, strange women who talk to themselves, kind faces, poor faces, happy faces, dissatisfied faces, gorgeous faces, innocent faces, annoying faces – and this makes me think…there are too many people in the world…all of them have a thousand stories to them…there are so many incidents in the world…can anyone write down all of them?...can anyone record each experience…I guess not…I guess it must be really tough being god. I sometimes also wonder…if god has a record of all the people on earth…its like this visual – of god and his helpers – and they are all surrounded by miles and miles of paper (handmade ofcourse!) which has the record of everything that happens on earth…wow…I think I visualise too much…I think I should give my imagination a break. I think I should go and get another glass of wine. Cheers!
a wine-holic. And that is if you include the very delicious Tia Maria, Peach Schnapps and sometimes a can of beer.
It was Rhododendron wine yesterday. It is fine white wine today. 2 bottles of Port wine were guzzled a few days ago. Some black currant vodka was offered last night. Ofcourse I declined. I hate vodka. I would much rather slowly sip and swim in the silken taste of wine.
Once upon a time, I used to think I am allergic to wine. Those were tragic days. And this stemmed from the fact that I am highly allergic to grapes. But come one trip to Goa and with a few anti-allergic tablets in my pocket and a bottle of wine, I finally realised that I am, in fact, not at all allergic to this drink of the demi-gods! And then began my very stable affair with wine – of all types and varieties – white, red, port, apricot, peach, apple, plum and even the above mentioned, rhododendron wine.
Now you see, Simla, my beloved hometown, is a place for wine lovers. Suddenly a burst of wine making has taken over that side of the state like a plague. Everywhere you go – departmental stores, hotels, tourist spots…there are so many wines…I am amazed at the stuff they make wine out of – every time I go there is a new type to taste and to celebrate to…never mind if there is no occasion for it….drinking wine is an occasion by itself if you ask me!
I am sitting at my laptop – sipping at my sparkling glass of wine, scribbling this nonsense, trying to do a shot breakdown for the film I am working on, and teaching my 8 year old cousin for her exam tomorrow – yes, I am the goddess of multitasking, I am super cool! *narcissistic guffaw*
I bought a diary today – handmade paper et al…I love stationary…never regret or feel a twinge at over-spending on it. I think stationary is meant to be splurged upon and to be hoarded. It is just so beautifully useful. I needed a diary. Well, I always need a diary…but to add to my collection. This time however, I needed one to scribble my thoughts in the train – I observe the most interesting people on the train…old women with such comforting faces, strange women who talk to themselves, kind faces, poor faces, happy faces, dissatisfied faces, gorgeous faces, innocent faces, annoying faces – and this makes me think…there are too many people in the world…all of them have a thousand stories to them…there are so many incidents in the world…can anyone write down all of them?...can anyone record each experience…I guess not…I guess it must be really tough being god. I sometimes also wonder…if god has a record of all the people on earth…its like this visual – of god and his helpers – and they are all surrounded by miles and miles of paper (handmade ofcourse!) which has the record of everything that happens on earth…wow…I think I visualise too much…I think I should give my imagination a break. I think I should go and get another glass of wine. Cheers!
Monday, July 02, 2007
Polka Dots
“Someone is a dreadful blotch
While someone is an ordinary spot
But the best of them all
Is the joyous, bouncy polka dot”
Monsoon has attacked this city. Rain rain everywhere, not a drop to escape from! Yesterday, after office, I took my umbrella and braved myself to go back home… it was not raining as it mostly does…the water wasn’t conspiring with the wind and slimily drenching me from all sides, but gently drizzling – almost pleasant…slightly making me smile and forget the fact that I was at office on a Sunday. I let my umbrella blossom with a flourish and then stepped onto the horrid bumpy water filled road… and then I saw dots… the raindrops very designedly fell on the water body making tiny ripples at intervals… it was like a polka dotted puddle… nature’s own pattern!
Now I see dots everywhere. When I go to buy my night pajamas. When I watch the beetle scuttle in the bush at the park. When I sit doodling on blank papers while I am on the phone. When I dab dots of night cream of my face. When I watch one big bubble float in the air during my bath. When I stare at the yolk of my fried egg at breakfast. When I type any word that has an ‘o’ in it. The whole world is suddenly one big polka dot.
There is such harmony in polka dots. It’s like one visual song. And there is a peaceful sense of co-existence in them. And a strange feeling of life and joy. I feel comfortable when I see polka dots. I think it is the smoothness. Or the fact that they all seem, somehow, to be at one level…there is none above or below the other…its so in accord. Unlike lines and sharp patterns, it doesn’t disturb me.
White dots on bright red. Green dots on lemon yellow. Purple dots on hot pink. Ah! Such variety. So many combinative possibilities. So much colour. And so many happy dots. The world is one enormous dot. And I, a speck, just waiting to be a polka dot.
While someone is an ordinary spot
But the best of them all
Is the joyous, bouncy polka dot”
Monsoon has attacked this city. Rain rain everywhere, not a drop to escape from! Yesterday, after office, I took my umbrella and braved myself to go back home… it was not raining as it mostly does…the water wasn’t conspiring with the wind and slimily drenching me from all sides, but gently drizzling – almost pleasant…slightly making me smile and forget the fact that I was at office on a Sunday. I let my umbrella blossom with a flourish and then stepped onto the horrid bumpy water filled road… and then I saw dots… the raindrops very designedly fell on the water body making tiny ripples at intervals… it was like a polka dotted puddle… nature’s own pattern!
Now I see dots everywhere. When I go to buy my night pajamas. When I watch the beetle scuttle in the bush at the park. When I sit doodling on blank papers while I am on the phone. When I dab dots of night cream of my face. When I watch one big bubble float in the air during my bath. When I stare at the yolk of my fried egg at breakfast. When I type any word that has an ‘o’ in it. The whole world is suddenly one big polka dot.
There is such harmony in polka dots. It’s like one visual song. And there is a peaceful sense of co-existence in them. And a strange feeling of life and joy. I feel comfortable when I see polka dots. I think it is the smoothness. Or the fact that they all seem, somehow, to be at one level…there is none above or below the other…its so in accord. Unlike lines and sharp patterns, it doesn’t disturb me.
White dots on bright red. Green dots on lemon yellow. Purple dots on hot pink. Ah! Such variety. So many combinative possibilities. So much colour. And so many happy dots. The world is one enormous dot. And I, a speck, just waiting to be a polka dot.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Jamun Sky
I have turned into an insomniac. Every night I sit up till 3 am. Doing what? Nothing actually. A lot of music has come to be a part of my life. And a room on my own leaves a lot of space for all the introspection & retrospection that I think I have subconsciously needed since a long time now.
The rain lashes at my window. Almost jeering at me…telling me that tomorrow it will be another ordeal to get out of home - in folded jeans and converse chappals and an umbrella…while trying to block the wind that brings the rain from all directions…and then hunting for a taxi to the station…while struggling more to save some part of myself from the water…and walk on the road…hoping that some car doesn’t rush by, merrily splashing me with dirty water… there is so much water… oh it makes me want to sit in an oven and dry myself…it makes me not want to drink water even…it makes my fingertips like crinkled grapes… it makes me feel like a specimen of osmosis…it makes me want to curl up in my bed and sleep till the end of monsoon here…wake me up when September ends!
I called myself “characteristically confused” today. What a term to use. I thought about it all the while in the train while listening to Babylon. Rainy days make me want to listen to happy music. While I popped in some jamuns that I bought from in front of the station. I love the strange taste of jamun…so exotic…not sweet, not sour…just flavoured in its own essence. And I love the colour. Oh royal purple. Like purple satin. So gorgeous.
I think jamun is a gorgeous fruit. Splendid. Super. Grand. Yet so common. And with it, the multiple stories that we read in junior hindi classes… jamun trees and the efforts to steal them from the neighbours garden… or the jamun excesses at granpa’s place. oh I love jamun. And I think purple is beautiful.
Only I hardly wear it. I love black and red. Turquoise and green come next.
A bath before sleeping is a must every night. Mumbai is a huge glorified pothole with pigeon holed houses. Only I feel rather cool – I live with my mom’s brother and his family in a spacious sea facing apartment at the very uppity Malabar Hill. That is, until I move out on my own…which should happen in the next ten days. Sigh. I am so used to my little cousins here. I will miss them so much. I’m such a softie.
These hours to myself are actually useful. The train trips with my books and music is an added advantage if we look at the travelling crap in a slightly positive way. Putting aside some time to think-think is so essential. Everyone should do it. Anywhere. Long bath. Star gazing. Evening walk. Night time. Anytime. It is therapeutic. Makes me ask myself if what I have right now is what I actually want or whether I want more out of life and love.
Love is an overrated concept. Or have I not said that before. Loud and clear? Like from the top of a ten floor building. With a mike. And huge imaginary speakers. But let me correct myself. It isn’t an overrated concept but an overrated word. Otherwise, it is wonderful – this love thing – to be able to give and express and receive – everything abstract and beautiful – and in the words of Beatles, “All you need is love”! I miss being pampered. I miss being loved. I think I just miss dad and mom. And my brother.
Someone once told me…when you start missing your parents everyday…you, my dear friend, are getting old. This is my tenth year of being away from home. And I am missing my family all over again. It feels like school. But I am not young. I must definitely be getting old. I think I need to go back to granpa’s house and try stealing some jamuns again. Purple tongue. Purple memories. Purple fruit. The world is pretty again.
It is 2:44 am now. I think all this thoughtless random scribbling is soon becoming more haphazard…like my thoughts…slumber is taking over me. I think office begins early tomorrow. Oh how I hate punctual bosses. Sleep and let sleep…no? I have a purple tongue. I think my dream tonight shall be tinged purple too. A purple haze is taking over me. And it rains and it rains and it rains and it rains. It never stops. “Wake me up when September ends”. What the heck…one more song won’t kill me… but one more paragraph will.
Whoops…the jamuns are over!
Purple sky. Purple fullstop.
The rain lashes at my window. Almost jeering at me…telling me that tomorrow it will be another ordeal to get out of home - in folded jeans and converse chappals and an umbrella…while trying to block the wind that brings the rain from all directions…and then hunting for a taxi to the station…while struggling more to save some part of myself from the water…and walk on the road…hoping that some car doesn’t rush by, merrily splashing me with dirty water… there is so much water… oh it makes me want to sit in an oven and dry myself…it makes me not want to drink water even…it makes my fingertips like crinkled grapes… it makes me feel like a specimen of osmosis…it makes me want to curl up in my bed and sleep till the end of monsoon here…wake me up when September ends!
I called myself “characteristically confused” today. What a term to use. I thought about it all the while in the train while listening to Babylon. Rainy days make me want to listen to happy music. While I popped in some jamuns that I bought from in front of the station. I love the strange taste of jamun…so exotic…not sweet, not sour…just flavoured in its own essence. And I love the colour. Oh royal purple. Like purple satin. So gorgeous.
I think jamun is a gorgeous fruit. Splendid. Super. Grand. Yet so common. And with it, the multiple stories that we read in junior hindi classes… jamun trees and the efforts to steal them from the neighbours garden… or the jamun excesses at granpa’s place. oh I love jamun. And I think purple is beautiful.
Only I hardly wear it. I love black and red. Turquoise and green come next.
A bath before sleeping is a must every night. Mumbai is a huge glorified pothole with pigeon holed houses. Only I feel rather cool – I live with my mom’s brother and his family in a spacious sea facing apartment at the very uppity Malabar Hill. That is, until I move out on my own…which should happen in the next ten days. Sigh. I am so used to my little cousins here. I will miss them so much. I’m such a softie.
These hours to myself are actually useful. The train trips with my books and music is an added advantage if we look at the travelling crap in a slightly positive way. Putting aside some time to think-think is so essential. Everyone should do it. Anywhere. Long bath. Star gazing. Evening walk. Night time. Anytime. It is therapeutic. Makes me ask myself if what I have right now is what I actually want or whether I want more out of life and love.
Love is an overrated concept. Or have I not said that before. Loud and clear? Like from the top of a ten floor building. With a mike. And huge imaginary speakers. But let me correct myself. It isn’t an overrated concept but an overrated word. Otherwise, it is wonderful – this love thing – to be able to give and express and receive – everything abstract and beautiful – and in the words of Beatles, “All you need is love”! I miss being pampered. I miss being loved. I think I just miss dad and mom. And my brother.
Someone once told me…when you start missing your parents everyday…you, my dear friend, are getting old. This is my tenth year of being away from home. And I am missing my family all over again. It feels like school. But I am not young. I must definitely be getting old. I think I need to go back to granpa’s house and try stealing some jamuns again. Purple tongue. Purple memories. Purple fruit. The world is pretty again.
It is 2:44 am now. I think all this thoughtless random scribbling is soon becoming more haphazard…like my thoughts…slumber is taking over me. I think office begins early tomorrow. Oh how I hate punctual bosses. Sleep and let sleep…no? I have a purple tongue. I think my dream tonight shall be tinged purple too. A purple haze is taking over me. And it rains and it rains and it rains and it rains. It never stops. “Wake me up when September ends”. What the heck…one more song won’t kill me… but one more paragraph will.
Whoops…the jamuns are over!
Purple sky. Purple fullstop.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Abyss of Thought
I am tired. Of nothing. And yet of everything. How old do I sound? How old can I possibly sound? And I am all of 23.
I think the initial euphoria of a job and all that crappy jazz has fizzed out in its good ol’ due time. It’s been 3 weeks and oh I am so sick…so sick of work or rather no work – well, yes I have a job but I don’t know whether I am working productively or not. Earlier I would question my existence. Now I don’t even need to question that. Why? It is so simple. I don’t question that which has no answer anymore.
Remember my earlier posts on why this, why that, why me, why him, why despair, why not joy! Now it is a silent sort of a resignation where my mere strength to fight my own questions in my own head has gone plop!
I think it was better when grassy indulgences and such sinful sessions made me look at the moon and say that there is nothing larger that connects people…whoever at that very moment is looking at the moon, are all, at a certain level connected through that sublime entity, to each other. And this is a part of a conversation on the terrace when ‘joint’ studies formed an inevitable part of our weekly curriculum and such larger-than-normal-life statements were made apart from the very silly singing in chorus and hogging on wai-wai and maggi at midnight. Meaningful results of the great roll of weed!
To think of it, as human beings, we are on a roll – and by that I men roll downwards… life keeps getting worse…in some way or the other…for me the word ‘responsibility’ spells ‘worse’…not the sort of responsibility where you are incharge of yourself…I am totally in favour of the ‘each women for herself’ theory…where my problem essentially crops up is the big deal about marriage and being responsible for someone whose life is knotted with yours…or things like a bank account and bills…oh life just keeps getting worse… after twenty two it is all a trip downhill and there is no trekking or the effort for it anymore.
So back to what I was saying. So I am tired and haggard. I already want to retire in the hills with a load of books and some 100 gbs of music. I want to inherit indecent amounts of money from some long lost royal uncle who realised that I am the right heir and then I don’t need to work anymore. And then I want to eventually open a coffee store of my own…with lovely exotic flavours, the right music, student discounts, cosy red couches and a corner with books. Ah…that is life…and what I am living right now is nowhere near it. Instead of a hill station there is a rain infested, muck filled city with humidity and sweaty local trains, instead of my café there is a production house for which I work, from which I am getting easily detached. Instead of my wishful inheritance there is a measly salary and a difficult existence. And instead of an ‘ah’, there is a ‘ouch’!
And then I set out to do the very tiresome job of thinking…and then my abysmal effort of jotting some thoughts down and posting it onto my blog…for further record and a reference for my erstwhile mental state incase I find myself, in a few years, in some mental institution taking therapy on soul searching and other such “who am I” crap!
Because there isn’t just my professional life that I am dissatisfied with, my personal life has also got me in limbo. I mean with all due respects to the romantic writers and the stupid movies that gave us a totally unreal and a screwed up definition of love, I realise that maybe there is no love…maybe nothing is unconditional…maybe it is all give and take…maybe sometimes it is just give give give…maybe at the end of the day it is plain convenience sprinkled with a little amount of fondness…but there is no passion, no driving force to go out of ones way to do something for their so called loved one, no real investment. Maybe we all are so tired of looking that now staying with the one already there is an easier bet…and anyway, the whole wooing process is so much of an effort that even mouldy, old relationships – where there is no sweet nothings and no romance, no random surprises and no special efforts – is better than looking for newer grounds.
I don’t believe in this. I am still a hopeless romantic at heart. I still believe in keeping a relationship alive…that everyday is a new day and that every dinner is a new date…but does it matter what I believe in when, in reality, I see nothing of the sort. It all seems to come down to routine and to habit. And I hardly want to be someone’s monotonous habit. And yet somewhere, in my deep denial, I think I am becoming just that! I think basic human nature is sadomasochistic. I know there is affection, I know there is genuine concern, but I also know that I must have no expectations – and that sometimes gives me a sense of void – the fact that the heart is capable of loving but not trusting and yet staying right there – in that abyss of uncertainty.
I am an impatient person. So impatient! If things are not going right, I want to jump right in and take charge – and then I want to hold the confused reins of my life and try and untangle them fast and start the ride in another direction altogether – never mind if that direction may lead to dead end or yet another twist! Here I am, one month old in my organisation – dissatisfied with work, confused about my role, vague about my aim – and I am thinking of taking off and switching yet again. Is there any point a person reaches professional satisfaction? I suppose…but I am far from it….so so far away!
The froth and gloss of “working” is disappearing – with every swig I take, the mug of life looks bleak and negative – maybe I need another refill…or maybe I need a change of drink itself. Or maybe I just need to go and get drunk one day. It’s been so long – beer beckons me…every time I cross Leopolds and glance at the multiple pitchers inside, I let out a subconscious sigh. Where are the glorious days that were…the all-ladies drinking outings…ah I forget…I am 23 now…and it is all downhill from here onwards.
Have you ever wondered, however pathetic our lives may be, if a gun is held against our heads, we still beg to be let to live, we still pray with all our strength for our silly little meaningless lives…and why is it so precious? Don’t they say there is a whole new world out there?...then why is death looked at with so much fear…every minute is fought for till the end…with surgeries and meditations and allopathic and homeopathic doses! Well then, I suppose however ugly life may get, it is actually the most beautiful gift we have. So even when random inconsequential thoughts of flinging myself from a cliff does enter my very messed up mind, I never actually get around to executing it – it is way too scary…and maybe even I don’t want to let go of my gift. Though, people call suicide cowardice…I personally think it takes a bloody lot of courage to go and actually do it. But I may be wrong…and I may not even know…I haven’t killed myself yet.
Oh and here I go…deviating again…
What was I talking about…about my tiredness and lack of effort to question the purpose of my insignificant existence…or maybe I was just talking…you know, yapping through letters and words…and it all started randomly and it shall, as usual, and as my life, end randomly.
Well hah…how depressing, isn’t it?...not really…I’m sneaking into the kitchen for some toast topped with chocolate syrup…little joys of life…and maybe that is enough to get me through the next day…and maybe grape jam can get my though the subsequent week even… ah well, welcome to my world….welcome to my erratic abyss of thought.
I think the initial euphoria of a job and all that crappy jazz has fizzed out in its good ol’ due time. It’s been 3 weeks and oh I am so sick…so sick of work or rather no work – well, yes I have a job but I don’t know whether I am working productively or not. Earlier I would question my existence. Now I don’t even need to question that. Why? It is so simple. I don’t question that which has no answer anymore.
Remember my earlier posts on why this, why that, why me, why him, why despair, why not joy! Now it is a silent sort of a resignation where my mere strength to fight my own questions in my own head has gone plop!
I think it was better when grassy indulgences and such sinful sessions made me look at the moon and say that there is nothing larger that connects people…whoever at that very moment is looking at the moon, are all, at a certain level connected through that sublime entity, to each other. And this is a part of a conversation on the terrace when ‘joint’ studies formed an inevitable part of our weekly curriculum and such larger-than-normal-life statements were made apart from the very silly singing in chorus and hogging on wai-wai and maggi at midnight. Meaningful results of the great roll of weed!
To think of it, as human beings, we are on a roll – and by that I men roll downwards… life keeps getting worse…in some way or the other…for me the word ‘responsibility’ spells ‘worse’…not the sort of responsibility where you are incharge of yourself…I am totally in favour of the ‘each women for herself’ theory…where my problem essentially crops up is the big deal about marriage and being responsible for someone whose life is knotted with yours…or things like a bank account and bills…oh life just keeps getting worse… after twenty two it is all a trip downhill and there is no trekking or the effort for it anymore.
So back to what I was saying. So I am tired and haggard. I already want to retire in the hills with a load of books and some 100 gbs of music. I want to inherit indecent amounts of money from some long lost royal uncle who realised that I am the right heir and then I don’t need to work anymore. And then I want to eventually open a coffee store of my own…with lovely exotic flavours, the right music, student discounts, cosy red couches and a corner with books. Ah…that is life…and what I am living right now is nowhere near it. Instead of a hill station there is a rain infested, muck filled city with humidity and sweaty local trains, instead of my café there is a production house for which I work, from which I am getting easily detached. Instead of my wishful inheritance there is a measly salary and a difficult existence. And instead of an ‘ah’, there is a ‘ouch’!
And then I set out to do the very tiresome job of thinking…and then my abysmal effort of jotting some thoughts down and posting it onto my blog…for further record and a reference for my erstwhile mental state incase I find myself, in a few years, in some mental institution taking therapy on soul searching and other such “who am I” crap!
Because there isn’t just my professional life that I am dissatisfied with, my personal life has also got me in limbo. I mean with all due respects to the romantic writers and the stupid movies that gave us a totally unreal and a screwed up definition of love, I realise that maybe there is no love…maybe nothing is unconditional…maybe it is all give and take…maybe sometimes it is just give give give…maybe at the end of the day it is plain convenience sprinkled with a little amount of fondness…but there is no passion, no driving force to go out of ones way to do something for their so called loved one, no real investment. Maybe we all are so tired of looking that now staying with the one already there is an easier bet…and anyway, the whole wooing process is so much of an effort that even mouldy, old relationships – where there is no sweet nothings and no romance, no random surprises and no special efforts – is better than looking for newer grounds.
I don’t believe in this. I am still a hopeless romantic at heart. I still believe in keeping a relationship alive…that everyday is a new day and that every dinner is a new date…but does it matter what I believe in when, in reality, I see nothing of the sort. It all seems to come down to routine and to habit. And I hardly want to be someone’s monotonous habit. And yet somewhere, in my deep denial, I think I am becoming just that! I think basic human nature is sadomasochistic. I know there is affection, I know there is genuine concern, but I also know that I must have no expectations – and that sometimes gives me a sense of void – the fact that the heart is capable of loving but not trusting and yet staying right there – in that abyss of uncertainty.
I am an impatient person. So impatient! If things are not going right, I want to jump right in and take charge – and then I want to hold the confused reins of my life and try and untangle them fast and start the ride in another direction altogether – never mind if that direction may lead to dead end or yet another twist! Here I am, one month old in my organisation – dissatisfied with work, confused about my role, vague about my aim – and I am thinking of taking off and switching yet again. Is there any point a person reaches professional satisfaction? I suppose…but I am far from it….so so far away!
The froth and gloss of “working” is disappearing – with every swig I take, the mug of life looks bleak and negative – maybe I need another refill…or maybe I need a change of drink itself. Or maybe I just need to go and get drunk one day. It’s been so long – beer beckons me…every time I cross Leopolds and glance at the multiple pitchers inside, I let out a subconscious sigh. Where are the glorious days that were…the all-ladies drinking outings…ah I forget…I am 23 now…and it is all downhill from here onwards.
Have you ever wondered, however pathetic our lives may be, if a gun is held against our heads, we still beg to be let to live, we still pray with all our strength for our silly little meaningless lives…and why is it so precious? Don’t they say there is a whole new world out there?...then why is death looked at with so much fear…every minute is fought for till the end…with surgeries and meditations and allopathic and homeopathic doses! Well then, I suppose however ugly life may get, it is actually the most beautiful gift we have. So even when random inconsequential thoughts of flinging myself from a cliff does enter my very messed up mind, I never actually get around to executing it – it is way too scary…and maybe even I don’t want to let go of my gift. Though, people call suicide cowardice…I personally think it takes a bloody lot of courage to go and actually do it. But I may be wrong…and I may not even know…I haven’t killed myself yet.
Oh and here I go…deviating again…
What was I talking about…about my tiredness and lack of effort to question the purpose of my insignificant existence…or maybe I was just talking…you know, yapping through letters and words…and it all started randomly and it shall, as usual, and as my life, end randomly.
Well hah…how depressing, isn’t it?...not really…I’m sneaking into the kitchen for some toast topped with chocolate syrup…little joys of life…and maybe that is enough to get me through the next day…and maybe grape jam can get my though the subsequent week even… ah well, welcome to my world….welcome to my erratic abyss of thought.
Hypotenuse
Crib quota of the day is over. Missing my city is a continuous phenomenon. I have learnt to live with it.
Memories are sweet and linger in my head like the smell of lilacs.
The train chugs at its usual pace. All kinds of women sit, chit, chat, stare, wonder, ponder.
There is something in the wind. It isn’t love.
Music plays in my ear even though my ipod stays hidden somewhere in my backpack.
Dinner is homely. Children can be so philosophical. Return of innocence. And sense.
My best friend is coming for 2 months. Such joy has gripped my heart.
Safety net of friends comes to rescue. I am covered till August.
Am I a social butterfly? He says that. I just like meeting my friends. Such angels.
The sea is mighty and violent. The rain drops hit my ageing face. I can be so dramatic.
When do I wear my white pants? Muck and dirt engulf this monsoon wrecked city.
Bob Dylan. Such great music. Courtesy Pix.
The bed is big and cluttered. Because it is big I sleep diagonally. I am a hypotenuse.
Somehow I am not upset anymore. This is life. Live it.
And what is life?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The answer is blowing in the wind.
Memories are sweet and linger in my head like the smell of lilacs.
The train chugs at its usual pace. All kinds of women sit, chit, chat, stare, wonder, ponder.
There is something in the wind. It isn’t love.
Music plays in my ear even though my ipod stays hidden somewhere in my backpack.
Dinner is homely. Children can be so philosophical. Return of innocence. And sense.
My best friend is coming for 2 months. Such joy has gripped my heart.
Safety net of friends comes to rescue. I am covered till August.
Am I a social butterfly? He says that. I just like meeting my friends. Such angels.
The sea is mighty and violent. The rain drops hit my ageing face. I can be so dramatic.
When do I wear my white pants? Muck and dirt engulf this monsoon wrecked city.
Bob Dylan. Such great music. Courtesy Pix.
The bed is big and cluttered. Because it is big I sleep diagonally. I am a hypotenuse.
Somehow I am not upset anymore. This is life. Live it.
And what is life?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The answer is blowing in the wind.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Parasites of Technology
My phone has no signal. I feel terribly handicapped. What have we become? Slaves of electronic contraptions! Dependents of wired voices!
I think our cell phones are almost synonymous with another limb…it’s like an extension of the self… and a nuisance at times.
I think of all the times I have used the phone to express my anger and depression. I recall the times I have been utterly stupid and dialled a number and lowered my ego.
But there have been times when the conversation courtesy airtel or hutch has ended with a smile or a leap of joy in the otherwise stable heart.
So then I suppose it cannot be such a bad thing. And yet what a nuisance it can prove to be… buzzing and ringing and interrupting conversations, arguments, discussions and sometimes even sex! We have indeed succumbed to the 10 digit numbers. We have been taken over by aliens called sim cards and recharge coupons. We have lost all our privacy and disconnect from the social world and reconnect into a personal world. The world is suddenly such a small place that I sometimes feel claustrophobic – as if a cloth is being tied around my neck and I can’t breathe and then I feel sick and my lungs want to burst.
Look at me!!... I keep glancing at my silver coloured phone…I keep seeing the left side of the screen, checking whether the damn signal has re-entered my life or not.
I am a victim too, I am!
- Oh signal return…phone buzzes…typing ends…talking starts –
Goodnight.
I think our cell phones are almost synonymous with another limb…it’s like an extension of the self… and a nuisance at times.
I think of all the times I have used the phone to express my anger and depression. I recall the times I have been utterly stupid and dialled a number and lowered my ego.
But there have been times when the conversation courtesy airtel or hutch has ended with a smile or a leap of joy in the otherwise stable heart.
So then I suppose it cannot be such a bad thing. And yet what a nuisance it can prove to be… buzzing and ringing and interrupting conversations, arguments, discussions and sometimes even sex! We have indeed succumbed to the 10 digit numbers. We have been taken over by aliens called sim cards and recharge coupons. We have lost all our privacy and disconnect from the social world and reconnect into a personal world. The world is suddenly such a small place that I sometimes feel claustrophobic – as if a cloth is being tied around my neck and I can’t breathe and then I feel sick and my lungs want to burst.
Look at me!!... I keep glancing at my silver coloured phone…I keep seeing the left side of the screen, checking whether the damn signal has re-entered my life or not.
I am a victim too, I am!
- Oh signal return…phone buzzes…typing ends…talking starts –
Goodnight.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Incompletion
I went to help my aunt and uncle pick curtains for the house yesterday. Fab India – with all its frills at the price tags… I mean this is what I call business…hire the rural handicraft artists and weavers…get them to make all the fancy stuff…sort them in the assorted ranges and then quote the price ten times over if not more. And pay the poor workers one hundredth of the profit.
Yet…I was there, looking at the beautiful curtains…trying to mix and match and get my aesthetic sense on a roll… peacock blue with gold work against a beige-gold printed one… blue and white printed one against a plain white basic looking curtain…and other combinations that we made from the “sheer” section – you know the kind where it is semi-transparent…so that the sun-rays just about come and kiss your feet in the morning and the light at dawn just about sneaks in and stealthily wraps itself around you.
Which reminds me I am right now wallowing in sheer boredom. Its amazing how one word has so many meanings. Sheer curtains. Sheer boredom. Sheer joy.
Back to the curtains – and I don’t know anymore, why I started writing about them in the first place.
‘Snow hey oh’ is playing in my ears right now. RHCP. There is nothing to do at office. My boss is missing. Ah well, its my dramatic way of saying that he didn’t come to office today. Considering what monotony rules my life right now, I am making everything and anything seem of proportional heights…it is called making a mock epic out of one of the chapters of my very normal mortally-limited life.
Song changed to ‘Across the Universe’…did I mention how much I like this song?...let me elucidate - or actually…just read the lyrics if you wish to… or scroll down if not.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass,
they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open mind inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like amillion suns,
it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
- Song ends –
Another song starts – but now I am distracted. I am wondering when can I get out of the office and when I can meet Kartik.
Now let me tell you who he is. He is my adopted sibling. I am the damned eldest one in the family…no cousin is older and no one my age… in solitude of my aged self, I have grown up, always being prodded to set an example for the “kids”…for gods sake… I like being human… I like being lazy and sleeping all day too, I like my beer outings, I like lying in a hammock all day with a book, I like going to crowded, crazy concerts…I like being wonderfully flawed and fun… I don’t want to be an example… if they need an example, they can go look at the autobiography of Gandhi or something… I can hardly be a good mould for any of those children to melt and set into.
So back to Kartik and why I wish to meet him today and have a nice chatty dinner time together…I need to talk…I need to figure out some things in my head and he helps me do just that…and with an amazing amount of patience… I need to know if where I am right now is the right place to be…I need to be sure of what I am doing and if my decisions are, in any way, going to affect other close ones.
Messed up I am….messed up is my head… and I am so bored right now… and I have a book…but I am being greedy…and only a few pages are left that I want to finish in the train…it is a train read and it started that way and it shall end that way.
And I suddenly realised that I started talking about the shopping spree and never ended that… It feels like such an incomplete piece….this random scribbling…but then again… I don’t know why I started talking about it in the first place so now I won’t bother to go back to it… let it be incomplete…like most of us are anyway. And in this utterly incomplete sense of being…I shall stop writing now. Full stop? Comma! Ellipses? Whatever.
Yet…I was there, looking at the beautiful curtains…trying to mix and match and get my aesthetic sense on a roll… peacock blue with gold work against a beige-gold printed one… blue and white printed one against a plain white basic looking curtain…and other combinations that we made from the “sheer” section – you know the kind where it is semi-transparent…so that the sun-rays just about come and kiss your feet in the morning and the light at dawn just about sneaks in and stealthily wraps itself around you.
Which reminds me I am right now wallowing in sheer boredom. Its amazing how one word has so many meanings. Sheer curtains. Sheer boredom. Sheer joy.
Back to the curtains – and I don’t know anymore, why I started writing about them in the first place.
‘Snow hey oh’ is playing in my ears right now. RHCP. There is nothing to do at office. My boss is missing. Ah well, its my dramatic way of saying that he didn’t come to office today. Considering what monotony rules my life right now, I am making everything and anything seem of proportional heights…it is called making a mock epic out of one of the chapters of my very normal mortally-limited life.
Song changed to ‘Across the Universe’…did I mention how much I like this song?...let me elucidate - or actually…just read the lyrics if you wish to… or scroll down if not.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass,
they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open mind inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like amillion suns,
it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
- Song ends –
Another song starts – but now I am distracted. I am wondering when can I get out of the office and when I can meet Kartik.
Now let me tell you who he is. He is my adopted sibling. I am the damned eldest one in the family…no cousin is older and no one my age… in solitude of my aged self, I have grown up, always being prodded to set an example for the “kids”…for gods sake… I like being human… I like being lazy and sleeping all day too, I like my beer outings, I like lying in a hammock all day with a book, I like going to crowded, crazy concerts…I like being wonderfully flawed and fun… I don’t want to be an example… if they need an example, they can go look at the autobiography of Gandhi or something… I can hardly be a good mould for any of those children to melt and set into.
So back to Kartik and why I wish to meet him today and have a nice chatty dinner time together…I need to talk…I need to figure out some things in my head and he helps me do just that…and with an amazing amount of patience… I need to know if where I am right now is the right place to be…I need to be sure of what I am doing and if my decisions are, in any way, going to affect other close ones.
Messed up I am….messed up is my head… and I am so bored right now… and I have a book…but I am being greedy…and only a few pages are left that I want to finish in the train…it is a train read and it started that way and it shall end that way.
And I suddenly realised that I started talking about the shopping spree and never ended that… It feels like such an incomplete piece….this random scribbling…but then again… I don’t know why I started talking about it in the first place so now I won’t bother to go back to it… let it be incomplete…like most of us are anyway. And in this utterly incomplete sense of being…I shall stop writing now. Full stop? Comma! Ellipses? Whatever.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Losing My Monotony
I had left living. Left what I loved the most. Left my world of fantasy and imagination. Abandoned my world of words and wonder. Forgotten my world that I weaved with poetry and knitted with prose.
And to my utter surprise, all this comes back to me in a local train – the train that I take daily from home to work and back.
Morning: Platform no. 3, Grant Road station. Borivili train. Ladies first class.
And then a half hour journey. So to kill the boredom what do I do – I pick a book – random book that I wanted to read once upon a time – The curious incident of the dog in the night time.
Night: Platform no. 3, Andheri station. Churchgate train. Ladies first class. And the read continues.
Now I wait to hop on to the train so that I get my daily slot of reading.
Immersed in a world of my own…occasionally glancing up to make sure that I don’t miss my station…sometimes being interrupted by a lady selling an assorted range of accessories, sometimes being poked by a beggar girl…amidst the heat and the crowd and the rush of life in Mumbai… I sit with my eyes glued to the book…happily flipping one page after another…feeling that old me return.
I have come to realise the importance of my time…”my” exclusive time…my train time… if I’m not reading, I’m listening to music…if I’m not listening to music, I am thinking… and I think I’m sorting my head out.
So do I know now what do I want out of life? Not really. But some of that horrid confusion and storm in my head has ebbed… some focus has come about… or atleast some strange sort of peace had regained itself in me…I think it’s the reading…I think its my own time slot in the train…when I am alone and no one really exists around me… the rambling and bumbling ladies aside, the humidity that ruins my hair aside, the sweat, the grime, the terrible traffic aside…atleast I have rediscovered reading.
It gives me peace. It sorts me out. It makes me happy. It makes me think. It’s a welcome break in my otherwise monotonous life.
If nothing else (yet), atleast Mumbai has made me lose my monotony. And beautifully so.
Back to Mark Haddon and his book. It is a wonderful train read!
And to my utter surprise, all this comes back to me in a local train – the train that I take daily from home to work and back.
Morning: Platform no. 3, Grant Road station. Borivili train. Ladies first class.
And then a half hour journey. So to kill the boredom what do I do – I pick a book – random book that I wanted to read once upon a time – The curious incident of the dog in the night time.
Night: Platform no. 3, Andheri station. Churchgate train. Ladies first class. And the read continues.
Now I wait to hop on to the train so that I get my daily slot of reading.
Immersed in a world of my own…occasionally glancing up to make sure that I don’t miss my station…sometimes being interrupted by a lady selling an assorted range of accessories, sometimes being poked by a beggar girl…amidst the heat and the crowd and the rush of life in Mumbai… I sit with my eyes glued to the book…happily flipping one page after another…feeling that old me return.
I have come to realise the importance of my time…”my” exclusive time…my train time… if I’m not reading, I’m listening to music…if I’m not listening to music, I am thinking… and I think I’m sorting my head out.
So do I know now what do I want out of life? Not really. But some of that horrid confusion and storm in my head has ebbed… some focus has come about… or atleast some strange sort of peace had regained itself in me…I think it’s the reading…I think its my own time slot in the train…when I am alone and no one really exists around me… the rambling and bumbling ladies aside, the humidity that ruins my hair aside, the sweat, the grime, the terrible traffic aside…atleast I have rediscovered reading.
It gives me peace. It sorts me out. It makes me happy. It makes me think. It’s a welcome break in my otherwise monotonous life.
If nothing else (yet), atleast Mumbai has made me lose my monotony. And beautifully so.
Back to Mark Haddon and his book. It is a wonderful train read!
Black Bombay
Its like an invisible force. Like black magic. Evil. Foreboding. Yet tempting. Pulling me towards itself. Giving me unnecessary hopes, inculcating in me, a resigned indifference, asking me never to expect from people – for it is, paradoxically, a selfish but warm, rainy but sunny, expensive but cheap, crowded but personal and a hateful but likeable place. This is Mumbai. I am returning to it – yet again. Except last time was shit. There was illness in the air, hatred in the blood, tears in my eyes and so much of a mental void.
This time – I like to think – that I am stronger, more level headed, rather determined and yet most impulsive.
I like to think people are good. I like to give everyone there, the benefit of the doubt. I also think though, that I like to get hurt – and sadistically, many times so. I like to fall and rise – and bruise and heal – and tell myself…I survived again!
Limitations of a human being …but more than that…limitations of an AV student. Oh why tell me, did I take the blasted course. It taught me more about life than about a job. It made me wary of trusting, depending, and being blind against the malice of many. It taught me, no doubt, little bit of editing, camera and lots of bullshitting. But most of all it taught me – that we make choices … good choices, terrible choices…but at the end of the day we live with our choices and no one else…not our mothers or fathers or lovers… but the individual who made a choice.
I think I make a lot of wrong choices. I think I am rather impulsive and stupid. I also like to think that some good will come out of all of this. I think positive. Well…looking at the really optimistic side…atleast I think!
I haven’t slept well in the past month. Come 6:30 and my eyes snap open. Automatically!! As if an external force is prying my eyelids open and asking me to stop dreaming and start living…reality bites…and it really hurts.
Wishful thinking keeps me going still… I wish I am happy again…I wish someday I have the power to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch again. I wish my dark circles disappear one day. I wish I were pretty.
Rain and muck and crowd and locals and leopolds and odd working hours beckon me again – or may I say, yet again! But will it be that bad? Could it be worse? Could I again be sitting at the window sill finishing a pack of Marlboro lights in a night listening to Bavra mann? Or would I be reading something and eating watermelon while productively doing something out of my life? How much have I wasted…haste makes waste, no?
And yet again – this has been a hasty decision – and only my wishful thinking hopes against hope that it is not wasted this time…that I am not wasted this time…that my joy isn’t wasted this time.
I’ve had enough. Truly had enough. I’m going to give happiness a chance. I am not going to wallow around in hollow, self-indulgent pain. What is a city? It’s an area of land…with roads and houses and some people who don’t even matter. Let’s try to live for a change…and live solely for myself. Let’s defeat black magic. Let’s triumph over Mumbai!
This time – I like to think – that I am stronger, more level headed, rather determined and yet most impulsive.
I like to think people are good. I like to give everyone there, the benefit of the doubt. I also think though, that I like to get hurt – and sadistically, many times so. I like to fall and rise – and bruise and heal – and tell myself…I survived again!
Limitations of a human being …but more than that…limitations of an AV student. Oh why tell me, did I take the blasted course. It taught me more about life than about a job. It made me wary of trusting, depending, and being blind against the malice of many. It taught me, no doubt, little bit of editing, camera and lots of bullshitting. But most of all it taught me – that we make choices … good choices, terrible choices…but at the end of the day we live with our choices and no one else…not our mothers or fathers or lovers… but the individual who made a choice.
I think I make a lot of wrong choices. I think I am rather impulsive and stupid. I also like to think that some good will come out of all of this. I think positive. Well…looking at the really optimistic side…atleast I think!
I haven’t slept well in the past month. Come 6:30 and my eyes snap open. Automatically!! As if an external force is prying my eyelids open and asking me to stop dreaming and start living…reality bites…and it really hurts.
Wishful thinking keeps me going still… I wish I am happy again…I wish someday I have the power to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch again. I wish my dark circles disappear one day. I wish I were pretty.
Rain and muck and crowd and locals and leopolds and odd working hours beckon me again – or may I say, yet again! But will it be that bad? Could it be worse? Could I again be sitting at the window sill finishing a pack of Marlboro lights in a night listening to Bavra mann? Or would I be reading something and eating watermelon while productively doing something out of my life? How much have I wasted…haste makes waste, no?
And yet again – this has been a hasty decision – and only my wishful thinking hopes against hope that it is not wasted this time…that I am not wasted this time…that my joy isn’t wasted this time.
I’ve had enough. Truly had enough. I’m going to give happiness a chance. I am not going to wallow around in hollow, self-indulgent pain. What is a city? It’s an area of land…with roads and houses and some people who don’t even matter. Let’s try to live for a change…and live solely for myself. Let’s defeat black magic. Let’s triumph over Mumbai!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I Do Love Home
I do love home. Yes I do…inspite of all the arguments and the fights and all the tans of anger and the verbal splats…I still love home.
I leave dayafter – not for college, not for comfortable cash inflow from dad…but for work, new life and my own money. Wow… I might as well say goodbye to all my big chill indulgences, the Loreals and the Benettons… I will be amongst the “less-fortunate” ones. *looooooong dramatic sigh*
What a silly song is on…It must’ve been love by Roxette. Ah…and I am being silly and relating to it. “But it’s over now…..” – I wonder, is it? I mean I am not that emotional anymore when it comes to him…that weak or stupid for that matter. So much thinking seems to, for a change, do me some good. What use is the term “moving on” if you cant apply it? Distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or out of sight, out of mind? Pix says it is the second syndrome where he is concerned. I wonder now, is it true? Yesterday a mail from him hit my inbox and I was taken aback… I think that’s because I have truly stopped expecting anything from him. He is married to work, he says. Then how can I even expect him to stray with me? *grin*
Oh and I was thinking of that corny movie “My best friends wedding” yesterday. I admit, sheepishly though, that I like that film very much. It’s such good time pass. The karaoke segment is my favourite…I think that’s when I started liking that song by Nicky Holland, “I just don’t know what to do with myself”…oh wait, let me just find it on my winamp.
Ah yes, it’s playing now…and I am swaying happily. And voila…I switch to Moby and feel all swingy and floaty… I miss the weed-ed wonders of life… ah college life and other such sinful nights…!
Music is so amazing. It makes me feel better about almost anything.
-Phone call-
Ah it was my 2nd brother from college, the lovesick heartbroken C.J. Just finished giving him a whole lecture about moving on and staying away from what and who makes you upset. Felt so mature. Made me think about my own personal problems… have I applied it in my life…can I really?
I haven’t been upset where the man in question is concerned in a long time now. No more am I harping on the fact that I want to wait and be with him. His commitment phobia has finally put me off so much that I’d rather also just be friends now than keep trying to make him realise what we had. I mean if he can’t see it, he must be blind and I am tired of trying. Such hopelessness makes me resign myself to hopelessness. But I am really proud of myself and that I am capable of getting okay! Yay delhi here I come…!!
-Loo break-
Ya okay…I don’t feel like typing anymore. I am bored and I don’t feel like rambling on anymore. I will try sneak out the car for a drive now. I will grab some fruits for lunch. I will send my clothes for ironing. I will go for a walk. I will miss home. Oh yes I will. I do love home.
I leave dayafter – not for college, not for comfortable cash inflow from dad…but for work, new life and my own money. Wow… I might as well say goodbye to all my big chill indulgences, the Loreals and the Benettons… I will be amongst the “less-fortunate” ones. *looooooong dramatic sigh*
What a silly song is on…It must’ve been love by Roxette. Ah…and I am being silly and relating to it. “But it’s over now…..” – I wonder, is it? I mean I am not that emotional anymore when it comes to him…that weak or stupid for that matter. So much thinking seems to, for a change, do me some good. What use is the term “moving on” if you cant apply it? Distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or out of sight, out of mind? Pix says it is the second syndrome where he is concerned. I wonder now, is it true? Yesterday a mail from him hit my inbox and I was taken aback… I think that’s because I have truly stopped expecting anything from him. He is married to work, he says. Then how can I even expect him to stray with me? *grin*
Oh and I was thinking of that corny movie “My best friends wedding” yesterday. I admit, sheepishly though, that I like that film very much. It’s such good time pass. The karaoke segment is my favourite…I think that’s when I started liking that song by Nicky Holland, “I just don’t know what to do with myself”…oh wait, let me just find it on my winamp.
Ah yes, it’s playing now…and I am swaying happily. And voila…I switch to Moby and feel all swingy and floaty… I miss the weed-ed wonders of life… ah college life and other such sinful nights…!
Music is so amazing. It makes me feel better about almost anything.
-Phone call-
Ah it was my 2nd brother from college, the lovesick heartbroken C.J. Just finished giving him a whole lecture about moving on and staying away from what and who makes you upset. Felt so mature. Made me think about my own personal problems… have I applied it in my life…can I really?
I haven’t been upset where the man in question is concerned in a long time now. No more am I harping on the fact that I want to wait and be with him. His commitment phobia has finally put me off so much that I’d rather also just be friends now than keep trying to make him realise what we had. I mean if he can’t see it, he must be blind and I am tired of trying. Such hopelessness makes me resign myself to hopelessness. But I am really proud of myself and that I am capable of getting okay! Yay delhi here I come…!!
-Loo break-
Ya okay…I don’t feel like typing anymore. I am bored and I don’t feel like rambling on anymore. I will try sneak out the car for a drive now. I will grab some fruits for lunch. I will send my clothes for ironing. I will go for a walk. I will miss home. Oh yes I will. I do love home.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Tan of Anger
What happens when you wake up with the same ol’ same ol’ raving and ranting of motherhood, the silent but subconsciously concerned silence of fatherhood and no appetite for the otherwise very appetizing Sunday morning breakfast? It leads to a tan.
So u see my arm…its double shaded…a patch of skin with such a straight line splits the uniformity of my arm – its such a funny sight – as if it belongs to two different mannequins and is clubbed together by mistake! This is a result of going for an hour long drive in anger in the very strong sunlight of my hometown – the sun rays that are hardly blocked by pollution or smog, clouds or fog – it’s a clear day…sunny and warm…bordering at hot even – and I, so sick of my mother’s constant pestering on the issue of marriage and the love interest I had and which led to nowhere, chose to bathe after waking up with another range of arguments and in an attempt to dodge more such accusations, took the very manageable beige Maruti which is my only means to peace and distraction, and left home.
So many thoughts, so little time…so many cars, so little space. Now Shimla has narrow roads that snakes itself around the hillsides – sometimes being comfortably inviting, sometimes betraying that sharp bend where a truck comes zooming in like nobody’s business. Nevertheless, I go on… I still hate to reverse… and I don’t like to take anything but U –turns to return to some place…but these are the hills with the never ending valleys on one side and the intimidating towering mound on the other – and yet I keep driving… take a round of the whole town…watch some guys on roads and some male drivers give me the dirts (of but ofcourse – it’s a small sexist town and there are not many lady drivers you see)!! ‘Blinking Lights’ by The Eels run in my head – I was listening to them just before I took off…
“Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees
Blinking down a morse code signal specially for me
In a rainbow, in the sky, in the middle of the night
But the signal’s coming through
One day I will be all right again…
Blinking lights on the highway cars
Stopping one by one
Get a look at the accident
Didn’t see that one coming
And the doctor in the sky
Going to bring his chopper down
Going to bring me out alive
Set me on the ground once more again
Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees…..”
With the song replaying in my head again and again…I keep the tyres rolling… “But the signal’s coming through …One day I will be all right again…” …the sun shines and streams stealthily in my car…on my right arm… I don’t notice… I only wince once in a while trying to hush it away when it tries to creep into my eyes… and I keep manoeuvring the steering wheel with the course of my thoughts… it all seems to be in tandem…there is harmony in the world again.
Until I reach home and park the car...glance and my ‘ebony and ivory’ endorsing arm and rush in to rub it with the old and reliable recipe of lemon, besan and haldi… but well, the hour has baked it enough… I now have the tan of anger and an inability to wear short sleeves for atleast a week! But tomorrow the drive will happen again – and the tan of anger shall be shielded by sunscreen!
So u see my arm…its double shaded…a patch of skin with such a straight line splits the uniformity of my arm – its such a funny sight – as if it belongs to two different mannequins and is clubbed together by mistake! This is a result of going for an hour long drive in anger in the very strong sunlight of my hometown – the sun rays that are hardly blocked by pollution or smog, clouds or fog – it’s a clear day…sunny and warm…bordering at hot even – and I, so sick of my mother’s constant pestering on the issue of marriage and the love interest I had and which led to nowhere, chose to bathe after waking up with another range of arguments and in an attempt to dodge more such accusations, took the very manageable beige Maruti which is my only means to peace and distraction, and left home.
So many thoughts, so little time…so many cars, so little space. Now Shimla has narrow roads that snakes itself around the hillsides – sometimes being comfortably inviting, sometimes betraying that sharp bend where a truck comes zooming in like nobody’s business. Nevertheless, I go on… I still hate to reverse… and I don’t like to take anything but U –turns to return to some place…but these are the hills with the never ending valleys on one side and the intimidating towering mound on the other – and yet I keep driving… take a round of the whole town…watch some guys on roads and some male drivers give me the dirts (of but ofcourse – it’s a small sexist town and there are not many lady drivers you see)!! ‘Blinking Lights’ by The Eels run in my head – I was listening to them just before I took off…
“Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees
Blinking down a morse code signal specially for me
In a rainbow, in the sky, in the middle of the night
But the signal’s coming through
One day I will be all right again…
Blinking lights on the highway cars
Stopping one by one
Get a look at the accident
Didn’t see that one coming
And the doctor in the sky
Going to bring his chopper down
Going to bring me out alive
Set me on the ground once more again
Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees…..”
With the song replaying in my head again and again…I keep the tyres rolling… “But the signal’s coming through …One day I will be all right again…” …the sun shines and streams stealthily in my car…on my right arm… I don’t notice… I only wince once in a while trying to hush it away when it tries to creep into my eyes… and I keep manoeuvring the steering wheel with the course of my thoughts… it all seems to be in tandem…there is harmony in the world again.
Until I reach home and park the car...glance and my ‘ebony and ivory’ endorsing arm and rush in to rub it with the old and reliable recipe of lemon, besan and haldi… but well, the hour has baked it enough… I now have the tan of anger and an inability to wear short sleeves for atleast a week! But tomorrow the drive will happen again – and the tan of anger shall be shielded by sunscreen!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wedding Bells Toll – Let the Cameras Roll
What a waste of time! What a waste of good news time! What a waste of tapes! What a waste of broadcast value! What a super waste of sensibility! But definitely not a waste of TRP’s or money or the amazing amounts the ads must have put in each channel from the very masala-driven Aaj Tak to the apparently sensible CNN-IBN (that I am going to join in just a weeks time)…boy, am I glad the wedding aka tamasha business finished before that, or I could almost visualise myself banging my head on the sparkly walls of the office and wanting to walk out.
A child in Kailash Colony got killed. Some fiasco happened at a hospital. Some political stuff must have also happened (and I am being vague purely because I, at this moment, have the right to be vague about it) – blame it on the news channels where hours of a “LIVE” baraat procession is on…for lord god’s sake – what has the world come to? And if not that, then there is the repetitive footage of the other woman who claims to be heartbroken and has cut her wrist at the perfect time (I mean really, what could give the media more pleasure than getting such a scandal out on the big D-day…or should I say small B-day!)
Now I wonder, who needs to know who is on the guest list and what colour is the brides wedding attire…and why only concentrate on Whatever Lulla’s detailed designs, if there was any scope, then I am undoubtedly sure that they would want to talk about the colour of her thong too!! (But oooh the thong would be an issue for the RSS and the Bajrang Dal right…I mean, according to them, doesn’t that also go against our so very sanctified Hindu ethics and blah blah who choose to ignore the ancient erotica and the ajanta-ellora’s) – So that would make another headline “Party shows protest against bride defying Indian culture by setting thongs on fire publicly (and maybe its enlarged versions too) and pelting stones on all lingerie stores”...never mind that they all want their wives to be a sati in the kitchen and a slut in bed! And more than that never mind if another criminal mind is working his twisted head on another victim – he is almost sure that, amongst the band-bajaas and the shehnais his crime will hardly be heard!
Double standards apart, I really wonder if TRP’s all that drives today’s channels. Everything is commercial, isn’t it? And being idealistic so passé…so ngo-type? Isn’t it?... lets all indulge in spending hours of our days watching the details of one wedding – something that is so personal made into public entertainment and why only news/ entertainment channels…lets also give reality a new face by putting cams on their post-wedding activities…hah they wish now, don’t they! I’m most sure they do…and why not…anything for money…when have we ever learnt where to draw the line?
A child in Kailash Colony got killed. Some fiasco happened at a hospital. Some political stuff must have also happened (and I am being vague purely because I, at this moment, have the right to be vague about it) – blame it on the news channels where hours of a “LIVE” baraat procession is on…for lord god’s sake – what has the world come to? And if not that, then there is the repetitive footage of the other woman who claims to be heartbroken and has cut her wrist at the perfect time (I mean really, what could give the media more pleasure than getting such a scandal out on the big D-day…or should I say small B-day!)
Now I wonder, who needs to know who is on the guest list and what colour is the brides wedding attire…and why only concentrate on Whatever Lulla’s detailed designs, if there was any scope, then I am undoubtedly sure that they would want to talk about the colour of her thong too!! (But oooh the thong would be an issue for the RSS and the Bajrang Dal right…I mean, according to them, doesn’t that also go against our so very sanctified Hindu ethics and blah blah who choose to ignore the ancient erotica and the ajanta-ellora’s) – So that would make another headline “Party shows protest against bride defying Indian culture by setting thongs on fire publicly (and maybe its enlarged versions too) and pelting stones on all lingerie stores”...never mind that they all want their wives to be a sati in the kitchen and a slut in bed! And more than that never mind if another criminal mind is working his twisted head on another victim – he is almost sure that, amongst the band-bajaas and the shehnais his crime will hardly be heard!
Double standards apart, I really wonder if TRP’s all that drives today’s channels. Everything is commercial, isn’t it? And being idealistic so passé…so ngo-type? Isn’t it?... lets all indulge in spending hours of our days watching the details of one wedding – something that is so personal made into public entertainment and why only news/ entertainment channels…lets also give reality a new face by putting cams on their post-wedding activities…hah they wish now, don’t they! I’m most sure they do…and why not…anything for money…when have we ever learnt where to draw the line?
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Writer’s Block
I am suffering from a writer’s block. And that’s why instead of letting a thought compel me towards the keyboard, I am trying to get the blank screen compel some thoughts out of my head. And still – no feelings, no statements, nothing even remotely profound or for that matter flippantly shallow even. I don’t remember the last time I had a writer’s block – words usually trickle out of my head very easily and seamlessly.
I remember the last time I was writing regularly was the time I was hurt and terribly let down by someone. It was anger that made me write – anger and vehement questioning. And this time, when that someone very easily washed his hands off the entire affair, nothing is coming to me – no passion that makes me write in fury, no feelings that I have to necessarily manifest through words. That’s why I am even more surprised at my writer’s block.
Sometimes random thoughts do come to me – I mean, yes I still “think” and all that – I haven’t been mentally retarded so to say – but they are so fleeting and momentary that I either don’t want to pen them down or don’t think its worth the effort. Or do I not think anymore that what happens to me in my personal life, worth the effort to be recorded?... I don’t know – I am feeling terribly blank right now and don’t even know what my next sentence is going to be.
Ah yes – I remember the last time I drew and analogy of sorts – between my hair and his feelings. Its rather simple – there was a phase in my undergrad days when for some strange inexplicable reason, my otherwise curly hair had suddenly turned poker straight – ideally I should have been delighted – I think initially I was too, but in a while I started to miss my curly hair. Come season change and it went back to their curled state – and the straight phase was over. Now I own a hair straightener – I wish I had straight hair, I try sometimes to tame the mop of curls I usually wake up with – cute nevertheless, but unruly and unsatisfactory. And now I think of the straight hair phase and wonder why I wanted my curls back to badly that I tried atleast 10 different shampoos to restore it to its natural state. Its simple human psychology at the end of the day, isn’t it? We always want what is difficult to get – straight hair that came for a month wasn’t appreciated and rather cursed while I had it, and now that it is gone, I possess an artificial hair straightener – and sometimes think about the guest appearance of the straight hair that was.
Is he like that too? Want something once its gone? Appreciate the one who’s not easily his? And why just him – I think of my straight hair tale – I think I am like that too – we are all humans, and we are terribly stupid at times – take for granted what is there – not know the importance of it until its gone – its like water, I didn’t realise how much we take it for granted until one night there wasn’t a drop to drink at home and we had to sleep thirsty.
Have you realised that the most indispensable thing is what we take for granted the most? – air, water, food, home, family, best friend? And what if one of these go – how difficult or impossible is mere survival? Its problematic, isn’t it?...that the one we need the most is the one we don’t appreciate at all – unless its gone ofcourse. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? But why do we have to wait till the absence takes place anyway – why don’t we realise the importance of that person/thing/support when its right there – how stupid are we as human beings? How retarded is human psychology?
I learnt my lesson once. I don’t think I want to learn it again – I don’t like to take for granted anything – I want to feel every moment, every instance, every element that makes me the person I am and appreciate it while its here. But I also want to record all of that – every sentiment, realisation, appreciation – and how do I do that now…now that I have a writer’s block?
I remember the last time I was writing regularly was the time I was hurt and terribly let down by someone. It was anger that made me write – anger and vehement questioning. And this time, when that someone very easily washed his hands off the entire affair, nothing is coming to me – no passion that makes me write in fury, no feelings that I have to necessarily manifest through words. That’s why I am even more surprised at my writer’s block.
Sometimes random thoughts do come to me – I mean, yes I still “think” and all that – I haven’t been mentally retarded so to say – but they are so fleeting and momentary that I either don’t want to pen them down or don’t think its worth the effort. Or do I not think anymore that what happens to me in my personal life, worth the effort to be recorded?... I don’t know – I am feeling terribly blank right now and don’t even know what my next sentence is going to be.
Ah yes – I remember the last time I drew and analogy of sorts – between my hair and his feelings. Its rather simple – there was a phase in my undergrad days when for some strange inexplicable reason, my otherwise curly hair had suddenly turned poker straight – ideally I should have been delighted – I think initially I was too, but in a while I started to miss my curly hair. Come season change and it went back to their curled state – and the straight phase was over. Now I own a hair straightener – I wish I had straight hair, I try sometimes to tame the mop of curls I usually wake up with – cute nevertheless, but unruly and unsatisfactory. And now I think of the straight hair phase and wonder why I wanted my curls back to badly that I tried atleast 10 different shampoos to restore it to its natural state. Its simple human psychology at the end of the day, isn’t it? We always want what is difficult to get – straight hair that came for a month wasn’t appreciated and rather cursed while I had it, and now that it is gone, I possess an artificial hair straightener – and sometimes think about the guest appearance of the straight hair that was.
Is he like that too? Want something once its gone? Appreciate the one who’s not easily his? And why just him – I think of my straight hair tale – I think I am like that too – we are all humans, and we are terribly stupid at times – take for granted what is there – not know the importance of it until its gone – its like water, I didn’t realise how much we take it for granted until one night there wasn’t a drop to drink at home and we had to sleep thirsty.
Have you realised that the most indispensable thing is what we take for granted the most? – air, water, food, home, family, best friend? And what if one of these go – how difficult or impossible is mere survival? Its problematic, isn’t it?...that the one we need the most is the one we don’t appreciate at all – unless its gone ofcourse. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? But why do we have to wait till the absence takes place anyway – why don’t we realise the importance of that person/thing/support when its right there – how stupid are we as human beings? How retarded is human psychology?
I learnt my lesson once. I don’t think I want to learn it again – I don’t like to take for granted anything – I want to feel every moment, every instance, every element that makes me the person I am and appreciate it while its here. But I also want to record all of that – every sentiment, realisation, appreciation – and how do I do that now…now that I have a writer’s block?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Dying is an Art
Just finished watching Sylvia, the movie. Made me think – do all great writers necessarily have to have such tragic lives? Is this tragedy that feeds creativity into their works? Is sadness the greatest catalyst for passionate ruthless outpourings? Is loneliness, infidelity, heart breaks, insomnia, nightmares the driving force behind great writings? Pained verses are touching, strong ranting prose effective? So to be able to produce such works, does a personal failure prove to be a necessity to be a writer?
Woolf? Plath? – the two icons of their times – my Goddesses, my idols, my inspirations – both women with tragic lives – both women with mental tortures – both women clamped personally – both women dead early – for they could not carry the burden of their genius in this unfair world?
What is reason and what is passion? Poetry is passion. The power to be able to manifest your entire self in a few “not-rhyming” verses is poetry – heart rendering lines from the self is poetry.
Tragedy and sorrow – the food for poetry? Joy too – but mostly the former.
I look back at my tiny collection of insignificant work – I look at the words, the feelings, the thoughts behind it – I pour over them slowly, I think about them – I recall the context, the subject, the time in which I wrote – and sadly, it shows too – sorrow had brought out the best in me – through words I could manifest my anger, my fear, my anxiety, my hatred. In joy, I could not ever do it so well. Joyous poetry has always been flimsy – so is my happiness shallow and is my sorrow deep? I wonder…I think about myself and in my fancy, compare myself to those two – I relate to them…strangely so. Surely many others too – but I do strongly.
Genius requires certain madness – an insanity that is not visible to the world. A slow machine whirring in the head – with all kind of thoughts – real and surreal – dreams and nightmares – subconscious and conscious thoughts – all intermingling and running furiously through my head – like a storm that is brewing – that shall only ebb once I die.
When does this storm get deafening? When does it block out other noises? When does the world become an enemy? When do you become alone – you and these voices in you head – sense that is nonsense to others – logic that is senility to the world, a philosophy that is not yet been recorded in great thick books of Russell and Decartes, a passion that Rousseau hasn’t yet talked about? Is that when you leave some thoughts behind – on paper and in parchments for the world to read and recognise later? Is that when you decide to not live in the make believe social world anymore? Is that when you die? Like a legacy, leave behind your words and perish? And influence and inspire, amateurs like me, readers and dreamers – who are a little different from the rest –slightly mad, slightly sane, slightly alive, slightly dead – who wish to think, and write – to be read, to tell others the beauty of a poem, of words, of art, of verses…of an experience that is called life itself? And then dying would not be an end in itself, but a beginning of another story – more words, more poems, more genius, more insanity, more drowning, more pills – and yet in Plath’s words:
Dying is an art,
like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
Woolf? Plath? – the two icons of their times – my Goddesses, my idols, my inspirations – both women with tragic lives – both women with mental tortures – both women clamped personally – both women dead early – for they could not carry the burden of their genius in this unfair world?
What is reason and what is passion? Poetry is passion. The power to be able to manifest your entire self in a few “not-rhyming” verses is poetry – heart rendering lines from the self is poetry.
Tragedy and sorrow – the food for poetry? Joy too – but mostly the former.
I look back at my tiny collection of insignificant work – I look at the words, the feelings, the thoughts behind it – I pour over them slowly, I think about them – I recall the context, the subject, the time in which I wrote – and sadly, it shows too – sorrow had brought out the best in me – through words I could manifest my anger, my fear, my anxiety, my hatred. In joy, I could not ever do it so well. Joyous poetry has always been flimsy – so is my happiness shallow and is my sorrow deep? I wonder…I think about myself and in my fancy, compare myself to those two – I relate to them…strangely so. Surely many others too – but I do strongly.
Genius requires certain madness – an insanity that is not visible to the world. A slow machine whirring in the head – with all kind of thoughts – real and surreal – dreams and nightmares – subconscious and conscious thoughts – all intermingling and running furiously through my head – like a storm that is brewing – that shall only ebb once I die.
When does this storm get deafening? When does it block out other noises? When does the world become an enemy? When do you become alone – you and these voices in you head – sense that is nonsense to others – logic that is senility to the world, a philosophy that is not yet been recorded in great thick books of Russell and Decartes, a passion that Rousseau hasn’t yet talked about? Is that when you leave some thoughts behind – on paper and in parchments for the world to read and recognise later? Is that when you decide to not live in the make believe social world anymore? Is that when you die? Like a legacy, leave behind your words and perish? And influence and inspire, amateurs like me, readers and dreamers – who are a little different from the rest –slightly mad, slightly sane, slightly alive, slightly dead – who wish to think, and write – to be read, to tell others the beauty of a poem, of words, of art, of verses…of an experience that is called life itself? And then dying would not be an end in itself, but a beginning of another story – more words, more poems, more genius, more insanity, more drowning, more pills – and yet in Plath’s words:
Dying is an art,
like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Ideal Idealism Idealist Idyllic?
What is ideal? Is there something as ideal? The first meaning in the dictionary is “perfect”. Now I went to see the meaning of “perfect” and it said ‘excellent’, ‘faultless’. Now before I thought of going to the meanings of that, I realised it is just one big circle. One word means the other, the other means another which in turn means the first one. So do we actually have a meaning at all? Real true meaning of anything?
Plus even if we understand the meaning of ideal – that I also think is a subjective word and differs from person to person – but for a minute, lets just suppose, if we, within ourselves understand the meaning of the word “ideal”, is anything in life really ideal? As humans, as hungry insatiable mortal beings, aren’t we always vying for something better than what there is – so nothing is really ideal, is it?
Idealism as a concept is totally screwed up. There is no utopia (unless ofcourse, in the clichéd sense, “you make your own utopia”). There is no perfection. Nothing is perfect. And then again, when I look up at the serene sky and watch that globular masterpiece of nature hang lazily, I think of perfection within imperfections.
No then can we say that perfection, in it complete self, doesn’t exist? And that we live all our lives struggling with imperfection – so is our continuous strive for perfection a never ending quest? So is perfection just a distant carrot on the stick,that the closer we get to it, the further it goes? Is perfection some wapped word that is man made and that is an impossibility?
Is any form of art perfect? Is any piece of art perfect? Nothing can be perfect if we cannot define “perfect”, right? So should be delete the word and all its brothers and sisters out of the dictionary? Should we delete ideal, idyllic, best, etc etc etc?
Is it a depressing thought? – to think that perfection may be nothing…a strive towards a theory that does not exist? But yet, in Alanis’ words, You live, you learn. I am very confused right now – I cannot decide whether the realisation that perfection is nothing should be upsetting my hopeful utopic ideas or should I celebrate the fact that as humans, even in imperfections and in the simple walk towards the horizon of perfection that shall never be completed, we are happy – we live, we learn – we make our imperfections our perfections … and in this thoughtful quest, I humbly manage to bewilder and dazzle the readers with my amazing capability to confuse? But then again, did I ever say I am perfect?
Plus even if we understand the meaning of ideal – that I also think is a subjective word and differs from person to person – but for a minute, lets just suppose, if we, within ourselves understand the meaning of the word “ideal”, is anything in life really ideal? As humans, as hungry insatiable mortal beings, aren’t we always vying for something better than what there is – so nothing is really ideal, is it?
Idealism as a concept is totally screwed up. There is no utopia (unless ofcourse, in the clichéd sense, “you make your own utopia”). There is no perfection. Nothing is perfect. And then again, when I look up at the serene sky and watch that globular masterpiece of nature hang lazily, I think of perfection within imperfections.
No then can we say that perfection, in it complete self, doesn’t exist? And that we live all our lives struggling with imperfection – so is our continuous strive for perfection a never ending quest? So is perfection just a distant carrot on the stick,that the closer we get to it, the further it goes? Is perfection some wapped word that is man made and that is an impossibility?
Is any form of art perfect? Is any piece of art perfect? Nothing can be perfect if we cannot define “perfect”, right? So should be delete the word and all its brothers and sisters out of the dictionary? Should we delete ideal, idyllic, best, etc etc etc?
Is it a depressing thought? – to think that perfection may be nothing…a strive towards a theory that does not exist? But yet, in Alanis’ words, You live, you learn. I am very confused right now – I cannot decide whether the realisation that perfection is nothing should be upsetting my hopeful utopic ideas or should I celebrate the fact that as humans, even in imperfections and in the simple walk towards the horizon of perfection that shall never be completed, we are happy – we live, we learn – we make our imperfections our perfections … and in this thoughtful quest, I humbly manage to bewilder and dazzle the readers with my amazing capability to confuse? But then again, did I ever say I am perfect?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
In boredom, do what the bored do.
Listening to Black Eyed Peas. Such mood music, aren’t they? Most fun. Jumpy. Silly. Fun fun fun!!!
All alone at home. Not because I don’t have an option of going out but because I don’t feel like. Pmsing, am I? Maybe. I don’t know. Confused. Restless. So writing right now.
So many things to do. Like read this new Atwood book I have bought dirt cheap from a second hand bookstore. How kicked was I when I got it. I should read it, no? I love Atwood. And surprisingly more than anything, I love her short stories. “Rape Fantasy” was one of her finest – so plain, so direct, so simple, yet so beautiful. The last few lines say:
“… Like how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, rite? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand”
For reasons inexplicable, it hit me harder than any other literature on rape or child abuse. Harder than Virani’s Bitter Chocolate even. Maybe because of the flat tone – no anger, no menace – just flat and dulled and matter of factly.
---- spoke to Pix. Spoke about what’s to come, life back there. Joy. Smiles. Content. Happy sigh -------
Where was I? Was I anywhere at all? Nowhere I think. Just somewhere randomly rambling on because I have nothing else to do.
And I have been thinking, yet again, about him. He is scum mostly. Not because he has done something. But of the way he is as a person. Double faces. Multiple personality disorder, surely! So different when with me. Such a pretentious creep when with his gang of friends. Trying to do what? Prove a point? Be someone he isn’t? and even if that’s who he is, then why all the pretence when with me. Who is he really? Bah – again – I don’t wish to know.
I cannot stop counting. Parents are going to be disappointed if I am in Delhi with a lower pay pack. But what’s more important again? – money or warm honest people? I prefer the latter thank you very much. I am not him, I will never be.
I can’t decide whether I am a good person or a bad person. I mean ofcourse I know “shades of grey” and all that jazz. But no one can also be perfectly grey I think. You have to have a shade tipping towards some side – white or black…where do I fall? I would like to think it’s the lighter side – but people here definitely seem to think otherwise. And then again – when did these people start to matter? These, who I will not stay in touch voluntarily with. These, who I don’t like and who don’t like me. These, who don’t like me because they don’t know me and that’s supposed to be my problem? I care a hoot. My bracket stays intact and life is good. Entries closed. I think I have enough pillars to fall on albeit in other cities – but 8 weeks is hardly any time compared to what I have been through and how much. Internship taught me a huge lesson – don’t even trust them who claimed once to be your closest friend, for after under-grad, it is all one big façade and I don’t want to be a part of that masquerade anymore.
Definitions of happiness is also so subjective right? To find someone whose definition and ideas match with yours is a blessing. I am still waiting for my boon to hit my head!
Told my childhood friend today “I want to get married” – he reacted by saying “don’t marry someone you don’t love”. I like his optimism, his hopeless belief in the idea of togetherness and unconditional love. He has been blessed – he is the lucky one, I may not be. Who knows? So do we keep waiting? And for how long? Don’t we take the easier way out and marry convenience? Aren’t we all human? And on top of that I am also worried that beauty, the transient companion, shall cheat on me - the hair shall fall and fly into space unknown, the eyes shall be gifted with everlasting bags, the boobs shall not defy gravity anymore, the arms may not be as taut as they were, the voice as youthful, the tummy may turn from plateau to mound – and then marriage shall also be something you waited for all your life. Will I become Miss Havisham? Except that the only thing that would cheat on me would be hope and age? Sigh! I don’t know. Overthinking. Overanalysing. Overtyping maybe? Exceeding the limit? Boring you, is it? Do I care? No, this is my space. Let me scribble. Let me type. Theres nothing else to do right now, except another number from the Black eyed peas.
What a name to have? Bizarre sells, doesn’t it? Black eyes peas. It is almost graphic. So vivid. I can actually imagine peas peeping out of their pods with an eye each. Yuck. Gross. Scary even. Aberration of normality. But what’s normal? – yet another subjective bugger?
I am hungry now. Hungry and angry. They rhyme? No? Sort of?...hungry….hmmm …angry…mmmm? No! They don’t. Bah! Just like everything else – nothing is in a flow anymore, not even words.
I think I am bored now. And arms seems to be getting tired. Non-stop this excursion has been – except one break ofcourse, that I have humbly mentioned. This is bad though, I mean do arms tire so fast or it is just the beginning of this phenomenon I dread called ‘age’? No! No! No more shall I think so much. And as always, go and grab the moment – or atleast some grub.
Tummy growls. Dinner beckons. Song ends.
All alone at home. Not because I don’t have an option of going out but because I don’t feel like. Pmsing, am I? Maybe. I don’t know. Confused. Restless. So writing right now.
So many things to do. Like read this new Atwood book I have bought dirt cheap from a second hand bookstore. How kicked was I when I got it. I should read it, no? I love Atwood. And surprisingly more than anything, I love her short stories. “Rape Fantasy” was one of her finest – so plain, so direct, so simple, yet so beautiful. The last few lines say:
“… Like how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, rite? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand”
For reasons inexplicable, it hit me harder than any other literature on rape or child abuse. Harder than Virani’s Bitter Chocolate even. Maybe because of the flat tone – no anger, no menace – just flat and dulled and matter of factly.
---- spoke to Pix. Spoke about what’s to come, life back there. Joy. Smiles. Content. Happy sigh -------
Where was I? Was I anywhere at all? Nowhere I think. Just somewhere randomly rambling on because I have nothing else to do.
And I have been thinking, yet again, about him. He is scum mostly. Not because he has done something. But of the way he is as a person. Double faces. Multiple personality disorder, surely! So different when with me. Such a pretentious creep when with his gang of friends. Trying to do what? Prove a point? Be someone he isn’t? and even if that’s who he is, then why all the pretence when with me. Who is he really? Bah – again – I don’t wish to know.
I cannot stop counting. Parents are going to be disappointed if I am in Delhi with a lower pay pack. But what’s more important again? – money or warm honest people? I prefer the latter thank you very much. I am not him, I will never be.
I can’t decide whether I am a good person or a bad person. I mean ofcourse I know “shades of grey” and all that jazz. But no one can also be perfectly grey I think. You have to have a shade tipping towards some side – white or black…where do I fall? I would like to think it’s the lighter side – but people here definitely seem to think otherwise. And then again – when did these people start to matter? These, who I will not stay in touch voluntarily with. These, who I don’t like and who don’t like me. These, who don’t like me because they don’t know me and that’s supposed to be my problem? I care a hoot. My bracket stays intact and life is good. Entries closed. I think I have enough pillars to fall on albeit in other cities – but 8 weeks is hardly any time compared to what I have been through and how much. Internship taught me a huge lesson – don’t even trust them who claimed once to be your closest friend, for after under-grad, it is all one big façade and I don’t want to be a part of that masquerade anymore.
Definitions of happiness is also so subjective right? To find someone whose definition and ideas match with yours is a blessing. I am still waiting for my boon to hit my head!
Told my childhood friend today “I want to get married” – he reacted by saying “don’t marry someone you don’t love”. I like his optimism, his hopeless belief in the idea of togetherness and unconditional love. He has been blessed – he is the lucky one, I may not be. Who knows? So do we keep waiting? And for how long? Don’t we take the easier way out and marry convenience? Aren’t we all human? And on top of that I am also worried that beauty, the transient companion, shall cheat on me - the hair shall fall and fly into space unknown, the eyes shall be gifted with everlasting bags, the boobs shall not defy gravity anymore, the arms may not be as taut as they were, the voice as youthful, the tummy may turn from plateau to mound – and then marriage shall also be something you waited for all your life. Will I become Miss Havisham? Except that the only thing that would cheat on me would be hope and age? Sigh! I don’t know. Overthinking. Overanalysing. Overtyping maybe? Exceeding the limit? Boring you, is it? Do I care? No, this is my space. Let me scribble. Let me type. Theres nothing else to do right now, except another number from the Black eyed peas.
What a name to have? Bizarre sells, doesn’t it? Black eyes peas. It is almost graphic. So vivid. I can actually imagine peas peeping out of their pods with an eye each. Yuck. Gross. Scary even. Aberration of normality. But what’s normal? – yet another subjective bugger?
I am hungry now. Hungry and angry. They rhyme? No? Sort of?...hungry….hmmm …angry…mmmm? No! They don’t. Bah! Just like everything else – nothing is in a flow anymore, not even words.
I think I am bored now. And arms seems to be getting tired. Non-stop this excursion has been – except one break ofcourse, that I have humbly mentioned. This is bad though, I mean do arms tire so fast or it is just the beginning of this phenomenon I dread called ‘age’? No! No! No more shall I think so much. And as always, go and grab the moment – or atleast some grub.
Tummy growls. Dinner beckons. Song ends.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Nonsensical thoughts of a bored hungry chick
This morning while I went about ransacking the kitchen for some food, a thought simmered and presented itself to me.
What’s the big deal about going out and eating together when you are serenading a creature of the opposite sex? And if you actually sit and think about it deeper still, every meal seems to have a different connotation. But I shall refrain from making generalised statements and my sample study area would be my dating scenario and my friend’s days of wooing wonder (past and present)!
Coffee constitutes the first few dates of “getting to know each other”…the baristas and the coffee days of the world seem to be thriving on this initial phenomenon of gender interaction. The attire will be casual yet sexy. The mood will be light yet some flirting will prevail in the air. So when a guy asks you out for coffee, a thought floats in the air along with that caffeinated aroma – is he interested?
Then comes the crucial dinner date (that is if you like the person enough to graduate onto that level) – dinner speaks for two things –
1. I am seriously interested in you.
Or
2. I am seriously interested in sleeping with you…
Smart women know one from the other while few assume the first and that, for the guy, is the easy licence to step onto the second thing.
For me personally, dinner used to be a marginally big deal until I came to this city where I never got free before 8 so even a casual outing constituted for dinner and hence it lost its novelty and importance. But from the past experience, the prelude to the grand dining included the whole dressing up just right – u know the not-too-flashy yet not-too-casual styles, spritzing the right amount of fragrance, as to not take it over the top and choke the guy, do the whole subtle yet obvious technique and all that jazz. And at dinner – throwing the right lines, not giving away too many details about yourself, never touching the ‘ex’ topic initially and definitely not even thinking remotely about the future! Dinner dates sometimes follow the infamous coffee, sometimes the lingering kiss, sometimes (and mostly in my case), a firm handshake and a wide smile followed by a message maybe. But whatever the case may be, dinner dates are detrimental for further alliance with that person!
However, I think that a breakfast date is more intimate than a dinner date (and I surely don’t mean breakfast in bed) – I think that it takes a certain comfort level to set in to be able to make an effort for an early Sunday breakfast, the whole scrubbed clean fresh morning look when yellow dinner lights are not there to hide your facial flaws, when eggs and milk and juice and pancakes can be gorged upon without any qualms and when a bad hair day doesn’t bother you as much.
Lunch, for me, is the stage when a certain closeness sets in – enough to make time for lunch or rather make an effort to get out of work for an hour (for I am the kind that advocates canteens and deliveries at the place where your daily routine holds itself)
But in all these cases, dates are essentially made of food – dinner, lunch, breakfast or coffee – food builds up relationships – maybe because the tastes may find itself in commonality – or maybe because taking out time apart from the routine things are increasingly not possible – so if a date can merge itself with one of your meals for the day, then why not.
I don’t know why are dates and food so related – convenience or the burgeoning restaurants and diners that create the mood? Common hunger or the fact that full tummies are equivalents of happy moods? – I don’t really know and do I really care – as long as my tummy sings of multi-cuisinal joy and my head has been replenished with some entertainment of sorts, let the mocha flow my dear friend, and bring on the main course!
What’s the big deal about going out and eating together when you are serenading a creature of the opposite sex? And if you actually sit and think about it deeper still, every meal seems to have a different connotation. But I shall refrain from making generalised statements and my sample study area would be my dating scenario and my friend’s days of wooing wonder (past and present)!
Coffee constitutes the first few dates of “getting to know each other”…the baristas and the coffee days of the world seem to be thriving on this initial phenomenon of gender interaction. The attire will be casual yet sexy. The mood will be light yet some flirting will prevail in the air. So when a guy asks you out for coffee, a thought floats in the air along with that caffeinated aroma – is he interested?
Then comes the crucial dinner date (that is if you like the person enough to graduate onto that level) – dinner speaks for two things –
1. I am seriously interested in you.
Or
2. I am seriously interested in sleeping with you…
Smart women know one from the other while few assume the first and that, for the guy, is the easy licence to step onto the second thing.
For me personally, dinner used to be a marginally big deal until I came to this city where I never got free before 8 so even a casual outing constituted for dinner and hence it lost its novelty and importance. But from the past experience, the prelude to the grand dining included the whole dressing up just right – u know the not-too-flashy yet not-too-casual styles, spritzing the right amount of fragrance, as to not take it over the top and choke the guy, do the whole subtle yet obvious technique and all that jazz. And at dinner – throwing the right lines, not giving away too many details about yourself, never touching the ‘ex’ topic initially and definitely not even thinking remotely about the future! Dinner dates sometimes follow the infamous coffee, sometimes the lingering kiss, sometimes (and mostly in my case), a firm handshake and a wide smile followed by a message maybe. But whatever the case may be, dinner dates are detrimental for further alliance with that person!
However, I think that a breakfast date is more intimate than a dinner date (and I surely don’t mean breakfast in bed) – I think that it takes a certain comfort level to set in to be able to make an effort for an early Sunday breakfast, the whole scrubbed clean fresh morning look when yellow dinner lights are not there to hide your facial flaws, when eggs and milk and juice and pancakes can be gorged upon without any qualms and when a bad hair day doesn’t bother you as much.
Lunch, for me, is the stage when a certain closeness sets in – enough to make time for lunch or rather make an effort to get out of work for an hour (for I am the kind that advocates canteens and deliveries at the place where your daily routine holds itself)
But in all these cases, dates are essentially made of food – dinner, lunch, breakfast or coffee – food builds up relationships – maybe because the tastes may find itself in commonality – or maybe because taking out time apart from the routine things are increasingly not possible – so if a date can merge itself with one of your meals for the day, then why not.
I don’t know why are dates and food so related – convenience or the burgeoning restaurants and diners that create the mood? Common hunger or the fact that full tummies are equivalents of happy moods? – I don’t really know and do I really care – as long as my tummy sings of multi-cuisinal joy and my head has been replenished with some entertainment of sorts, let the mocha flow my dear friend, and bring on the main course!
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