Self Portraits in E Minor

some pictures yes, because. and it's my new favourite thing to do.




















and some poetry in pictures -








I've stopped counting..

Jane Says

I'm currently reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being(TULB) by Milan Kundera, bought it on friday and should be done with it by today/tomorrow but I thought I'd tell you about it before I finish, because once the last page is turned, it becomes just another book sitting quietly on the bookshelf and this book SO isn't.

First off, it clocks in high on the list of 'Surprisingly Easy to Read' books, I thought it would be a difficult(but ultimately rewarding) book to read, like Emma, that one I really had to plough through, though once the ball gets rolling it much easier, I took forever to read that one, but yea, duh, I loved it. Ok maybe not love but I'm glad I read it.

A thought if I may -

Even though Emma is the better novel, better crafted, much longer and probably Jane Austen's jewel in the crown, Pride and Prejudice is ten thousand times more popular. Why? Because anyone who reads both, is going to find Elizabeth a far, far better a book friend and character than Emma, Because she reads and is smart in an understated way lalala, and love comes to her just like that but Emma is spoilt and playful and rich and maybe a little bit of a snob and sure her heart is in the right place, but the more appealing one for someone who's read both of them is going to be Lizzie by and large. Maybe someone who hasn't read them and is just told the story or seen the films would like Emma better, you see what I mean? It has everything to do with 'reader type people'.

Anyway, TULB is told so simply and in such a straightforward manner and it has mind blowing insights on almost every other page which really make you think, the last serious literary type book I read that was this *wow* was Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides, anyone read it?

Oh funny story here, my freind pi's in Bombay and refuses to email or get a facebook account so we must 'orkut'(sigh), so I generally left her a scrap saying lala, this book Middlesex is really good etc etc and her boyfriend in KENT OHIO people saw the scrap and FedExed the book over as a pre valentine day gift, crazy or what? and inside he'd written 'On someones Recommendation' and the best part was that she herself hadn't read the scrap. joy. But she loved the book when she read it, and ofcourse loved him much more so :D

Morning View

So you must forgive me for this annoying everyday thing I've started here, it's just ever since the first post, I've been composing blogposts in my head non stop and cannot wait to put them up here. And if you leave a comment you'll make me very happy and I'll dance all over the place like a fish just out of water.

I just over did it with the fish analogy no?

*Was flipping through channels and saw Super Sweet Sixteen or some such on VH1 and there was this girl screaming as her dadah gave her keys to a 100000 $ car(mercedes or bmw or something very expensive and pointless) which she so knew she was getting because she went dadiiiiiieeeee, can i have this car in the showroom and he said 'we'll see' in a i-wouldn't-dare-not-give-it-to-you way. So yea big shocker there but oh but I don't know why I had this sudden looking at my life from above thing, and it was me there, and it was my dad giving me the keys to my lovely beaten up smashed in painted out backseat full of dog hair golden maruti zen, wrapped up all nicely with a red bow and it was me going EEEEEEE because that's what it means to me.

That much. Probably much more.

*You get blue ray vision sometimes no? Like there are things which are all around but which you don't notice unless you have to. I suddenly feel like Holly Short or a member of some SWAT team and there's this fancy digital map on my view shield with big blinking dots on it. Like cigarettes for example, if you need to buy em, depends on where you are you know exactly where to go right? Opposite side of McDonlads in GK, the row of them outside Basant Lok, near the back parking lot in Khan and ofcourse your friendly neighbourhood supplier.

Or walking your dog, it's a dormant skill that you just acquire, it's not like I hadn't seen stray doggies before I just never noticed them. When I'm walking Buddy (yea don't ask, I didn't name him) I know exactly at which turn and lane, which stray is going to lurk and their varying degrees of visciousness, they're blips too which I craftily avoid and promptly feel like a ninja. Or petrol pumps or Icecream vendors. I mean you cross them on the street all the time but when you you're on the look out for a lick lolly in this heat! on your drive back home, then the visor kicks in and you know there's going to be one on Vinay Marg on the other side of Nehru Park and ofcourse a whole bunch opposite Bikaji Cama. so yea.

*Also, I was never one for covers or live versions of songs but then I heard this recording of Oasis and Stereophonics - Live Forever(live in Dublin), and it starts off with a lot of noise and some incomprehensible on stage talking, audience screaming and clapping. Doesn't seem too big, one of those 100-200 small crowd things and you can hear this guy talking and this girl laughing and the everyone's singing away happily, and I can see them as if they're infront of me, lazily drinking, raising their glasses with uncomplicated guitar riffs washing over them and they're all sloshed in a fuzzy way and I'm getting goosebumps because, i think you're the same as me, you see things i never see, you and i are gonna live forever. ~lalala~

Free Falling

Ah Exams over!

You would think this feeling gets old, but it doesn't, not a snowballs shot in hell, it's priceless this excitement over the empty empty summer months stretching ahead, full so full of watermelons and cool cooler air wafting from under the front door and swimming and the pitcher of nimbupani permanently in the fridge. The day before I was so nervous, I thought my brain would burst and while studying I kept thinking of what I'd do after they got over, so as a guilty, the world will equal things out way I expected the paper would go horribly which it didn't.

It went ok.

After that we went to Khan for the usual hogging, ate like deprived kids who'd just finished with their exams! and behaved most rowdily at the five eating places we stopped at. (Big Chill, duh, Barista, CCD, Market Cafe and because I'm not that kind of a person, Cafe Turtle).

Anywho, after all the eating, when I was turning out of the market this Innova comes rushing from the left and dang, I hear a noise and I look to see my rearview mirror hanging by this springy wire type thing! To be fair, I was in the right lane when this car sped by on the right and sort of pushed me onto the left lane so maybe, partially, I'll admit it was my fault, a teeny bit BUT becasue he was going so fast his car got hit bad. I barely registered what happened, and you know "On Delhi roads these bumps keep happening", so I keept driving but then he honked and waved and pointed and stopped and all that.

Me: Sitting in the car, honest to God not nervous, deciding to be a girl and be all sorry uncle galti ho gayee (this was because when I got pulled for overspeeding last month and actually shelled out nine hundred freaking bucks, I got laughed at for actually paying up, apparently you're supposed to act like you're going to start crying any moment or give them half the challan or something)

Big massive driver person gets out of big massive innova, examines dent, strides over: Kya kare Madam?

Me: (typing in english because I just cannot do the hindi version) Alternating between the indignant, it's your fault too and the other pushed me onto the left lane and the meek, sorry, let's forget it shall we?

He: I've been driving this car for 12 years and nothing like this has ever happened yada yada.

Me: Really? 12 years? Was the Innova even on the road in 1996?(didn't actually say it, but that's the first thing that came to my mind)

He: Aap batao, Nahin to hum police complaint karenge.

Me: Oh oh oh, I'll file the complaint before you. (or something to that effect)

He(menacing look): Wait karo, and he starts calling people.

Then looks at me(takes me into his confidence), Don't worry, nothing'll happen, the thing is that it's not my car no, if it was it wouldn't be a problem.

Me: As if!

He: Another call and then another.

Me: ho hum. look at the road, check my reflection etc etc.

He: Don't worry. (now, much more reassuringly)

Me: yawn.

He: ok give me your number, it's ok you go.

Ha! Anticlimax or what? Truth is, it could've been worse and he could've been a meanie so I'm not complaining really.

Other than that, you know what I don't like?People who don't reply to mails. I write to my sister often(cuz) and I know she's super busy travelling and working 14 hours a day and all that but still dash me a one line NON GENERAL mail once in awhile, especially when I've dished personal stuff and blabbered on, is a reply to much to expect?

All is forgiven though cause she got me a nice bright super swanky blue ipod which I Luhuhove and is only my lifeline as the train snakes up, up north into the city and winds its way back down, twice a day, everyday.

She's going to be here next weekend though so yaay!

if i may

Me - I'm a pub girl, with no nonsense hard alcohol drinks and loudish rocknroll(with mabye beautiful girl thrown in, inxs), and good people who talk, wearing sneakers, a t-shirt if you want or a shirt tucked in if you feel like.

Not high heels or slinky clothes or stupid beat which every bugger on the street has heard off, not cocktail with smug names. not people who pose and wear ravi bajaj shirts.

nope. not for me thanks.

Love in the time of Facebook

I had green chutney today with yum yum Karim food , the kind that says - Hi. My name is Cholera. Just like it did to Agastya so many books back in Madna.

Speaking of Cholera, I saw the movie Love in the Time of Cholera recently.

Now the book, was intense. I read it during my boards, before the English one infact and books like those you can only finish if you have something really importnant that you should be doing but just don't want to, perfect example - study, especially if it's during prep leave.

Rob Fleming (in High Fidelity) said it really well - "I've read serious books like Love in the Time of Cholera and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. They're about girls right?"

Sure they are.

Confession - I wouldn't have read it or rather kept reading it if it hadn't been for the theme - luhove, because I didn't even attempt A Hundred Years of Solitude though I'm sure its fantastic and all his fans rave about the language! the metaphors! the surrealism!

The movie, stays true to the book though and Javier (ha vi air!, what a nice name no?) Bardem is really good. He's nailed the character to the t, with the shuffling walk and the shrivelled look but what struck me most was how love in all its glory, the true pure golden flying love is juxtaposed so blatantly with the dirty fucking behind the bush.

some thoughts if i may -

It has a very colonial feel, especially since it was written so long back and Colombia was a Spanish colony with the closeups of the fans, and the costumes and boat hulls(?) and the bustling market and what not.

priceless scene - at the poetry competition when Florentino is sitting in the audience and Maria walks in with her bustling voluptouness and crosses him to get to her seat, and he keeps clapping with serious determination becasue Fermentina is on stage and he gets up a little so as to not take his eyes of Fermentina (I'm not describing it very well but if you've seen the movie you'll know what I mean.) It's bloody hilarious and also heartbreaking, I mean you guffaw but realise it's a microcosm for their whole relationship, him watching her from afar.

Ofcourse the old people bit is done wonderfully. That's what wins you over if you're borderline about the whole thing.

See we've all cracked a facebook joke, If Catherine was to die today would Heathcliff change his facebook relationship to 'it's complicated?' and if Darcy had said "I love you. Most ardently, please do me the honour of accepting my hand lala" and Elizabeth hadn't said 'You're the last person in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!" and said yes instead, would Darcy have rushed back home and changed his status to engaged?

*there is another story here which I'll tell ya a bit later*

Everyone's feeling it you know - the influence of fbk. but Did Florentino love Fermintina. He just saw her. When he was young munchkin. That's it. He made up his mind, just like that, and then lived it out, his life, in dogged 'faithfulness'. But was it love? Could this story have been if in the end, she said no, and if he didn't wear her defences down, and he died without her acceptence? Just like that. Does then what he felt and did on his own with no contact with her whatsoever count as love?

I dunno.

Becasue in some sick way, my osbessive tendencies are just like that. I stare at him a lot, hang onto his every word and I do, I do think out the message before typing it, and oh the illicit thrill of his fbk pictures(none of which he's added btw, 170 something pictures by other people, says something about the man no?) But i don't know if it's luh-ove. Infact i'm quite sure it's not.

But then what is?