Pink carnation and a pickup truck

I like the concept of a notice board. How its sometimes empty, sometimes full and its like a continuous tide of things that happened and will happen and more than anything it’s full of possibility. One stray notice - it can change your whole life. A battered poster, peeking behind a fancy glossy one - someone somewhere thought enough to put it up knowing that someone like you would read it go wherever it was asking you to. It’s a testimony to life almost that things happen and keep happening, and there’s always that option available to you.

It was at one of these poorly attended college things, a dingy room with faux wood furniture and static microphones. He was sitting at the back while she had plonked her bag around the middle spread-eagled over two chairs. After they’re done with the event, they pass a paper around you know, “give us your name and contact number, we’ll get in touch with you if any more such events happen, etc.” He kept his eyes on the piece of torn out register paper as it was passed down from her to him and when it was his turn he quietly saved her name and number on his phone.

It was a maybe, and intuition, nothing more.

And a couple of months later after they’d seen each other here and there, established a common friend and talked a bit; it was time to exchange numbers she asked him for his and gave him a missed call so that he could store her number. When her name flashed on his old nokia 3210 screen, he made a split second decision and told her. She just smiled and turned away.

Pocket full of Sunshine

There are some people who you know, always keep their phone with them and will reply to a message within five minutes, like Kasha; so apart from being my phraand she's also my message buddy.

There are some people who you know check their mail everyday or maybe twice a day and will reply to an email within hours, like Fly, so she's my msn/gmail buddy, apart from being my BFF(private joke.)

Then there are people who read your message but take ages, maybe days to reply; who will let your call ring and ring and then say oh, my phone was flung across the room, etc etc - like me. I'm sick of making excuses and lying and avoiding calls. Guess there are some people who don't always pick up our calls and we have the upper hand with some people who'll call and we can decide not to pick up. Or something...

Anyway, I had a good day today, inspite of 3 traffic jams, THREE. Had a nice long chat with my grandparents and it was one of those days when they were talking about themselves as young people which is always wonderful to hear. Plus I had a full inbox and emails for all over, which made me smiley AND most importabtly, inspite of my dismal overall result, the marksheet which I received today says that indeed I have got 36 out of 38 in the ONE paper I studied for so I'm feeling mighty pleased with myself. (heehee, kaha se kaha)

Also, other stuff which I've been trying to get out of, is sorting itself now, and I can just relax and do my own thing and be with people I actually like and make PLANS, which I'd almost forgotten how to do.

On the movie front, I have been watching almost 2 a day, most recently saw My left Foot, The Prestige, Y Tu Mama Tambein (absolutely lovely even without the several nude scenes), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Son of Rambow (the humour of which I totally did not get) and several others.

Besides a threatening to rain, slightly breezy day, nice :) All is right with the world.

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me & My Monk

On some days, it might seem like I have nothing. Depends on how you’re measuring really, because I have all kinds of bolted vaults and secret trunks stored away.

My trust fund is in smiles given and taken and every pair of eyes that look at me first when they enter a room. In books borrowed and lent, in sharing a blessed umbrella in the pouring rain with my left side and his right getting drenched. In phrases like bruising guitar and music that makes you ~feel. It’s in meeting someone and knowing within the hour that you’re going to become friends. It’s in someone saying - you should come, you’ll like it.

Its watching him without him noticing; the way his left hand twists and his elbow sticks out as he writes away furiously. His handwriting that I’ll recognise anywhere. In the inevitably, that you realise in retrospect, of a little crush becoming a friendship, all gained with no personal questions. I probably know every book that’s influenced him but not who he kissed and how many times. I wonder if I got the hard end of the bargain.

It’s when the sea is grey and frightening and I sit in a circle of cigarettes crushed in the sand as my sarong dances in the wind and he shouts to come back under the roof. It’s the times I’ve looked in the mirror and smiled at the person who looks at me secretly, and those times I’ve sat in a changing room and cried, that counts too. It’s the click click click that goes on in my head continuously, and to say it out loud would be to forget it, so I keep writing. The wallpaper of my cerebrum is textured funny with old cds and the black flimsy reels of cassettes, its lined with the doodles at the back of maths registers.

I’m not a big expert on love, you’ve realised that, they all have. Love can mean anything, it doesn’t have to do with anybody. Because I think if I was to love someone, or be loved by someone, it would be Agastya Sen. It would mean something to him, it would matter, he’d think about it, and I’d like to be thought about by him. In Madna or wherever. And if I was to be friends with someone, I’d be friends with Ammu because if anyone ever needed someone to talk to, it was her.

So I might not know a lot about real life, but I am an expert when it comes to my life. Right now though, I’m unavailable for comment.

Because you see it might not be much in kilometres but it sure is a lot of millimetres.

The Upside of Wet Jeans

because the most you can expect from perfection is a moment.

pebbleriver.

light even on the cloudiest day.

windscreentrees.

rounding up with my signature shot, the feet. :)

The Opening Ceremony

Watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony filled me with much feeling, somewhere in my toes - a little bit of wonder, of melancholy even. Apart from shouting out the capitals as the delegates of the countries walked by, the whole thing made sense, it seemed right. These were real people; all those countries aren't just coloured jigsaw pieces in an atlas with a short para about their stats. Just seeeing so many different faces each more handsome than the other, a nose from Denmark, blonde hair from Slovakia, a wide smile from the Marshall Islands, a costume from Bahrain, a whole cheering party from Brazil. Face upon face, and in those snatches you can tell -he's gay and she has children, and he must be really popular with the ladies. You realise once more than there are so many, many more people in the world than just Americans, yet beause they control world media, all we see is Americans. A place like Las Vegas is mythologised because of Hollywood, but the rest of world has no big machine to make sketchy movie and bring them to a theatre near you.

The thing is that with an event such as the Olympics, an event so huge and involving so many people, even by virtue of simply witnessing it, you are complicit with its politics. With the fact that Taiwan was introduced as Chinese Taiwan. That Palestine sent their own delegates, so atleast they're recognised, but Tibet isn't. That Pakistan got a huge cheer, because an enemy of your enemy is your friend - or some archaic logic like that. As did Iraq, because we destroyed them and are now content to give them a good natured pat on the back.

Athletes, and sports reflect everything that's right in the world, about the purpose of our bodies, and they don't matter in the long run, they really don't. Watching them wave to the dignitaries from their country on the other side of the bulletproof enclosure mades me wonder, who decides whihc side you're on? Like if you were a princess say, a nominal head, you'd just go from one token event to the other on governement money and wave and smile but what have you REALLY done except be born? These people, they've practiced and worked and worked; they have real accomplishments. It's them I want to see, not faux celebrities. It's them folks doing the lap that are the stars and rightly so. They can wave and smile as much as they want, I'll cheer till I'm hoarse.

Suitcase of memories

I believe familiarity is a sign of wealth. Wealth when it comes to life, to living.

A fine lady, would have a regular tailor who knows the exact shape of her body, her trickiest measurements, and doesn’t need to take them over and over. Who notices she shrinks as she grows older, and makes the blouses smaller. To whom she brings her daughter for her first sari blouse.

And a jeweller, from where they make their big buys, once every year or so. Through the latest trends they keep pieces waiting for her but when her son wants to pick out an engagement ring for his girlfriend; she takes him there for the classic diamond knock out.

A man then, will have a banker, who does all the tedious paper work, efficiently, happily. A mechanic, who knocks a couple hundred off the bill after the regular servicing. When his daughter has her first bang-up learning how to drive, he gets angry with her, but they have a little chortle, the mechanic and him, there were many jokes on that one oh there were.

And the other family who's been with them for years and who knows when to get the hot water bottle and the right temperature of tea, who are well looked after and their children seen through school and onto bigger better things. Who’ll mow the garden and plant the flower seeds and take care of the dogs when they go out of town.

As they grow older, this fine lady and gentleman, they’ll need their old doctor of course. Who’ll listen with gentle patience to them, who’s delivered their kids and is now old himself. So he refers them to better, younger doctors but they go back to him for a last and final opinion.

They walk into Blue Diamond. He nods at the tabla player, a namastey; the next song is his favourite ghazal. Somewhere else in the city, at a nightclub, their son nods at the DJ and shakes hands with the bartender. A bartender who knows his drink and in the thickest crowd will get to him first.

A bookstore then for me, a perfect one which I’ll love with all my heart. Placed somewhere to bring in minimum of tourist traffic, a place where you can sit and read and not pay. I know there’s a store out there that’s just waiting for me to walk into it.

You can say familiarity is a step away from boredom, from the same old same old, but I’ll take it any day.

There are other things to experiment with, newer things to try out - like brand of cigarettes, and shampoos maybe but not hairstyles. Everything art related. Every place in the world. For that I have my muddy travelling boots under the armchair, but everything else I like in its own place.

Just because I'm losing...

Doesn't mean I'm lost.
Doesn't mean I'll stop.

What is it with the blogosphere these past couple of weeks? It seems like one person lost their nerve and so did everyone else simultaneously. It's a chain reaction with blog-blahness, and suddenly things are either too trivial or too huge to put in here. However abandoned readers fear not, for I am back with..err, vengeance?

So the easiest, let's talk about books. Have several to read at the same time, which is no fun but the most memorable one is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's - My Melancholy Whores. It's a nice, small compact book and fits in your hand nicely, besides it's hardcover which is a plus. I can bet you a huge load of cash that Marquez himself kept a diary where he counted the women he slept with. I mean first Florentino and then this guy. Or if he didn't, he thought about it alot.


Anyway, over the past couple of days I've had long long chats with old friends, and you know what they say, all birds come home to roost. Guess we leave bits of our selves scattered in the past that comes a full circle. They recount all their escpades, sexual and boy related, over the past couple of months, like getting sorta drunk and holding hands with Goan boys who jive. And then, after half an hour of them, it's like what about you? Man oh man am I glad I have no news.

Among friends then, there is that reassurance that yes, we have the same life for tomorrow and the day after and the year after that, and I'm really happy about that - someone has your back you know, who'll give your proxy attendence if you're not in class or pick up your fee form when they get theirs, or order two cups of chai without asking. It sure is nice to have a friend.