The Wilderness Years

College Library

2009-08-08T19:30:00.000+05:30

There's something about university libraries and the bored, paunchy, governement employed librarian with his hindi newspaper sitting in the one of the two airconditioned rooms in the college that is so condusive to making out no?

The Littlest Birds Sing the prettiest Songs

2009-08-07T18:49:00.006+05:30

The disjointed, assorted, unsorted, accumulated thoughts over extended period on non blogging post -

I know you've missed me so you'll read it anyway.

There is this man, who helped me with a virus. We both tried to get it off my computer, through several long exhaustive gchats and a lot of patience from his kindly self. It's still on though - in a controlled form. Whenever I plug anything into my computer, a little newfolder.exe pops up. I've stopped deleteing them because they remind me of him and it makes me smile. What tales I'll tell my grandkids yo, kya comedy life hai.

I'm only half a decade late on the laptop uptake. For the past year or so I've had a computer cum study table with a desktop - is it no wonder then that I bombed my exams? Now, my computer's crashed again and this time I didn't lose anything that major except several sets of photographs and I haven't reinstalled mtnl on the desktop yet. There's Mum's spare office latop doing the rounds and I've using that for all internet travels and it's helping me a LOT. Firstly, the luxury of

sitting anywhere, just anywhere! and typing makes me feel so damn fly. And secondly, I'm very big on compartmentalisation, and now that area is just study/work place and it's making quite a lot of difference concentration wise because I just don't sit down there unless I'm gonna hit them books.

There's a certain kind of people who loved to read and maybe write a little only because the world was so awesome and powerful and unfathomable and they needed to channel some of that revelation and now, all they(we) so is watch films and somehow it's getting translated into

photography.

I've noticed something rather interesting about myself - when am I having a good time? What makes me happy? What is fun for me? And it mostly comes down to kicking back with your people, your pals and all the ridiculous pictures we take and the disgusting food we eat.

Did ya know there's a baoli near Connaught Place. It's actually on Kasturba Gandhi Marg and there's something quite awesome about it's ancient steps, it's dignified purpose, just it's very presence in that bustling mad city centre.

Swordfishtrombones

2009-06-25T18:13:00.002+05:30

Waited For Nothing

2009-06-19T23:19:00.002+05:30

I don't know what has happened to my reading speed. It has slowed down to the pace of a 3 seed file.

It now takes me WEEKS to finish a book, even one that I'm really enjoying, even non-difficult, non-literary ones; and since I've read a total of nil books on philosophy I don't even have that problem.

It's not like I'm doing much else, true I'm more 'physically active' than I've been in the last seven years combined but that shouldn't make too much of a difference non?

Anyway, REALLY liking 'Any Human Heart' by William Boyd, especially the cameo appearance by a variety of writers/artists most of whom I don't recognize - Hemingway, Woolf, Fitzgerald and Joyce all wandering around London and Paris pre-war as of now and it's only page one hundred and something. Man, what a time.

Only six years late but Shantaram has finally been read and also finally discussed someone who found as tedious as I did, but hey read the whole think just because of the sheer force of his back story. More than the book, I'd really like to chat with Roberts, have lots to say, not in the least that he needs to not straigthen his hair. (err..not even going to try to check the tense on that sentence)

When you put the radio on and it's mid-song, exactly at the part you love.

2009-06-18T20:14:00.003+05:30

Ideally I'd love to ride them horses and race through the woods with my dogs till my lungs burst. But we live in apartment blocks so fuck it I'm going to gym instead.

Those dumb punk kids will buy anything

2009-06-17T12:27:00.000+05:30

~There is such shelter in each other.

I think you would fit nicely. I can see it now, I can feel it. And I'm looking better than I ever did when I was a teenager.

~Then I sit still and think, really think of New York and I think I understood more about it from Ramin Bahrani's two films - Man Push Cart and Chop Shop than any other source. It's so firmly in our psyche, babies will recognise Jesus and the Empire Sate. I had a huge NY poster up in my room for many years, and looking through facebook albums of lucky folks who've been there there's one thing I certainly DON"T want to do - pose in front of the statue of liberty bla bla..That's why there's no longing anymore, I wonder if there ever was. Because I don't want to go there now, as a student, as I am now. I want to go there as someone successful, someone independent. Who can bum it out and live it up. It's an idea of myself really.

What do I want to do now? Well for starters get my Hard Rock Cafe, Delhi (yea baaby) t-shirt, Beijing and Barcelona better get used to a new favourite. I want to drive down the Malabar coast and up the Coromandel Coast - with thousand bucks in my pocket, a tank full of petrol, bandana, sunscreen and camera. But you can't steal photos, you have to win them over. When you're a stranger in their land, they're looking at you, you can't look at them.

I want to win a ticket to a Wimbledon match, I'll go and come back I swear, won't overstay by one hour even.

I want to live out cliches first before I reject them. I don't want to be around eyes that know me. Even a little bit. I want you to think I've been like this always, and even that is not saying much.

I love men of music and men of science. I love women of theatre, their noserings and smoke blacked purple lips. Their veneer, their lack of inhibition. I love men who pick up their baabies and hold them and look their kids in the eye. Who write computer codes and run the world from college dorms. I love a lady with a hat. That's just too damn ninja.

O-bla-di-bla-da

2009-04-16T16:50:00.000+05:30

Young fathers really do it for me. Especially if they wear aviators and drive Maruti 800s and wear blue jeans and black t-shirts with an ever so slight paunch. Always a little bored, a little late, a little credulous. Tempestuous affair here I come.

Yes, I do know time and other things have happened. STILL.

Need to be next to you

2009-04-11T18:42:00.003+05:30

~ The day I'll buy a string of pearls and the places I'll wear them and who I'll be then - who'll love me, what I'll be reading. I'll be wearing sarees, carrying folders and a bun maybe, heels definitely and have a student stalker who joins me for evening walks on campus.

~ Bling Balis, maybe diamonds, maybe with something written across them and I'll fit right in with the Honslow crowd - noon rave parties in basements et all.

~ And the time I start wearing hats, and loose vests, long threads across my neck, silver chains and carry a jute bag. Chappals and sand. Ocean breeze salty.

~Dungarees, preferably shorts with that dungaree flap, bandanas and shell earrings. Red beads for a red undervest and blue stones for a blue top. Chai just tastes better in the mountains.

I have too many pretty things, which I love.

The last thing on earth I want to do is go shopping for office wear.

The first 27 seconds of High and Dry

2009-04-10T21:51:00.005+05:30

There is this boy. Man even, he must be 26 atleast. The first - first memory I have of him is him crying. We had gone on a holiday to Munnar, this place somewhere is south India, very beautiful etc. etc. and we were travelling in our brown Maruti Van. The children (me, this fellow, his brother) were put into the dicki (sister was in Mums lap.) We stopped for a picnic meal and went into the jhadi to pee etc. When we came back there were leeches on the soles of our feet, those slimy mofos got in THROUGH our shoes. Everyone was freaking out, and I remember very clearly, these two howling at the back. I was fascinated by these black crawling creatures and picked them off their feet. That was one.

His name is Tiku, I don't even know his real name - we all had nicknames, Tiku, Mishi, Campu, Trinka, Inu, Manna, Timbo, Shashu, Minnie, Tinnie etc. Recently Campu got married and when the wedding card came, Dad was like - who is this Aashti? Oh Campu? Yes, her only.

We lived in the same colony several times, but the last time, he stayed below, and I don't know how exactly - meeting here and there, once in awhile, we became friends. Needless to say we bonded big time over the gods playing guitar. He said he'd burn a couple of CDs for me, and I never thought much about it, when one day at around 10p.m. - I was in my room? or in the loo? and he rang the bell and someone answered and he left RATM, The Joshua Tree, The Beatles, Radiohead and Nirvana Discography et all on the dining table. Till today, after several heartbreaking hard drive crashes with total and complete music collection loss, I still have these CDs and boot up from them.

There was also a girl, and I could see everything from above, our terrace. He had a little white Maruti 800, and he's reverse with a swerve and zoom off - now this was the time I didn't know how to drive and I was utterly jealous, of the freedom, the erotic pleasure to just get in and drive and drive, anywhere, everywhere. Especially when we had to go for these parties, with Mom and Dad and stay the whole boring time, but he’s come later, as late as possible, just before the food was being served, eat and leave. Anyway, one day he brought a girl back. She was wearing a full length skirt and had sort of wavy longish hair that was left open. The house was locked, he knew that I think, because he went straight back to the servant quarters to get the key from the maid. I saw them go in, come out, get into the car and drive off again. All this I'm remembering now, I didn't even know I had this memory. He’s not that kind of a guy though, damn sharif, really, not at all what you’re thinking, but obviously this registered in my subconscious.

Technically, his brother (Mishi) and I are supposed to be friends, because we're born the same year, gave our boards together and all that, but maybe it's just me but I do not like him. He's plump and thinks he's damn funny and is always, always on the phone/messaging a different girl.

When we went to their place for dinner once, he coolly put alcohol into all our soft drinks. I love how rum can be colourless.

Then we were at this Sangeet, Aashti's only, and it COMPLETELY slipped my mind that he'd be there. So I was lurking behind the bar, trying to stay as far away from the Mehndi person as possible, smiling in what I hope was a pleasant manner, because I wasn't trying to be stuck up honest! He sees me first, he's wearing a corduroy jacket and he does this turn and goes, Oh hello, and I'm like HI! I'm so glad to see you kinda hi, and he said you're looking very pretty, and I dunno, people don't say that very often, so I was like oh, er..ok, thankyou. It was nice, we chatted, I stayed for just like half an hour (because now I'm the ninja who can leave early huzzah!) but I had a good time, was smiley the whole way back.

We once had this conversation about New York. I know we say these cities names over and over again, dreaming, wishing, fantasizing, until they have no meaning anymore, but he was talking about it and saying “I’d really like to go there - from what I've read and heard, for me, it’d be the ultimate.” As ridiculous as this may sound, I really believe him. Because he's a doctor now, and really not the reading type, and I really want to know, what exactly makes him want to go there, and which is the first place he’d visit. I don’t have to think too hard, it’s obviously music related. That much I know.

I have this conviction, it's so real I can't explain it, that I'm walking down this NY street and bump into him and it’s getting to be late evening and we’re both kind of free and we go to this roc nrolla, nyc band playing hub kinda bar. Who knows where that night will take us. It just seems so perfect, I almost don't want to meet him before that.

I know it will happen. I just do. Maybe I've overdosed on the One Hundred Years of Solitude - butterflies following a man, children born with pigtails, and dead people traffic.

Maybe, but it will happen.

Dil pe maat le yaar

2009-04-01T20:41:00.002+05:30

Just like that. I know exactly who's sitting beside me also. Bliss.

A vampire or a victim, depends on who's around.

2009-03-29T14:13:00.003+05:30

What if all this is not just something that needs to be squashed but a symptom? I owe it to myself, to myself, and I say it again and again till it means nothing.

Pamuk -

In 1970, when I was eighteen, I—like all Turkish children with an interest in books—took to writing poetry. I was painting and studying architecture but the pleasure I took from both was fading away; by night I would smoke cigarettes and write poetry, which I hid from everyone.

Read the rest that causes such restlessness.

Apna Gabo Marquez -

Like many great writers attending college for a subject they despised, García Márquez found that he had absolutely no interest in his studies, and he became something of a consummate slacker. He began to skip classes and neglect both his studies and himself, electing to wander around Bogotá and ride the streetcars, reading poetry instead of law. He ate in cheap cafés, smoked cigarettes, and associated with all the usual suspects: literate socialists, starving artists, and budding journalists.

Makes me laugh.

Well, it's been ten years and maybe more since I first set eyes on you.

2009-03-25T21:06:00.004+05:30

Some days I love forums and databases and lists. The fact that I have one dress and unused heels. That people on different continents wish me happy birthday and I teach them how to pronounce one of my several names. Reading on pavements and writing poems in my car - I like that I am that person regardless of whether it amounts to anything or not. Impromptu movies with feet up in lazy boy armchairs - how decadently it pans out for me. I don’t know what PMS is but if it gives me uninterrupted sleep and the license to read in bed the whole day - hell, I’ll take it. I love that Heartbreaker makes me so happy, that blasting music in the morning while having coffee is now routine, albeit morning being 1 p.m. and to think that life will simply carry on this way.

I want to wake up to subterranean sounds, to dew and lawns and a river rumble in the distance. The sharpness, the crispness of a morning that a bungalow invites in. I want to be bored and well dressed and have suitors and bookshelves. I want Buddy to be able to have a bath in the back lawns and run and run till he has a stitch in his side. I want to have a people moving in and out kinda house. Where we sit at the dining table long after lunch with beer, in the afternoon sunshine, talking, dreaming, smoking, drifting - and we retire to write, or have sex, or work or whatever takes our fancy and let the evening take its course.

Sadness, Look how She dances.

2009-03-23T00:59:00.004+05:30

I know, I know - no blog post for awhile and then of all the painful things in the world, a poem. All I want from you though is a> Uff, I can't be bothered to read, skim, scroll, close window. b> Eyes swim but actually read and realise it's a weak, fuck all piece with no backbone.

Just one over the other would suffice, just so I know. Please. Because it has been so long I can't understand my words anymore. Also, any title suggestions?

They all talk of it, Borges, Kundera, my heart,
The yearning for other places; mountain monasteries, riversides cafes
It fills up the day, inventing companions, travels, homes, children, interviews.

Sadness is bookmarked all over;
In polite waiters and Late Night Radio
People in uniform waiting at the bus stop with their tiffins.

In a disappointing subject, oh how the prospectus lied.
This city doesn’t enchant anymore, doesn’t inspire poems or elegies.
I’m tired of its universities and tombs, its markets and roads, its police and parking lots.

Sadness is in evening garb bought during the day,
In changing rooms with loud sexual music, thick drapes and flimsy party wear
I don't want to corset my jelly belly, I’d pick pajamas and my audioslave t-shirt for you to fall in love with.

I want to retreat from life for awhile
Go back to perfect pictures of European streets in National Geographic
Longing can be sustained more than hotel towels and air sickness and disappointment.

Sadness is in matching earrings, in sleeveless sari blouses
Summer smells in the midst of synthetic woolens, AC vents in a crowded place
No one to notice everyday secrets, Shampoo smells, timetables made and Band-Aid cuts.

Restlessness; I keep asking obvious questions
They answer in baroque, in hard bound bookshelf glory
But its never the one I’m looking for, I’m back to square one o one.

Sadness is in protesters lined up, tired, excited; not unlike a picnic
Weathered flags and sweaty headbands, couldn’t quite catch what the banners read
I looked in the papers the next day, why all that energy, that production, all it said was Traffic Jam.

And I pass by, I pass by. Never knowing exactly what,
Only vague noises at the back of my head, What could be important enough?
How could I not be?

Lesson Learnt

2009-03-11T14:04:00.003+05:30

People, how do you protect your pictures? I knew this was going to happen..there was something completely absurd about those hundreds and thousands and lakhs of pictures out there on facebook and the ease with which I could copy anyone's picture onto my harddrive was a bit disturbing and still is.

Incident - album of postcards, not my pictures per se, but that Seriously Awesome series if you remember. Some cow in my class has her status update as her blogpost, so I clicked on it and imagine my surpirse, when there were MY pictures, up there. To be fair, she didn't say she's taken them, it was about how she wants a camera and wants to take pictures like that(would be smug if I wasn't so cheesed off.) Fair enough, but there was absolutey no link back to my page, or creditaion to me and it hit me somehwere in my gut and I went do I even have a right over those pictures anymore? What good is 'owning' them if they'vwe been saved several times over and passed off as other people's own? Ofcourse I called her and told her to take them down ASAP but it's besides the point no?

Let me give my my photo history, as a kid, growing up right through my teenage years I used to absolutely hate, detest, abhor bieng photographed. Maybe I was shy or didn't photograph well or had weight issues or whatever, but most of the snaps are of half my face, my hands covering my face and other such cranky poses. Then round about the time I turned 17 we got a digital camera, and since then, I've been chronicling - family shindigs and the rest, and off late my amateur photography has taken off, in the sense that there are albums and albums or blurry pictures of puddles and birds etc..you get the idea?

Now the thing is, over the past year or so I've been having quite a ball. Just generally, I'm happy wiith who I am and my day to day etc and I think that has a big deal to do with my willingness to pose for snaps now. It really is true the whole, "feel good inside look better on the outside." Even then, it's mostly me taking pictures of everyone else, and I collect them and every couple of months I'll put up an album of say 40 pictures with maybe 2-3 of me.

But now I'm pissed off. It's a primordial thing, to protect oneself, hence I relish the anonymity of the blog. yet, how do I protect the content on this too? On one level, I tell myself not to be so self important, no one's going to borther, but evidently that's doesn't happen not because I'm super interesting but because people are bored and have WAY to much time to spend online, myself included. Pictures DO speak a thousand words, and I've been quietly deleting those albums barring a few.

Am I paranoid? I think not. Becasue I never really took to facebook anyway. It was always a voyeur thing, and only very occassionally a keep-in-touch thing which I'm not that hung over anyway because the people I want to be in touch with I am.

So creative commons I get, but what difference does putting that c on the corner make?The damage would already be done right?

Hey kids, do you like Violence?

2009-02-24T18:32:00.004+05:30

Woman Buying Bindis (above) and Pail of Water (below)

Humayuns Tomb, the ever eternal

Isa Khan's Tomb

Little low on the blog posts right now, just been sporadic notebook entries ("Remember what happened today." which makes me go ??!!), it has been awesome, awesome weather and I even love driving again; with the window down and my own music and an endless supply of chewing gum in the car.

Above are a couple of photos, I lust to know what you think.

Paper Planes

2009-02-10T18:16:00.004+05:30

Hello children, as I type this I stare out into a vast expanse of poppy fields with the sun blazing a goodbye in the twilight sky. Nah, it's just a park, a very staid one that one. We have been shifting, shifting, moving, moving, again, again, oh so overrated. this is new place is a bunch of apartment blocks, and I is on the sixth floor. The house is much, smaller than the earlier one but it's closer to my grandparents and now as I'm having chicken sandwiches and cake (the leftovers of Nani's kitty) I think it is absolutely in the affirmative worth the move.

So I have been very nirvana and zen like without the internet for almost a week. It felt quite good actually. First couple of days I was completely knocked out with moving boxes around, and for the rest I even opened my course books - miracles never cease! I feel most accomplished with my adam skills though, because with the the phone, I changed subcription and mailing adresses, got the worldspace and internet guy over and basically did all the chasing and running around by.my.self. - but let me tell you wifi is so overrated, and it eats into your speed; it's not that you get the same speed on all the computers, it's the total split up between the comps - gah! and since I still have a desktop it makes no difference to me whatsoever, except maybe the connection is slower on the whole.

Also, I have to tell you about a very momentous discovery in my life called tandoori moms - ohhohoho, why have a momo when you can have a tandoori momo? It's freaking brilliant dude! They serve it with green chutney and it looks like chicken tikka - but it's not! it's a momo that's been put in th tandoor and has that fake red colour thing on it, and it tastes like both - only better! (tpp many exclamations but forgive) Place is QDs, tacky, cheap, very Kamla Nagar - try it, you MUST.

More later. Have SO many blog drafts.

I was gonna take pictures and show you my room..if I could just find the damn camera now..

That's my doggie

2009-01-24T22:11:00.001+05:30

Continuing with the series..

2009-01-23T20:32:00.000+05:30

Excuse me, I need to see a man about a horse.

2009-01-22T22:57:00.004+05:30

Boys and the girls, ladies and my gentleman, I’ve been trying to cut the chord since october, wanting to shut down this little corner of the internet down, sayonara blog buddies etc. I want to withdraw the pieces of my life from the world. Do you get those feelings too? I want to delete my facebook account, and my email id, I want to fall out of touch with people. I don't give a fuck how many pictures you can take holding the camera out with your arm, it doesn’t make me jealous, or envious, I just. don't care, and I don't want it to be an option, I want out. I hate people knowing things about me. But me? I want to know everything about them. I ask the most personal, the most intrusive questions, I want to know everything that's not my business. Point in case, when I know two people are dating, I go read their wall-to-wall.

Since I can't think of much to write in way of a blog post, going to give you some of the what’s spinning right now type of things -

I have a new obsession, a very bourgeoisie one, of cans. I love them, especially the thumbs up, nescafe and other weird juice ones, which have Air/Water listed as one of their ingredients. And straws. Constant sippage.

I is listening to When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold - Atmosphere, I is rock as true as the rock rolls, but experimenting none the less, little by little, on recommendations mostly. We are moving house again, and yet again my dusty cassette collection has no home, being shuffled from my car to the store room, and I decided today that I’m never going to give it up. Too many teenage type memories. I gave away all my MAD magazines the last time we moved and that shite didn't go down with me. It really depends on what you want in your home, and maybe flimsy black reel is my vinyl.

Been watching Californication. First I loved it, then I hated it - because

it was nowhere as smart as they made it out to be,
way to many titties on display,
increasingly fanciful, ladies just present themselves to Hank boy and he never seeks any of em out
and making writing out to be so glamourous and shite, all bullshit

It is misogynistic, and the fact that David Duchonvy is in therapy for Sex Addiction makes all the very graphic sex on the show seem a bit more perverse than it would normally, and the jokes are on the women, like entourage (which is unwatchable now) and no man who calls himself a gentleman is one, that should give you a clue but the cast is way too damn good, and they have some insane dialogue inbetween that rockstar fluff.

I love how they talk, like add 'the' before everyone’s name, and ‘itude’ where it doesn't belong..

Anywho, I'm enjoying my post exam couple of days of freedom, though I'm doing pretty much the same shite.

Reading On Beauty - Zadie Smith, long long time coming..and I was honestly surprised by the beginning, was expecting something much much more. Just 100 pages in though, and the author picture is soo hauntingly beautiful and sad and v neck black top with collar bones, what’s not to love? Don't stay tuned, I never follow up.

And now I is off to watch that Benjamin Button bonanza, please go watch Slumdog in a theatre and FORM YOUR OWN OPINION. That will help you get through the fucking press machine flipping out and as always totally losing it’s head.

Word,
That's all for tonight.

Pining in a moment of weakness

2009-01-07T15:46:00.001+05:30

Archive Mood

2009-01-06T21:06:00.003+05:30

Hello children, how goes.

See I is in a benevolent, filled with goodness mood today, maybe it's the latent holiday spirit kicking in; am technically on prep leave, but these are the best days honestly, it's when everything is heightened and you're on your own, on your own, yet you're not.

I love waking up late morning, mid afternoon even, and having late lunch with coffee and opening up my windows and letting the cold still air enter. read the papers(subscribe to 3 plus 2 online - it's awesome, and you begin to recognise good jounalism and the bullshit paid for news for the other stuff), baked some cookies(the first time in this house, and we couldn't find those blender things, the curly ones? which you plug into the blender..so they had sugar grains clearly sticking out, almost like they were diseased or something but taste yummilicious) Then I chatted with twin while her date kept her waiting. Right now I have started reading so many books at the same time it is really getting too much, plus based on my mood I want to re-read, right now it's The God of Small Things though this particular cover-to-cover reread might just be the last, because it's been growing in me, and I for one can't wait for more fiction from this extraordinary writer.

I also have this really pretty diary/notebook. Usually I use only spiral bound ones, with paper size A5, but this is a nice hard bound nightingale one, with gold tinting, and I have reynold pens in 5 colours - green, red, blue, black and pink, and somehow writing with ball pen makes it seem more copious (size of content wise) when it really isn't. I've already reached the february part.

Also, I dont' know what it is, but something's in the air, afternoon chats at the dining table, warm coffee, clean nice smelling sweaters, swishy hair and pretty eyes, make me feel like anything's possible in the world, and all those dreams will come true and it'll all. work. out.

For example, I want to listen to Under Pressure (Queen feat. Bowie version) as opposed Somebody to Love, both capture a mood don't you think?

Something New

2009-01-05T22:18:00.003+05:30

This is a little side project I've been working, and I shall attempt to put a picture up once every 3-4 days; feedback will be most appreciated, especially if it makes you go..er..what's it supposed to be? etc etc.

Please do let me know if I'll be starving to death.

Exhibit#1

Don't be alarmed.

PS - the tag is mildly ironic. er..or not.

Tangerine, I was her love, she was my queen

2009-01-02T23:10:00.005+05:30

EDIT:: spoilt brat alert, all is back to peachy. no harm, no foul. *grins sheepishly*

It's days like this, that bring up all the fuckedupness in me, I forget, I've forgotten actually how shitty life was, how low I can sink, how horrible I let my days get, and its all coming back to me tonight. It's the kind of day when nothing works. Forget hitting the books and getting some studying done, its ok to have slacker days, but I'm reading The Joke and it's blowing my mind because I love Kundera but I can't even do that properly, the red nail polish on my fingers is distracting, I'm not used to wearing any kind of nail paint. I fucking hate getting up post noon, I like my mornings, but I just can not sleep at night, why why why. It's a day when you feels fat and though your hair is clean its clingy and looks like its sticking to your head about to fall off any minute. It's the day when all the fucking light bulb fuse simultaneously - of the loo, the bedroom and the bedside lamp. And laziness and crankiness. and guilt, because I canceled plans with my grandparents, and I feel horrible and want to take it back and probably will. and I'm tired of this home and not being sure and being nineteen and stuck, and I have a plan, I have a plan but I want to fuck that too tonight. I want to talk to someone, share and it can't work somehow, it's years of bad karma, of appearing offline and saying brb and gtg when I don't have to go anywhere, no one is online, no one will chat.

And even chocolate isn't helping. My fucking teeth and screwed, I can't even chew gum, it all blows up simultaneously. I got myself some chips and coke and was watching Milk in the afternoon, but even that didn't cheer me up. My privilege is pissing me off, I don't even have a real problem.

Excuse me it's just that kind of day.

Usually I love the literary world, last night, I was jumping from one article to another, I couldn't get enough of Saligner 90th birthday tributes, and Joyce Maynard who he lived with but who now lives in Guatemala, and Susan Sontag and so on and so forth, and that world draws me in, and I love reading smart critiques and i love xkcd and a asofterworld, and there's not enough time and the world is so big and expanding and then today happens and while we're at it fuck Israel.

so what do I want? right this moment, as exactly who I am, if alladin appeared, surprise surprise, grant you your wish - right here right now:

1. To go to Sundance film festival - freeze, watch as many (new) films possible, blog about it, wear uggs, the whole shindig.

2. Book myself on the next flight to London and live with my sister, while she goes off to work, walk around, go to all the free places/museums and then go out drinking with her at night.

3. How nice it would be, if I could go just 24 hours, just a day without having to talk to my parents, give them tabs on where I am, what I'm doing, to go out into the city, wander, drive around, do what I want and not be responsible for anyone except myself and not have to account for anything or talk to anyone I don't want to. (will I go to hell for this?)

4. Was at the dentists a couple of days back and he gave me two shots of anesthesia, my lips were numb for hours, weird and wobbly and I was wondering what it would be like to kiss someone with those lips, would've liked to try it out.

You never returned that call

2008-12-25T12:13:00.001+05:30

Hello internet people, if there's anyone left that is. Sorry - sorry about being incognito, and even though end of the year cheeriness is nudging me to promise regular posts, am not going to and then might end up actually. But I do come in peace and as an added incentive, have a post. (DUH)

So, Happy Boxing Day : ) Hmm..reminds of me Adrian Mole somehow. So Christmas day come and gone, everyone wearing Santa hats and feeling jolly or something like that. What did I do? Well, bought a cactus from my (ex) school carnival, that's a given, I buy it every year, and it dies before june the next year - though this time I inspected them from below and realised that half of them were burnt/dying already - so felt much better about my plant parenting skills, and hope this one lives as long as me, its quite a fat little bugger. What else? Usually this movie called Mixed Nuts comes on zstudio, (when it used to be called z something else, the exact nomenclature is eluding me right now), Steve Martin, Rita Wilson - madness, hilarious, I used to love, love it, but it no came this year :( and I resisited the urge to download Love Actually, that is going a bit overboard. Ate only junk food all day and wore my candy earrings; also cousin bro came over and for some reason we were 'studying' together (and breakdancing among other things, oh you do not want that visual in your head). Now see, life is definitely better when we're together (credit: Jack Johnson), but how do you get anything done? For example I cannot read, study, write(ha) or watch movies when other people are around - and that is pretty much 90% of my life - eternal paradox yes?

Anyway, saw this movie called The Wackness and just for Ben Kingsley I'd watch it again, about rap/hip-hop in the 90s etc etc, some memorable lines-

(Girl when bonding with the guy, MAJOR moment in the film) - "Dude, I look at the dopeness of things, and you..you look at the wackness."

(Boy confessing love to girl and getting really mad because not being reciprocated) "I love you, I'm not going to lie, It makes me wanna listen to Boys to Men."

Say no more? Got ya (oh but girl is Leah from Juno, so thoda sa immunity she gets)

Speaking of Ben Kingsley, also saw Elegy, which has him and Penelope Cruz, just a heads up boys, several nude shots of her, and extremely good print available online. Topically is so beentheredonethat - old professor, young student, imagine the rest. Thematically, was supposed to be different, voice overs, steady revelation of depth of characters etc. and twist in the end, because elegy right? so mean someone dies - but not who you think it is (wags finger) Though throught the film I just couldn't get over how lovely Penelope was looking, simply gorgeous by any standards, not enough to make me wanna switch sides but as a woman you can go like wow, you are indeed a good specimen, aand..that reminds me of the song - best of you by the foo fighters.

You know readers, I am getting the best of one person, two infact. For closure, V was here and we met up, at his place, and we exchanged movies, and weird book things and it was most wonderful, except after the buzz and elation, I felt empty, because it's over, well and truly and finally, and it's no fun not having someone to like. You know how when you get up in a start in the middle of the night, and you need a thought, a generally pleasant thought to focus on to go back to sleep..well, that lot is vacant now. Oh well, atleast I got the best of him for awhile.

Suppose that makes me "emotionally available" now..bwahahaha.

Stars Hollow Blues

2008-11-21T16:53:00.004+05:30

Hello world,

Today is cold day - I decided to not wake up and go to college, an excellent idea as these always turn out to be inspite of the fact that I'd be missing double lectures bla bla - there's also the little thing called winter dressing, see when you leave your home early in the morning it's all cold and windy and you want to wear everything possible; then in the metro, which is centrally heated (and crowded) it gets warm and your sweater begins pricking your back, but by the time you reach university its cold again, and the rickshaw ride is freezing. As the day wears on it gets warmer till you have to take off atleast one layer and once your home, it's cold again but one can wear any old thing. So basically it's a lot of planning and today I wans't upto it, you know I'm kidding when I say things like this right?

So I've been reading Everything is Illuminated, which is interesting to say the least, and writing technique wise brilliant, but even though I'm reading it, not really enjoying it, especially since this guy's a prodigy and every single critic says he's not overrated. I liked his second book better, which moved me tremendously.

Also read Breakfast at Tiffany's which by the waw I had no idea was a novella by Truman Capote, yes of Capote the movie fame. Now that was a fun book, oddly suspenseful, and she (Holly Golightly, the belle of NY) mentions, that Nehru is her type of man. (!!!)

Felt like making brownies today, and went all enthu and all to pull out the cocoa and brown sugar etc, but there was noMaida, which was fine because to be homnest I didn't really feel like baking, I just missed it.

Instead I am eating parle g biscuits which are as good.

More later, ponchos aren't condusive to typing.

Another Chapter in the book of Cell phone Drafts.

2008-11-13T16:02:00.000+05:30

(This is not writing, it’s learning how to write but mostly I just want to tell you these things)

To go above and beyond what he could ever expect, to make a grand gesture, to dramatise the surroundings, to make a point of it. The gravity of the thought stayed with her, and excited her so much that she stopped her work and sat down to explore its depth, Where would she stay? How would be look? What would she say? When will he ask her? and so on. It takes off then, this galloping, all encompassing, deliriously colourful and hopeful world, it fills up her day, and when she pauses to trace back the cause of this vague contentedness, it’s only too obvious. Dreams tend to be that way. Cause she has already done so much and had been so many people, how’s she ever going to top it? The feeling that nothing will be the same again, in a lucky, positive flourish that changes the realities of existence, the practicalities of a routine, and builds in its place a fondness, a nostalgia for what is lost.

On a unimaginable scale, that’ll require numbers not yet discovered to tabulate it, lens powerful enough to capture it lie yet undiscovered, hidden in chemical codes of silver evaporating, aluminium, bromide and we haven’t made it just yet - a canvas big enough, to hold that pulsating growing hideous mass of thoughts continuously extracted that make up the parallel worlds in our heads.

If only things were that easy, to break them up into seasons, into terms and when one is desperate before exams, sick with worry, with guilt and self loathing, our writers disappoint us, glossing over, pushing all that tension into one flippant sentence. For as long as I can remember I’ve been reading novel after novel before the most crucial, supposedly paramount, exams of my life. I want long in-depth discourses into this distraction, this preoccupation, this inability to focus, yet they all seem to have just a page or two on it, I want to read a whole book about just the last twenty four hours before a test, so that I can viscously, sickeningly, put my teeth into in, and hold on desperately while my own deadline approaches closer.

As for those people that authors thank on the first and last pages of their books - my heart wells up with jealousy; possessiveness creeps in as the tale gets going, I want to be there, by his side, for him to consider me beautiful, to inspire the writing, the greatness, the most wonderful literary-ness, which so many have rediscovered time and again, and it forms an exclusiveness which is far from elite, it is the very pulse of our temples, of our language, or the vast filing cabinets in our heads. To be there while she writes, talking things out, dreaming things up, sorting out erased memories and engineered ones; and it overtakes me, this urge to know them, to be near them, and I think, how can they not know? How can they not feel this power, that seems to have consumed every facility of my being? And I can’t bear it anymore.

If the voice is not given any air, no gentle flap to encourage the cinder, it dies suffocating on its insecurity, on its unsteady beginnings, and I find myself utterly unable to write. Let that never happen, let there always be an avalanche of words - however unworthy, however cringe worthy, and may I never settle, never fully understand, but always try and try and try. If only you spare five minutes, to make a genuine recommendation, or a heartfelt critique, dismiss with style my inaptitude, with significance; I could travel far, very far. For the people I want most to be read by, I can’t let them, because they’re all over these pages. It would come glaring into light how much under my skin they are, exposing the very stitches that hold together my tacky faux velvet costume dress, and it would be a betrayal of sorts, but a wonderful coming out as well, and I wish nothing more, little darling, sugar chicken, blue honey bun for you to have your eyes on me, right now, quite like this.

Like the drummer in Spinal Tap

2008-11-09T17:17:00.004+05:30

Jeez, it has only been, well 9 days, and not to mention I is a full time student and do-nothinger, and blogging can really get in the way of that. (HAHAHA)

Let's see major development in my life; I am slowly weaning off my two mugs of bournvita a day. See pehle, there was simply no point waking up in the morning if I didn't have the milk, because well, it awakens one, just like a bath..and usually I'd have an afternoon nap and then I'd need milk again the evening to wake me up. For those time periods when we were shifting and between houses and there was no one to dutifully give me my milk, I had to make it myself, but somehow, it would always turn out terrible with fat spots dancing in it in quite a disgusting way. I haven't always had this love affair with my milk, believe me. Plenty of plants have flourished because of the wonderful calcium supplements that were surreptiously poured into it. These days ofcourse Buddy benefits. Anyway I have started having either coffee or tea in the evning, and it is helping me tremondously in the sense that I seem to be less sleepy. (ofcourse this is not including the two cups of chai in college, whole different story)

My internet speed, which would be a good graph of my happiness index, have returned to normal. This has left me with mixed feelings as there are no more 300kbps freak streaks with movies (in the plural) getting downloaded within hours. Blissful times they were, yet they could just as quickly slow down to a crawl, and I would sit despondently wacthing it go from 0.2, 0.3, 5.6! 3.2, 2.1 (oh come on buck up) 0.3, 0.1, your movie will take 5 years now, meh.

So I is having to go furniture shopping now for bedside tables. My sister and me have been at each others throats because apparently the light doesn't let her sleep at night and we have rediscovered an ingenious thing called the bedside lamp, so bedside tables first. Ofcourse since this was MY problem I have to go pick them and cart them over..makes perfect sense.

One delightful thing that I found in the Duty Shop were 200 packs of doublemint and I have been making a strand of its wrappers while watching movies. Remember Sandra Bullock in the drug rehab movie, 28 days? Just like that yea, and it is MOST fun, it flips out prettily in my hand. However, my urge to interwine the wrappers is faster than my desire to chew gum (more of a polo person) so there are a lot of inner silvery wrapper, shady looking strips lying around..

and now you wonder why you ask for a blog post.

No Email Today!

2008-11-01T18:05:00.004+05:30

Why is it that I can never be on time? I will sit and watch the clock ticking but I simply cannot keep a date. Like for example, today I woke up after a pretty late night and was kinda sleepy but not really at around 9. Called up to fix up to meet with my cousin at 10:30 so I had a good hour and a half, but something in my brain doesn't register this, and I act like I have two hours, minus of geting ready and getting there. So I flipped through Micro a bit, because early morning study time - best time but alas that wasn't to be. Had left the internet on all night so three movies had got downloaded (The Visitor, Manufactured Landscapes and The Wind that Shakes the Barley) none of which I was burning to see so put it off to give the computer a little break, that hardworking fellow. I flip through the TIME, which must be pounced upon before Buddy snatches it, and leisurely dilly dally over what I don't know..and then I go for my bath at 10:30 sheesh.

See, I hate going out, I just don't know what to do/wear. The thing is that my friend, a close one, I don't have too many (friends), so the ones I have I care about a lot and are pretty close too, is having this Hallooween/Birthday party tonight and usually I would say no without thinking, but anyway, have decided to go and I must go get dressed. The thing is that her friends are all gonna be dressed up as thosee bunny-sexy haloween types you know, and that is just. not. me. Hopefully I won't be a total klutz. And who the eff started hallowee

But good news folks, I have purachsed a BRAND NEW EXTERNAL HARD DISK! My life is joyous again, because computer was really cramming up and it makes no sense putting tv shows on cds not to mention the pain and hard work it is.

Indeed yes, and things at college are pretty chill, our professors have been striking consistently, and that gives rise to many free lectures!

Riveting, but more later.

Badshaah ke liye badshaah hi

2008-10-29T21:19:00.000+05:30

I think everyone should have someone they can get Franny and Zooey for, the implication being that Catcher in the Rye was read, and knowing that the former is so. much. better.

And when it's cold and there's mufflers as an extension of your hair and five colours for your five cold fingers, and ipod shuffles to 'With or Without You' there should be someone who instantly climbs into your head..there's always that one person.

Don't you think?

Excuse me

2008-10-26T13:07:00.001+05:30

Talking of guilty pleasures amdp, here is mine -

www.dlisted.com

Don't tell me what you think.

Four that wanna hold me, two that wanna stone me, one says she's a friend of mine

2008-10-26T12:23:00.003+05:30

Hello there folks, I gotta confess that this regular blogger thing is really not for me, I toyed with the idea of abandoning wilderness years but decided against it, because well, it's too much work transferring everything. Also, blogger is a real fuck up, I've been trying to sign in for something like a month now and honestly this whole anonymous thing is getting to be a pain because I have to sign out of my regular id and then re sign in etc. (what? it is work..I heard that!) Anyway, life is peachy and do you know why? Because I was off looking the sphinx in the eye! Yes, can you believe it, this month I travelled to two fabulous countries, Egypt(of the pyraminds fame) and Turkey(full of evil eyes) I have many things to say, but I've been saying them and saying them and now I'm kaput, but I shall show you some pictures for now, and more updates on life and things later. My photography was non existent, because everything was so new and so rush-rush, they are amateur pictures at the best, but just give you'll an idea.

Oh - yesterday the most mind crushing thing happened, I was dragged to see Karz, yes THAT one with Himesh whoever, and it was all haahaaheehee sit in front with rickshawwallahs and hoot and make utter nuisances of ourselves, but all that got exhausted in five minutes, and I swear a part of my brain and eyesight is dead forever.

And strangely utorrent is acting up. Anyone else having this problem? All downloads have crawled down to a non existent speed. Incidentally, saw a couple of good films - there's young@heart, which is the only film/documentary that made me cry, like real fat tears(Kuch Kuch Hota Hain doesn't count) See if you can catch it, camera crew covers and old persons choir, and the whole old age is second childhood kicks in.

And oh! Russell Peters is coming to Delhi. Finally! Not that I'm a particularly big fan of his or anything, but for this first time someone is actually stopping at Delhi and not Bangalore, and the tickets were most overpriced but then think its ok, so we are going! Excitement.

Edit - !@$##$ blogger and my internet connection, will upload pictures asap..on another post.

Cause I'm too lazy to do a real post

2008-10-01T09:14:00.001+05:30

The Love Tag

The Rules:People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by them.People who have been tagged must Tag at least 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Get it? Ok then...

If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

Lover, giggles..

If you could have a dream come true, what would it be?

Have money to travel for schizz, live in other countries, be completely different people, look at stars till I can't see them, walk barefeet on grass the whole day, have a house full of pets and noise and a quiet room, and maybe be visited by someone(V), and I can talk and confess everything.

Will you fall in love with your best friend?

She's a girl dude, and with guy best friend? No because we'd be beyond that. With a friend maybe..

Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?

Blessed I dunno, and I've done the first(sorta) and it works fine for me, till now it has only made me uncontrollably happy and has infinte power over how my day's gonna turn out.

How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?

If things don't happen fast they don't happen at all.

If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?

Sit on a fence with my ipod.

If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?

Social..shakes head.

What takes you down the fastest?

Being nice when you don't have to be, remembering stuff that a person says they've liked/seen/etc.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

As a successful struggling writer.

What’s your fear?

Not going beyond talk.

What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

Talented, generally optimistic, (seemingly) happy-go-lucky and apparently someone who doesn't take a lotta offs!

Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?

Married and rich but not too rich.

If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?

Never gonna happen.

Would you give all in a relationship?

No, cause they come and go, but in the end it's just me and my monk.

People you want to tag: anyone who's up for it. amdp? thantos? rohan?

My State of Mind

2008-09-30T21:12:00.002+05:30

If these days were to be a person, they'd be a lady; with blow dried combed back hair whose been married awhile, but not that long. She still meets old acquaintances who'll say, What's been happening(with you?) and she'll say oh I got married early last year. And there's a secret growing inside her, a secret with feet and a tummy and no one knows and she's bursting to tell him when he gets back.

Or if I was to be a day, I'd be a late thursday afternoon, with water droplets drying off me as an indulgent sun watches over my water splashing. And the icecream cone I'll have before I pick up my things and head into the evening.

And he'd be a saturday dawn, before the twilight rays strike and he crawls into bed, after a night spent devouring a book, such as Prep, with a mug of the last cold dregs of coffee beside him and a crumpled cigarette packet.

A Country Bar Named Johnny B Goode

2008-09-28T21:07:00.002+05:30

Places, Food and Books

Lame title aside, some books have a very strong sense of place or food (since it's me we're talking about) associated with them and will forever be locked with each other in ones memory.

All my Enid Blyton memories are very strong, because when I read them I was a) Hugely unpopular in school, I had NO friends, and I mean none, like I used to roam around alone during break and everything and b) We lived in this massive old bungalow with like miles of wilderness on either side (ok not miles but really dense undergrowth type things, and people used to spot snakes on an hourly basis.) All those Fatty mysteries were so real because we had a garage/shed kinda thing just like in the book and I had very strong visuals for the place. This is the same time I used to play Xena with colony friends and set out with laser killer pieces of stick and fight demons and witches that lived around our house.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I got a day before my chemistry exam in the 7th, think mum or someone had just returned from Delhi and had got that book and a big box of melted choclates for me. Needless to say the book was devoured and I was eating that stciky choclate alongside and you can bet I was too lazy to go wash my icky fingers before turning a page and so my copy was brown finger marks all over, which makes me love it even more.

I remember reading A Suitable Boy after the second term exams in the 10th which I had worked super hard for and before the preboards (which I totally blew.) The parts when Pran is falling for Saeeda Bai and he's hanging around her place is very descriptive and well written. She entertains all these people and they have Shammi kababs and hookahs and there's always music and a singing (rather annoying) parrot remember? So I was reading this part and I was getting major cravings for kababs. As luck would have it, we'd had a big party in our house and there were these kababs in the fridge and omg its bliss when you're reading about something and your mouth is watering and you can satisfy it instantly! Zap it in the microwave and get back into bed..and no one bothers you because you can lock your door and say you're 'studying.' Good times I tell you.

English, August is one of my all time favourite books, I read it when we were living in a place so so like Madna it freaked me out a bit, and I got everything he was sayng. I was Agastya man, ofcourse I wasn't stoning back then, it was simple sitting on the fence and liking a book sorta thing.

Oh and for Wodehouse there was this wonderful obscure Gymkhana in some shanty town where them Britsh Bozos used to once live, and the loo/Ladies rest room was HUGE, I mean like the size of a persons house with sofas and reclining chairs, and dim yellow bulbs and mottled mirrors and I loved it. Discovered it really late, when it was about time to leave but I pictured the whole English thing. (argh, we've been studying colonialism and when we take notes instead of writing the British I write BB - British Bastards, oh the latent anger)

Delhi by Khushwant Singh was another book that had a huge impact on me but more than that people remember me reading it. It was the beginning of 11th, when the board results weren't out and everyone's sorta strung out, didn't really feel like studying etc, and our temporary classroom was in some basement type part of the school and I'd sit at the back and read this book, and I didn't really know anyone in my new class expect Puri who ofcourse would be off all over bunking, making new friends, doing his imitations which I'd seen a gazillion times before, and I remember Yadu coming over, reading the blurb and laughing his ass off, because it said, 'back from his whoring days' and guys can never stop finding stuff like that funny. When he sees me today, he usually mentions that book, still reading books about whores? he'll say and I'll laugh like it's really funny because it's sweet no?

Though I don't like to admit it, I've also read all the Shopaholic books(Fly take a bow) and this was the summer before college started and all of a sudden you have to go shopping for a whole bunch of new clothes, and you really need them right, no more uniform to put on sleepily every day. So I would just buy without thinking, oh heady days and then when I became a poor college student who refused to spend more than 15 bucks on lunch I was reading Shopaholic and Sister which had her super frugal sister who hates shopping and kept saving up or was broke and she was totally in sync with my new self!

Zorba the Greek is ofcourse for my fututre travels which I've mentioned earlier in this post.

PS - Is anyone else television blissed as well? New seasons of The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Entourage AND Greys Anatomy. Sigh, life can hardly get better..

Little Boxes on the Hillside

2008-09-11T18:04:00.004+05:30

Sometimes it is possible to have a perfect half an hour. Let's begin with last thursday, so I wake up in the morning and there's a message from Kasha saying that oh, by the way, V is going to be in college today which made me smile instantly and I got ready singing and was generally cheerful - the singing at traffic lights kind. The thing is that even if it's all over on your side, seeing a person again and just chatting was fun and I REALLY didn't want to leave and go back but everyone was busy with some official sounding thing they had to, so with much reluctance I did. Random guy asks for a lift and on the way back he fiddles with my ipod and becomes DJ in the car. See, music is just a preference, you don't become cool or not because of what you listen to. And if someone likes the same stuff then it's a oh - universe conspiring kinda moment. There were a lot of ohmygod I can't believe you have this song, and oh I LOVE this one..and that's it, it doesn't have to be anything more (between you and him). It can if you want it to ofcourse, but I dunno, indie is really not my thing, Arcade Fire, DCC, Postal Service etc all ok, but in small doses..like I could never listen to a Damein Rice album. Delicate itself is pushing it.

Friday I said bye thee well to Eco Madonna who's off to U Chicago. He's the only person who I know in real life who actually reads this junk blog and gets back to me and that's sweet and he's promised to blog more, so I'm gonna hound him. (if you're reading this Roghan, hope you've landed fine and things are good!)

Weekend had Kasha (unexpectedly) spending the night. I knew like 2 hours before she actually landed up and it was much fun. Cheered me up a huge deal, as in lookie people I have a friend, and that's a big deal for me, cause I've mostly been a fence sitter as far as the whole have-a-bunch-of-friends thing goes.

Sunday for the first time in my adult(haha) life I had a nice chat with my Mum, it wasn't related to the future or what I should focus on etc etc. I was actually telling her about books I like and what kind I like and which people I like and how I talk to them about different things etc etc...and after a while she gets this vacant expression and I said, 'Am I boring you?' and she said 'No, you're surprising me.'

Monday I acted like a ladila lady who lunches. Woke up 12ish and met up with Fly. We had awesome cheap food though it felt strangely like a date, because I picked her up from college, we went, ate, and I dropped her back and we sat in the car talking for awhile. She gives the best answers to watsup...she looks thoughtfully into the distance with finger on chin and says..hang on wait, something must've happened, wait it'll come to me. (heehee - not funny? no? sorry)

THen, I fretted over a test whihc I studies for. I swear to god tests bring out the absolute worst in me, I really don't minbd studying but as soon as there's a test looming in the future I switch off and that fucking sucks because I end up bombing them. Season finale of weeds, Quinn is back - killer episode.

And today, for a change we hung out in my side of town which is oddly reassuring, and it's a market I've been tens and thousands of times before with Mum and Dad but with phrands we ate at this place I didn't even know existed, and had perfectly yummy Mughalai (not Panju) cheap food. Jeez priorities I tell you..

Argh, this whole post has been about recounting stuff I've been doing and if you made it through the snore fest, the lack of proper posts in blamed on the rain.

Whatever Sam Beam is mumbling

2008-09-08T19:41:00.005+05:30

The thing is, I'm in a very whatever~Brandi Carlile(Fall Apart Again)~Iron and Wine(The Trapeze Swinger) mood. No no don't get alarmed just yet, this is what happens when you schedule every hour of your life and everything's on track - you're studying, swimming, reading, watching the US Open(yaay) etc. and then one afternoon you oversleep and your body doesn't feel like yours anymore - it's being tired and moody and doesn't want to work, so you say ok, just waste your time on the internet instead.

Have several half written blogposts lying in drafts, but just not been upto it, it's a moon thing yea?

Bookwise, finished My Secret History by Paul Theroux(did I mention this before?) which was so wonderfully good and made writing seem so easy that I'm thinking about it more and more somehow. His whole life has been to take the next train out, travel, sleep with women and write about it. That's the dream and it IS that easy. People might think I'm all focused and stuff, but anyone who REALLY knows me, knows that it's simply not true...and it's mostly a good thing.

Also (finally) reading Midnights Children which is till now everything it's het up to be. Since it's the only book he wrote without being super famous, the tone and language is much less silvery/flowery and more conversational. It's so cleverly ironic in bits, not a laugh out loud kinda thing, more like smirking through entire passages. Does this happen to you too that if you're reading a book and sorta doze off after it, your dreams end up being about the characters, and somehow the story continues in this weird way in your head and you wake up and feel - Oh, that was strange and can't read for awhile because so much has happened in your dream? I've written so many Estha-Rahel stories this way, it's not funny.

Also went to Majnu Ka Tilla today, an impromptu thing with Kasha and two people I dearly like. Omg, the beef and pork they put away was a bit scary. But you know I felt I was in a hill station, minus the heat ofcourse. It was all enclosed and on undulating (dulating?) land with those Mcleodganj bead bracelet type things, and usually Tibetans have the best albeit over priced silver and they NEVER bargain, but this time they totally did and while I bought earrings I really shouldn't have(but you can never be too rich or too thin or have too many earrings right?) The guys happily played the male role and rolled their eyes and said hurry up, you have five minutes then we're leaving bla bla bla. It's fun to do real time things once in awhile.

Pink carnation and a pickup truck

2008-08-30T12:46:00.002+05:30

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

2008-08-21T17:23:00.004+05:30

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

2008-08-15T12:04:00.003+05:30

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

2008-08-12T20:08:00.005+05:30

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

2008-08-09T18:30:00.003+05:30

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

2008-08-08T20:08:00.001+05:30

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.

2008-08-07T18:06:00.000+05:30

Just because I'm losing...

2008-08-06T18:05:00.004+05:30

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.

It's who we are

2008-07-29T18:51:00.008+05:30

I realise now, the value of liking someone. I used to notice the littlest things about him, which maybe had a lot to do with him in particular and not with having a crush in general.

I liked the way his phone was always on vibrate, just like mine and when he’d get a call, he’d say excuse me, I need to take this, and he’d talk and I’d wander off but he’d come back smiling to find me. How long his fingers are as he messages, how he laughs out when he gets a funny SMS. In a picture of him with his girlfriend, I noticed his phone on a table beside him and I grinned widely; a private joke between me and the universe if you will. I liked a lot more about him, his smile that breaks out of nowhere and the curly hair that would flop on his forehead.

And just like that, all those things recede and he becomes just another person I say a quick, walking 'hi' to. It all goes away, and there was no one to mark, it’s significance in my life or his. There's no one to notice it's over. That the little red flag I was holding has been quietly put away.

Those days have passed, and he may have Great Love in his life, he may not, I may, though unlikely. Some girl might notice the same things, might like his hair, might make him cut it. I feel the weight of the beauty, the moment, that brief time that I captured and siphoned, that I pinned like a butterfly on velvet paper and put away in a box. He becomes just that to me, but if I’d told him, maybe it could have been something for him as well. Maybe he'd remember me, tell our story while he's on his second drink...

But see I never wanted anything more, I love my house, my way of things way too much and I’m constantly haranguing to be left alone by the world, and I never succeed and I’m always glad.

Before I met You

2008-07-22T13:29:00.004+05:30

It's small things readers, the tiniest of them -

like an extra library card

~like that whole bunch of giggling men hesitating to step on an escalator, and I want those virginities back for myself, and I know, like I've always known, that I'll live somewhere far away from all this.

~if you're not in class, having someone message saying - where are you?

~or driving all the way back home with stoner music on and not being conscious of the fact and when you pull up to park, the spell breaks and you go, how'd I get here?

~using a word, a new cuss word and all of a sudden everyone's using it, dingbats

~remebering oh yes, today is tuesday and there must be a new episode of weeds waiting on isohunt.

~the greet of airconditioned air over your sweat rivulets

above all, food and rest.

Because I know what to take seriously and he's not one of them. It's with birds of the same feather, that I can talk aloud, think aloud and that's when I feel the most natural, at my best. It's when people joke around, put you down, reduce everything to 'bookish' or 'quiet' that I feel vacant, not uncomfortable but irrevocably different from them. Becasue I don't want to explain myself.

I want to put a bandaid over my life. My toe nail came off, and all I had to do was put a plaster on it to press it down and let it just be by itself while the new one grows. That's exactly what I want for my life right now. There is too much going on, too quickly and all this that I'm learning, I might just lose it if I don't sit and write it down, or talk, or consolidate it into an opinion, that becomes mine alone and not something I read somewhere.

For that I need a really sticky plaster.

For Shane and Silis.

2008-07-20T20:28:00.011+05:30

She sits with her legs crossed in yogic postition, tablets of cannbis in her jeweled box, beaded curtains around her. Horrible sickly incense clouds the red floor lamps and loud strains of Metallica float around, I bow, almost kneel as I enter.

"Blog Goddess?" I timidly beseech.

"I've been expecting you," her voice quietly booms.

"Err, umm.., it's just that I've come to collect my blogpost, there seems to be a problem, but I have been waiting and waiting for some kind of update to materialise and so far I have received nothing."

She stares into the distance passively, "Let's start with the most mundane, what did you do with your puny existence today?"

"Saw Hancock and went for a swim. Should I blog about the empty theatre and how these bloody popcorn movies are insulting us, squeezing our brain cells untill they're mere single cells."

"Who wants to know about that bugger, its not like you made a movie did you? You think anyone gives a shit about the one line you write about some one movie which everyone has already seen."

"Possibly, but there was this girl at the pool whom I totally recognised as a junior from my school but while I was busy avoiding her and averting my eyes elsewhere, she approched me and said Are you el and did you go to S. School? and I said yaaaa..really slowly, and she's like oh I'm so and so and I was like get out, no way, even though I knew exactly who she was I pretended to be surprised and oh, I never realised."

"And I care because?.."

"Blogs are so fucking one dimensional you know, text-image-links. Maybe I'll recycle some old pictures, pass em off as new. "

"Oh no you didn't. Blog about blogging, and then you come in my house and insult me?"

Sorry?

Maybe you could write about your college which has reclaimed it's sweaty time consuming place in your life.

Two words, no V.

You're kidding right? Are you honestly that delusional? You didn't even know him till a while back and suddenly everything's seen in context to him. So, same motherfuckers walking the corridors?

Check.

Still clueless about the future?

Check.

Allright then, you, have nothing to say, I'm bumping you off.

No, no, how about the yummilicious momos I'm eating right now, hot hot hot steamed chicken, with red chilli sauce that is all chilli and no sauce.

Girl I've got tablets, I mean huge tablets of this stuff and you're talking to me about food? One last shot, what song you listening to?

Harry and the Potters - Stick it to Dolores

Get the fuck out of my office.

Z is for Zeppelin Time

2008-07-16T21:49:00.006+05:30

This is something I found quite by chance. Basically you post a picture related to the theme - which on this wednesday is Z, and the first thing that popped into my pretty little head was, what time is it? It's Zeppelin time! ( credits: xkcd)

So this is the room with the poster right down there over the hole in the wall which was covered by a wooden plank.

And this one's the close up. Yes I know it's blasphemy to put a Switchfoot picture right above the Led Zep one but in my defence I made this years back!...yea, doesn't count does it?

And that's the other picture which I like a lot, bottom left hand corner, it's a classic, black and white, Page in a teeny sweater and Plant blowing smoke rings, ah to have been William Miller.

Here I Go Again

2008-07-12T19:44:00.001+05:30

You can't decide when you have a good time, when you meet new people, where the day takes you. Some folks you establish are interesting but they may or may not become your friends and that's when I wonder, what do people think of me? That's the only time I'm conscious that, you know, I'm not a vampire and I must have a reflection. Or do I?

So I had this nice morning planned, would wake up, go for a swim, get a haircut and then go meet my lovely friends Shai and Fly. However, due to unforseen circumstances, mainly my stupid ass body sleeping through several alarms, I was fast asleep at the time I was supposed to meet them and had to hurry, hurry, rush, rush as usual. Fuck I hate that, maybe its an inborn rebellion to my fauji-precision-clockwork genes, but I simply cannot be someplace on time. Thing is in the morning, every second counts, and after dinner, one hour here or there makes no difference. Sure you owls would agree.

Anyway, day still went off well. Lunch was good, I love my friends and I also love being alone and sometimes in life you get a perfect balance, and today was such a day. Madonna(because they have the same teeth) also joined us, and he and me have this mutual appreaciation society thing going, we both say nice things about each other and refrain from the other stuff, because he's one of those people that you have obvious and huge differences of opinion with, but that's ok, he is he and I am me, and in the end, I know I can count on him, and I know I'll totally come through for him, if need be and vice versa.

(Oh, but Rohan, no same teeth anymore! :D)

Also, maanged to get my haircut. While coolio dude cut away, in the parlour, there was a lady/woman getting ready for her wedding, full bridal make up, hairdo etc. and sure, she was pretty, with a busty magenta top, red cartoon nails(not even vampish) with rotting brown mehendi (haai, haai) and her friends were fluttering around her, and I'm thinking the last thing I want to do on my wedding day is spend hours in a beauty parluor - you know?

I'm not a big one for days, like I hate birthdays, not because I'm emo or anything, I just hate all the hoo haah and pressure to do something on that day. So what would I do? Let's see, I'd like to wake up without an alarm clock, with sun on my face, and immediately have something chocolate. Then, hit the pool, you know those whole body floats? Yea, float on the water, sun myself, nap whatever, have something to read, this I'll have to plan very carefully, definitely not the newspaper, because I'm sure for the rest of life I'll remember, on page 3 the mcd head something said something about potholes. I'm kooky that way.

When I'm all deliciously wet and the sun is drying the water drops off, have fresh watermelon and grape juice, french fries(oily not deep fried) and maybe chicken-mayo-capsicum sandwiches. Then a rollercoater ride, or several, and paint ball and in the evening we can dress up and go somehwere nice, or do whatever he wants to. But avoid people at all costs. I'd love for my parents to have a big party in their house, with the lawn and fairy lights and everyone can 'congratulate the happy couple' but maybe sometime the week after.

What about you guys?

Incidentally, downloaded lotsa 80s love songs, just because, and have been blasting Can't Fight This feeling(REO Speedwagon), Whitesnake, The Bangles, Cherish (Kool and the Gang) , Dangelo and The Temptaions. heehee, I've also always had this neighbour thing. Like in the previous house we lived in, it was two floors, downstairs people had a lawn and we got a terrace, and this dude, Jha, used to make all his phone conversations from the garden, he'd smoke, talk loudly, and scratch his you-know-what when he thought no one was watching(ewwww I know.) My study table was right next to his window and trust me when I tell you I knew EVERYTHING going on in his life, no kidding, from his friends to his hassles with his parents, to the girlfriend to his job(pilot, waddya expect).

There was a point to this..oh yeah, so like I knew everything about Jha without him having any idea, I have this fantasy that somebodys always listening to the music I play. Almost like I DJ for some invisible folk down below. Don't get me wrong, I play for myself, but maybe someone will have huge overlapping tastes and come searching for my door, and we can hangout and burn CDs for each other and stuff.

Hmm..too many movies.

Steady Hands Take The Wheel

2008-07-09T21:10:00.006+05:30

It was my market than our market. I like how some things that were mine, we now share, including friends. Baristas and neighbourhood store owners who earlier recognised me, not recognise him as well. Even the guy who checks the air in the tyres at the petrol pump.

We drive by that market, everyday now, becasue to get to any arterial place really, crossing that choked road is the only way out.

There’s a dressed up crowd that hangs around the pubs and outside the theatre. Girls with their hair in sheets below their shoulders, with outfits to match their bags, who wear pin pointy boots no matter what the season. Guys wearing those t-shirts you get, you know? the ones that have a skin coloured extension of cloth under the noraml t-shirt to give the impression that the entire arm is tattooed? Flashing 10 rupee diamond studs in their ears and caked hair on their head.

Further back, beneath the tree and the circular cemented area, next to the cigarette stalls where I go to get polo, is a different sort of crowd. The girls have backpacks and is it just me or is their hair curlier? Tied up carelessly or the tangles let loose, glinting nose pins, dangling silver earrings, wearing washed out cotton kurtas, or maybe a black band t-shirt with a matching belt. They chat placidly, smoke comfortably and laugh occasionally.

Me, I don’t dress up, am a books and chai kinda girl, sure I’d love a bar with loud music as much as the next person, but tis just not my thing...yet. I will have shots and give in and dance to Usher and wear a Penny Lane faux-fur coat with a hoodie and pub hop. Someday, those times will come for me.

What a granny, he says, but he’s not much better.

At the front of the market, near the car park, boys and girls get out of big cars, their school bags stuffed with their uniforms and they're so self conscious of their outfit; it's not fair, to make them choose that one t-shirt that represents them the most, to wear on the day their exams get over and they hangout.

And African men, lots and lots of young African men, are they sons of diplomats then or sons of housekeepers? Does it matter? Which countries are they from, I wonder as I lock eyes with every one of them, Mozambique?(Maputo, my brain automatically says) Somalia? (Mogadishu) Niger?( Niamey) Guinea Bissau or The Guinea? Mali or Mauritania or indeed Malawi? Congo or the Democratic Republic of Congo? The Gold Coast or the Ivory Coast? Zambia or Zaire, now the infamous Central African Republic. Tunisisa or Tanzania? Maybe Morocco, though I doubt it.

I’m sure I’ll have tonnes of things to say to them, if we get past the accent, that mammoth effort of a simple smile and hello. It doesn't matter that we're on the same sidewalk, because their continent travels with them. That's the size of the distance between us.

The odds that one of them has just finished reading Franny and Zooey like I have, and listed down the family tree – Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, the twins (Walt and Waker), Zachary (Zooey) and Franny in their notebooks..How high is that possibility?

We shall never know, because we can cross each other several times, but I'm just driving past, sitting passenger to steady hands on the wheel.

Go Rafa, Espania - ole ole ole!

2008-07-07T01:22:00.003+05:30

Right, excuzi for the double post but, I am reeling right now with stuff to say.

What a final, this is why we love tennis, this is why people spend hours on hours practising and what champions. Delirious.

So as I was happily watching the match(wimbledon final - Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer for those who're not so into it) with Rafa 2 sets up, he(Shaan) really sweetly calls and starts talking about the match, no hi hello. For a once-in-a-month chat friend it's quite nice that he knows, just assumes that I will (duh) be watching the game, and it's one of those moments when we're talking and I can hear the shouting and TV ads on his end of the line and in my living room as well. It's also ironical because there's no signal in the TV room and Il'l have to get up and go to the balcony to talk to him and he's like tie break and I'm like oh fuck no, call you back.. Its nice that he thinks of me you know? And its a foolproof thing, if you want to talk to a guy, follow the club he loves or watch the match he's watching.

Anyway, weird thing - both Rafas Uncle Tony and Mirka(Fed's gf) were sitting in same box. So both the players keep looking up at the same box and when Rafa gets an edge, Uncle gets up and starts yelling and when Fed wins a point, Mirka starts thumping the box and you can almost hear Tony cursing at the back. And did anyone notice a most Jude Law like person sitting on Mirkas eft? Was confused and then I spot Gwen (Stefani) on his left and look, its Gwen and Gavin! (oh man how I love Bush. Infact, first heard of the band, waaay before the president. ) Gavin was so into the game and Gwen was just like, 5 hours of my life, there they go, never to return. Mirka too, was really feeling it; usually she sits tight lipped (can't help it if the girl has thin lips) but she was all cringing and stuff and and when I saw her, I was like come on Rafa, you can't let Mirka take out her digi cam and click pictures of Roger making out with the trophy, again. (ok, mean, but you understand right, this moment has been five long, long years in the making.)

Also, just when Rafa is taking the lead, inching closer to championship point, and he can feel it, and the crowd feels it and you can feel it and you look at Federer's face and it's so rondu and for half a second you feel bad for him and then he goes and hits a winner, and you're like no, no Rafa, just wrap it up, close the deal, COME ON. And when Rafa got the break 8-7, Venus who was watching stood up and started clapping and I'm sitting stock still becasue I have this dumb jinx idea that if I move, it'll change the tides. 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7, my god, what a match.

But Rafa won! And because the match went on so long, someone must have politely mumbled in Prince Philip's ear to keep it short, and so he didn't talk to any of the ball boys/girls forming the corridor as he usually does. 2 years back when he slaughtered Andy, he chatted with the ball girl for a good 5 minutes, the match was SUCH a no show, got over in like an hour and a half or something.

Also, I love the woman who interviews them after the ceremony, though this time she didn't address his highness Prince Philip, maybe cause the Prince and Princess of Spain where there was well? Who knows about the delicate matters of royal protocol? Regardless of the question she asks them, both of them say the same thing, first answer - say something funnyish, or rather self effacing, they'll laugh anyways and acknowledge the crowd. Second answer - say what a fantastic player your opponent was, how deserving, which seems all jolly but it's actually rubbing it in. Trust me.

And like the humble guy Federer is he starts taking a lap of honour, and everyone's like wtf? Sit quietly while Rafa does that. One thing though, if Fed's a rondu winner, he's a very graceful loser, that you have to hand to him. He tried very hard not to cry and he managed.

What a night. Whew, winding down slowly..

Egregia Cum Laude, with outstanding praise

2008-07-06T18:00:00.000+05:30

I like being an older sister, though I think I'm the Queen of Inappropriate. Sisters birthday, her friends came over, still in their natal teens, and they wanted to watch a movie so I gave them Superbad, which is funny but full of dicks and lubes and porn bla bla ~ not a very good idea and got her Twister, so yea, kinda off the mark but the thing is, that awkwardness between boys and girls is so wonderful when you're on the outside, and my head is clicking every 2 minutes with something to jot down and write about later. It's a treasure trove of a minefield.

You know readers, I have this thing for younger guys, that sounds most crude and Michael Jackson-ish but I don't mean it in a paedophilic, robbing the cradle or even romantic/sexual way. I dunno, I just hit it off with them and we get along really well. My younger and only cousin brother is awesome fun, and at first it used to be only me who'd joke about with him, rile him up a bit, sit on his head about pokemon cards and things like that, but now he's growing older and has started reading, and actually wants to chat about life and Yossarian and girls and stuff, all the way fom Sydney, which makes me :)

Then there's this other boy, who's a family friend, and when they come down from America, God that accent is exhausting, half the time I'm straining my ear to understand what they're saying and by the end of their holiday I'm watching what I say because I end up sounding like them and when was a developing second hand Indian-American accent ever not jarring? I like that boy though, he's quiet and nice and dresses in all Black and used to be into Blink 182.

And the latest edition that triggered this train of analysis, is that leetle boy from Singapore, who's not quite so leetle because his favourite drink is a Blowjob(Baileys, whipped cream, some such) But see he studies in the American school there and so he had an American accent and now that the summer is over and him having been around us everyday, it's worn down to a Kal Penn type of accent in Van Wilder, heehee.

So they're just much easier to talk to and to laugh with and sometimes they'll say these really insightful things about me, which make me wonder, what exactly is it that they think of me. He said the other day, "You pretend to be stupid but actually aren't." Hmm..

But it isn't strictly a elder sister-ish relationship, you know what I mean? All I'm saying is several years down the line, when we're all grown up, we might run into each other in some airport lounge somehwhere and who knows what can happen? That possibilty is always open you know..

/wink.
/subtle.
/ok enough.

Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are

2008-07-02T13:56:00.001+05:30

Dear V,

Because I have been watching badly made, pseudo-gothic Japanese movies with End of the World scenarios and male leads I can't tell apart; as gorillas spew out chomped human guts and people all over plan what they'll do on their last day on earth, I think of you.

Because I'm reading the greatest war novel of all time and Erich Maria Remarque writes, "Franz is dying and what if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him." I think of you.

Because all I really have is ardor, its my only ammunition, my only protection. You keep me company up and down on that wretched train even though you're somewhere else.

Because you are my fantasy, my best case scenario, my triumph if you will, therefore I can only love you when I can't have you. For the rest of the world, I have other toys lined up.

Because you say, you like music without lyrics, but Chris and Eddie could wake me up from the dead. Even then, unwittingly, music which has been mine and mine alone, now reminds me of you.

Becasue it was always about me, and it didn't matter where you were, and that's why I can decide it's over. Because, these things aren't tangible and that's why they'll count as currency. It'll find you someday, all these things that went on in my head because of you, and maybe for a little while when you're down, it'll cheer you up, make you smile. And for that brief time, I would have finally found a place in your life.

~

Dear El,
I wish you'd shut the fuck up. And I really wish you'd stop writing for the sake of it, for trying to make yourself feel something just because you've read maybe 10 books more than the others. There's no need to be so smug about it. To be so antisocial. You've milked whatever we had to death and I really think it's time you moved on and accepted that you're bored and alone and verging on boring.
Find your own life please and stop trying to channel some of mine. I don't need your obsessive wheedling, it's not nice you know.
V.
ps - and stop memorising everything I say.

Take it, take another little piece of my heart.

2008-06-28T19:08:00.004+05:30

My sister's birthday is coming and it's as terrific an opportunity as any other to buy books which I want to read and gift wrap for her. Lucky we more or less read the same stuff or rather I bulldoze her into reading what I recommend. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, fantastic people, nice little book I stumbled on thanks to fly and I think there's something in its awkwardness that exists in all of us, especially if we dish out a blog post every week or so.

While planning her party, we decided on Chinese food which somehow brought back a memory of this store in Pune from where we'd get Chinese take away frood. I used to be fascinated by this place, it wasn't a restaurant in a market, it was just a take away shop literally in the middle of nowhere. It was so noisy and steamy and small and they'd take your order and pin it up on a rope and it would be ready robotically in minutes. So numbskullsister and me would play 'takeaway' with our puzzle pieces and mix them around in a tokri. The only plausible explanation for a tokri in our house I think could be because we were living in Maharashtra after all. (egad, images of kim sharma as a fisherwoman are coming to me after those 5 horrifying minutes of some random movie which permanently and irrevocably burned some of my brain cells.)

Also donated blood today! Yee haw, did it for the cool red tshirt we all know, and while I was lying there pumping my fist tiredly instead of feeling righteous as I should have, I was like dude, I just have a needle in my arm, someone who needs this is going to have all their bones smashed in . Count your blessings, name them one by one, thank the Lord for what he has done, kept playing in my head.

On a crankier note though, I am being forced to go out to my mothers friends house for dinner. She has this daughter whose a couple of years older than me, looks and dresses like a model, and has had sex several times with several different boys and was caught in school with her bra undone, which is public knowledge to everyone except apparently our mothers and mum dearest insists she's such a nice girl, I should try and be friends with her. Fuck, glad they're all so in sync. I'm sorry, not that there's anything wrong with her but some people I just can't take seriosuly, and she's one of them.

Something I'm really beginning to believe in though is All In Good Time, truly, life eventually calms itself down and things happen in their own time. When I was in middle school, in Bangalore, I always always wanted to become a senior prefect, not head girl becasue that was so passe but house captain, because that meant something, and I loved my house captain, she was so cool man, she'd run the captains relay on sports day, and march with the house flag. She'd sit on the steps of the canteen (for seniors only) with all these boys and I'd always wonder which one she liked. She'd come to my class and ask for me and badger me into taking part in elocution or something which I gladly did for her. It was so cool the way they'd stay back after shcool, and make those charts and practice for house competitions and stuff, and the 11th and 12thies were allowed to come on their bikes and so casually afterwards they'd zip off to some place to eat.

I left though, and I had no idea untill I was away how fucking impressionable I'd been. I got to be house captain of another school though and it meant shite, really it meant nada to me, which is not as awful as it sounds, it just was that way.

*Remember those shiny coloured Add-Gel pens in 1999? They were such a rage and I had a purple one and wrote LP in big bold letters on my arm and walked all over school one day. At band practice after school, Music Captain comes in and after he does his 'duty' and yells at us for not practising hard or long enough, he hangs around to chat and he says, so you're all into heavy rock and metal and all? and I'm like no ya, just Linkin Park, he's like what's the name of their album. FUck! I didnt know, lol, but anyway, Dad took me on a sunday, to music world I think, not the (then) new Planet M on Brigade Road, and I bought Just Push Play (Aerosmith) and Hybrid Theory and on the way back in the car, dad suggested that I play the tapes, and I slowly, delaying it as much as possible, unwrap the flimsy plastic wrapping and Papercut starts up..the sun goes down, I feel the light betray me, I hastily ejected and put aerosmith in which was no better, but thankfully we reached back because then you could actaully drive around in Bangalore and reach places in minutes not hours. Atleast it wasn't Public Service Announcement on the Marshall Mathers LP.

So into Jaded was I that when we came to Delhi on our summer holiday, on the customary annual visit to Dilli Haat, instead of yet another name necklace, I had jaded written with those alphabet beads, and Dad says do you even know what it means? I didn't.

Man, I was quite the emo kid. Today though, I'm somehow very happy to be me.

May Angels Lead You In

2008-06-26T14:26:00.001+05:30

Car got towed, which was total bullshit, I went to the COLONY market, which is like 5 feet away from home (yea, yea environmentally treacherous etc) stepped out for 2 minutes and when I came out no little zen standing under tree, had to then go to the police station and pay 200 bucks, no challan, what bull. Also upgraded my RAM - all by myself and was smothered by the dust inside the CPU and, best of all learnt the caribbean capitals, so feeling most gangsta.

Some tennis talk now, skip if you're not into it -

*******************************************************************************

Andys match was such rubbish I tell you, I admit now what they've been saying for years, he was no variety in his shots, he moves really poorly on court and simply has nothing to fall back on except his serve. Plus what drama - baazi he was doing on court just becasue he was winning and a certain girlfriend was watching. Like yelling at himself and making faces when he's 2 games way from victory. Poof.

Go Safin! (yaay fly) People are like oh you support him because he's hot, so not true, that guy is the original and last of the mavericks. Honestly he doesn't care about what's proper, about being scoff, consistent. He can come out of nowhere and win. Incidentally, he's not a very good player when he's winning, he's fantastic when he's losing, him and Baghdatis, watch them play when they're 2 sets down. They get this super human strength and gun for every ball though they've been playing for hours and hours. Good Wimbledon it looks like and don't feel too bad about Novak, he's just starting out in his career and you can't be a number one player unless you've been thrashed by Safin, that's just how it goes.

*******************************************************************************

Right, so if life fails us or we fail life or whatever, we have to have a back up job right, like what would you do to get by and be happy doing?

El presents My List of Alternate Job Options

Driver, no kidding, think I can manage this well, esp. to an old couple, take him for golf, her to the parlour, club, whatever and at night for their parties. Park the car, road gaze, do what I wantfor 20 hours a day.

Setup an Illegal Parking Ticket Thing - Start handing out tickets wherever they're cars parked. Take 10 bucks per car, pay off cops if necessary, get protection from street gangs*(lol) if needed and eventually hire my own parking attendents and make money by advertisemets placed on their uniforms.

Bake - Don't know how successful I'll be because my cookies sure are fine but take forever and a lot of effort to make, and think I might get sick of chocloate by the end of it. Which would de disastrous for my happiness and self confidence but overall better fro my waist. So might have to do a pro con list before take this one on.

Word Whore - something like Florentino, write love letters for people who can't "expess themselves", or maybe be a word-on-hire, be a pimp or sorts, write out personal letters, break up messages, threatening notes, stuff like that.

Door to Door Movie CD Lender(or CD walli in short)- and when I was thinking about this, I became so excited that I might just do it. I already have a considerable database and anyway half the time I'm giving movies to people, so it is totally realistic. You want any? I'm only doing distribution don't ask me about my sources, that's confidential. :D

edit - also maybe teach piano, like at a very rudimentary level, my theory is pretty solid and I can fluff a lot if rich kids prents are wiling to dish.

So got myself covered I think.

Glory Days, pass me by.

2008-06-23T12:12:00.000+05:30

Life is peachy folks, spiffy, bathed in sun streaming in through the clouds. Reminds me of that last month of school before the summer holidays, when I was 11 or something. For all my life and all of hers, my mother has worked and I've always reached home before she has, as in there was never a reception committee waiting at the bus stop like other kids, thangod. That summer though, she'd taken a month off, and when I'd get home, my icky uniform shirt stuck to my back with sweat, my heavy tearing bag full of useless books that I'd carry around including a fat dictionary, my hair all puffed up and hairband dangling along to one side, she'd answer the door.

The house would be cool for starters, the curtains would be drawn against the afternon sunlight and mum would give us first cold water, then food, which we'd actually sit at the table and have and not in front of the TV. Then watermelon, and an afternoon nap after. Ah, the all-is-right-with-the-world feeling.

In the holidays, she'd leave before we were awake, and when I did get up and go to brush my teeth, I'd see a big fat lipstick mark on my cheek, because you know, she kissed us goodbye.

Anway, joy is hibernating. It's staying at home and watching three seasons of weeds in a row. Fantastic I tell you. An american TV show you never knew existed and turns out to be so goddamn clever. That my friends is utopia, with no one bothering me, and becasue I'm only listening to these characters smack talking, in my head I start talking like them. And when I meet people in real life I can't think of anything to say to them except, um...I'm watching Weeds.

Right so some guys are just plain sexy, they have this charm that you can't define, can't catch or bottle, like Sloan you know, on Greys Anatomy, very irrestible, even when they aren't saying anything, you just keep looking a them and Justin Kirk (or Andy on Weeds) is one such fellow.

What else? Cooking Chocolate. That's the thing to eat. As mentioned earlier, nada oven, nada baking, so all supplies are going into tummy as raw material. Personally, I think cooking choclate is the real stuff, far superior than any wrapped thing I've had, tis not too sweet, plus its a proper huge slab and I've been gnawing away at it.

Favourite line these days - "that's a bit too populist for my taste." Speaking of which was watching 'left of centre' on VH1 which is supposed to be the original sidestream stuff, I hardly think Nine Inch Nails or Kasabian can be called offbeat, LCD soundsystem maybe. Besides everyone knows that them emo and indie kids are making the most money now.

In parting, I like the word exponential, not in maths(idiotic exponential differetiation) but like exponential growth in blog traffic. hee :D

This years love had better last

2008-06-19T16:16:00.001+05:30

Sometimes you get goosebumps about just being alive, and I want to love you, Nothing Man.~Caught a bolt of lightning, cursed the day he let it go.~ Isn't it something? It is Eddie. How can it not be..

Hmm, exhausted is the word I'm looking for. So much work, so many things to do, usually life is happiest when I'm busy but I haven't got 8 hours of sleep in a row in about a month now. At the risk of sounding like a CPM politburo member, the "honeymoon" period with my blog is definitely over.

Met aforementioned friend, such a riot I tell you, some people are just funny, and I got lots and lots of american frat movies with naked boobies and lewd jokes off him, Superbad(ha-HA-Ha-ha), Oldschool, Van Wilder, Eurotrip, Girl Next Door, Blow...you get the gist.

Yes, Andy is engaged. Joy, normally I'd be happy but do you know how he met her? He saw her picture in a Sports Illustrated isssue and had his agent track her down. What a fucking cliche, its like boning your secretary. Gah. As fly says, it's like he picked her out of a catalogue. I mean imagine the call she must've got, hi, erm, there's this guy, who's sorta famous and a little rich and he wants to be in your pants. Sure, that's my twenties taken care of.

Also have become friends with that new boy at work place, even though he's a kid and all, we're pals now. Ha, dropped him to his hindi class today, these firangis types I tell you. Laughed about superbad stuff, and duh, Celtics won(heehaw) and he was all Lakers, na huh, there time had come, it was going to be Celtics, everyone knew that all along.

Read Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami,) and can definitely see why he's so popular. The story is literally about sheep and you're reading along thinking, man, a whole book about sheep, this should be weird, but it so isn't.

Something I've been meaning to put up here, I can't stress the importance of Zeitgeist enough, seriously folks, go watch it. Tis this really radical left wing documentary type thing, and even if you're skeptical and don't believe everything, STILL, it's stuff that we just have to know, and think about.

The Same Streets That I Live

2008-06-16T19:58:00.004+05:30

So this is my expermiment, it's very trivial-esque I know, a poor cousin more like, but it's directly inspired by that. It's ok if you hate it.

Why save the kisses for a rainy day?

It starts with a perfect picture like this and before I realise, it turns into a soul mirror. The playlist in my head has Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad on repeat. It’s not even a rainy day song, but it comes out at me, cheekily, as though it knows that it can be the only song that resides in the vinyl of my cerebrum when there’s even a hint of a drizzle.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

William Blake is someone I have no connection with, I wasn’t taught his poetry, I didn’t study it and no one around me mentions him in passing, but I picked up that book anyway. I don’t feel intimidated though, by either his poems or the life around me caught up in raindrops. There is no reason why I should turn to his lines, maybe that’s why I do.

God appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of Day.

The waters wave and twinkle in front of me, rippling across their temporary home; their home can only be where they are. I feel the weariness after my philosophy exam, and the pub crawl after, not sure about my own two homes. After the late night I feel pulpy. I woke up without getting enough sleep but not sleepy or tired enough to go back to bed. The clouds build up in me but no rain comes, for mine is a much longer hibernation, mine is a reassessing of the Big Stuff, which I’ve put off for far too long.
*****

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

That’s what they told me, and the thing is, the blessed thing is that I know exactly what I want. Live outside the city, somewhere in the plains not far from the mountains, somewhere sunny, maybe near a wooded area, and fall asleep each night to the sound of a fan whirring, to people breathing. One thing I definitely don’t want is to spend time in airports. Really, I have it all planned, it’s just the day job that’s the problem.
*****

But doesn’t it start with the way we live, or has it already begun?

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine;
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

Love seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.

All those things stick you know, in the afternoons by myself, I am a different me, a pot smoking teacher in a boarding school, a writer in my mountain home, owner of a beach shack frying sausages, baking in a small town with my apron on - all those kid personas don’t go away. I still get to be all that.

When the day’s done though, it’s back to the notebook.
*****

For all those who've slow danced to Strangers in the Night

2008-06-14T17:30:00.001+05:30

We came out of the movie hall, with the sun making our eyes crinkle and the warmth tingling the air-conditioned goose bumps on our arms. There’s a sleepy contentment that washes over us, as we make our way out in a community shuffle. He has his arm around me as we walk down the sloping parapet, back into the mall.

It’s hot but not too hot. Not unbearable, not muggy and there’s an ever so slight breeze.

We move past the food court into the open air sitting area. We smoke. We chat lazily. He talks about something in the movie which reminded him of something he did as a kid. He goes to get me a gelato, because usually when I see chocolate I want it. He’s being nice but I don’t really feel like it today. We have a spoon or two and watch it melt between us., forming an icky brown mess.

A person from a nearby table comes over, an old friend apparently, he smiles and shakes my hand, I’ve never met him before but he obviously knows about me, whether through him or common friends I don’t know.

It’s early evening, and a different kind of crowd is thronging the mall, less students, more families who’ll end the evening with dinner in this very food court.

I feel like a chilled drink, not a heavy, milky one and definitely not an areated one. The waiter comes over, I ask for seventy rupees worth of ice, water and strawberry flavouring in a tall glass. He brings it fairly quickly. I sip at it.

We talk some more. He’s restless I can make out, because he doesn’t know where he’s going to be this time next month, he’s wrapping his head around the ideas on his tray, and all of them are just ok. None of them involve me. Because I’m still going to be here. I’m happy though, I’m out with him and the impromptu movie turned out to be much better than we expected.

The ice melts and the drink tastes like water that’s been poured into a used juice carton. I abandon drinking it altogether and play around with the straw. We smoke some more. As the sky darkens, he pays the bill and we head to the parking lot.

I give him the keys, because he likes to drive. He’s a careful driver with no cursing and no sudden braking unlike me. We’re quiet most of the way, because the music on is good, he sings a little, I hum, we listen.

We reach his place, he gets out and I scoot over to the drivers seat, he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead and goes inside, I head back home. The music is awful now.

My parents are throwing a big dinner party tonight and I must get ready, wear something ironed and suitable and talk to some horrifically overdressed women and some debonair, aging men who were once young pilots and tell them, how I spend my time. I don’t mind, because we bargain stories, I get to hear about places like Kalaikunda, obscure Airforce bases where these men spent their youth learning to fly Jaguars and MIGs. Now they’re gentlemen of course who talk of their chicken farms on the Jaipur highway and holiday homes in Mashobra.

“I was at Tezpur and your grandfather was doing reconnaissance,” said a suited elderly man in a dull red turban cradling a whiskey soda in his hand, “he’d come down from Agra and we’d fly down to the China border together and he’d report back the next morning to Agra.” He’d cackle and thump me on the shoulder, carried away by the impishness of it, the merriment of the moment.

He’ll message me soon, to check in, in case I need a lifeboat, how’s the evening going? Should I call?

Fine, I’ll say. Just fine.

come back and haunt me, follow me home

2008-06-12T19:21:00.001+05:30

So the boss type person at the NGO thing is leaving for good. Tis funny, but in this one week I think I know everything there is to know about him, he's jut one of those people. I was hanging around on my first day, not sure of what to do exactly, no one was taking any notice of me, I pulled out my book cautiously but as I sat vacant reading, he took me under his wing and boy, did I do a lot of work for him. He alternated between calling me M'am and bachoo, kaam ho raha hai m'am? yea yea, and aise nahi bachoo, ho hum ok. He'd make tea for us and he took a sip from my mug by mistake once and ever since then he goes, don't drink my tea. And he cracks lame jokes like;
he(nonchalantly while filling a form) what's the date today?
me: date,
he: aaj birthday hai..
me: whose?
he: hoga kisi kaa..
/guffaw.

Weird, don't think I'll forget this dude in a long while, considering I might never have met him.

So now I'm working on something else and heard that this guy from Singapore was coming down to also volunteer on the same thing and I'd decided I'd have a crush on him BUT he turned out to be a nanha munha school going baccha who likes Akon. Hovering friend said we've become grannies. Indeed.

Also, you know how to get everyone to agree to YOUR plan, like the place you want to go and the movie you want to see, esp when it's one of those impromptu things? Me has the gaadi, we're going ____, I say and everyone sits down meekly in the car. ~power <3>

Sometimes, a friendship is not equal, and with this one person I just know that I was a better friend to him than he ever was or can be to me. I listened dude to loads and loads of neurotic, egoistic stuff and said lots of nice stuff which I actually meant and prepped him up and anticipated his moods and didn't gloat when I beat him by a long shot even though he sat on my head in the rare ocassion(ahem) that me got two marks more than me. He said used to say I was his good luck charm...Don't know what happened to that really, classic case of Drifted Apart, but somehow I feel like there's something incomplete there, like when you give more than you get, the bank balances don't tally and the ledger can't be closed.

Moribund similies aside, his role in my life is not quite done it seems. I shall find out I meet him to cough:: take his insane TV show collection ::cough hang out and other such.

And now he's gone and seen Chester in flesh and blood, that's the ONLY thing that rankles me up. Say what you want about LP, I loved them and howdya manage solving maths sums without Hybrid Theory or Minutes to Midnight?

and you know the lyrics to In the End so don't pretend otherwise.

catch me if you can

2008-06-10T20:27:00.006+05:30

Tag!

I am: his girl friday.

I think: thunk a lot as a kid, now I let it flow.

I know: the capital of every country, go on, ask me..

I want: a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. (~cause I'm a creep~)

I have: it pretty darn good.

I wish: something could have happened with V.

I hate: asshole drivers.

I miss: Bangalore and Meso

I smell: David Beckham Instinct, lol, Buddy and me share it.

I crave: Crackle, yea no fancy phoren chocolates, Dairy Milk does it for me.

I search: wiki since it's the new google.

I wonder: where these dreams go, when the world got in my way.

I love: good days when everything works out and all is well in el land.

I care: about my numbskull of a sister.

I ache: on days like today, for those friends I could've had, the train rides I didn't have, that white sari I didn't wear for Val and those photos I didn't pose for with him..

I am not: the kind to hold a grudge, unless you're my 10th standard history teacher.

I believe: when I fall in love, it'll be forever (damn Stevie Wonder, the song things become a reflex)

I dance: to Joan Jett and Dillagi kudi Gujrat di

I sing: in the car when I'm feeling good, Teenage Dirtbag(first love dies hard)

I cry: hardly ever.

I don't always: talk to mum and dad as much as I should.

I write: hehe, really?

I win: some

I lose: most

I always: reach late.

I listen: always, always, am eavesdropperviking but fucking hate radio ads.

I can usually be found: in the dingy seminar room in college watching subtitled films which I don't even like while Dinesh the peon sits behind, waiting to lock up.

I am happy about: not today hon, not today. ok maybe about blogging in general.

I imagine: there's no heaven, no hell below. and you-OUHHoooo may say I'm a dreamer~

I tag: amdp, Zaphod(if not already since he's quite the ma-uh-n), Arjun and roghan.

Cause I'm the one that jaded you

2008-06-08T15:32:00.001+05:30

This is a long, self indulgent type post - so run away now and no one will know.

It all started last night, was watching the frenchie final and then the prize distribution after when people talk on and on, and basically embarrass themselves and put everyone else off to sleep. Reminded me of NS our crazy nut of a music sir in school. See, as the school band (not those shady school bands of south delhi schools but a proper Brass Band with percussion, euphoniums, trombones, trumpets, French horns et all) we had to play for the major functions - valedictory, passing out, sports day etc. and as soon as the principal or chief guest came up to give his speech, NS would say, instruments down, sit back, take a nap and start mock snoring. Was also watching Spelling Bee side by side and all those kids man, 12 and 13 and so brilliant got me thinking of me back then...

Now, NS was mad and a musical genius, and a godfather of sorts, he had the run of the school, no one could say a word to him. He knew everything about every single band member and would get us out of trouble and so high up in the hierarchy were we that no teacher could lay a hand on us, both literally and figuratively. We all had nicknames (mine sniffy, gremlin, iguana, nurse, and malai kofta) but you realise this guy was crazy right, I mean everyone was shite scared of him and if you got on his wrong side, that’s it - he’ll torment you the rest of your school life. Anyway, there was these boys who used to make my life hell, as in I'm sure they never intended too but it used to make me sick in my stomach and not want to come to school. Ofcourse NS got wound of it and would regularly come to class, rough them up a bit and never once acknowledge he did it becasue of me. If you ever read this NS - thank you whatever twisted logic you might have had!

Then, one fine day, a note appeared on Faiz's desk which said -

Dear Faiz,
I love you.
El

What an uproar it caused. Obviously I didn't write it, I was cleared immmediately and Faiz was like no man, 'someone' put it on my desk. Kriti - this bossy pushy type girl who all the boys were scared of and not even really my friend, took it upon herself to solve this case. She inspected and studied the note, the paper and the ink and pronounced that a gel pen was used. She made Faiz take out his pens and lo and behold the gel pen he had been using just in the last period was missing. *gasp* Faiz denied all knowledge so such a pen. So, she went down to the stationery shop and asked the sir there if Faiz had bought a gel pen that morning and it was confirmed that indeed he had. Case solved! Then the confrontation, she pulled me along to the basketball court in the 12:20 lunch break and demanded of Faiz- you wrote it, don't lie, she shrieked, and I just wanted to curl up and disappear.

And there was this other dude Olsen too(Anglo school ya, there was a Ryan, Harry, Steve, Gary, and William in my class alone) who'd follow me around in break..loads of other stuff happened, like these two they had a tug of war match and apparently whoever lost had to back off and some such - stuff I found out only later. Once I got a note, always getting these bleeding notes, that if I didn't meet Olsen at the Lunch Shed after school he'd jump of the builiding. Dramatic I know. Oh yea, I was quite the diva then and could have been in real life too, instead I turned into me. He failed the year though, and I moved school and sorta never saw them again.

And how dare they not be on facebook so that we can keep wary eyes on each other? It's a time bomb ticking, I tell you. If they were to meet me now. Huh, let's not got there.

Talking of blasts from the past, Akash was this dude in my colony and our dads worked together etc. and he took it upon imself to chase me and declare his ahem, feelings publicly - that dude just wouldn't give up. Oh, and he was the first boy who 'asked me out'. Guess what I did? Go tell mummy dearest ofcourse, what should I say to him? Mother's eyes duly popped and gave me the be friends lecture which I relayed to him. Let me give you some background info though -
a. He wore mickey mouse shorts
b. I was listening to nsync those days

Thats's how low we were.

He used to play this computer game Aladdin which was all the rage back then, and apparently when you win all the rounds, you get to kiss Jasmine the Princess and you can name her something. After this episode, he changed Jasmines name from mine to some other girl in his class. Oh the treachery. He kinda stayed that way then, always just out sight, refusing to make eye contact etc. So met him at a Lodi party last year after AGES and he was still wearing funny clothes and kept glancing at me furtively, while I hovered around the bar trying to sneak some vodka into my coke. You might ask readers, why couldn’t I have gone and said something but I spoke to his sister, friends and dad and he would run out of sight. I mean sure I’m not the skinniest person in the world, but atleast I’ve grown up!

Hey Andy, did you hear about this one?

2008-06-05T22:11:00.001+05:30

*Blogging about Blogging ~ Right, so dunno how the whole thing started but do know that it's going mighty fine. I was expecting long months of a lonely 0 comments at the bottom of the post, but pipi and zorro were sweet enough to spread some love and left a comment on the first post itself. So if you're forced to read this it's their fault really; I would happily have given up after 4 posts (like one in every 2 bloggers did you know?) It's fun and oddly exhilirating being anonymous though lately I've begun mentioning this little corner of the internet to people I actually know, as in friends and stuff, the response is either - What do you blog about, or else What do you blog about? Search me.

*I'm tired of driving folks. I'm tired of traffic and and having the tank empty every three days and that bloody Sarthak on 95 f.m. in the mornings(don't even bother plugging my ipod in) and being at the beck and call of everyone concerned and I've had it. I'm going to sit at home for one whole week and not go anywhere my legs can't take me.

*Oh oh, I came up with my very own joke! ready?
#1 Darn, I'd give my left leg for an automatic car...haHA(geddit?)

*Finished Something To Tell You, which is every bit as good as expected though it dragged a bit towards the end but it saved it in time, and Charlie Hero and Karim make a comeback in this one, was most excited so see them again.

*Anyway, the best time of the year in descending order July (Wimbledon) September (US Open) January(Aussie Open) and May-June(French Open). Dude the parisian crowd is so droll. They're all suited up and don't clap for anything. The semi final matches are turning out to be fantastic though. Safina, ole ole ole! Except I'm not saying anything because I jinx these things.

It is time then to reveal to you fair folk, my One Great Love. Now this guy is sexy. I know, I know, he's American and boy-bandish and not even close to winning a slam ever again. Infact read this, it'll give ya more fodder. But I can't tell you, just how much I love him without reason. So much so, that people get embarassed when they're watching a match he's playing with me, apparently I can't contain myself. Infact, when this boy, was kinda trying to flirt with me and it was a big maybe between us, he'd watch Andy's matches and then call up after to discuss them and he' keep dissing him to rankle me up, which I happily obliged because we both saw right through it.

There is little that gives one greater joy than having him win a game 40-love with back to back aces and that swagger when he walks back. :grins: He's also very very funny, he's just naturally a charming guy, like when he was runner-up to fedDUHrer in wimbeldon a couple of years back, the interviewer at the presentation said - Andy, you wouldn't be in the mood to talk right now and he says "ya, I'm actually in the mood for a beer," and the crowd claps and cheered wildly and goes all, good fella that one.

Just look at him.

*sigh*

Riders in the storm, into this house we're born

2008-06-02T15:42:00.001+05:30

~Gah, everyone is going on and on about their stupid internships but I'd decided to not do any of those. I mean aren't summer holidays supposed to be Riverdale-esque, with endless days of swimming and cold coffee or American Pie like with the partying and summer romances/getting laid-ness? When did this internship tamasha start? Especially if it's not going to help, you know Underemployment right? When 5 farmers can till the field but 7 are employed - that's exactly what internships are - either you have a big fancy contact somewhere and sit around in an AC office or you do some random type work with CSS or something. So got selected for 'Agenda for Survival', a course by CSE but chickened out, not sure why exactly, probaby am just plain lazy.

Anyway, got a little freaked because I'm indecisive and get convinced easily, and I'm starting something tomorrow, more on that later.

~Right, I'm not a rider, I'm a driver - my sister is but what with ferrying her up and down to the club, I sorta learnt as well and let me tell you I do a mean trot, ofcourse on some days the horse will refuse to move. My horse is Viktor (which is probably Victor as in the one that is victorious but I always think Viktor Krum) Anyway yesterday I just didn't feel like and we reached early, so like a true blue driver I took out the yellow kapda and started wiping the windsceen and windows, and then I opened the bonnet and fiddled around. And then, the driver in the Innova next to me took out his yellow kapda and we were polishing our cars together! Would have offered him a beedi and gone on to sit and play cards with him if I hadn't been summoned by the instructor and forced into riding, twas a good ride though.

But their names I tell you - Machinegun, Junglebaby, Topgun, Patience, Dollar, Ceasar, Leader and the Indian divas - Sundari, Usha, Nirmala, Meenakshi, Kajol, Anarkali...What would I name my horse? Zeus maybe, and my twin sons Alexander and Xerxes. You?

I remember vaguely going for horse racing in Turf Club Pune, sitting in those fantastic lawns with white picket fences and betting on horses called Desire and Destiny and fancy stuff like that.

But the ultimate relic of colonialism is in The Jorhat Gymkhana, betting there is like serious business. There's hordes and hordes of people who come for this annual gala - first the horses are kept in a ring and you inspect them and choose your which one you want to bet on, then go to the counter and put your money where your mouth is(just 10 rupeess for me.) The 'horses' are really ponies and the riders were barefoot in shorts. After every race there's a prize distribution and the owner is supposed to come collect the trophy and pose for a photograph. The Maaliks all wear dhotis and go to collect their prize in all seriousness and giggle but look staight ahead for the picture. Ofcourse the genteel society(mainly planters, no one famous sadly) come in hats and sat in the deck on top and have snacks and drinks. Much fun.

See riding is win-win, ek toh it's outside, and it's with animals and you know what they say, if you haven't loved an animal or had a garden, there's a part of you lying dormant that you'll never know. [/sermon]

A friend in need's a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better

2008-05-30T23:16:00.001+05:30

My phrand, Puri's in town and he's leaving soon so we're planning to meet/will meet soon whatever. This guy was my buddy, you know you have those guy friends who are totally and completely just your friend and nothing else? Yup, he was mine, and he had this horrid girlfriend who made his entire school life miserable but he's still stuck on her and these days he hangs around her (all girl) college like one of those road side lafangas - eesh.

He used to sit in front of me and his best friend -Nathan, we shall call him on my left and me next to the window, and I had this tiny crush on Nathan, ok not tiny, but fot the tiniest while. We'd do stupid stupid things like play f.l.a.m.e.s. and other really mature stuff. All the teachers secretly liked Nathan and flirted with him and Puri would constantly get thrown out of class with his "But no M'am why?" and just be a total pain for them and full entertainment for the class.

At any given time I'm the store house for polo/wrigleys/centerfresh etc and in the fifth period before break they'd turn around and say - el, polo? because you know, break time is kissing time and the two of them would go off to their slut(if you're talking to a girl)/hot(if you're talking to a boy)/ girlfriends and I'd sit and read, think I was reading Suitable Boy those days, hang out with Lata and the Chatterjees for awhile. Sometimes, he'd go into the girls loo, yea don't ask, and I had to sit outside and keep guard, and I'd get a clear view of Nathan and his girlfriend mollycodling under the stairs.

O and when he sang Colorful by The Verve Pipe for her, who had to listen to it ten thousand times over the phone the day before? Later after we were all friended up, we realised our mummies were friends and our grandmummies were posted together in some shanty town while their husbands went off to war.

Anyway, around 11th or so they all discovered marlboro and bacardi and what not, and he'd call at random hours saying - oh man, I'm so stoonnnnnned, or I'm so higggggghhh, wasuppppp.. and I really didn't want to talk to him then so yea, maybe I was nerdy that way. We kinda drifted apart, ok that would be wrong, we couldn't stand each other for awhile, but that phase passed and it all got sorted.

But we're all grown up now, and these days we chat once in awhile and since he's in Pune he has crazy stories about taking a bus and going to goa unplanned in 3000 bucks and just smoking weed the whole time and "dude el, man I looked at the sea and there was no water, I swear. "

ho hum, so it goes my friend, so it goes.

Because El feels like writing

2008-05-29T12:13:00.001+05:30

How do I put words to this gossamer thing within, permanently stationed and cautiously building; to call it intelligence would be wildly inaccurate though in a boomerang way not off the mark. How can I tell you the rush of life that I feel when a book can sing for you, teach you, inspire writing of its own, how constricting is a novel? How many permutations exist to be able to write on? What will mine be like? How will it read?

I’ll dispense with filial references for the time being, will refrain from stringing together millennia of me in the making, of genes that swam down, of wars that tore them apart, of whatever little of destiny that brought them here and by whatever chance I was born. How can I explain to you my vagina skipping a beat by a stimulated scene, by something that’s not actually happening, that didn’t ever happen but is simply one persons imagining. There’s a cycle, an unhealthy repetition of taking winter clothes out and putting them back in, again and again, and in the night, it’s simple why I lie awake, because it’s alone time, there’s the whoosh, of distant planes landing, of retreating truck horns and I try to think of the driver, what he must be thinking of and I fail miserably exposing my pathetic bourgeois-ness, my lack of adventure, of all creature comforts that have surrounded me and danced along all the way. I try to imagine my own novel, my writerly life and my fame, but what will that get me? Do we become famous when we appear on t-shirts? Will there ever be a night, a time when I won’t have to watch late night television with low volume or tip toe around, will I ever be able to make as much noise as I want? Women who wear sleeveless on a cold new year night, or any other for that matter, what must they be thinking and why do they do that? What are they trying to attract? How do they summon the courage, the attractiveness to spell out their charms? It’s something I couldn’t ever do. I find cold a tawdry partner, an unworthy opponent, it’s best to be tackled with a fireplace or a slightly more modern and utterly unromantic heater. I want nothing to do with writing really, I wish it would get lost.

Crossing continents and two men swing tennis racquets, hitting, hitting, fighting, fighting. What shall I do? Do I need to be there? Do I need to go check? See that those monuments, those castles are for real? Not really. I believe you, and my senses have been humbled, numbed even. I think of another woman, so benign, so banal so toxically boring, but saying it doesn’t mean anything, you have to meet her.

I tread another path in my virgin shoes, talking to boys at night and the intimacy that creates, the possibilities it lays out. We’re all in it for the experience right? In an ‘anything can happen’ mood? Looking for stories to tell and that’s at the back of my mind which has a lot to do with my lack of inhibition. But I keep my eyes firmly on the exit gates - simply because, but I’ve changed though, and I’ve noticed the hysterical edge is off my voice when I talk to him. So it goes I suppose..

Anyone who's ever had a heart, wouldn't turn around and break it

2008-05-28T07:00:00.002+05:30

These are before-after shots of The View.

Pehle we lived in this lovely house and this <- was what we could see from the huge terrace. And aforementioned Pi used to live right across and we'd walk and talk and talk. We also had a Gilmore Girls marathon, and she taught me to to make a cinnamon brown cake - the idea of a cake without choclate was preposterous to me but ah, the fragrance of cinnamon filling up the house made me feel like a real baker. We've disposed the old Murphy Richards oven while moving and now no oven, no baking(microwaves don't count) and all this summer rain has really made me ache to get the egg beater and vanilla essence and tin of cocoa out.

Around two-three months back we shifted house and now we live in this densely popluated, not not-nice colony, and this is the view from the stairwell, no terrace here:(

Yes, people stared when I took it the picture.

But my room's a lot nicer now. There's no seepage and whitewash flaking off the wall for one. Then again, there's no M.E.S. to speed dial if the water/electricity/furniture/anything is broken/not working. First time we're living in a civilian colony(said with disdain) and not in a cantonment. Before moving was given dire warnings to keep head low and stay inconspicious etc etc. ha, it's me we're talking about - I'm the queen of working undercover, of being Harriet the Spy-esque.

None of that though, it's utterly unromantic.

The 3 mistakes of my life

2008-05-26T18:29:00.000+05:30

Wokay, The 3 Mistakes of my Life happened to be lying around and I picked it up to read/flip through. Little did I know that it would give me so, so much joy.

Right, so this dude (Bhagat) is the most loved, most read, best selling vagera vagera author of this country, but what’s more and here I quote from the blurb - “Seen more as voice of a generation than just an author, this IIT/IIM-A graduate is making India read like never before.”

Whew, that’s pretty huge for one guy no?

And this time, Bhagat’s writing about sex yo! No kidding.

An excerpt: ~

************************************************************************************
We slid under the water tank and sat on the floor. She had brought six pink cushions and a rug. ‘I brought them from my room, so we can have a little party here,’ she said and passed a couple to me. Under the cushions, she had a stereo.

‘Music?’ she said, her face pretty as a song.
I nodded.
‘I’ll put on Boyzone, my favourite,’ she said.
I took out the packet of eighteen candles that came with the cake.
‘Let’s light all of them,’ she said.
I wanted to go switch on the terrace light as it had become dark.
‘Let it be,’ she said and pulled my hand as she lit the eighteenth candle.
‘What if someone comes?’
‘Both my parents have bad knees. They never climb up to the terrace. And Ish well there is a match on.’...

A song called ‘No Matter What’ started to play. Like with all romantic songs, the lyrics seemed tailor-made for us.

No matter what they tell us
No matter what they do
No matter what they teach us
What we believe is true

She kissed me like she never had before...her hands came to my shoulders and under my shirt.

I can’t deny what I believe
I can’t be what I’m not
I know this love’s forever
That’s all that matters now

...the music didn’t stop and neither did we.

************************************************************************************

And these two go on to lose their virginity.

Hang on, no I mean hold up, stop the traffic people, boy freaking zone??? Are you kidding me? And this is set in November 2001. 2001 for crying out loud, if it was Slim Shady or Hybrid Theory or even that horrible J. Lo it would be understandable. 2001 is so backstreet boys, even westlife, even Ronan Keating! Because if I remember correctly, Boyzone were broken up then and Ronan was going all I love it when we do what we do blah blah.

But nobody, I mean nobody was listening to Boyzone in 2001, 1995 maybe but NOT 2001.

Diversion, remember watching MTV Select at 4, then Nikhil still looked slightly human and immediately after, MTV Most Wanted in which Shenaz would very sweetly read out those big fancy letters. LAME. But I used to watch both religiously and there was a lot of talk among the bsb(backstreetboys) legions in my class to make a big card and send it to her and but ofcourse request Quit Playing Games, like it didn't play every freaking hour anyway.

Anyway, dude(Chetan), say and write what you want, but a book published in 2008, playing up on the youth factor simple cannot have 2 ‘young’ people having sex to a boyzone song. That’s all I’m saying.

It's been such a lovely holiday, there's nothing funny left to say

2008-05-25T21:10:00.011+05:30

~Life is a highway, I wanna ride it, all night long~

Everyone knows, a holiday is all about the road, driving through is the best part and stopping for chai on the highway every hour or so.

~ you want it, you got it forever~

People say - mountains or sea? I say anywhere where the waters at. The river is what makes it all happen but I gotta tell ya, the Beas is one tenth of what it used to be. This was the river of my childhood, the first time I saw fast furious water so massive that it was crazy daunting. Now it's a tiny trickle.

~Oh how I long to be, Homeward Bound, Home - where my music's playing~

Man, it is so good to be back home. To know that ok if I put the geyser on for 10 minutes the water will be exactly this hot. To know what your rajma is going to taste like. To have my twice a day glass of milk, which I don't think I'll ever give up no matter how old I get. My homepage and sites signed into, and ofcourse, Buddy who went a bit spastic.

Anyway as far as photography goes, this trip was fail, but since digis make photogos of us all, here's some pics. They're all mostly male, mostly single(hehe) but I swear it wasn't intentional.

Read The Buddha Of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, jeez watay fantastic book. The cover put me off initially, becasue it's so freaking obvious, black hand, white orchid flower, gah - metaphor or what I dunno. Anyway, its published in 1990 which is ages back and I thought I wouldn't get the humour and references, but it's set in the 70s so in a way it's topical forever. Karim is an awesome person to hang out with, he's funny and very I-am-what-I-am, a drifter and the worst of the lot and everything that happens to him is utterly belivable, you're actually simply travelling with him.

Also finished the famous Bioscope Man..hmm:thoughtful: Didn't really get that one though, have for now put in my must-read-again pile, becasue I'm sure there's something in there..

Tomorrow's Flys birthday so hafta go wrap her gift, plus I'm writing her a story(don't ask) and have been writing this post for ages..and limewire's almost done with a grey's anatomy episode.

Damn, it's good to be back.

The Bioscope Man

2008-05-17T11:00:00.009+05:30

Nope, not a song title - tis a book title for a change.

GuesswhatGuesswhatGuesswhat? Generally the other day (Thursday)I was reading the paper, and Indrajit Hazra had reviewed Jack Johnson's new(ish) album and it wasn't a very favourable one. Now I'm not that into the guy(Jack), but as it happens when you have the whole day infront of you and you read the paper first thing in the morning, I got all charged up and wrote him an email.

Now I've been following this guy(Hazra) for years and I always thought he was just so damn cool - and when it came to music, his reviews were actually worth reading. He's funny and wry and also very intelligent. As for his column Red Herring, the tone and languge is totally free falling, I mean you ask anyone about him - they'll be like oh yeah, he's having a ball writing what he wants. Mostly I like his column, occasionally I don't but that's ok. Karan Thapar is aiye aiye aiye - pretentious to the hilt. What with his 'Pertie' and 'Did I start the Rahul Gandhi as PM controversy?' That way Jug Suraiya has no hangups - he's very no-water-in-gurgaon, stray-dogs-folowing-me, Dear ol Bunny etc. etc.

Anyway, he emailed back!!!

Jeez, I was SO excited because you know when you're sitting around and chatting with friends and unexpectedly the conversation goes on to life affirming turf and you talk about really huge stuff like life and what you want and the kind of person you like etc etc - he's exactly the kind of person I would fall for. He was super nice and chatty, replied back the very same day and even recommended a song! AND, he told me his book was out tomorrow(that is yesterday, friday.)

So - so, just because he , himself had told me, I went and bought it - first day first show or something like that. I mean how many times do you get to read a book, that the author himself has told ya to go read it.

As far as the book itself goes, this is going to sound mean, but it's not a bad as I thought it would be. Yes it is very bengali but it's about silent cinema which is pretty specific - so you really need to know what you're talking about. I'm not too far into it right now. He's just laying the ground with the family and pre partition, and taking on an era which already has so much fantastic literature to chronicle it must be a bit unnerving but till now, he's managed quite well.

Also, I like his last acknowledgement - "And everything boils down to Diya. I'm still trying to impress her." Which Diya person?! I thought he was notoriously single? Anyway, that was kinda sweet, and don't see no reason why this lady shouldn't be impressed.

Onto other stuff, I'll be off tomorrow and I'm actually pulling out Jackets and woollens muhahahaha, what was that? 45 degrees in Delhi did you say? I'll maybe write a post from some internet shack in the mountains just for the novelty sake, otherwise I'll see ya all in 1974. Oh we're not on tour with Stillwater? Next week then!

*Hope you never Love in vain and in my heart you'll remain, Forever Young.

Is someone getting thebestthebestthebestthebest of you?

2008-05-15T19:03:00.001+05:30

Aieyaieyaie, the ides of May are here and didn't even notice, it's not been a very good week for the world has it, what with the cyclone in Burma killing more people than my head can understand to count, and the Jaipur thing, and the earthquake in China. Mostly this stuff doesn't affect one, like keep the TV off for a couple of days and don't read the paper, you wouldn't even know. And even if you do know, it's just a shake of the head and tsk tsk, but it's been prickling me, maybe I have too much time on my hands and I'm thinking of all the things I should've done and how at the end of the day - I don't have a shred of integrity left - my internet usage being a direct example.

Anyway, onto happier stuff, Two Caravans was excellent, a book I'd dare to recommend, makes light of really serious heartbreaking stuff and you're laughing all the way till you realise - dude this is no laughing matter. It's also a little bit of a love story, which is very well written and has plenty of awww moments.

Found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I had been looking for everywhere. I'd heard so-so much about it and I'd keep asking for it and they'd go Oscar Wilde?, no no Wao, as in Wow. But the thing is, I don't like it that much and I'm well into it by now. The TIME review says it's an immigrant family saga for people who don't read immigrant-family sagas, know what? I'm a person who does like to read family sags, infact that was my favourite genre from 2003-06. So, it's language is very street, piece of ass and nigger and all that, sure there's art in there, just missing it, reminded me of Londonstani - that book which was written in sms language by that punju dude - Gautam Malkani, kiddah bro and what not. Also there's these side notes which are quite funny and super detailed about stuff that went on unger Trujillo's rule in the Dominican Republic which are insightful but so bloody long that you lose the thread of the nararative.

Edit - Just kept reading and before I knew it the book was finished and every single character had won me over, so guess they were right after all. Though I must point out that throughout the book you're wondering why Oscar dies, because of A. the title, 'brief' life but also B. there are plenty of referneces in the book, like Oscar did this in his last few days, after Oscar died etc etc.

So there's a suicide attempt, which is written in real time so you think this is it, but no, he survives. Then there's a bashing my the love of his life's boyfriend and you think, THIS is it - he dies for love, but no, and then it sort of dwindles into predictability that last bit, because he comes back for the love he couldn't have and quite literally walks to his death because he knows and we know, the boyfriend's going to knock him out anytime and he does just that. But, he gets what he wanted, to be loved by a woman and ofcuorse, the sex for the first and last time in his life.

Ha, that was the only thing that I wasn't fully convinced about, but other than that, glad I read it. For starters I knew jack nothing about the DR, except for its capital. Didn't even know there was a dictator called Trujillo.

Anyway, enough book talk, today I have just been going from one Vet to another, because Buddy's due for his deworming injections etc etc. Plus, we're all off to Manali next week and we need to figure out where he's going to stay. Usually my grandparents oblige, but this time they're being a bit fussy. So tomorrow we're going to their place to try and patao them.

Wish me luck.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it now

2008-05-13T18:39:00.001+05:30

I was a ninja on a bike. I was the kid with bruised knees who'd be jumping ditches and crashing, who'd race you and block your way if happened to be driving by in a car.

Oh how much I cycled on my yellow and purple Wild Cat bike. It was bought for me by my lovely grandaddy on the day my sister was born - you know, to encourage sisterly affection and all that. But I loved my BSA trailblazer the best, oh the trails I blazed on that one(hehe). O and the fun we made of Ladybird, I'd forgotten only about that.

In Poona, we lived in this rectanglish kinda colony and the gradient of the land was such that to do one chakkar you had to go downslope once and come back up panting. I used to happily whizz down one way and painfully trudge up the other side. On one random day I was so knocked out that I got off and walked up with my cycle and this sweet gentleman type uncle passing by asked me most kindly, whats the matter? are you hurt etc etc and I was like oh no, just dont feel like cycling uphill and immediately the smile wiped off his face and I got a diatribe for being lazy, so young and so lazy! Sheesh. Still remember it so must've got stored somehwere in there. <3

I loved that bike. Cycling down to the open air theatre to read the blackboard outside which would have the now-playing movie scribbled on(mostly sidey Bobby Deol ones like Soldier which was one of the better ones.) Then, we actually played holi and didn't sit holed up at home. We'd play Xena(YES, the warrior princess) and bike all over fending off demons and protecting our territory. And I'd ferry my dolls from the hammock in the backyard to the front gate because for some strange reason we made them all orphans in an orphangage who needed an outing and ofcourse everyone wanted a ride on my trailblazer. We'd play the best games; there were three of us, Sunethra, Diya and me. Last I heard of Sunethra, she could be found drunk and throwing up outside rpm at 3:30 in the afternoon (tsk, tsk) and Diya I used to bump into sometimes at the parlour and she had more to say to the lady who did her eyebrows than to me. Ah well, childhood stuff is best left alone.

But then, it got stolen, haaw, yes. From right outside our house, haaw, I know. Wept buckets and my Lone Ranger never quite made up for it, though I liked the name if nothing else. The best cycle story of all time though is that time I cycled on an airstrip. No kidding, I swear, a proper national AAI authorised one that too. We were in Jorhat and the Airforce/Military and Civilian airport is the same, as in there's just one airstrip which both of them used. Twas a stones throw from our place and I'd always cycle past one the many hidden side entrances eyeing it temptingly. One fine day I just turned in and tried my luck. I dunno if the guard was stoned or sleepy or just lost it for those few moments but he waved me in and oh my god, the thrill, the tarmac, the road, open wide wide beautiful road and I cycled away furiously like the film heroine of every fabulous movie ever made. But the gaurd(not a fancy FBI type, just a dude with a lathi on a chair) relaised withing 10 minutes and sort of tracked me down and escorted me off and NO one at home believed me, but you do right? And now it's on the record forever.

So there.

pearls and swines bereft of me

2008-05-11T23:15:00.001+05:30

Am in a mega cheesed off mood today. There is only one thing and one thing alone that has the power to make me this miserable - Nero, and ofcourse the harddrive crashing. That happened to me thrice the past year, so I got a nice fancy HDD(External Hard Drive) and then like the genius I am encryted the files just aisai to save space and when the computer crashed again, inspite of having backups I locked myself out of ALL the pictures and movies and music.

Sean(were in the same school but became friends only in college) jokes that the HDD is my boyfriend and he'll tell this story to anyone who'll listen about how I apparently said that I felt as though someone had broken up with me when the computer crashed. haha. Not funny :shakes head:

Basically, I know a little bit about computer stuff, I mean I can dsimantle the jumbo of wires and plug them all back in(not much of an accomplishment, just saying), I know about seeds and peers and torrents(which most people do) and I do stupid things with pictures(which every blogger does) and sometimes while surfing I like to believe that I've caught glimpses of some of the darkest corners of the internet(no not porn you nimrod, something along the lines of what Artemis Fowl did while looking for fairy gold.) But Nero? Makes me want to pull my hair out.

See I don't even use CDs, just keep stuff on the HDD but, in those rare moments when you want to watch something with someone, there arises the need to share. /philosophical, not.

Tomorrow, two of my school friends Kai and Fly are coming over, and we've planned to have a movie marathon(Operation Dinner Out) and I went and bought a stack of blank CDS and a whole bunch of junk food (side note - remember fryums? those bobby type things, which you'd put on your fingers and eat at birthday parties? found em!) Anyway, thought I'd burn the movies onto discs so that we could watch them on the wide wide screen of the TV but oh no, no no, fucking Nero has other plans for me, like saying, due to patent registration issues, mpeg4 decoding is not possible, ARGH, which is just a random arbitary excuse because I've installed most of the codecs for all those fundoo video files and no program has ever created such a god awful fuss before. Done everything I could think of - trawled message boards, uninstalled and reinstalled, tried using it from the laptop but nada.

Oh, Perfidy.

I said be careful his bowtie is really a camera

2008-05-08T23:27:00.005+05:30

So el has a cold. Sigh, and you know what's worse than a cold? A summer cold and there's nothing worse than that except an advent-of-summer cold. A cold is pointless because:

head is heavy
nose is humungous (arbitary thought - rhymes with mundungus fletcher)
body has shut down

but you can't lie down and be sick and almost dying, you must get kicked out of the house for whatever reason. For all practical purposes, it's not a real thing.

So I went out and stocked up before the worst came on:

Pringle chips (barbecue flavour - decent, not my favourite which I am yet to decide)
Stick Jaws(the chocalate ones, not vanilla)
Fruitella(heart the chewiness and strawberry and grape flavour)
Sugar doughnuts(2)
Polo(duh)

Also invested in Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka. I enjoyed her first book and this one takes a while to kick off with the initial humour kind of flat but right now its rollicking. I like knowing authors from the beginning, from their first book. Sure I like Maragaret Atwood and Vikram Seth who've written a whole load of great novels but I don't know know them. So many people have read them, that the book isn't really yours as such. I like picking up a book that's relatively obscure and very good and just for recognising the familiar name and design(since they stick to their publishers) the second time around, I get excited and want to read it. I like her and Paul Torday too whose second novel I shall read next.

I downloaded,

Leatherheads(that George Clooney movie about football in the 30s, which is a camera print and absolutely awful so didn't watch it)
High Fidelity(which though I've seen several times on HBO, I felt like watching) and the book was good. I like Nick Hornby even though his books get made into jokey movies with Hugh Grant in them(About a Boy.) That dude(Nick not Hugh) is funny and knows what he's talking about.
Simon and Garfunkel - Greatest Hits - since no one owns tape players anymore and what good is a hard plastic covered cassette without a player except in the car?

Also, look what I found! WWE playing cards!It's all coming back to me, the hours and hours playing this pointless game which required absolutely no skill, because by the end of it we'd memorised the stats of the wrestlers and the art of peeking. So if you saw the opponents card you knew exactly what to call. I used to own this game, and shutup you - I didn't cheat, atleast not as much as you.

And remember - Trish Startus, ha, we used to get this kick every single time by calling out Breast - 41 inches. Though these days Khali is all the rage. Headlines Today dedicates half an hour to him at 10:30 I think when a WWE 'expert', which is a guy wearing a stone cold tshirt talks about the Great Khali and the anchor in all seriousness will ask - so will Khali win his next match? And the resident 'expert' goes, well, gaurav(insert forgettable name here) it's hard to say, he's been winning matches, performing well but there's a lot at stake here so we'll see what he can come up with under pressure, etc. etc.

IT'S ALL RIGGED DOOFUS. Though if they(Htoday) have Grandstand in the 9 pm slot, atleast they've come out of the closet about their entertainment/utter rubbsih status. I'll remember them fondly though because when they were a proper news channel, I happened to be watching when they announced the board results were out. R.I.P. Htoday.

*yes i discovered the 1-2-3 button today

Hysteria, when you're near

2008-05-06T22:53:00.002+05:30

Hello world, been busy-busy and rather enjoying the flurry of activity amidst the nothingness, Me? I'm happiest when they're lots of things to be done. One of which is something like this. I figure as bloggers you're writers and it's all for fun so you absolutely must check it out and send in an entry just for laughs. Book coupons if ya win! Besides it's just 250 words or less which is less than a blogpost so do send in an entry.

Finished On Chesil Beach and I'm a bit disconcerted to be honest. *disclaimer - spoiler ahead*

I thought it would be painful to read because cmon, two virgins on their wedding night, pretty specific no? It read ok and it's slim so you can finish it in one go but I honestly didn't see the end coming. They, as in the couple, split up and simply don't talk to each other after that night, I mean wtf? I was almost convinced when I read the last page, that yea, maybe doing nothing, not saying something can change your whole life, the entire course of your marriage but, after I'd thought about it for awhile my conviction wore off. It's hard to believe that two people who loved each other all that much never once, in their whole life didn't even try to talk to the other again.

Or maybe I'm missing something here.

By the way, Van is a big fan of Ian McEwan and he loved Atonement(the movie) which I didn't and he didn't like Pride and Prejudice(the movie) which I loved. (Both of them were directed by Joe Wright, very British and ~ladila~)

me:No! how can you not like that movie?
he: oh they butchered the book
have you even read it?
Studied it. (ICSE or some such) You know that part when Darcy first confesses his love to Elizabeth, he says something like I love you. Most ardently.
nod head, uh huh
They ruined it and made it a bollowood filmy sequence in the rain with the clinging clothes and dramabaazi and what not.

Huh, I'd never thought of it that way and I came home, dug out the book, reread that part - and if I was on the edge about him before, I well and truly crossed it then.

Yea I sound dweeby and all but it's my blog shog after all.

I could never do that, someone would see through that

2008-05-04T21:44:00.003+05:30

What would be your Dream Jobs?

Here are mine; I've combined a couple of them(as is evident.)

1. Rock Journalist (1968-1972) - for the Rolling Stone or Cream a.k.a. Willaim Miller, get to review Led Zeppelin IV and Morrison Hotel and listen to Stairway when it FIRST comes out, meet CCR, Jethro Tull, Iggy, Bread and Frank Zappa and apparently you got loadsa free records. Be permanently on tour and then settle down somewhere, have tonnes of records and as time passes, they get more valuable and all of sudden I'm rich. I'll have old friends from the tour over all the time and some new ones, like Joe Elliot, have a free unlimited supply of booze, so my underground room gets converted into a pub place kinda thing, of which I chuck out all people who listen to crap and die happily because of all the experimental drugs pumped in my body before the internet kicks in and our souls get scattered all across it.

2. Professional Tennis Player(1990 - 2002) - Win wimbeldon three times in a row(but not make want people want to tear their hair out like Federer), stay long enough to rake in the big bucks and then quit and start a slightly fancy bar/restrauant and when it gets super successful have a string of them all over the world and since I'll be all sporty anyway, take to surfing at a later stage(in my 30s) and do loads of moonlight dancing on the beach.

3. Writer kind of person (1945-1998), put out one incredibly bad book that nobody reads, be a profesor of English or History at a university maybe in New England, have my students adore me, share cigs with the drama club teacher and be Staff Supervisor to the best college magazine in the country. Marry a stunning up and coming artist who's genius is recognised after I've been the only person who faithfully believed in him for several years. Dabble in photography, freelance on the side, translate stuff from Czech and Polish, do a stint with Lonely Planet, and then, at 50 write one brilliant novel about my country and war and love and life and everything and spend the next couple of years basking in the glory, writing the next novel, giving talks here and there, traveling in style and die famously and suddenly at 53 with an uncompleted manuscript in my desk that'll be auctioned off and never published.

4. Be part of Alexander's Vanguard(something B.C.), and travel with him across Asia Minor to the Ends of the Earth and shout Alexandre! Alexandre! Alexandre! and be written in history forever and always.

5. Paintball Park Patron, I love paintball no matter how much it's supposed to hurt and maybe own a water park as well(not a lame excuse for one but one with the longest/fastest slides or something) somewhere on the highway between Bangalore and Coorg.

6. Inherit an Estate, maybe in Costwalds or near Pondicherry or the east near Tawang but somewhere not too cold. Have a lovely cottage with wooden panneling and a fireplace and miles and miles or farm land with a wood enclosed as well. I'd have horses and ride them around in the morning to check on everything and a whole bunch of dogs, Buddy too, though a meaner tougher version of him and a meaner tougher version of me. Also lots of other animals like on willow farm and in Thornbirds. And I'd have a jignormous library which a hundred years down the line will be something of a mecca, not a tourist place with tickets but an open place where you could come and live there and spend your days reading or writing or both.

7. Park Ranger/Jungle Guide and be one of those people clamping down the crocodiles as Steve Irwin talks into the camera and become this eccentric old lady with a fondness for liquor and an overused rifle who knows far too much about the jungle.

8. Doc - surprise entry here but it runs in the family and I really regret not even considering it seriously, I hate to say this but my decision was guided solely by, Look I've just given my 10th boards and I dont wanna join Akash tuitions or some such and take freaking PCM and bleeding B and just for that I said chuck it. Just like that.

9. Minister of Magic, and a famous Auror with legendary stealth ninja skills.

Oh I'm not going to ask for 10, nine's just fine for me.

I am the Eggman, I am the Walrus, goo goo gjoob

2008-05-03T12:44:00.002+05:30

I borrowed just one book from him though we talked of hundred others.

There were lots of people standing in the balcony, some sitting on the railing, talking of this and that, it was an Ed Board meeting which turned into a Film Soc(iety) meeting. People were milling around, what to do now, lets go eat, where, here no there etc etc. He (who we shall call Van) said, I've been reading this book Travels with Herodotus by this Polish guy, Ryszard Kapuscinski (yea, don't even try pronouncing it) it's really good, you should read it. Everyone else is kinda quiet because well, they listen when he talks. It's this huge big circle but he's looking directly at me even though the conversation was a general one to begin with and me with shiny eyes, Sounds cool, can I borrow it sometime? Yup, then the rest of the adoring girls start off with the let's go, let's go and they walk off. But he got it for me the next day.

I thought it'd be really hard to read considering its a) Non Fiction and b) Translated - two of my complete no-nos. :shakes head: But it was surprisingly quite readable(relief.) It's split up into chapters according to the places he's been to so you can read them in any old order. Apparently he was this hands on journalist sorta dude who travels all over the world and is insightful in ways you least expect him to be. Herodotus ofcourse is an ancient greek who was one of the first infact the first traveller of the known world who chronicled his adventures. So basically Ryszard travels all over from Libya to Persia to Benaras and what not and he takes Herodotus with him and kinda sees the world thorugh the prism of his teachings.

Then, for my happy birthday he gave me Zorba the Greek, he'd told me about it earlier and how much he liked it, and written inside was - 'To the embarrassed Birthday Girl, hope you enjoy it as much as I did' this might seem like an innocent thing but it so. is. not. His coming was the reason I was really excited about the party and the reason I couldn't sleep that night, I was on such a high.

And I just know like Ryszard carried Herodotus with him everywhere, Zorba will be my Herodotus, It'll go wherever I go and I'll know it backwards and forwards. I have a feeling he(Van) and me will be great friends because we really are very alike and I can think of ten thousand things to say to him and counting.

If only there wasn't that other girl.

And if only I had some balls.

Sigh.

Don't let the days go by, glycerine

2008-05-02T13:01:00.002+05:30

We went to Mocha on tuesday, Kasha's birthday treat but more importantly it's a Young People thing to do and that's why we as young people faithfully went and 'chilled at Mocha'. It's full of people like us who have hours and hours to kill on any given weekday, twas much fun. Today is Dino's birthday and everyone's majorly excited about the par-tay, infact most of them put off going home by a week to stay back for this.

You know what I'm really glad about? (or glad for? where's that wren and martin) When you have just a couple of minutes to spare and you're hanging around, waiting in a crowded place and you want to dial a number and just talk for that little while? Well I have a number to dial, two in fact and I really do have friends who know me, who know know me and will call 50 times a day to talk if we feel like. It wasn't always like this, I went through a very long phase and having polite friends who I didn't get and who had no idea who I was and thats' more trying than anything, then nothing's better than something. So I'm glad.

The Meso has landed today.

The last time Meso (cuz sis) was here we went on this grand family holiday to Jim Corbett becasue shocker of all shockers none of us had been there yet. The park itself was a terrific disappointment almost like Sariska with only peacocks and deers, just a more puffed up version of the DGC or Subroto Park(haha) but the government type guest house cottage thing we stayed at had a lovely view of the lake and was simply delightful.

So many bloggers talk about the shaadi attack they get, and I sit back and chortle as my sis gets it. Her dad says, don't worry, yeh khud munda chun ke layegi what do we have to do? I know who she's got in mind. Her mum goes, she has NO ONE in mind very emphatically and vehemently as if that closes the matter. Though Meso says she can't marry someone who doesn't love Pearl Jam. Fair enough.

If you've ever watched a single episode of Sex and the City or read any American chick lit book, the ultimate cliche is "Marry an Investment banker" no? Bag yourself the big gun which is hilarious and now Meso's the hotshot, so it's like haha, tables turned and it makes me fiercely proud somehow.

I'd heard so much of IIM but when I went there to meet Meso it was just so different. Their rooms are tiny and it really is very hot. The first person I was introduced to was this guy from Tamil Nadu with this long long surname like Tiruchillapalli or something. He was quiet and dark with specs and smiled a lot. He was stoned throughout and because all the parents were descending the next day for their graduation ceremony or whatever, he was trying to sell the weed he had left, I swear, we'd cross people in those lovely brick corridor things they have and through some weird code he'd ask them if they wanted it and they'd say yes and he'd say ok meet me later. O then there was this bengali guy and they all have these wack nicknames like tiru and patpat and what not, didn't know who was who, but he smoked steadily with this small pringle box as his ashtray. One guy would come in and recall some incident that happened the night before, some dude who'd done something stupid with fair annise? or some hair removing thing and they'd all laugh, not just polite hahacoughhaha but big fat loud guffaws. Some other guy would come in and would say the same thing, heard about sattu? there's no hair on his head man or some such and they'd all start off again. It was so much cooler than I expected, they really were normal folks and not evil maths geniuses about to take over the world.

Maybe they were both.

I'll Back You Up

2008-05-02T02:41:00.000+05:30

Have you ever hurt yourself really badly? As a kid or otherwise? Not the near fatal disease I'm going to - die write my will variety, more like a whack on the head or break a leg type?

I was learning how to ride my bike, could've been anywhere upwards of 5 and downwards of 7 years old and we stayed in this colony which had two blocks down and a massive uphill, easily at a 50 degree angle and the rest of the blocks in a circle above.

Now my side wheels were removed and there was this batman chappie who was jogging behind me. I made him swear to not let the seat go, and he kept reassuring me from behind, ya ya, I'm holding and I so knew he wasn't but I let it pass (because look, look I was riding without sidewheels!) Anyway after a very successful trip of cycling round and round, instead of taking another chakkar, I took the turn downslope to get home and I don't know if I forgot where the the brakes were or didn't know how to use them or what because I always had trouble starting and stopping (even when I learnt to drive a car, I could NEVER get it to start) and I'm cycling down steadily gaining speed and this guy is running madly behind me but I just couldn't help it and I went smack into a pillar of concrete infront of the garages. Ouch you say? Not really. I had to go get stitches on my head and chin and what not and had this huge scar on my left cheek but all that was ok, I don't remember it hurting as such.

What I do remember is that when we got back from the hospital, I was just lying in bed and I'm sure my dad must've used a few choice words on the bhaiya (because technically he wasn't suppsoed to let me go etc etc) and he was feeling so bad that he came and kneeled next to my bed and said 'gudiya mujhe maaf kar do' and I didn't really know what was going on but I wanted to give him a hug and say dude chill, it was totally my fault and he was feeling so terrible about it that my dad patted him on the back and told him to forget about it.

We were great friends he and I, I used to sit at the back of his cycle and he'd take me all over, and he'd push the swing higher and higher and higher for me.

I wonder where he is now? Rangaya his name was. And did he teach his kids to ride their bikes? And get a few hard knocks then as well?

Self Portraits in E Minor

2008-04-29T13:14:00.000+05:30

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

and some poetry in pictures -

I've stopped counting..

Jane Says

2008-04-28T12:49:00.000+05:30

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

2008-04-27T23:53:00.000+05:30

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

2008-04-26T18:01:00.001+05:30

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

2008-04-23T21:59:00.000+05:30

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

2008-04-21T14:28:00.000+05:30

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?