Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
both were a little annoyed with each other. i because he was. and as a result his annoyance was wearing off while mine was sharp and fresh. it was time to part for the time being. i thought i could hurt him by an impersonal and cold bye. attempted a mumble without looking at him and headed for the green and yellow rickshaw that was my victory escape. noone heard what he said. he just pulled my hand and the next moment my body lay standing limp against his. every bit of me. there was no defence. i felt him in every strand of myself. noone timed the hug. to me time stopped. it was one of those defining moments. when things obstinately declared their shape and meaning. i didn't utter a word on the way back and my companion who had been witness to the mute scene was too scared to make a sound.
all struggle was pointless after that.
all struggle was pointless after that.
micro-brahmaaan
there were nights in dschool when i would keep myself awake. like a solitary celebration of time on hand. the night after a major hurdle of an exam of sorts. i would rudely shake myself out of any hint of sleep that touched me. it would more often than not begin with some music while i could disturb the human co-habitants. after lights in rooms quit one by one, i would turn to some form of silent entertainment. reading. sometimes simply waxing my limbs leasurely, especially in slightly cold months when i loved warm wax on myself. staring at the moon from my balcony or just the sky from my bed upward. the moon i never tired of. when it showed on that side of the sky that is. and then creeping down to the ground floor to watch tv at 2-3 in the night when the socio-geog buffs finally left it alone. once i remember tired of it all and yet resolute on not sleeping i just slipped between the locked with a wide gap gate that supposedly shut out the terrace to us. and i just sat up, lay down, surrendered to the mosquitoes and nursed my bruises waiting for the sun to rise. and i did manage it. it was like a new beginning. like a maturity crossed. like i was there before the world began.
today i sort of feel like that. like forcing a jagran on my senses. like celebrating this leave i have with such difficulty weedled out of my boss. my boss who has given me a conviction in the soul's survival and rebirth after a body's death. because in no way can he be a one-time creation. nothing can ever produce as debased an output as him. nothing other than, a chain of deterioration.
but a night up cannot be accomodated in this busy schedule. its funny when i was in dschool i thought i had never been as busy as that and never used time better. i still think i was right and yet time flies by now. doing nothing of great value. while the great valued things wait for my laziness to wear off. have to do so much before i see that proof of rebirth again...
today i sort of feel like that. like forcing a jagran on my senses. like celebrating this leave i have with such difficulty weedled out of my boss. my boss who has given me a conviction in the soul's survival and rebirth after a body's death. because in no way can he be a one-time creation. nothing can ever produce as debased an output as him. nothing other than, a chain of deterioration.
but a night up cannot be accomodated in this busy schedule. its funny when i was in dschool i thought i had never been as busy as that and never used time better. i still think i was right and yet time flies by now. doing nothing of great value. while the great valued things wait for my laziness to wear off. have to do so much before i see that proof of rebirth again...
Monday, October 20, 2008
a new season here. half the year gone again. how time flies in this place
couldn't smell the champas today with this nose on temporary holiday. the paintings in visual gallery were disappointing. hit a bicycle on my way to work in the morning. and the guy didn't even curse. didn't even glare. just made sure his spokes were all there and pedalled off. knowing very well that i had the right to curse in this case. had my ears blocked in a weird sense because of this cold. made me feel handicapped in a way. and made a real accident on my way back dangerously probable. only to my scared mind. breathed agitation in more than out once more. and felt like last winter was just yesterday. already missing the summer.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
to my right, though i couldn't see it cos there were so many cars obstructing view, i knew there was the loud red ball stopping traffic on my part of the street. and to my left, in the night sky was glowing a white ball, seemingly of peace.
diwali will be a moonless night. we will forget this beauty and won't even miss it
diwali will be a moonless night. we will forget this beauty and won't even miss it
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
a mystery+an argument=an idea
why do magazines and all such weekly/fortnightly publications always come out in future dated issues? iv seen the phenomenon since i probably picked up my first copy of one. and yet today it struck me as really absurd. especially today, when every two hours or even more frequently the world financial scene is updating. i was reading online and there was so much that had happened in the last two days that i felt i had read volumes on it. and then i turned to the physical library and was faced with the choice between the two available mag prints in front of me. an Outlook dated the 13th of october and another dated the 18th of october. for a minute i lost my sense of real time. what was today. and both these had pages dedicated to the financial crisis. old stale news in the date of the future. upset my sense of reality and my value for information. so why do they do it? there has to be a logical reason for this practise.
some people gave me these answers.
one, a competitive market in which each publication wanted to outdo the other in terms of being 'new' in the market, and because unlike newspapers, such publications do not just report news, they dissect it in hindsight; they could afford to talk about past topics till much further into the future. so if you saw a Business World dated the 5th (Di) and another the 7th (Dj) of the same month the consumer mind would possibly be lured to buy the latest mag, even though the stories would be more or less the same in the two and the date of buying (Db) was say the 1st; which also implies that the rational mind knew the date of reporting/writing (Dr/w) couldn't in either be newer than the 31st/30th.
Choice{Di,Dj} = Dj; when j>i even though (Dr/w)for both i&j <= [31 or 30] < Db
the second answer, a more tangible one claims that vendors of such publications have deals with the mags which guarantees buyback of all unsold copies by the publishers. so the farther in future the date of publication is, the more time is available to sell more copies before the date the magazine is declared old, i.e. the date of publication.
reality may be a combination of the above two or of some more marketing strategies. if the weightage of the first reason is substantial, it would be interesting to do a behavioural/empirical human choice study testing perception of newness.
also in case of either of the two above, wouldn't a magazine be competing with another one of its own brand at a different date? so in the first case, the trick would have trickle down effects on the magazine's own 'older' issues (here i talk about 'older' issues that are still in future dates).
and in the second case, wouldnt there come a date earlier than the date of publication printed on a mag (the date when a more futuristic issue of the same mag hit the stands) when it would be declared old? on the other hand if not for this practise (the alternative being an honest declaration of date of publication), probably a mag issue would have remained 'new' till the next (honest dated) issue was out; thus gaining substantial sale time before the publishers were obliged to buy back. wouldn't that be closer to a mechanism in which truth telling was most efficient? but apparently there is an incentive to deviate.
(on cross checking i notice that all Outlook publishing dates are mondays. and yet 18th of october is not a monday. a lapse of my memory i guess yet i remember it so clearly. even the internet doesn't help reconfirm. the issue is/was too futuristic and is not up on the website)
some people gave me these answers.
one, a competitive market in which each publication wanted to outdo the other in terms of being 'new' in the market, and because unlike newspapers, such publications do not just report news, they dissect it in hindsight; they could afford to talk about past topics till much further into the future. so if you saw a Business World dated the 5th (Di) and another the 7th (Dj) of the same month the consumer mind would possibly be lured to buy the latest mag, even though the stories would be more or less the same in the two and the date of buying (Db) was say the 1st; which also implies that the rational mind knew the date of reporting/writing (Dr/w) couldn't in either be newer than the 31st/30th.
Choice{Di,Dj} = Dj; when j>i even though (Dr/w)for both i&j <= [31 or 30] < Db
the second answer, a more tangible one claims that vendors of such publications have deals with the mags which guarantees buyback of all unsold copies by the publishers. so the farther in future the date of publication is, the more time is available to sell more copies before the date the magazine is declared old, i.e. the date of publication.
reality may be a combination of the above two or of some more marketing strategies. if the weightage of the first reason is substantial, it would be interesting to do a behavioural/empirical human choice study testing perception of newness.
also in case of either of the two above, wouldn't a magazine be competing with another one of its own brand at a different date? so in the first case, the trick would have trickle down effects on the magazine's own 'older' issues (here i talk about 'older' issues that are still in future dates).
and in the second case, wouldnt there come a date earlier than the date of publication printed on a mag (the date when a more futuristic issue of the same mag hit the stands) when it would be declared old? on the other hand if not for this practise (the alternative being an honest declaration of date of publication), probably a mag issue would have remained 'new' till the next (honest dated) issue was out; thus gaining substantial sale time before the publishers were obliged to buy back. wouldn't that be closer to a mechanism in which truth telling was most efficient? but apparently there is an incentive to deviate.
(on cross checking i notice that all Outlook publishing dates are mondays. and yet 18th of october is not a monday. a lapse of my memory i guess yet i remember it so clearly. even the internet doesn't help reconfirm. the issue is/was too futuristic and is not up on the website)
Monday, October 6, 2008
the longest journey
i just read and re-read the most beautiful ramble i've ever come across
"The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, “This man has worth, this man is worthless.” And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies.
Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead.
There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man’s image but God’s. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call trivial – fine weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world?"
i cannot attempt to explain it. i could only ruin it. i just wish very often that i had lived in the early 1900s. and to think of the fact that most people think Forster boring. i wish i had known him, held him in my arms just once
"The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, “This man has worth, this man is worthless.” And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies.
Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead.
There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man’s image but God’s. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call trivial – fine weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world?"
i cannot attempt to explain it. i could only ruin it. i just wish very often that i had lived in the early 1900s. and to think of the fact that most people think Forster boring. i wish i had known him, held him in my arms just once
Thursday, September 25, 2008
125th post
from one moment to the next
i am not the same
and yet i retain enough of me
to recognize myself
and like me too
i am not the same
and yet i retain enough of me
to recognize myself
and like me too
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
"'What are you talking about? Of course he was in love with me. D'you think a girl doesn't know when a man's in love with her?'
'Oh I dare say he was in love with you after a fashion. He didn't know any girl so intimately as he knew you. You'd played around together since you were children. He expected himself to be in love with you. He had the normal sexual instinct. It seemed such a natural thing that you should marry. There woudn't have been any practical difference in your relations except that you lived under the same roof and went to bed together.'
Isabel, to some extent mollified, waited for me to go on and, knowing that women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love, I went on.
'Moralists try to persuade us that the sexual instinct hasn't got so very much to do with love. They're apt to speak of it as if it were an epiphenomenon.'
'What in God's name is that?'
'Well there are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them, but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect the tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit. Especially habit. Two people can go on having sexual intercourse from habit in just the same way as they grow hungry at the hour they're accustomed to have their meals. Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct and it isn't of any more importance than any other function of the human animal. That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and the place are propitious.'
'Does that apply only to men?'
I smiled.
'If you insist I'll admit that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. The only thing to be said against it is that with a man a passing connexion of that sort has no emotional significance, while with a woman it has.'
'It depends on the woman.'
I wasn't going to let myself be interrupted.
'Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment. What d'you suppose Keats meant when he told the lover on his Grecian urn not to grieve? "Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" Why? Because she was unattainable, and however madly the lover pursued she still eluded him. For they were both imprisoned in the marble of what I suspect was a n indifferent work of art. Your love for Larry and his for you were as simple and natural as the love of Paolo and Francesca or Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately for you it didn't come to a bad end. You made a rich marriage and Larry roamed the world to find out what song the Sirens sang. Passion didn't enter into it.'
'How d'you know?'
'Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion siezes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum.'
Before I finished this harangue i knew very well that Isabel wasn't paying any attention to me, but was occupied with her own reflections. But her next remark surprised me.
'Do you think Larry is a virgin?'
'My dear, he's thirty-two.'
'I'm certain he is.'
'How can you be?'
'That's the kind of thing a woman knows instinctively.'
'I knew a young man who had a very prosperous career for some years by convincing one beautiful creature after another that he's never had a woman. He said it worked like a charm.'
'I don't care what you say. I believe in my intuition.'
It was growing late, Gray and Isabel were dining with friends, and she had to dress. I had nothing to do, so I walked in the pleasant spring evening up the Boulevard Raspail. I have never believed very much in women's intuition; it fits in too neatly with what they want to believe to persuade me that it is trustworthy; and as I thought of the end of my long talk with Isabel I couldn't help but laugh.
...'"
- Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge
i remember quoting the following to someone in a similar context about what I could never settle for even if it was the most natural thing then:
"love is a pretty poor forecaster
passion leads to disaster
it's something else that makes me sure
our bond will last five decades more"
that was Vikram Seth and it had always stuck in my mind as being very sad. like giving up on all your dreams in a way. simply resigning. a huge compromise.
i wanted passion to sweep me away mercilessly...
'Oh I dare say he was in love with you after a fashion. He didn't know any girl so intimately as he knew you. You'd played around together since you were children. He expected himself to be in love with you. He had the normal sexual instinct. It seemed such a natural thing that you should marry. There woudn't have been any practical difference in your relations except that you lived under the same roof and went to bed together.'
Isabel, to some extent mollified, waited for me to go on and, knowing that women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love, I went on.
'Moralists try to persuade us that the sexual instinct hasn't got so very much to do with love. They're apt to speak of it as if it were an epiphenomenon.'
'What in God's name is that?'
'Well there are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them, but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect the tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit. Especially habit. Two people can go on having sexual intercourse from habit in just the same way as they grow hungry at the hour they're accustomed to have their meals. Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct and it isn't of any more importance than any other function of the human animal. That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and the place are propitious.'
'Does that apply only to men?'
I smiled.
'If you insist I'll admit that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. The only thing to be said against it is that with a man a passing connexion of that sort has no emotional significance, while with a woman it has.'
'It depends on the woman.'
I wasn't going to let myself be interrupted.
'Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment. What d'you suppose Keats meant when he told the lover on his Grecian urn not to grieve? "Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" Why? Because she was unattainable, and however madly the lover pursued she still eluded him. For they were both imprisoned in the marble of what I suspect was a n indifferent work of art. Your love for Larry and his for you were as simple and natural as the love of Paolo and Francesca or Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately for you it didn't come to a bad end. You made a rich marriage and Larry roamed the world to find out what song the Sirens sang. Passion didn't enter into it.'
'How d'you know?'
'Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion siezes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum.'
Before I finished this harangue i knew very well that Isabel wasn't paying any attention to me, but was occupied with her own reflections. But her next remark surprised me.
'Do you think Larry is a virgin?'
'My dear, he's thirty-two.'
'I'm certain he is.'
'How can you be?'
'That's the kind of thing a woman knows instinctively.'
'I knew a young man who had a very prosperous career for some years by convincing one beautiful creature after another that he's never had a woman. He said it worked like a charm.'
'I don't care what you say. I believe in my intuition.'
It was growing late, Gray and Isabel were dining with friends, and she had to dress. I had nothing to do, so I walked in the pleasant spring evening up the Boulevard Raspail. I have never believed very much in women's intuition; it fits in too neatly with what they want to believe to persuade me that it is trustworthy; and as I thought of the end of my long talk with Isabel I couldn't help but laugh.
...'"
- Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge
i remember quoting the following to someone in a similar context about what I could never settle for even if it was the most natural thing then:
"love is a pretty poor forecaster
passion leads to disaster
it's something else that makes me sure
our bond will last five decades more"
that was Vikram Seth and it had always stuck in my mind as being very sad. like giving up on all your dreams in a way. simply resigning. a huge compromise.
i wanted passion to sweep me away mercilessly...
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
am i vain or is it self appeasing. it begins with a realisation that i have very few guy friends. in every place that i'v made my home or basically wherever i have stopped in this continuously relocating life of mine, i feel that more than one guy starts falling for me. and it is difficult because these guys who i feel going soft on me, are the ones i would actually have liked to know better and get friendly with. and then soon as i like someone enough to want to be friends with, i get these strangest side glances and unasked for attention and discomfort from them.
i think its actually deeper rooted than that. theres somthing formidable in this small frame of mine that normally has ppl, esp those of the opposite sex maintain a respectful distance with me. don't ask me why. actually i think its these huge scary eyes of mine. i'm serious. they scare me in the mirror sometimes. anyway, wherever the horror appeal; the fear is real. so basically these scared guys treat me like an ice maiden. and then suddenly if i start being nice to someone, or i get revealed to someone as not actually being the snob and tyrant that i resembled; they flip once twice and (pass this off as my imagination or plain exaggeration) they are bowled over. he he he. actually its not so funny. i lose prospective friends. and as there are very few lucky people who get such prospects, eventually i have concluded with a strong belief that i will not make any more new friends in my life. girls? uff. somehow with women i am actually saturated. they just try my patience now. i mean the new ones in my life (and some of the old). thankfully there are some engaged guys i like and can afford to be nice to. and all this actually amounts to my having very few friends in fact. but thats ok i guess. because many old deleted ones i trashed myself and then emptied the recycle bin.
i think its actually deeper rooted than that. theres somthing formidable in this small frame of mine that normally has ppl, esp those of the opposite sex maintain a respectful distance with me. don't ask me why. actually i think its these huge scary eyes of mine. i'm serious. they scare me in the mirror sometimes. anyway, wherever the horror appeal; the fear is real. so basically these scared guys treat me like an ice maiden. and then suddenly if i start being nice to someone, or i get revealed to someone as not actually being the snob and tyrant that i resembled; they flip once twice and (pass this off as my imagination or plain exaggeration) they are bowled over. he he he. actually its not so funny. i lose prospective friends. and as there are very few lucky people who get such prospects, eventually i have concluded with a strong belief that i will not make any more new friends in my life. girls? uff. somehow with women i am actually saturated. they just try my patience now. i mean the new ones in my life (and some of the old). thankfully there are some engaged guys i like and can afford to be nice to. and all this actually amounts to my having very few friends in fact. but thats ok i guess. because many old deleted ones i trashed myself and then emptied the recycle bin.
Friday, September 19, 2008
i have been wanting to write something more professional for quite some time. by professional i do not mean in the artistic sense but in the politico-economic sense. because that is what i am working on and have been reading and tracking even beyond work. and yet nothing gets written by me in time. i mean, when i can confidently write about something, usually by then the topic has died a natural death in everybody's minds. or if not that then there are already so many write ups available in the media that mine would look like a cut-copy-paste even if my fingers typed unknowingly. so there. an economist my age. who can't predict too many things. well actually nothing with certainty. has to wait for the journalists for what actually happened. and then i can only comment on a topic after its demise (even that i don't actually do). sometimes then i am jubilant and wistful. theres a sense of "i knew it would turn out like that. only if i had put something down in words."
how do the people who rise begin their flight. i mean how are they confident in their first few stumbling steps. how does a fresh graduate student monitor and handle people working under him/her. i could spend a lifetime without achieving anything great and i can almost prophesy that. without a forecast and without any data. how does a young economist walk through life to finally become a national security advisor? or manmohan singh for that matter. i would have liked to know the PM as a young scholar. where do these people get their conviction from. and what do the people who are not Nashes do? basically what do the 'not-geniuses' do on earth.
how do the people who rise begin their flight. i mean how are they confident in their first few stumbling steps. how does a fresh graduate student monitor and handle people working under him/her. i could spend a lifetime without achieving anything great and i can almost prophesy that. without a forecast and without any data. how does a young economist walk through life to finally become a national security advisor? or manmohan singh for that matter. i would have liked to know the PM as a young scholar. where do these people get their conviction from. and what do the people who are not Nashes do? basically what do the 'not-geniuses' do on earth.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
"Look, we don't love like flowers
with only one season behind us; when we love,
a sap older than memory rises in our arms. O girl,
it's like this: inside us we haven't loved just some one
in the future, but a fermenting tribe; not just one
child, but fathers, cradled inside us like ruins
of mountains, the dry riverbed
of former mothers, yes, and all that
soundless landscape under its clouded
or clear destiny - girl, all this came before you."
- quoted by ghosh in the hungry tide from Rilke
with only one season behind us; when we love,
a sap older than memory rises in our arms. O girl,
it's like this: inside us we haven't loved just some one
in the future, but a fermenting tribe; not just one
child, but fathers, cradled inside us like ruins
of mountains, the dry riverbed
of former mothers, yes, and all that
soundless landscape under its clouded
or clear destiny - girl, all this came before you."
- quoted by ghosh in the hungry tide from Rilke
Monday, September 15, 2008
we have reached such a state of numbness that bomb blasts have become a joke for most of us. the day after is spent amusingly relating tales of whereabouts and how narrowly the bombs missed one. there is a sense of triumph in people who think they could have been but were not killed. there are laughs about who could have planted a bomb in a dustbin and who has an alibi.
till you are one of those still in a hospital either looking at yourself or someone you know.
till you are one of those still in a hospital either looking at yourself or someone you know.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
life takes me away from my blog sometimes
today after more than a month of living in this house i finally unpacked my last carton of books and clothes (digging out my sketchbook). i don't believe i have been so busy this last month. something this house has done to me. and thankfully it hasnt been work that i can accuse. my life is just jogging faster in the personal lane. people. books and outdoors. and food. thankfully again, for once the people are those that matter.
bombay wasn't so rude to me this time. except the one day when rain and the city coupled together to laugh at me as the locals in those locals squashed my skull making me think for a minute whether it was possible to kill this way.
i felt jubilant i could still be mistaken for a 20 yr old in college and that listlessness of hanging around campus felt like these years in between never happened. and i discovered things about the city. things that were an arm's reach away on my daily mundane route when i lived there but for which i had never bothered to get time.
sometimes you suddenly realise that you have just dropped 2-3 more days into that piggybank of life called 'happy days'. and that no matter what, this is yours forever.
bombay wasn't so rude to me this time. except the one day when rain and the city coupled together to laugh at me as the locals in those locals squashed my skull making me think for a minute whether it was possible to kill this way.
i felt jubilant i could still be mistaken for a 20 yr old in college and that listlessness of hanging around campus felt like these years in between never happened. and i discovered things about the city. things that were an arm's reach away on my daily mundane route when i lived there but for which i had never bothered to get time.
sometimes you suddenly realise that you have just dropped 2-3 more days into that piggybank of life called 'happy days'. and that no matter what, this is yours forever.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
we won the trust vote. and i'v been jumping around the house, clapping my hands. and then they played the vande mataram in parliament. and mom reprimanded me for not knowing the lyrics beyond "vande mataram ...". anyway they are fighting now i think with the amount of noise coming into my room. long live indian politics. yipppppeeeeeeeee!!!
if either i'm rich or you are and you decide to stay with me, we will have a pond and a big bell
two days back i learnt these weren't lotuses (billi doesn't agree with the plural of the flower). but water lilies. my learning could be wrong but my world crashed at that minute. dont know why some of these things matter so much. as if my ecstasy on having seen so many lotuses at once in bloom, had been cheated. and they do seem to bloom in the night and close in again by noon (billi needs a mention here again. she was right). anyway the pink(ness) takes my breath away. especially in the night. with the dark leaves and glistening water for background. here i tried catching them early morning before getting into office. the sun is a little bright and someplaces the pink fades in its light...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
I can’t put my finger on it. And i can’t describe it in words. And yet its there to calmly sadden me. Like a passing cloud blocking light. Stopping time. To slowly pour over me some little far away tragedy. Disconnected with me. Yet causing my eyes to brim over and my heart to want to weep. And then just loneliness remains. No one seems near enough. Not even the voice in the ear. And injustice is felt and hurts. and a vehement cry escapes, as silent as can be to you.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
again
anticipation. creates ripples under my skin. stirs the waters of my soul. and prods lazing emotions. feelings that had reconciled to their incumbent nature. to their acceptance and to their eternity. that had lost their newness. suddenly seem green and smell of mornings. bringing with them the shiver down the spine. the smiling hug to myself.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
nothing beats a nice house. a nice house with a small room all to you. and a must-have, an attached, even if little, bathroom. where the pot in the morning is just as you left it last night. the seat is exactly down or up as you prefer. and spotless and dry. so is the floor so you can amble around barefoot. with a small window that shows you the world while it cant see you crapping. and that gives you the morning light to read while doing your job. if i made bathrooms i'd install a waterproof bookshelf in each. and noone else to bathe after you and noone to bathe twice so to leave evrything dry the rest of the day. the room now, has got to have more than one large window and a small private balcony. and if there is ample distance between your nice house and the neighbours', even better. and no, the first floor is not the best. i prefer being higher, as high as possible. to feel like you are sitting on an island in the air, with your blue balcony curtain blowing and the outdoor green and grey peeping through these curtain movements. while the tirelessly talkative birds chirp on.
there's no better sunday than one in a nice house yours (for the time being). in my first few days here i had to make it rudely clear to the mynah couple that they couldnt take my bathroom window for a house. i hadn't imagined those little birds could be so fearless when it came to protecting their (under construction) home. instead of flying off at the littlest tap from the inside of the window the bird kept pecking in at the gap in the open net to figure the source of the effort at their eviction. so bold that i got goosebumps. and after the last twig and dried strand of grass had fallen, i saw them staring at the wreck in anger and disbelief. i felt so devilish and mean and guilty. now they happily and noisily reside in the (unoccupied) bathroom wondow opposite mine. even now my fight for occupation continues as a small hive outside my big window slowly usurps space as the yellow winged things weave it. and yet i smile when opening my window in the morning as the cool air touches my face, relishing it while i can.
while i'm all for not cutting trees, i go bonkers over great wood furniture. i have this fetish for deep dark wooden brown with lighter shades colouring the edges of the depths, and providing the base for those numerous veins and lines to show. contrast it with some bright yellowish cane. put everything else out of reach out of sight. and out of the dust. just let the furniture show bare and clothed in their own colour. yeah maybe with just a sheet on the bed, curtains and bright soft cushions from fabindia!
there's no better sunday than one in a nice house yours (for the time being). in my first few days here i had to make it rudely clear to the mynah couple that they couldnt take my bathroom window for a house. i hadn't imagined those little birds could be so fearless when it came to protecting their (under construction) home. instead of flying off at the littlest tap from the inside of the window the bird kept pecking in at the gap in the open net to figure the source of the effort at their eviction. so bold that i got goosebumps. and after the last twig and dried strand of grass had fallen, i saw them staring at the wreck in anger and disbelief. i felt so devilish and mean and guilty. now they happily and noisily reside in the (unoccupied) bathroom wondow opposite mine. even now my fight for occupation continues as a small hive outside my big window slowly usurps space as the yellow winged things weave it. and yet i smile when opening my window in the morning as the cool air touches my face, relishing it while i can.
while i'm all for not cutting trees, i go bonkers over great wood furniture. i have this fetish for deep dark wooden brown with lighter shades colouring the edges of the depths, and providing the base for those numerous veins and lines to show. contrast it with some bright yellowish cane. put everything else out of reach out of sight. and out of the dust. just let the furniture show bare and clothed in their own colour. yeah maybe with just a sheet on the bed, curtains and bright soft cushions from fabindia!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)