idyllic blogger

marriage

2012-01-16T17:58:00.000+05:30

a little curl
a black sweep
slow, circling red
unfinished yet
words?
till infinity.

The workaholic

2012-01-03T15:42:00.001+05:30

Perhaps the pen is stifling you
Don't roll it inside your mouth
Not as if a less exotic gesture
might fail to create the impression
of a workaholic.

Don't dance around so much
it is what it is
your enthusiasm
mangles up your concentration
or some such

don't dangle around the desk
it's not a park, missy
collect your gaze, not your hair
to the perennial shapeshifters
in a workplace, the workaholics

the fork comes out soon enough
while noon has begun settling in
the shades carry a dull shine
don't mock his penchant for food
because it eventually works out

Every evening, when you step out
he greets you with a ritualistic smile
Like a monk in a new role
same fervour, new clothes

The miscellaneous little froth, and ice
a glint, and a lemon squeeze
the intuitive organiser
a workaholic.

My first two-cam interview video

2011-08-20T12:42:00.003+05:30

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-now/policy/tds-on-services-being-explored-cbec-chairman/videoshow/9407880.cms

To beloved M..and our memorable holiday together

2011-06-25T01:30:00.001+05:30

in a blue moment
is a lit shell
its fire quietly echoes
our desires
in a mad chorus of
silence
playful, your words
in sand, and a myriad noon
laughter
shy and whimsical
in belief and trust
mortal love
yet again.

in-scribe-d

2011-05-25T20:47:00.001+05:30

what is it that your pen says
nothing to be breaking the tip over
for truth be it big or just true
needs quill or voice
for much darker waters have flown
bringing down or not
showing mirrors or not
breaking those or not
may just be celebration
of ink, or not.

Punjab Trip

2011-02-16T17:32:00.003+05:30

It was Mustard!

2011-02-16T14:22:00.002+05:30

Let's assume you haven't seen Patch Adams. And, let me quote a line, one of my favourites: All of life is a coming home. This may seem far fetched to you at the very outset, but my first trip to Punjab, to my paternal grandmother's hometown (paternal grandfather hails from Kamalia), for a wedding, it was just that. My introduction to Kothkapura started with my dad's nephew's daughter's wedding invitation (the North Indian family largesse of family members, if you may). After managing three days off from work, we took the night train. Let me also share that travelling in trains, reminds me of Melman in Madagascar, when he wakes up in the box while being shipped to Africa. And, no, I did not land in Madagascar, not even close. I was in the city of white gold, one of Asia's largest cotton markets, Kothkapura. Thank you, Wiki.

When we reached, it was wee hours in the morning, and a massive truck carrying cotton (what else?) slowly chugging forward, was ahead of our car. If that stock falls on a vehicle behind it, I'd safely say you'd be flat to be fit into an envelope. It was massive, and I wish I had clicked a picture, but then, you see, I was half-asleep, and too many noises of relatives behind me, I was burying my eyes into the planet of cotton ahead of me, with my lugubrious mind (tiff with boyfriend on mind).

The first big hug came from the cousin herself, who looked really the bride you'd want to be sometime, if you ever thought on those lines. A little bit about her. She is your fiesty, boisterious girl from Punjab who scares away young promising lovers on the streets with her crackling insinuations. She showed us this big framed photograph with her fiancé, a chubby young man. The pecking order being that me, the unmarried, older cousin, was to be with the bride and the other older (married) sister through the rites. Fair enough.

Now, let me pause a little and tell you about the dog. Kidding. But, yes it was a nice dog, and I quite fancied it (also likened a bit to it because of my non-understanding of the language or customs). I take no pride in saying I did not understand the sharp strokes of dialect that come out brisk and mostly laced with a mild taunt, which is a tacit suggestion of brotherhood or sorority.

Let me make my second assumption that we all do have a fair idea of Punjab's wedding customs. Thank you, Bollywood.

Focussing a bit more on my experience, let me share the bright sparks in the family, (not the only ones) were the kids, the young pack that danced well, did not get into fistcuffs or abuse, were simply engaged in lot of uninterrupted revelry while their parents showed off some of their strange seductive moves on the dance floor. Have you seen a man whacking another's guy's bum on Bollywood's favourite evening number Sheila? I have. The guy in question happens to be a doctor, who stays overseas (where else will Punjab send its sons, huh!)

Now the bit about the solemn connect. There's this place, a quiet dargah, as it is called, in a nondescript, tiny lane, where my grandmother went with her parents, and generations before that have been there. The guru, was a teacher in the madrassa, and the custom is that before every wedding, the first invitation card from the family goes there. We went there, and much to my surprise, it was neither crowded nor was it noisy. There's a 100-year old tree, where people have tied threads, not that I had any such inclinations, I was taken in by the calm, and the feeling of solitude. My epiphanic moments from the trip were here, mostly, and I do have few pictures, which are stacked up in my phone.

We made a quick trip to the Firozepur-Lahore border, but reached late when the day's march was over. We saw the bridge, lost connection on our phones because this was, in effect, the end of Northern Railways, and the border area packed with men in the military. We took a leap of faith, and ended up at the border, being escorted by polite army men, who took pity on a bunch of gasping young people, collectively starry eyed about the line that marks them away from their neighbour and shared history. Dinner was spent with a family of eight, a joint arrangement. One of the couples is part of an extended branch of grandma's pack, and let me add, I was down with stomach cramps and headache by then. The rich, thickly flavoured food, playing truant with my pollution-ridden stomach, there was no wedding happening there.

couple of on air links

2011-01-23T14:49:00.001+05:30

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/videoshow/7231449.cms

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/videoshow/7290670.cms

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/videoshow/7260183.cms

Writing

2011-01-16T03:28:00.002+05:30

Is always a fun experience. The jostle for the right words, the inner tussle to get "it" right. There is always a sense of shrewd detachment when I'm writing. I am very intrigued by different styles of writing. But, being the lazy ass that I am, I haven't been reading that much these days. In fact, the last time I seriously read something was few pages from this book I'm currently reading on Indian national history. So, as I lumber on with my writing, there is little I am doing everyday. Nothing seems to be heading anywhere! The plot looks thin like some pathetic worn out tee, while the tone feels like I could puke if it were food.

The world seems to have slowed. Obviously. Okay, I am not humoring myself anymore with some blog entry, while the draft stays unattended to, right?

What am I saying?

2010-12-30T23:13:00.004+05:30

Okay, this one is terribly personal, but it feels nice to have skinned off the layer a little and admire what's underneath. I have been saying this to myself over last many days now.

So, this entry sort of marks my foray as a person baring her mind and her heart a little more easily and perhaps with an understanding there is nothing that might just surprise me in the negative.

First, it's been a longish day, having been in two cities, travelling, mid-air pondering, reading, looking out the window, et al. This ain't a story. This is, or can at worst, look like a diary entry without any frills.

For long as I've been writing, I don't believe I have stood apart from any of the emotions expressed and tested in any kind of work I've done and put on my blog.

I've been a shirker too.

So, I want to start my little story with just a bit of distraction, and nothing else. All around the world, there are writers, and people who are feverishly at it, without any labels on their form of writing. I manage to look at some, through published work or on the internet and very often, I surprise myself looking at the compressed forms of expression. It is just that. Shorter.

Someone I know of, recently remarked that writing in this time has to grab you as fast as it can because there is a continuous scroll of writings waiting to be read and appreciated. Who's got the time?

If I consider myself as a con artist, perhaps I should be indulging myself in chick lit with a dash of cheeky humor and put on a pink cover and push for publicity. If not, I better get my ass to work.

So, this is where I am at the moment. Now, the story.

Dec 30, 2010..

"Have a good Monday," I kissed her cheek and said my good bye. I don't know when I will make my next visit to see her, but I know that she and I have come closer, or at least, after a trail of visits, this one meant more.

Leaving Mumbai, is never easy. Neither is getting in, by the way. What I always ask myself when I am in this city, after leaving in late 2007 is this one question: Am I cut for a life with little physical and mental space the city gives? Unlike the sea, the actual physical space you and I occupy in the city is very less, and mostly, we are always in torrid waters. Not to sound too dismissive, my tryst with Mumbai is a jumbled up concoction of a bittersweet wine.

I didn't have the heart to tell my little sister when she put the question to me: So, did you have a bf? What happened?

I had to resort to a couple of adjectives that came along to save me. What was more important was when she asked: Do you have a bf now?

Yes, that's easy I thought. I replied in the affirmative and she obviously wanted to know a little more and was suspecting perhaps I would get into long conversations about it, but again, as lousy as I am with talking about myself, I showed her a photograph and she gawked, "oh, him!"

She's in her teens, and like you and I would know, boyfriends, books, waistline and most things we adults talk, are generally spoken in much crisper, more animated tones in this age.

And, like Facebook has taught us, most things are either disliked or liked. So, when it's boys, she was excited about the ones she didn't like, more emphatic, like it troubled her to think that expressing in milder tones about the men may just not have the desired effect, as they say.

"See his Facebook profile, he likes Akon! yuck! Look at his hair!," and like any normal teenage kid, you watch her while her face explodes into a series of expressions. It's almost as if she wants to come up with something that nails his ugliness of personality more aptly than what she actually has achieved with the word 'yuck.' I don't blame her. We all use emoticons :-)

So, staying on the subject of boys, I learnt about her crush, and didn't have the courage to ask whether she has cried over him or not. Instead, what came out was a much more lame question: How much of this do your parents know? Do you share things with them?

She breaks into a blasphemous rap on my nerves with a "whaaa!" and then chuckles saying, "Who wants to die!". Pity me, I don't.

Yawn. More later

friend

2010-12-16T01:12:00.003+05:30

I know it's time for soul searching when the soul sees me.

I wish we were friends. I wish it were a dream, a fantasy, a tale of perfected miracles, timed, and blessed with eternal shades. I wish we were friends, because this day, this afternoon, the sun is not harsh, this night is star lit, so like a grand stage, we come, two jesters, our words, broken and bathed in laughter.

I wish we were friends, u know why? because you and I are similar. We mirror each other. You move left, I, right.

I have taken you out, dusted in the sun, brought you back in, invisible and clean.

2010

To me, my half

2010-12-03T12:32:00.002+05:30

For it is us,
isn't it?
you use the word happier
you use it again
it makes me think
it makes me wonder

let's meet at click

when the growing silence
is laid to sleep
let's meet again here
happier than last
like two digits
in between seconds
me meet
feathered n dusted
in thoughts n dreams

Theatre of Dreams

2010-12-03T11:53:00.007+05:30

She, broken night, a convex layer of reality, deflects my gaze. I can't stand blinded by her rage.

Her fair hand touches my chin, she calls me by my name.

Me? I am a plural, like two bodies hanging out like petals with an unknown fragrant centre. She says she hadn't left and for her, I embrace my yesterdays. She promises a bleak half dawn, but leaves soon again.

For her sake and mine, we both interchange, she agrees, me, afraid. Afraid? She laughs and my shadow moves closer. Afraid? This cannot be a wedlock neither is it solace. She sighs and moves away. I ask for her name. I wish I were elsewhere, and I wish she were me.

She soon returns, my mock fate. Ah, so I have lost again. She slips in and soon the chorus dies down. My knocked down fate handed over to me, and the shadow moves away from my palm, the light comes in closely behind, my eyes open. or do they?

Popat..

2010-11-26T14:24:00.001+05:30

I hope you are fine wherever you are...miss you so much..come back if you can :(

Guzaarish is your cinematic deathwish

2010-11-26T13:03:00.002+05:30

Gosh! I WAITED all week for The Vigil Idiot's comic spoof of this incredibly dumb movie, which is right here --> http://www.4shared.com/photo/ziK57CUi/Guzaarish_-_The_Vigil_Idiot.html

And, since you may not return here after reading THAT, you may just want to know my thoughts on this movie.

If you have strained equation with people you want back in your life, you can sit in the movie hall, make most of it by catching up. Why make all the effort, you might ask?! Fair enough. But, if you happen to be in the hall after a round of drinks and couldn't think of doing anything besides watching a movie with friends, this is PURRFFECT setting for those kind of moments, uh huh.

Anyway, if you still think you want to know any further, I would say, get a life :p

...continued..

2010-11-23T10:47:00.148+05:30

So, I was home.

After endless conundrums of physical and mental pain, buzzing noises from the outside act as differentiators between agony and hope. As the coffee machine created a spluttered sound, I realised how little by little, time was running out. After having faced a lot of inner tumult and shrewd detachment, reality was a lot different.

I stood by the kitchen and walked back a few steps, took some long breaths, and nothing happened. Perhaps love was a lot different what I had imagined it to be. It was not exactly a knot in the stomach, it wasn't exactly pang of guilt or a knock at your consciousness, perhaps it was just those few deep breaths pushing out air from the lungs. A little breathless and mind numbed, it was time to say a few things.

A letter for a start.

So I began to think. Being in a powerless position, there was not much wrong or right I could do. The best thing to do as of now was to watch myself fall. How is the feeling? Well, it's like this. You don't fall from a cliff and you don't exactly experience the fall in a dizzy way, of course. A few more breaths, and you feel time is your only companion, moving a beat with your breath, giving you space to think only the ceiling does not cave in, the world does not go black, you are still there, holding your coffee, a little glassy in the eyes more or less.

There is no finality to anything, there is only time and infinite time. You don't step back and let the noises dictate you.

So, it was time, for the letter.

There was some spilled coffee on the table, a pen, paper, and a mass of flesh. I had to hold the pen, thank my doctor with a little silent prayer, and I picked up the paper. After some unbearable scrawls, and distorted sentences, which looked like ink blots for psychoanalysis, there was quiet. Nothing, except gentle taps of the pen. My ears were aching to hear some sounds, which did not come. Still, nothing.

Some years ago, I was on a visit to the hills when I befriended a beautiful girl whose memory struck me. The trip had been one of the many, typical family visits with the entourage of cousins, herded up North.

A physical strain was needed here. Snapping away from the memory, I yearned for a forceful bodily movement. Writing would require some of it. The lusciousness of good moments came rushing out like a forced release.

If you have lived in just one city for most part of your life, every analogy you draw begs indifference. After 26 years, I was beginning to feel dwarfed in my own presence, a diminutive commoner adding a head to the crowd.

Squeezing some more from me, I felt the uniqueness of quiet was fading away into the coffee machine's repeated gurgling sounds. If you wanted to be free, the city wouldn't let you. You drown with it, and float like mass watching, listening, a moribund participation blending in its vastness. But, was it so difficult to write or flippant to express? I shuffled in my seat. The paper was still there, blank as before. It was a rite of passage, and the final act.

Hence, it began.

"So, here we are. I don't want to prefix an endearment and write your name, because this would mean some kind of an address, which it isn't. It is an attempt at conversation.

We have known each other for many years now, and I should be able to say I know you only enough. I could break into a serenade but I wouldn't for the simple reason it would distract both of us from the hurt. The sound of that word. I don't...."

And, so, it went on. A simple, fairly illustrative explanation of where we were, as I saw it, and how perceivable future had little to do with each other's happiness.

You would tend to imagine lovers are shy creatures who explode into garrulous screams of uniqueness of their own individuality when hurt, it is sort of a tussle for commonness, which is humorously ironic in its own way.

How can you be common in each other's life besides some fluid moments spent together. Maybe you walked on the same road to your favourite store, sang the same 60s numbers in gusto. You held hands, and were together. In this case, holding hands meant folding your own hands in a sort of prayer-like fashion hoping things would work out. In a clever way, I was right too. The affair looked to be an extended weekend in the mind, a frenzied imagination like a perpetual state of decadence after three-four Long Islands.

Perhaps it meant reconciliation now and more of coffee.

The anger had subsided and maybe the right side of the head was calling for more soul searching. But, that voice was missing. It came back in spurts, a loud crash and thump, and it was gone again.

(w.i.p)

Of Life and Death

2010-10-28T10:08:00.067+05:30

Losing a loved one. The oft used sentence that hard boils your nerves.

From far across, as we sat, there seemed to be trembling in the winds, a breakaway from the transient dust that settled on our feet. We weren't friends, or inmates, we were brothers. If there was something between us, it was a numbing sense of belonging, the tautness of it living in our eyes like faith. Faith. A truant word that escapes my tongue every time I think of it. We were in shock, denial, and I could barely conceal this feeling of being in a beastly encampment, conjoined in this misery with him. The thought of him.

Rage is a slow sickness, political in its truest form, as it covers the unsaid and unleashes a manipulative and diabolic trite that gradually becomes an alternate self.

I still remember the time when she left me. The glistening shock of letting go of love flares up the most innocuous in state of being. In times ahead, I would fester a disaggregated selflessness coupled with degenerate love letting off a fatal stink.

Nothing could save me, they said. Not even humor.

"Would you like to pay me a visit among the flowers?". She looked at me like I was a memory, the one she didn't want.

Losing control is the hardest. The feeling of being trapped in a tawny body was at best met with a lettered release of troubled faith, optimism, words that failed sapience. I had a narrow, belittled smock of respect over my face.

When they found out and fired me, the disgrace of the system, and the vast unfairness exposed a sense of universality of conjecture about the whole matter to me.

..... (w.i.p- work in progress)

When I look at my room

2010-10-13T17:31:00.002+05:30

What do you see when you look out the window? The world. What do you see when you look inside? Yourself. You see your clothes hanging loosely by the shelf, your books like a haphazard puzzle with Oscar Wilde, and Sparks touching odd ends. Then, you look a little closer, and you find tempted to find yourself in this maze. This maze that belongs to you, for you to uncover, for you to play with, for you to keep, and to lose.

The 'let go' moments are the hardest, when you are keeping things for a dismal day, to fondly look back and smile, you make a small mental note that in itself is a puzzle in the mind. Like a piece jutting out of your senses, the assorted memory breaks down into coinciding dates and time and weathers of your life gone, the impulsive moment hanging like an expensive scarf, or a broken heart peeping through a book.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? I see ghosts of the past, staring, leaving. I see transcendence and an odd pimple dotting that creased line, and you realise childhood is over. Vanity, is one of the traits we acquire like a territorial right on the body to remain as it is. I fail to see the youth sometimes, the mind's functioning so adept at spotting the unaesthetic parts of life that it is so difficult to remain where you are even while your body stays immobile. Then I see my life, how it is, and I move away.

I want to know what it is that drives us, what is it that keeps us, what is that breaks us and how we function in everyday lives as individuals trying to get that elusive piece of yourself. That, I find the most odd. The elusive piece of the self, petered out in the world in the form of humans, relations, brief heartbreaks, loves, and losses.

So, where does that leave us? Luvverly-jubberly

2010-09-27T10:44:00.006+05:30

When life is event less, or at least I'd like to think it is, there is little to write home about. Let me go over the few interesting things that happened last week - at least, not much happened, or rather if something did, it's cheap and nasty to talk about it now.

The world is duffed in with the same ol' and, I would like to agree with Oscar Wilde in Vera, "I didn't make the world."

So, what else happened? The city is neck deep in talking about the Games, even as the nutters preparing for them or those doing the hand-job dissolve more currency into it, us taxpayers can only behave like doughnuts. And, surprise, surprise, Pakistan stood up for us for the Games preparation even when the goras nearly barfed up in the village. Yes, things are relatively better here, and they must like it.

Forget snake charmers or dog catchers, maybe some song performances can save it. Munni, listening?

Also, not so surprising fact, the Kenyan delegation is happy. *Chuckles and falls of chair*

Up next, the poorly watched T20 matches didn't get their fair share on viewership, as people hardly could remember teams with names like Lions, and Bushrangers. No, don't blame me if these sound straight out of late-night tv, but it was actually prime time cricket. Oh, and yes, while Dhoni's Super Kings lifted the cup, no one looked.

Overseas, when Iran's Ahmadinejad suggested some people in the US government were involved in 9/11, there were lashings. The debate veered off into Iran's "illegal" nuclear activities and how Israel is in danger.
However, some light was shed on surveys conducted in the US that show 42% of the common people are skeptical of the official investigations in to 9/11. Obama needs to sink his teeth into this mess and not just announce more tax cuts.

"Nobody is more desperate to find ways to grow the economy now than the current occupants of the White House and their economic advisors." http://savannahnow.com/column/2010-09-26/zapp-please-drop-your-19th-century-economics

Moving on, love beginning to show from UK's two brothers, Ed and David, whose story sounds fabled. Shadows or not, there shall be more to this than just pregnant girlfriends in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, Leonardo Di Caprio has vowed to help save tigers in India. Let's hope he does more than just being mouthy about it. And just in, Colin Montgomerie has said he wouldn't pick Tiger in his team. :P

Happy Mundane.

A Rhymed Breath - for Manish

2010-09-01T11:02:00.003+05:30

Besides, if jingled words were wasted
I'd rather have 'em thrown at you
for it is no surprise
how much rhymed words are dear to you
hence, my duty, my friend is to do
to keep words rhymed even if it requires using glue
alas, 'tis smaller poems that keep me happy and going
Even though it is no surprise long verses are boring
A task well finished and words well spun
Else, this lalala poem would've lower gone
An end in itself
rhyme or no rhyme
in hot or cooler clime
we'll still be friends
So, don't you ever whine

Much love - XO -
Your Sunshine friend

P.S. Hope this cheers u up 'cos it was written with a lot of pain and effort and cheesiness and corny lines..

P.P.S Hugs

To the Dark Mountains - of love, treachery

2010-08-09T10:59:00.004+05:30

Of a lover's hair
a tale long worn
sold silences, of words
like breaking rust,
moulded shreds of frost,
becoming, unbecoming lovers
dying in truths
of guilts cut into icy walls
slow moving slumber
takes over
treachery, slow, vast
of grace, divine priests
of red threads, holy water drops
benign compass of a bloodied sacrifice

Of tales long worn
in times crossing into history
into future
of a meeting point
where you and I hold
dust, clay, and gold.
Of roving inspired songs
bells, chimes, and shells
screeching, bellowing howls
from your underworld and mine
a knifed, shadowy night
belying love
hennaed truths
and wines
we meet
souls inside, breathing slow

A guttural sound questions
a lover's demise
of a tale long worn
white
faked, veiled truths
denied
in promises new and old.
Of which does not say
of what it does not know
in memory and in time
of two, or three or four
years, and months fold
a flower of hopes cocooned in a
lover's hair
somewhere whispers die.

for those apples..

2010-08-08T02:26:00.003+05:30

Entertaining randomness has never been more fun. Like today, I was struck by this thought, scrolling down to see Woody Allen's face that his quotes usually go well with his shrivelled, narrow face. Imagine the late David Shepherd and some of Allen's quotes attributed to him. What grossness! Anyway, I think sharp, witty quotes don't sit well on roundish facial features. You might just strike me off as a readable, believable blogger. I think long faces tend to carry a certain seriousness, and the round ones, some hidden comic relief.

We will discuss this, or I will state my case better when senses permit in better earthly hours.

The culture shock at My Bar - Pahargunj

2010-08-07T13:09:00.002+05:30

To many, this might not seem new, with the whole parallel culture theme being explored before in the bylanes of Delhi. But, My Bar, this quintessential bar of multiple realities (ours included) is one of the many truths that a common Delhiite does not see elsewhere. For example, My Bar, located in the heart of Pahargunj market area, is a three-columned bar, boasts of the newest Bollywood numbers, with waiters donning T-shirts that say 'My' at the back. The bar, where you can sit, smoke, drink, lech, among other things, offers cheap liquor and food. One can spot students, pimps, well dressed wobbly middle aged men, tourists sitting in groups, and loners sitting with their books, is a whole new underworld right in the heart of the city. Apart from a little disquieting ambience, as outside, pimps and drunkards line the street, once inside, enjoy the cheap booze, as they say, and forget everything else.

Yield

2010-08-05T21:22:00.002+05:30

To the immense powers
gracious, slow arms
One crying to skies
one gingerly holding on
refuge
where feet don't move
where eyes melt into air
a freezing of breath
and then, re-birth.

2010-07-27T16:59:00.005+05:30

To the pure, all things are pure, not only meats and drinks, but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defil'd. -- Milton from Areopagitica.

Imagery of eating, food, critical to Paradise Lost, of reaching truth part by part ref. Greek goddess Isis and Osiris. Resurrecting truth part by part

God's censorship to the forbidden fruit, as against the Licensing Act of 1643.

The expression of choice versus censorship.

yawwn

Life inside Metro

2010-07-19T22:11:00.005+05:30

The Delhi Metro is much loved for the subtle air of aristocracy it lends to the city, otherwise devoid of any other respectable public transport system.

Why is Chris Nolan's movie so worth the mumble mumble..no, this is not PR!

2010-07-19T21:19:00.017+05:30

I generally have few basic ideas while watching a movie. Like everyone else, I too want to be entertained, involved and thrilled. Also, my expectations are normally set very low when it comes to cinema these days. And yes, my intellectual acumen can be put to question, so I don't want to stake too many claims. Lastly, I am a bad storyteller.

I am not anti-experiment cinema, and when I say that, I am talking of movies that break the notion of the beginning, the middle, and the end. Not that I will break off into an essay here, just that all of us have seen this kind of cinema in the last few years. Going by Nolan's own history, the movies I've watched--The Prestige, Memento, besides the Batman series, both have been experimental and played with psyche. I think that's his art that he is attempting to master-the human psyche. I appreciate his intention, but I do think with Inception, things could have been better, yes.

Nolan's logic of putting dream within a dream, using physics, and lot of other flying-spaghetti logic, there was still lot of depth that could have been explored in the movie. If you are experimenting with science and drama, then the attempt has to be to restore some palpable logic. And here, he does attempt to thrill as well as let his imagination loose. But, people who claim to have good concentration skills, of course I claim that too, aren't they disappointed in hindsight of being left with too many details? While I do admit I liked it when I came out, I realised I had very little to say why. When you talk back for a movie you watched, everyone has a personal touch of their experience. Mine was, that I tried too hard to concentrate, getting lost somewhere in the middle, then being told by my friend about the construed logic of the sequence. Apart from that, what I later realised is that watching a movie became a sort of project mid-way, I was frowning. Can anyone tell me what I've just missed? The movie of the century! I liked the fact it was gripping, but what was it saying?

If I think of pros, I would say increasingly complex world realities, I think, have bred this kind of psychological warfare. And, I do not know for sure whether Nolan was attempting to show the manic desire of human mind to overpower reality completely or simply showing his cunning when it comes to designing a movie so complex, people would hesitate to put it down! Either way, he had me think. This is relatively new ground, and he has delved somewhere into the basics of human mind to string it together. But is it tightly strung or attempting to be something new altogether, is again, a painful thought. What do I take home from this?

I am left with just DiCaprio to talk about, for whom, this is a consecutive mind-game genre film after Shutter Island. The about to turn 40-year-old, Mr. DiCaprio said in an interview, that roles like these help him purge. Surely, film scripts like these should help Nolan uncover his own mind, like he said so himself that he had this idea 10 years ago. Is too much art, just for art sake then, to be loved or loathed? I have a pathetic sense of devising a straight answer here.

Much love, Mr.DiCaprio. No love lost.

How to spot malice

2010-07-19T20:07:00.003+05:30

You need to have a trained gaze, to spot. This is merely an effort, so to speak, to spot a vibe headed your way, melancholic, slow, works its way through your mind, and leaves behind anger. How to spot malice, is perhaps one of those much awaited books for me this season while I continue to shed some skin. (interested ones contact me separately to know what shedding skin means)

2010-07-14T09:38:00.003+05:30

I guess it's time to write. And, not by any mature reasoning, it's just my poker-faced last ditch effort to stay awake, and by any stretch of imagination--ABSOLUTELY AWAKE. Lot of numbers at stake aside, my own presence is threatened to be reduced to a dope bag. Why must a pencil pusher make so much effort? Now, now, let's not be queasy over someone's job. You have precious little anyway these days of those 'job' kinds.

So, somehow, I have managed to engage myself for the last one minute writing this. An alarm-diary? You might call it that. The background story goes thus: I was at the doc's last evening, explaining her my bouts of facial allergy over the last some weeks. She recommended a drug for 10 days, every morning, post breakfast. Now, you know. You don't yet actually. It's an anti-allergic drug, for all of you who haven't yet been pricked or tickled by all wrong measures.

To cut a long itch short, I am just trying to beat the sedative. I tried reading Michael Lewis, who helps me laugh sometimes, now that I am a..oh, but OH! I was happily interrupted by a SMS from a friend that goes like this : (had me AWAKE just the way I wanted! :)

Victoria's Secret has launched a new bra called Holland: "A lot of support but no cup" :P :P

Happy Wednesday, people!

FIFA Mascot Zakumi and Me

2010-06-04T23:24:00.000+05:30

me and Zakumi :)

Dunno what gives

2010-06-02T17:56:00.003+05:30

Labelling thoughts and emotions, wording thoughts, stringing together memories, what a way to be. A few years ago, I would pick up my fat diary, open it with my pudgy fingers, gingerly remove the dog ears, and pen few alphabets.

The online space is numbing, very not-me kinds, somehow the idea that has developed and found favour in all these years is that globally, people are connecting faster through internet, and now with technology such as hand held phones keeping you connected all the time, is a puzzle.

The idea of digitising thoughts and punching keys to make yourself heard. Or, in this case simply, read.

So, the grammar, intonations, everything has to be fashioned as per the demands of the technology we seek. We cannot scratch and overwrite or spill ink on the page anymore, or feel the guilt of bad handwriting.

for Love and Economics

2010-06-02T14:28:00.002+05:30

They were all there, in human forms, making noises in the mind, like a busy wholesale market, with different costs to every emotion you felt. And, sometimes, steep costs were bargained for smaller quantities of every plausible positive quantity. You didn't get a juicy red for crying out, you got fleeced, till red drew out.

Economics is a candid, bone stripping exercise, and love, a soul searching one. You only get to the latter after exploring the first.

2010-06-02T14:26:00.001+05:30

Rohan: So... what did the monumental debate on life, love and everything conclude?
Sent at 14:24 on Wednesday
me: a bill of 1100

Past

2010-06-02T14:24:00.003+05:30

The painful, wrenched sounds were all gone. What remained, was dust.

Greece and Tragedy

2010-05-31T15:48:00.004+05:30

Why is Aristotle so important? I don't know. He came up with lot of ideas. What about the notion of tragedy? I don't seem to be coming up with convincing answers to any of these questions. So, what's an epic? A long narrative poem about quasi-divine figures who didn't know what to do with the knowledge they had, and had divine interventions to further confuse their sense of self. And, what about the oral tradition? Please, no winks. :P Where does Oedipus figure in the puzzle? Sophocles, (whose name I still can't pronounce) wrote 'Oedipus the King' and left us with the complex to figure out. Not bad.

Coming back to Aristotle, student of Plato, who in turn was a student of Socrates, wrote Poetics and spoke about logic. Hm

So, what does tragedy invoke? pity and fear. Good one. Aristotlenism also has an offshoot into early Islamic philosophy.

Pity and fear..yes, feel the former when i flunk, and the latter when you meet me. :p :p :p

Stand By Me

2010-05-30T00:35:00.003+05:30

On the subject of love or the lack of it, I'd like to make some notes. I am not saying I should, I am saying I will. I am not going to mince it to pieces, like what I saw happening to a mutton chop today at the table, I was empathetical with the potato fingers, which must have been watching the scene in delight. I am simply saying, that love has to be something that is felt, not thought. And, how does one feel? As an acquaintance on Facebook puts it on her tagline, that the greatest miracles to have happened to us is how to feel (paraphrased) by e.e. Cummings. I don't want to be too delighted either, 'cos one's heart needs to be in the right place without forking it all the time (ref. Ghosts of My Girlfriends' Past). I would rather live out a sorry tale of love and losing (Marquez's Love in the time of Cholera) than simply denying the impulses their rightful escape.

What is the job of good writing? To make one feel something or to make one have a dispassionate understanding of the text? How does writing inspire? To, what end? As Aristotle would have it (ref, entrance prep M.A.), mimesis, or the art of imitation, one needs to have refined, higher understanding of the world. To simply feel, is not enough. Where does that leave me? On to something far more interesting, of Greek society. Where were the women? Why did the philosophers sport beards? Why was theater or drama so central to art?

Back to books :}

Matthew Arnold

2010-05-27T13:39:00.008+05:30

Notes from J. Hopkins for quick reference:

"disinterest" - - To be disinterested is to participate in a common cultural tradition or a common body politic, and it is to evince a genuine, generous appreciation of what is truly excellent within these forms of common experience. To be generous in this way is to embody one's "best self", and it is from the perspective of this best self that the disinterested critic passes judgment on all specific social and intellectual issues.

First major English critic to invest poetry with sacral status..Ref. William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and John Keats

proponent of "free play of the mind upon all subjects"

Like mid-Victorians, including George Eliot, and John Stuart Mill, he believed that the historical progression of culture was tending toward the realisation of human "perfection".

The necessity of system. actively engaged in the pursuit of "intellectual deliverance" from spiritual distress.

"On the Modern Element in Literature" in 1857 culminates with "Culture and Anarchy" in 1868..a decade in which..Literature and Dogma (1873) and God and the Bible (1875)

In the phase of early essays towards "Culture and Anarchy" he seeks to strike a balance between the "Hebraic" moral consciousness and the "Hellenic" critical intelligence. but dominance of Hellenism.

In 1860s, ..leaning toward Romantics, esp William Wordsworth.

a blink's perspective

2010-05-25T12:49:00.002+05:30

The two men sat on the yellow bench. They had their trousers rolled up, while the flies buzzed close to the ears, the slow humming barely veiling the sharp jutting sounds of the chopper above them. The roof above was scarcely making sounds when the wind slowly catapulted some dust into their eyes.

"It's an old tree," said one of them to the other.

"Here she comes. She's been asking about that boy since morning. Just look at all of them, trying to get the things in order. Make that entry," he said.

They both were in the early 40s, short, cropped hair, writing names in their registers of men, women, children, old ones, who had been charred to death in the airplane crash four days ago.

"Don't ask me again, madam. I told you," said one of them.

The woman in front of them, in her late 40s, looking haggard without sleep, had been looking for her son, just like the whole milieu behind her, slowly snuffing out hope alongside embers of the aircraft's remains.

The gigantic turf where the plane had crashed, left little to the imagination of the horror that skewered lives.

The palm tree above the plane looked as it lost a meek struggle to the machine, with its leaves mangled into the left wing.

The mini mountain of ash brewing smoke had looked too difficult to douse, but the locals had come to the rescue, even as a handful survived.

Among the survivors was a child, a four-year old girl, who had lost her parents in a blink. The sight looked familiar, of those many such accidents where people have only found hope and communion in tragedies like this.

And, Why I will not be wordly wise..

2010-05-22T01:21:00.003+05:30

Suppose the world turned upside down, with the whole idea being that it's like a child's snow globe, except that the snow could just be dandruff. Gross, isn't it? But, what if, all the motives just died along the way, with the heads facing the earth, and walking in the sky? What could that mean? Catastrophe, a word I hate as much as I loathe 'catharsis', because it begins with cat. And, cats, mind you, are not all there despite their physical presence. What's the link? catastrophe and catharsis need not follow each other sequentially in an upside down world. It can be the other way round. We can have inexplicable guilt followed by pain, and retribution, and pity, and as the Greeks would like it, some bit of hope, in an upside down world, we can move back to nobility.

And, I haven't answered the question in my title, because, it is only befitting at the end. I can wait for another world, another Godot, maybe, or just some bit of freaky thoughts. Now, as Mick Jagger says, "we were young, good looking and stupid. Now, we're just stupid." What if that happened backwards? Isn't that how we are already?

Know Not

2010-05-13T10:54:00.003+05:30

Perhaps not, perhaps now
maybe, small ties of time
swallowing, slow
words come and go
just as time
unfolding its last embrace
before the sun
before the blink
eyes shut.

The Weatherman says stay indoors..

2010-05-11T16:55:00.003+05:30

What an awful, painful weather, you might hear me saying this repeatedly. This is nothing short of a long, desert stretch, this shehar. Come to think of it, the lanes, the roads, the trees, everything just about looks like an ugly blob in the afternoon.

My office is this big, blue, blinding sight, oh, how I hate this weather!

Thought for today

2010-04-13T10:37:00.000+05:30

Christopher Gardner: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.

(The Pursuit of Happyness)

The big challenge

2010-04-11T13:45:00.000+05:30

Think.

Saturday Night

2010-04-10T22:34:00.003+05:30

What can I say, really! It's been a sort of an oddish week, with more of introspection than anything else happening! I guess I'm too exhausted too. But then, sitting at home on a Saturday night is not such a bad idea, when last two very good days have been spent in the company of my dost logs, and this afternoon as well. However lame it may sound, the evening had to be sober, because of some much-missed time at home. Last night, I reached home tired as usual, between here and there, so, I was kind of feeling the pang for not spending enough time at home.

And, what an evening spent with the ladies at home today! Totally fun! I painted my nails in three shades of pink, my maa mimicked my dad n bro when they watch IPL and how we laughed! Then, me, maa and bhabhi watched portions of Life in A Metro, chatting and humming songs as they came. Now, I guess it's time to hit the bed in a bit, and I would say, peaceful, joyful Saturdays are such :)

After 30 years what should my biography read? (Epitaphs r glib)

2010-04-08T10:02:00.002+05:30

Thanks to a nose job, by which I mean, catching a cold in summers, I can patiently review a few realities surrounding me. This is entirely personal, and might not catch the dust off your nose.

This day, while chatting with an old friend, a not-so surprising question came within touching distance and kind of made a blitzkrieg appearance. Where am I headed in life?
Sniffle!

To save myself some unprecedented sneezes later on in life (sinusitis is a curse!) I have thought about doing something. Now, that something is more precious than a sleep over it approach. Everyone knows that.

So, where am I headed in life? Perhaps, if I can finish a book by the time I hit 33 (as reads item 1 on my bucket list..ref. notebook) I think I will do reasonably well. If not, I might consider a watchman's job and do some serious soul searching.

For now, at least, getting equipped with the process of writing is foremost on my mind. And, for this, my biography's first sentence should be: This woman did nothing except write about everything. And yes, that very ironic question about choosing a biographer instead of applying one's own nuts on it, is something you might want to overlook. And who will I hire to write about me? That reality has a bearing on how well the book I propose to write fares. Although, the idea of having a biographer is nothing more than just a fancy report card, I'd rather concentrate on getting my act together for now, and rubbing my nose again!

Catch you peeps later, for now I'm caught up with a virus.

Parl-ya ment?

2010-03-16T15:30:00.005+05:30

In Rajya Sabha today, the questions hurled at the finance ministry (er?) were on private sector insurance, the bit I caught, and how they need to be tightly regulated.

When Brinda Karat stood up to give what looked like a mini speech, with repeated requests from the Chair to ask her question, everyone looked in a good mood. Pranab Mukherjee got up and had just taken over the mantle from NN Meena, repeated what Meena said and also gave a brief history on insurers. Then, he went on to speak about regulation.

"I am not enamored of setting up committees, and then set up committees to check on committees and so on. I am not into enhancing activities."

Then Rahul Bajaj got up and before he could talk, there was a mini uproar.

"I am not talking of Bajaj, I am talking of insurance."

"Mr.Bajaj please resume your place," the Chair.

But, the mini furor refused to abate and the Chair had to intervene.

"Please don't introduce extraneous matters, please Mr. Bajaj, please Mrs. Karat."

The camera caught Rahul Bajaj winking, and moved to a morose looking Arun Jaitley.

Then a member of INC Gujarat got up to ask his question, who again, somewhat inspired by Brinda Karat, made a rather provocative little speech.

"Sir, I go back before the NDA regime, when some of us in Congress were opposed to private sector insurance companies."

"Please ask your question."

"Sir, I am giving some history."

"No history, please."

Uproar.

"Baith jaiye Pani sahab."

"What is the question?"

...goes on..when finally Pranab got up he looked so totally red in the face, flushed with anger.

"Every company has the right to expand. It is the government's responsibility to give a level playing field to public as well as private insurance companies."

-- xx --

What Makes Us, Breaks Us

2010-03-16T14:08:00.004+05:30

For over a year now
As I have stood, and waited
waited for the winters to run in
to the soft liberating rhythms
that travelled through summers
You never came.

I stood and mourned, chased away time
for timelessness was our refuge
as the past drew in dreams

But as I waited, the wilting clock
was finally tired
The dreams run through like bloodsports
chasing phantoms was over

It was time to be
It was time for us
It is not us now
The dream has breathed its last

Fringe Benefits

2010-03-16T09:56:00.031+05:30

A short, quick trip to Palwal district (the name which I mistook for a vegetable Parmal) yesterday was a long drawn affair. After creating ruckus at home in the morning that I was running late for the assignment, I soon realised my watch was ahead by 20 minutes. Talk about a bad start! On reaching the departure point, I was asked to board the bus towards the exit from the back. Walking closer I could see some heads bobbing out. After spotting all unfamiliar faces, I was asked to climb down and move to the Innova parked close by, which was meant to drive the journos. Absent mindedly, and sort of hurried, I was saved by a couple of seconds from a speeding Innova, which drove past too close from the bus. Phew!

The other journalists soon gathered and made a bid to leave. It was still 8am, and all of us were in no mood to hang around for the whole jamboree to kickstart engines, as selfish as that sounds, we were already late by 30 minutes from the scheduled time. So much for discipline!

Finally, with five journalists and an overconfident driver, the Innova fuzzily began its journey. After about an hour, I complained about nature's adamant call. The others soon joined to look for an apt dhaba to stop and have tea and munchies. We took off again, this time, smooth roads helped. On entering Haryana, the first sight I saw was not of fat buffalos throwing caution and crap on roads, but malls.

Smoother roads in Palwal, us journos mostly chatted about movies. My taste in movies such as The Fountain, The Orphanage, District 9, which I forgot was not set in US but Africa..everything that is inhuman in subject and sci-fi in genre does not happen in US, you see.

Reaching the venue, I spotted my aunt, who was part of the organiser bank's team, she quickly started the whole networking thing with the whole lot. The school kids hastily entered with reluctant mothers in tow, who I doubt even knew where they were headed with those waist length veils. I could trip in broad daylight, almost get crushed over with open eyes, this confused me.

The Gudhrana village is populated by some 3,000 odd number of people, unconfirmed data says. We saw a room that read "Vigyaan kaksh" humbly written on top of the wall. In the small corridors, messages with morals were painted on top such as "paap se ghrina karo, paapi se nahin," us journos were escorted to a room for lunch.

We didn't eat there as scores of people had turned up, and we were asked to stop over at the highway on our way back and indulge our hungry stomachs. And we did, how! We sank into a hearty fresh veggie meal with soft tandoori roti at Master Dhaba.

A word about the kids and the programme. Since this was my second entourage for an outreach programme, I could vaguely draw some comparisons from the village in Bhubhanewsar and this village. But, I will come to the later, perhaps in another post.

The kids were just parked together in the shamiana, without water and they sat huddled and awed in our presence. They were mostly the same as you would find in a government school, barring the odd Haryanvi dialogue that you might catch. Most of them were talking amongst themselves, and staring at all of us every few seconds.

There was a skit planned for them, to understand the basics of banking. In one of the sequences of the skit, which was aptly titled 'Raju aur paise ka ped', the actor tried to show that he is planting seeds. Now, from where these kids sat, it was difficult to see what was happening. So, some of them immediately got up to see the 'money seeds' being planted. During this minor commotion, one of the kids, sitting next to me grunted, "na baith jao koi asli zameen na khud ri".

The show mostly went on with the District Commissioner making a brief appearance and addressed the audience in English, which was disheartening, since the programme was meant as an 'outreach programme' meant for the non-urban populace.

"Aage sark lo re chokre," barked this security guard from behind to the kids.

The whole shamiana was dotted with stalls, with local handicraft products being sold alongside some free pamphlets on banking basics,in English and Hindi.

The only spot to cheer was the bank chairman, who despite a flawed Hindi, delivered a spirited enthusiastic address, which no one among the shifty kids, and us showed any interest.

Walking back to the car, we saw an obscure ice-cream vendor, the name I think was Seeza? Some of the kids were drinking water straight from those bulky water containers meant for the function. Leaving behind reams of burst balloons, we came out.

Back to Delhi at 5:45pm..yawwn..tired!

Those wee hours

2010-03-11T12:34:00.003+05:30

Last night, edgy after a long day, I spent some time talking to friends online, thinking that might help change the mood for the better. But, I slept heavy headed, after taking an anti-allergen tab. I don't have the slightest idea of what I dreamt about. But, in the morning, my dad said I screamed around 4am.

...

The hangover of disturbed sleep

2010-03-09T16:11:00.003+05:30

It's high time I started writing about a certain peculiarity with my mind, which has gone on for long enough for me to do something slightly different about it. Writing an online journal may just help not only chronicling what I go through, also leave some cues behind on how things can go right from here.

Last night, before going to bed, I realised the day had become too heavy. After meeting a friend who has been really unwell over the last few weeks, having a breathless bout at the gym, and a long unsteady conversation with a friend, things took a worse turn. Just before sleep, I could hear mum recount a rather ugly experience.

With all this fresh on my mind, I slept uneasy. The whole night, I got reams of nightmares. From what I remember, I saw my cousins, my older cousins, in a jigsaw landscape. There were narrow staircases, laden with trash, while I climbed.

Karthik's Calling

2010-03-05T10:23:00.003+05:30

I wouldn't have seen the movie on a working day, had it not been for Ana who wanted to catch a film on a Thursday evening. Fair enough. I reluctantly dragged myself because after a tiring day, during which your digestion poses interesting dilemmas, I somehow managed to keep a straight face. But, my patience started to thin out when the usher, by his own clock, refused to let us in on time! Geez, talk about irony. Anyhow, the security upstairs at PVR Plaza, tried to act tough over a box of grapes. One cannot bring food or anything in a cinema hall, BUT! Not everyone is coming straight from home, you see. Some of us lesser blokes, are coming from our offices with long faces and tired brains, which obviously misses their scanners.

So, I told them that their worry is overrated in this context, and without the box, I won't go in. And, they allowed me to leave it with them so I can pick it up on my way back. Did anyone say jerks?

I quickly got settled into the movie from frame one because it begins on a note of total and complete isolation, which is by far, one of my picked themes for any genre. The sounds were very absorbing thanks to Baylon Fonseca (from Rock On!!, Rang De..., Dostana, Wake up Sid, and many more). He is quite a neat find, though at some places in the second half, which mostly kind of just dragged, the sounds weren't of any help.

The treatment of the story was crisp in the first half, but lost a bit of steam progressing towards the finale act. Since the screenplay mostly revolved around few characters, sound had a lot to do in terms of reflecting Akhtar's state of mind. And here, I think the director should have been more subtle rather than let shrill sounds break the poignant moments in the last few sequences. Here, the narrative of Shiffali Shah works nicely into the unravelling of the mystery (something I unravelled an hour before) with the effects, and colours.

Farhan Akhtar is a stolid actor, which works for him in characters that are sketched with layers of complexities. His portait of Aditya in Rock On!! again had a lot of passive mystery to it, which he could muster with a bit of grace. But, in some scenes here, he could have been a bit subtle without showing too much of twitching of skin, or generally paranoid.

Deepika Padukone looks tired in most frames, and she just can't bring herself to emote. Is it something to do with Om Shanti Om's success that she feels too confident and has given a fine impression to directors or are they just blind? I had read somewhere that Farhan Akhtar wanted a gorgeous girl to be opposite him. Wondering...

And, to sum it up, I had to rush back upstairs to fetch my box of grapes. A final note for the movie: keep your eyes open to know the mystery before it is unfolded on its own.

How To..

2010-02-22T15:10:00.004+05:30

In my invisible little series of 'How To(s).." I propose to start something new. I might sound geeky gawky, nutty or seemingly confused here, but there's lots more to me than just silliness. I am in a post-whatever dilemma, a sort of dead man's last wish kind of thing, where people who have come out of the forest are adjusting their glasses to new-wrangled realities. Ahem! Talk about being simple!

In a way, I cannot be precise about the situation at hand, and I will wager all the pens in my pocket to anyone for saying he/she knows the answer to such matters. Without sounding even more stiff-Brit, let me cut straight to the story.

I think I know when and where to draw those little lines of zigzag morality and sense. But, when it comes to personal thinking, as in thinking for my social, financial benefits, the lines droop down to form little vicious circles.

Where in the world do you find such confusion? Watch this space for more (if your (in)sanity persists)

And, here's why I liked MNIK...

2010-02-16T18:16:00.003+05:30

For the simple theme of love, which is not retarded, the kinds one believes in the growing-up years. Not the kinds which later regresses into retarded love of superfluous relationships and passing whims. The V-day generation, take a walk!

I think the movie does a lot of justice to the idea of man-wife relationship, and why things can work out. Well, even if the Prez of US is not involved, things can work out, can't they? Yes, that's the bit, I found v v v hard to digest. The largerrrr than life bit, but that's okay cos even Harry Potter made history, right?

Moving on, to be fair to K-Jo, as he is commonly called, he infuses a lot of colour and immaturity in his screenplays, but this one he did differently. I picked up a few lines on my way home, 'cos I liked them, pure and innocent, as they come. And, may I also add, I liked KANK for the screenplay too.

And, finally, to SRK's acting, job well done. I don't know about Asperger's syndrome much, and I do give him the benefit of doubt, despite some inconsistencies.

Love means, never having to leave each other's hand

2010-02-08T00:22:00.002+05:30

My Last Duchess

2010-02-05T10:23:00.003+05:30

A sort of an afterthought that the poem just doesn't leave despite having read it some good five years go, it stays there, among my personal favourites. Not, that I claim to having read many so far, but, this one is just close to the heart, let's say.

After having had a hearty breakfast, and some serious pondering over the unfairness in life, the poem comes hauntingly back as a reminder of how entrapment is not just physical, mental, emotional, or material--it is indeed, in an invisible heirarchy--that cannot be broken easily.

You're either denied freedom, or simply cast away. And, this is not a tale of fantasy, it's us, the living, breathing organisms who strive together for an obscure, invisible gold, amidst the invisible trappings.

The ones who buy polish from money, refinement and pedigree from material wealth, and somewhat meekly bow to the superficial challenges in life.

So, what becomes of you, my love?

So once you think you're in, you're out,
'cause you don't mean a single thing without
The handbags and the gladrags
that your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you

And, don't we all face this kind of deathly blow almost everyday, where our souls are nailed to the wall, without a masterly stroke of talent?

I am not seeking, fuck, I'm not even close to seeking anything besides some afterthought after breakfast!

Eventually, you let go...

2010-02-03T09:32:00.004+05:30

When everything settles down, including the dust, it's just you and your abode that's remaining, like a scene post party, you know you're safe and home. When you know someone's going, someone you like to be with, someone who makes your world a little better, and someone who's made you laugh, is now going away, how does that make you feel? A sudden, unexpected change is thrust upon your life. Sadness? Yes, of course, quite natural. And then, one should retreat, to the safe inner sanctum reflect on it, and eventually, let go...submit to change.

May I add a disclaimer that this is not about a certain someone who thinks it's about him?

For A Few Good Men! and colourful women!

2010-01-24T23:45:00.005+05:30

This is something I haven't attempted before but what if this world was indeed a better place, you might ask. What then? Let's think together. What are your impressions? Today again, sitting with a few good gal pals of mine, we raked up quite a storm with our sometimes rambunctious, sometimes over the top, and generally curious remarks about the men in our lives. And, who's talking romance? tch, tch. This is about men who make it to our lives as friends, companions, courting kinds, approachable kinds, abhorring kinds!

For one, we don't need men who are self-obsessed, love shopping more than you do, and who definitely have only them to talk about! Seriously, we will be better off with a female friend!

We don't need men who are too mellow, and this is just us, as in, they simply turn boring. Men who are purely state of the art quiet and matter of factly aren't welcome either. And, they also raise suspicion, uh huh. (It's also a personal opinion :P)

Men who simply behave like a man cut loose! Argghh! That's the ox variety we needn't bother with for whatever purpose!

The other kind is the talkative kinds, who are good company, and are nice. Buttt...beyond a point, we run out of subjects to talk of, and well...

The next is the scared variety, who are afraid to talk to women. Period. Approach with caution and abundant care!

Next is the suave kinds, who generally show interest in your interests (hmm!), are witty and have a voice to top it all! Those men are mildly sly, and you're better off talking out stuff with them for gaining perspective!

This entry might set out a lashing from some men, but then, let me just say this much in my defence, this is just a gist of conversation and purely from the heart. There's no direct attack whatsoever and whatever similarities with real life are meant to be non-judgemental.

What about women? I'll make this quick.

We are overfed with cliches about women who yap a lot and who are generally not driven by logic, and who generally get married before they turn 25. Well, what can I say except feel bad!

Women who make much ado over nothing, are mostly tied up in colossal confusions of life. Uh. Lend a shoulder!

Women who are subtly mean and have much to talk of have some scandals hidden underneath, which generally go well with a cappuccino ;)

Women who are nice, genuinely funny and intelligent, are women I know :)

Stranger To Ourselves..For We Were Once..

2010-01-20T20:06:00.005+05:30

Once we are mere shadows in despair
A hearty conjoined laughter in hedonism
in some other time, of another world
our minds slaved to be together
and in that slavery we traded love

For we were once soulmates...

2010-01-08T17:54:00.008+05:30

To make some trust, mix some futility with facade
'cos nothing is more tricky than some erratic words
an ensemble of feelings spelt as love.
To live together, yet separate, we need some love
We need, we need, we cry in our greed
Love that separates us from who we are
A slow moving dance with poor movement
For once, we were soulmates, for once, we were something
You'll hear 'em say again and again
For once, in this lowly life, we believed in ourselves!
Hear, hear!
That self was deceptive, a rogue in the mirror
For big words were used to sell small shams
In smaller homes where magnanimous hearts bravely fought and died
From who we were to a stranger today
The soulmates who mourn the bond of yesterday
are made of clay, and dust.

Want to paint every colour red and every emotion blue

2009-12-09T15:49:00.003+05:30

This is THE time of the year, they say, they don't cough when they say it, their mascara doesn't dissolve, their smile doesn't fade. However, there are some Scrooges in this season, by those of course, I mean the ones who don't see the light behind the cobweb or the dog sleeping on the coiled wire, at the end of which a pole is lit, and lit well.

A self

2009-11-25T11:43:00.006+05:30

I need this space, I need it. I need it more so when the mind is becoming active. I need this space to slow down, be true to myself and others in equal measure. I need a dark side which is wholly welcoming, unquestioning and understanding. To pour your thoughts in pain, in happiness, is in a way destructive for the self. The reason for this is that the mind functions in solitude and the unconscious self works its way when the mind is marred by confusion. There I go, losing the plot. So therefore, one cannot pour one's thoughts without being subjected to the self-critic, flatterer etc. Indulging a dark side in crude words, just takes care of everything unnecessary.

I Take Thee in Dignity and Pride..

2009-11-06T14:46:00.024+05:30

There is an old crumpled page under the bedsheet, something he left as a token after we spent the sunlit mornings holding each other close, cocooned in our truth. I never imagined the reality to be so blinding and unrelenting, like today. When I held the yellowed paper in my hand, I felt the slow recurring pain cripple my senses. I could not even hold the tears, for it was so jarring, this tumult of loss and the deadening sense of the present.

This afternoon brightened further, as I sat in silence, wielding the mind's energies towards a dark end. I thought of the possible sickness of his mind, of the loss I had, and of the blankness that uncovered the false sense of bliss. I still felt a bit raptured, and clasped in his arms, the stolid sense of defeat shrinking the desires further.

I realised that among all the truths he told me, and the lies he withheld, there was something unnerving about the romance that only lasted till a blink, or so I thought. I could not wish him away, this place, where the erect and proud poplar looked down at this small human tragedy.

I could only think of one thing. It was already evening, and the silence grew more solemn and grave. I walked past the little patch, where a child's scrawl with white chalk was half erased by footprints. I looked at my watch. I still had some time.

I came back home, and thought of sleep. It was a fearful refuge, for I knew I would wake up in another hour or so, perspiring and anxious. I fumed at this utter helplessness, this lack of comfort. Soon, the cold numbness took over.

To be continued..

so what do you do

2009-11-05T09:35:00.004+05:30

When the stupid RJs on the radio do not realise that people are not waking up and rushing to office, they are trying to warm up for the day ahead (considering the winter season is setting in), the beauty of the morning is something else. You tune into radio, like me, and it's blaring "love me love me, your mumma .." and it's like whoaa.. you change the channel, and it's 'desi girl' or some rambunctious punjabi track. People inside the studios do not realise or see the day has just begun, and one need not be subjected to a rude alarm! You move to an English radio channel (thankfully, there is one), and there will be some obscure genre playing, which is still forgiven considering it's not so popular. Forgive me, if I am not getting the numbers or the TRP right. However, this is just a personal opinion. The entire journey to office becomes a boring chore, with uninspiring sounds reverberating from either sides. I generally keep a few CDs handy, which I listen to, but radio draws me closer because I have grown up listening to it. And, I still haven't fashioned myself to tune into my own player. I like listening to RJs, who have now touched new lows talking about dating, pranks, etc in the morning! The good ol' rainbow is not good ol' anymore. In this narrowed competitive space, they too have been churning out the same grind, instead of doing something different. I fume, fret, but that's it.

Why Does the Mind Prefer Silence

2009-10-29T17:43:00.001+05:30

work in progress..

reclining truth

2009-10-28T16:23:00.003+05:30

yes, maybe, a little, perhaps..yawwn..a daily encore of a reclining mind and body conversation. Nothing is of significance except the soft, plump feel of a pillow and the smile that follows with it. It's like sleep and sloth inspires a whole world of imagination. If only work made that much sense, sigh..There you go! So, instead of firing bullets in the air, it's as plain and simple. Work inspires nothing! It's time to crawl back to bed and sleep. Bubble antics of hope are not going to anchor this ship! When the clock kisses 7, one should be home, and asleep. One can wake up when the clock whispers "10pm, time to eat". yes, that should be good. Or, maybe not even that. Pure, uninspired sleep. Like a dull calm. Nothing else. ZZZZZZZ

The 'Neither' Case of Living ..

2009-10-28T14:25:00.002+05:30

This thought has come to me a lot of times that I have been miserable at making choices in life. Nothing so far that I am currently doing, confirms of a happy choice. It's just the state of being nowhere, or rather the state of mind being such, personal choices instead of uplifting a person, push the person back on to the same road. It's like being in traffic, and facing it. It's probably the congestion of roads in Mumbai that throws the idea in my head, but the analogy just fits the expression. Foolhardiness, in varying degrees, is what I mean for myself. I don't think I can write. I don't think words come out right when I am trying to express myself. Is it time to reflect on the choices one makes? Yes, I think that's it. That is the place where I need to work on. A friend today just reminded me that in the last three years he has heard me say the same ol' thing, which I have failed to work on so far! Three years!! And, I thought I was quite a thing when it came to doing what I want! Like hell. So, what's the plan forward? Another three years of wasting and thinking? Or, time to shake things up? Or, sit and go back and forth and continue with the 'neither' state of living. I guess, I don't know it now, as dastardly as that is, but I need to unwind in the weekend, and give myself time and get out of traffic :-)

A Colossal Push

2009-10-07T15:57:00.003+05:30

This might seem longer
but carry it with you
like a feathered sprinkle
touching your invisible wings
don let it break
this charm of a dream
it takes you where the world is
where everything works the way it is
make it grow
like a temptation in the dark worlds
but don't let the force tag you with it
else the fate of Icarus will be yours
keep the faith glowing

Utopian Dream

2009-10-07T14:54:00.004+05:30

a lost city of sins
opening sheafs of pages
closing the world like it were a verse
chanted a million times before the night sky
before a dawn of a lifetime
sowing memories, like a black tulip among your white roses
a lucky face
simmering grounds with satin threads
are spun around my wrists
folds of soft black, white
rumble beneath
of old pastimes
of a time worn prayer
called utopia

it's the way we are

2009-10-07T14:36:00.004+05:30

just a random thought
like it comes in every step
right, left
.
just a gaze
moves everywhere
bringing with it
haze, softer confusions
whisper in the head
slowly the sounds
escape the mind
left, right
.
bringing the load
carrying it too far
too far the road is
too slow the feet are
right, stumble
.
too close we are
grounded, above
too fatal this can be
right now it's the bend, the curve
too narrow, long and unending
.

Mind's State-None Shall Do!

2009-10-06T15:41:00.008+05:30

Perhaps this afternoon, all I want to do is sit and grumble. This afternoon is about how miserable everything is there for me, how much Eliot is making sense and how much more clarity could hurt! Perhaps this day could have not come at a better stage when everything, just about everything was making some sense in one way or another. If everything wasn't so scattered, I would have walked past it, without knowing the truth that can alter your life. Indeed, change is here. Something I had wished for yesterday. In a way, this is something that has been missing from my life since the time the gut began to overflow with emotions, bewilderness and some strange ties have now brought it together to show one picture.

For someone like me, who is forever bound by her emotions, seeing truth is always met with indignation since it has no "real concurrence" to the truth of my own mind. Phew..There is never any satisfaction from the dreamy brew! Lesson learnt.

I hope I see a better day! (Though this one's yet to end! ..I am hopeful!)

I need a CHANGE!

2009-10-05T12:06:00.004+05:30

This is the day when I will commit to myself a promise of a BIG change! I will! Otherwise, what's the point in doing the same ol' till you're no longer ..well!!

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." - Tuesdays with Morrie.

Fear of Moving

2009-09-17T17:03:00.003+05:30

Everything seems to have got stuck somewhere. I can figure out and tell you exactly what is wrong but even then, I can't change it. I don't know where a part went missing, where I went wrong, where I should have been, but I decided not to be. I really can fix it all, but something tells me I should not do it. This emotional vicious circle has come to haunt again, after many years of having tried hard to get out of, like something one wishes did not exist. But, it exists. One doesn't have to be a trendspotter to see this pattern. It's natural unless you are sleepwalking 24/7. You might call me an absolute fool to have been this way, but nothing changes it. And, I just reminded myself of having written about this a couple of months ago, but I think I had deleted that post. I guess there's not much left to ponder about. I hope to find a better way of looking at it soon..

When you are young, you should experience. when you're old you should talk

2009-09-08T13:30:00.003+05:30

This is better than the first thought that struck me, which was that one needs to talk about whatever it is to feel lighter. Then, it dawned on me that it's better to just let go of the thought and continue with what you are doing. Now, I think the first thought was better! Whatever I feel, I can log it like some numbers. Maybe some day they will add up to who I am. Now that I am done with stream of consciousness, of which I am reminded of by another friend today, let me tell you what I am thinking.

There's a persistent thing with me about not getting jokes. And, it is a perpetual happening. Just this morning, a friend was trying hard to cheer me up and sends a forward e-mail (ask me to send it to you). But, I didn't get the joke in the e-mail. You feel like Joey at such moments, you know, to cite the American sitcom. Everyone around you is laughing and sharing things, and you feel isolated, because you've clearly missed the point. At my birthday dinner, there were three jokes I can count on my fingers, which I didn't get! And everyone around was not only tickled to their bones about the joke, my blank face further offered entertainment.

This is not a modesty plea of being whatever you might think fit to call me now. But, certainly, there's no way to sort this confusion about why I don't get it versus unless you keep facing it. Things clearly don't come to me. These days I miss it when there is genuine humour too. And, by that I mean real lightheartedness. "What does he mean?" "Oh, he was kidding." or, "I am kidding" ! ...What is wrong?!! I have become a ball of nerves.

Does India need its Moment of Truth or Malaise?

2009-07-24T16:20:00.004+05:30

As much as I'd hate to admit, I didn't like this show and no, I do not agree with those jokers in Parliament standing up to make a mockery of it. Of whatever I saw, I am cynical of this peculiar concept of Truth and Money being played on the Indian screen. I distinctly remember some games we played as children (some of us still do) called Truth and Dare where we asked each other to perform something they wouldn't do otherwise, and also ask 'uncomfortable' questions. Anyway, to simply say this show is radical and much-needed, as my friends keep saying, I would say we need to look at it with a pinch of salt. Sex secrets have never paid off like this, at least not on Indian celluloid. The average Indian's tryst with his own self has perhaps never paid off this way too.
This show, in a way, is an easy way to catapult a dying star back to your drawing room screen on prime time, by asking him/her if they've cheated on their spouse, been involved with incest and so on. I find that disturbing simply because there's no intention of asking it beyond a few thousand rupees. Second, Moment of Truth needs to follow with a Moment of Reckoning. Now, that perhaps is asking for too much, you'd argue.

However, this show is not only about winning money, but it does redeem itself by at least openly questioning India's long-standing hypocritical relationship with sex and the like. I am not saying this is an answer to our idiot box growing away from idiocy, I am simply calling it better than a Swayamvar where a starlet goes on a husband search and you're subjected to washed-down, small-town version of some of the Chopra-Johar movies.

Coming back to Sach ka Saamna, to imagine that we will one day have our leaders of the country being pulled through a polygraph test in front of a million-odd viewers, is an appetising thought indeed. To think Lalu might actually confess to the multi-crore scams, Manmohan admitting 10 Janpath's interference in almost everything! To cut a long story short, truth is not welcome here. Maybe if the government does get away by banning it, it might only be for the 'unwelcome' questions on sex lives of others, which is something fiction is made of ironically and sells too.

A little bit of conversation...

2009-07-13T13:57:00.037+05:30

For some of the people present in the room, the untiring force with which they had been brought together, roguish, bland energy, it was a matter of solace to have found each other there. This, perhaps was more than just what the world had done to their minds. They looked as if the life in them slipped in and out with ease, nothing being reflected from them. They never were together, nor allowed to leave, a conundrum that could be heard from the low buzz in the other end of the room.

"This story, I must tell you, shook the corridors of the government!" said a man in a black suit. I blinked.

I walked across and saw two old men sipping wine, and pretending to be away in their minds, maybe with the woman, whose scent just left its trickle in their senses. Perhaps, this was the one feeling they could have momentarily ensconced into without fear. I looked ahead and tried to see what lay in the end, an enticing sight of yellow, I breathed long and deep. I walked slowly, trying to untie those impressions and prepare myself to surrender to this.

It was the conversation that tickled me and I savoured the sounds and drowned in them. I took the spoon, my knotted fingers giving a clean reflection, I smiled and turned around. It was time for a little bit of conversation.

MJ Dies..Finding Neverland

2009-06-26T10:01:00.004+05:30

An icon is dead, and I got to know this as soon as I stepped into office. Breaking News. TV is not the source I hoped I would get this from, but...RIP..a personal message from a childhood fan:

This was one of my most colourful memories (pardon the pun) but his influence on our minds as young people was overwhelming. Be it the dance, the songs, the thrills and the chills, the shadow of MJ on the walls, with his locks. The powerful note in his voice, captured us. When music's depth was still unknown territory, his presence was too overpowering to go unnoticed even to the young minds.

RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP
RIP

A Prison Note--fiction

2009-06-25T17:45:00.010+05:30

Today, I tried not to remember her. She is like a big stubborn speck on my glasses. It blocks my vision or rather shields me in its feeble attempt from the hopelessness that lies outside.

There is a strange paralysis of thought when she enters the senses. The memory is so overwhelming, words crash against each other and break before I can offer the only hope to myself through thoughts and escape from these walls.

She is lost. With every passing hour, she is turning grey. The brush has stopped moving because perhaps the artist lies dead in his own pool of red. Red? The colour forms no impression in the mind. It's her, and the grey.

To The Moon

2009-06-11T16:20:00.004+05:30

One touch and gone
like never touched
a moment from memory
Are you With Me?
A mind's asylum
tired and worn
like yellowed paper
dying in mist
and words
vanishing
like lost love
come back as memory
come back as person
come slow
and stay

One Step Closer..

2009-06-03T15:41:00.003+05:30

(This is fiction people, so don look at me any different)

"We'll take a little step at one time," he said, holding my hand, as if I was about to stumble and fall. He was not my teacher, just an old friend, with whom I was sitting in a cafe, pouring out my troubles. The cup stirred and the foam reached the edge as I slipped my hand out of his grip. I looked at the coffee mug. It showed me the boiling point where my emotions were, and the storm still rumbling beneath. I took it as a sign in my heart that this was it. I either let it settle or go for the plunge!

I started to shift a little in my seat, still uncertain about where this was all going. I wanted to know here I am, this is how things are, but none of that was happening. Since I was in the fray myself, I was in charge of all decisions. It took me a minute to step outside this confusion and look back at my friend. He was staring at the ground, lost in a daze. I felt like touching him on his shoulder, but decided against it. We sat in complete silence with the coffee mugs, untouched, and still hot.

I told him how I still slept uneasy, driven crazy by these aimless thoughts that kept me fettered. All this while, he said, he felt I was one of the most saner people he'd come across. He smiled when he said it, and the sunlight nearly missed his face. That could have made for a brilliant picture, I thought. Looking away, I simply nodded my head saying, "You were off from the very start!" I laughed.

He looked puzzled and sipped his coffee. And then, catching me unsuspecting, he asked, "So do you like men with crazy minds or just crazy sense of humour?"

Perhaps, I was right. This mad man knew me well, alright. We walked out looking in either directions. "We're meeting tomorrow," he said. "Of course."

Crowd

2009-06-01T16:22:00.002+05:30

silence sweeps into the night
scarred, it runs away
the strangers take over again
the crowd of light
dims the darkness
the human shadow stands alone
without the sky

slithering sights
swirling vastness
broken glass, twisted wrappers
howling crowds screeching past
colours so ordinary, clog the mind
empty souls collide
.
Slivering misfits
Meagre and brittle
Patience and war
Chants and speakers
Of paragons worth a dime
useless endeavours
of crime and of rights

patience and moods
freeing shackles of voids, misery
look into the voice of patience
the mist gathers dust
the whole street empty

Sometimes one doesn't know

2009-06-01T15:01:00.003+05:30

If you're standing with a heap of people, you are a far cry from being an individual yourself. Look around when you're relatively alone. As in, literally. You will find nothing that separates you from the dust, the ground, the walls..

This morning, I was in a similar situation when a group of busy people queued up for the elevator. The guard downstairs landed a kick in a stray's face who ran yelping. I turned out and yelled as loud as I could.He stammered when he spoke but he still glared back at me. The balls that he has!

$^#$^#%&^*^$%#$^#

I argued till the time my colleague intervened and asked him to move away.

FUCKING LOSER GUARD!

This feels goooood...Rain

2009-05-31T21:15:00.006+05:30

The weather is superrrrbbb...It was raining last night, and I love the whole thunder, lightning, showers bit. It feels so warm sitting inside and watching it. This is exactly how it felt last night. I could hear nature waking up the world at 1:30 in the night! I slept like a baby afterward. It is my dream to watch the rains from a hill top sitting on the grass.

The lawn was wet in the morning, and it remained like that in the afternoon as well. The wind was cool, and pleasant. I took a walk with a friend, and soon the sun was playing hide and seek.

The breeze continued in the evening. It felt good to be playing the guitar and enjoying the weather.Rains wash away the most dreaded feelings from the deepest recesses of the mind and soul.

The last time it rained like this was during an afternoon when I played cricket with my bro outside.

Rain drops keep fallin on my head..

The Dog I want as My Own

2009-05-29T16:38:00.004+05:30

Last evening at the gym, I was watching Beethoven on HBO while I was exercising that had this beauty in a double role. I so wish I have a St. Bernard like this one with me cos they are simply the most adorable people! My own dogs are super nice and uber loving though I still think having this big baby in the house will be simply beautiful.

dreaming

2009-05-29T09:59:00.004+05:30

this morning i was dreaming that my dogs were driving the car at night and they had bought a flat close to my naani's old residence. They were getting late for a Temple meeting and i didn't have my s carf with me so Jackie drove me back to our house.

Weird! Come to think of it, i don think i have ever seen my dogs driving or doing human things in my sleep. This was weird. But, I am used to them giving me human expressions all the time. Like few days before, I was struggling with this thread on my wrist, which was not coming off. Jackie was looking at me with a very settled expression on her face. So, I went to her, and extended my wrist and one end of the thread in my hand, She bit off the other, and voila! It snapped after three tries.

I wish them a very very long and healthy life!~ mwah~

Along Came

2009-05-28T10:55:00.003+05:30

Tranquility, they say, is good. I believe so. To remain calm is good. But, before I could have rested in peace after writing the previous post, I was in for a rude shock. Last evening, just to be in my own world, I kept the cell phone switched off, and told two close friends, not to call me. This wasn't enough. So, what next?

Sooooo... what's new???

2009-05-27T16:43:00.003+05:30

I look around and feel so weirdly empty inside.

As if, all emotions are running out, drying up. This is a relatively new feeing, I will say.

For a long time, I felt there was a storm building up in my mind, threatening to keep me trapped in that little dusty illusion, but now that it's settled, it leaves behind nothing.

I don't know what else can there be in my life at the moment. It's like staring at an empty glass, and hoping someone will come and fill it. As if those things happen outside of a restaurant!

I think am drawing circles here, and not getting to the point. The truth hurts. And it hurts my pride to state it clearly. But, life being such, pride doesn't matter much. At least, not in this case.

I feel terribly crippled by own feelings, trapped in something that I can't unlock! How weird is that? Well, quite. But, it seems something is holding me back, and I hope it isn't just my inhibitions. But holding back for what? Holding back from enjoying a few things.

I don't know, but strangely enough, I feel I've walked a lot farther than I should have, hoping for something to happen, which ultimately didn't happen. False expectations! Obviously, things will look empty. So, I need to turn the mind away from it, and look anywhere but there! However, as much as I try, I always see the same at the end of my thoughts. The same.

2009-05-18T16:04:00.004+05:30

Yes, the much-popularised sin of indulgence came knocking and knocked me over. I was the first one to reach the office pantry, eagerly awaiting the pastries (as desperate as that sounds). Ahem, my senses were bowled over when I saw them lined up neatly inside the box. The first word that I uttered was "PHOOOOOOOOOOF" . I haven't strayed much from the so-called plan of eating the right kind of food. BUT! today was an exception since the craving just got bigger and got the better of me.

I called my gym instructor, with the half-eaten pastry still teasing me with its presence, and I get to hear, "sharm nahin aati batate hue." Point taken.

However, much as I now wish when is my next pastry coming, and from where, I will continue to sigh at the thought of these "round and brown" beauties.

P.S. the pastry was sponsored by Itika who goes by the name Rebellious Stone in her blogs. It was her birthday yesterday, so you can wish her there.

Growing Up and About

2009-05-18T13:04:00.003+05:30

Most people already have their wisdom tooth in place by now, and have chewed many a fat. I must confess that neither do I have one at 24-25 (considering am 1984 born), I am getting a tooth, as in a NORMAL tooth. What does this mean? a) am much younger than I look b) I need to go easy on the chickens I chew. This is also funny, considering I would get an itch in my teeth. Now, that's exaggerating, you might think, but, no! My fellow beings (wiser beings), it is true. I remember biting my pillow in sheer irritability, which a friend put it as "teething."

As of now, the status is that the tooth is trying its best to grow, but the jaw hurts. It's time I went to a dentist, but since childhood I've never seen one. And, my plight is risking my dignity considering I am getting a normal tooth at 24-25. It's embarrassing.

First Political Assignment

2009-05-16T17:02:00.006+05:30

This had to be a long hard day, with the biggest and the most noisiest democracy getting into action. The verdict had pretty much trickled in and celebrations were not far behind. I reached the All India Congress Committee's office around 9:15am, hoping to see some action. As I gingerly paced around, I could see the reporters were milling about, with nobody having a faintest clue about what to do. I saw some "famous" television reporters, whiling their time. This was something new, since these were the people you and I have grown up observing. About 9:30AM, Oscar Fernandes arrives, and immediately chancing upon the opportunity, I introduce myself. I ask him some questions few minutes later, and file a liner.

Walking around, I meet few fellow journalists who I already know. They take me around, show me the media centre, which is surprisingly air-conditioned, and a waiter is serving chilled buttermilk to those watching TV inside. Impressed, I walk out to take a tour myself, meet my colleague, and we both get to work. There aren't many people to catch, since the biggies were still away. Meanwhile, the fire crackers outside continue, and camerapersons surround the frenzied group, taking pictures, quotes. It is so hot that temperatures touch 41 degrees in the shade, someone tells me.

I meet a reporter from Kathmandu Post. He walks up to me, asks me if I am Indian, and we begin talking. He tells me this is fascinating but he hasn't had much to do. I smile when I hear that and our conversation is interrupted by the whirring of car engines and sudden pick up of activity around us. It is Mohsina Kidwai. We all rush in, to speak to her, and I am the first reporter to ask her a question. She tells me the Muslim votes were in favour of Congress. And, as she speaks, cameras are shoved from behind, with my neck ticking from left to right. A reporter tries to get too close, and I hit his mike with my hand. I begin pushing to get some space, and wriggle out from there, with my neck hurting from all the shoving.

The day continued with lot of pain and sweat, fighting to speak to Ambika Soni, Gulam Nabi Azad, and trying to get into the fortress that is 10 Janpath. All roads lead to Delhi. Phew...

Mumbai..again

2009-05-15T17:35:00.003+05:30

Okay...not to be unfair to Delhi, I decided at the spur of the moment to do a tell-tale sort of take on the glitzy blitzy bay. This is probably a first from my end to perhaps attempt this, since I've been very emotionally charged each time the bay's name touched my lips or someone else. Keeping those emotions aside will be difficult, so I will proceed. Mumbai gave me what I may not have given myself ever--the eyes to see everything differently.

Mumbai is much more fragmented than mercury drops and just like mercury collects itself, this is exactly how the city shapes itself up after sometime has passed. A single journey from Marine Lines (where I stayed) to Andheri (where my relatives stay) a whole world would have changed by the time you get off. And, it is so difficult to keenly keep your eyes and ears open because the mad pace of the people surrounding you from all corners doesn't really help. To an outsider, this means a lot. It's like stepping from a small world of your home, into a frenzy of mindless hustle in a confined space of a train, getting off into a new environ and slipping into obscurity again. This has been the most puzzling truth of the city. How many outside worlds can the city inhabit??

Delhi in that sense, without any self of moral high ground, is fairly simpler, easier to dissect. There's nothing in Mumbai that can put you in a state of complacency. However, I left the city thinking I may have at least unearthed few bits of survival truths. I must say, I have not, and neither will it hold true for the city I am currently staying in, that is Delhi. This is in essence, a surrender, so to say..But, as usual, as the mercury drops come together, I might have more to say on the city that taught me how one can lose identity yet find it each day again.

Delhi is SOOO Weird!!!

2009-05-15T14:28:00.003+05:30

In my entire life, I have not lived in too many cities, but I live to tell the fable of Delhi. This city has to be the slowest, most crowded, noisy, overrated and HOT. Even the winters are not the same anymore. Just imagine, a hot day in the city, you are juggling between office and some personal work, and you're on the road. Look around, half the shops around will be shut, traffic will be slow and haphazard. You will encounter many stylish looking cars, sunlight just dropping crystals on the suave display and bouncing off, yet some sonofaXXXXX will be driving it like a snake in the grass.

Then, you reach a bank branch and your levels of irritability are tested further. The floor is wet because certainly, someone has forgot or given up, one of the two reasons, for not mopping the floor. The branch is extremely old, and is obviously not looked after, as is evident from the old staircase, and the slew of air coolers that are put up everywhere. ACs anyone??? The documents arrive, and keep flying off thanks to the cooler.

The officer in front of you keeps entertaining people who have come after you, taking her time to answer their queries, proving she is truly a human relations expert in the field. Obviously, she forgets someone's already sitting in front of her, checking her watch to see that's probably an hour she's been out of office.

Coming back to Delhi, do not forget to visit places such as Green Park, Defence Colony or Vasant Kunj to see how opulence and grandeur get redefined, beaten and changed to something as grotesque as a cheap trail of tragicomedy.

chasing dust

2009-05-07T12:18:00.001+05:30

older sunlight
A reflection in spoon
Like bent age staring down
clock ticks like sweat beads
Forming, snaking down
Time takes more than it gives
Leaves traces if chased
Slight crinkle of eyes
Tell stories from lost time

A moving glance, a dull stupor
melting muscle and memory

just an elongated tweeet

2009-05-05T14:14:00.004+05:30

tuesday afternoon is as boring as it just got today. there is absolutely no iota of work at all, i don't wish to hunt for any stories either cos that would mean slicing off a lot of fat and in essence, a lot of HARD WORK. i don't want to do that too. just a day you want to keep your cool and go milling about. and honesty is key to blogging, isn't it?

Voted in and Voted out

2009-04-30T16:04:00.004+05:30

If 'none of the above' could be an answer to our troubles, I
will seek change of thought. As the Election Commission readies a no choice
option for voters, if it happens, I will not exercise it. To me, protest is
not inaction, but positive action.
Long ago, Edmund Burke, a politician and a philosopher said, "hottest fires in hell are reserved for
those who maintain neutrality in times of moral crisis." This perhaps may
sound too pedantic for some, but even to a non-believer, the message remains
the same. If being passive was a way out of choosing between the devil and the
deep sea, how will you ever bring change?
Let's assume a majority of people does not exercise their franchise by
simply deciding not to vote. If there is a re-election in such a situation,
how sure are you of getting the right person? Will you continuously march
towards a re-election? To me, it sounds like recycling choice.
If we are chasing ideals, let's not get carried away by them. At the
ground, there are people working behind the scenes, who need encouragement. If
a particular candidate does not fit the perception of a serviceable worker,
don't vote for that person.
There are pockets of people trying to come out without a
mainstream branding of either the Congress or the BJP or the Samajwadi Party.
There are some independents, who may be eager to come forward, but our
inaction can kill that spirit by choosing not to vote.
An example I can cite is that of ABN AMRO Country Head Meera Sanyal who is contesting from South Mumbai.
Make a sensible choice because every vote counts.

Memory does strange things to stranger people like me

2009-04-04T14:13:00.045+05:30

For every wrong doe, do a right.
For long, I've had these expectations from myself to look over the past and turn a new page. Again, a soul-searching exercise, for the better or for the worst. I came prepared for the worst, but I wouldn't have been so under-prepared, as I actually turned out to be. I still mourn and sulk and belittle the whole thing. What thing? I don't want to say. I tried approaching the whole issue from a different perspective, a new one, I would say. So, after a lot of deliberation, I asked the very person about life, leanings, and so on, hoping to get something out for my own liberation. It did not work. It did not work, because it could not have worked. Life goes on despite a lot of wrongs. It goes on, cos' if it didn't, everything would cease to make any sense. In fact, the very thought that I am unable to tide over the past proves it that insanity is in keeping the pain inside. My gut tells me to do the right thing to the wrong one. It's something I can't control. I have to hold on to every little scrap of hope I got within me to get rid of this gap inside. I have to fill it somehow. Somehow, leave it all behind, start afresh. Start like a new day. The more I tell myself this, the better it feels from inside. The better the voice becomes inside. It is just amazing how some words can turn into persisting thoughts and alter everything. I just feel impatient and restless. Restlessness, someone once said, is good. It keeps one on the toes. Life goes on....goes on...and, goes on.
----

I did not wish to edit this since this was straight from the heart, and whatever comes out from there is truth.
But...
Did I say all this? Wow..it's been over a month since I wrote this, maybe I was saving it for a rainy day like this one. I really need to find myself amidst all the superficialities I treat myself with all the time. There has to be a moment of reckoning.

Sometimes I feel hard done by, curse everything around me. But, that isn't true. Like Keats once said, "Fled is that music: do I wake or sleep?"

I miss the good things life offered once upon a time, not that good things have stopped coming my way. But, it isn't the same anymore. *Sneeze*
I think taking everything as a finality is wearing me out. Life moves on with every second ticking on the clock. Things are on the go. If that is so hard to accept, nothing will ever be easy.

Like leftovers, I keep subjecting my mind to the past, as if things can be re-lived in totality, and life will freeze. I feel the nice air outside, and cringe at the very thought of life freezing in one moment. So, there is hope left after all! I am not all that crazy in the head I sometimes feel I am!

These mad rumblings will make complete sense to me one day. By then I HOPE I would have learnt my lessons, and lived a life well-loved.

Thou Shall Not Smoke on a Monday, Tuesday... Ever

2009-03-30T11:42:00.028+05:30

For the record: I don't smoke. But, I'm a lousy dreamer.

Off late, the only craving I have is to go for a light. Seriously speaking, I have never felt an urge as strong as this one to smoke. The fact that I am writing about it, is for my own way of dealing with the craving, you could say. So, what's the harm, besides a badly done lung few years down the line? You might think it's slipping into self-preaching tactics, because normally, smoking isn't such a big deal. You either smoke, or you don't. Period.

Then, there is this urge. Jesus! Last night, right before sleeping off, I kept imagining the places where I could smoke peacefully. For that, I would need to also keep a pack somewhere with me, take an off from work, go out, unwind and relax. But, here I am, in full sanity, writing about it. The work pressure is immense, and there is no other way of telling it. Somewhere, as much as I would like to curse fortune for stealing all the cookies, I get time to think deeply about what exactly went wrong and when. Why escape cicumstances?

For reasons known best to me, I had all plans of shoving away any job I had after two years of service and re-start academics. A-C-A-D-E-M-I-C-S. The word stays on the tongue, before falling off into the trash bin, like everything else.

Somewhere along the road, I lost the map. It's as simple as that. It seems that a traveller has now found a resting place without any way forward. A stalemate and a check mate! It was not a chase, to begin with, but silently, the fears have crept up from the past and have begun their torment. In plain and simple words, I am stuck in a go-between situation.

Searching...searching....will go on searching...

2009-03-27T16:27:00.001+05:30

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/The_Reader-164485-1.html

This is my review for movie 'The Reader' on mouthshut.com

Sixth Sign/Sense of Stress

2009-03-27T10:54:00.041+05:30

The signs are all out there. A crimped forehead, heavy-headedness, puffy eyes, and distracted mind. All that and more, you're a stressed out freak on a Friday. Keeping my self-respect on stake, I report to work, fully aware I am yawning, and the first thing after switching on the PC, is resting my head on the desk (which I later discover much to my horror, is dusty). So, a lack of proper good night's sleep, which primarily had to do with an all-night long nightmare (been having those back-to-back for two nights now), I woke up worried.

In the nightmare, I was running away from some people. I had no money, no place to go, and there were pimps on my chase. I wish I had Freud on my speed-dial to know what it means. You cannot believe how scared I was when I woke up, still re-working the nightmare in my mind. Jarring as it may seem, everything in the dream was happening in a sequence, and I had a friend with me (whose name I will not take) and her family was pushing her into this dreaded dirty business for want of money. We both met, and we also had a conversation where I told her I would save her and both were running throughout.

A basic definition at a Web site states work-related stress can cause nightmares of being attacked or chased. So, it's fear, grief, and anger--all rolled into one.

"A more direct analysis of chase dreams is the fear of being attacked. Such dreams are more common among women than men, who may feel physically vulnerable in the urban environment. These dreams are inspired by fears of violence and sexual assault in which we are so over-exposed from the media, which magnifies such fears."

How much of this applies? I don't know! I'm confused!

I read a thread on nightmares, where people have vividly and rather explicitly described such nightmares.

Another Web site says: The Native Americans believe that you should turn on your pursuer if you dream of being chased, wrestle then to the ground then unmask them. Follow this wise counsel and you will discover that your fears may not be as terrifying as you thought.

Another Web site:

"This one is an extremely common nightmare. Some sources say that this nightmare represents a staggering 32% of all nightmare themes. What causes nightmares about being chased or being attacked is your fear or denial of some certain aspects of your own personality."

Science says, nightmares occur in the stage-3 of sleep and are often remembered if the dreamer awakens. They are sometimes linked to emotional distress during waking hours and may play a role in “working through” those disturbing experiences. A person can often talk about a nightmare and recount its scary story.

Sweet slumber, sigh....

The Algiz effect

2009-03-25T13:53:00.024+05:30

As part of meditation, I often draw runes to understand or at least make an attempt to get to the heart of few things. I won't say I do myself justice with these acts, but I don't pretend to be a non-believer either. It's fashionable to discard anything that seems superstitious, but anyway, I don't belong to that category of people.

This morning, I pulled out Algiz. Traditional meaning states Algiz means a form of protection against a threat. Well, before this, I didn't react to the rune this way. The meanings also cover the aspect of self-regard, and the book says, "selfishness is not a sin". Quite true in this case.

Also, the meanings cover willpower and the ability to master difficult tasks at hand. Still on it, the day isn't over, and am busy clearing out some mental clutter. Hopefully by the end of the day, I will know.

Don't trample my Ego

2009-03-25T10:25:00.015+05:30

Why will I, of all people, bring down the house for no reason at all!? I am more keen to solve a few things plauging my mind and it's keeping me busy like flies around sweets. So, why will I, me, the usually thoughtful kinds, will charge like a bull to maul anything in sight that dares distract me!? In fact, as much as this modesty of thought pleases me...

What's the point in behaving like a cat gone awry in the head and clawing everyone who comes her way!? khisiyaani billi khamba noche! what a gruesome thought!

It's just Wednesday morning blues, or is it that I can still hear my mum complaining about my eating routines not meeting her standards or the so-called general standards to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Now, with a new member in the Arora household, she thinks her daughter's an absolutely careless human floating about, and needs to be pulled down and hammered. Okay, so I am guilty of missing a glass of milk here, or skipping some fruits there, or leaving the dry fruits where they were originally placed, I am fine, thank you.

My mum thinks when I get married (considering that happens) I will be saying ,"No, Thank You," to every food item, cos' am born to make a fuss. And that, your health is in your hands, I am made to feel that way QUITE A LOT nowadays. It's not exactly my favourite subject (which means I am not keen to take this blog forward) I had an orange this morning just to please her.