Of Fuzzy Logic And My Jigsaw Puzzle

2010-08-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

So, my first paper is being submitted this week. Well strictly speaking, it isn't really 'my' paper, I'm third author on the thing. Still! It's a first. And it feels momentous because of all the struggling, failure, uncertainty and doubt that one survived (somehow) to get to this point. So we are feeling quite blessed today. A trifle unworthy, and definitely blessed.

Being rather ambitious, we have decided to submit to the NPG (Nature Publishing Group). I have no idea if our work is worthy of such a journal, so I shall have to take the boss man's word for it - he says it is, so we give it a shot. To me, it seems comprehensive, a good piece of experimental physics. But I would say that!

Now to hold our breath, bite our lips and hope to god, it'll be accepted!

I'm thinner, I'm reminded! Yay me ?

2010-07-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing has made me more aware that I've lost quite a bit of weight than the way men on the street react to me these days. No, I'm not talking about the cute, gelled hair sporting, Benetton pullover wearing, all-too-meterosexual-for-me kind of boys that might be seen traipsing down M.G Road. ( I don't really care about attracting them come to think of it. I like me my geeky boys who don't really know they are cute but are in fact terrifically so, that I might notice at a bookshop, just in case you're wondering. ) I mean, whom our politicos like to refer to as the aam-aadmi. Apparently, my attractiveness to this section of the sea of strangers that I pass by in my daily doings has sky-rocketed.

A couple of months ago, I noticed the flicker of a second look from a passing Auto-driver. At first, rather unthinkingly, I just presumed that I must have been looking more the absent-minded physicist than I usually did. Perhaps I had on too yellow a shirt with too green a pair of corduroys or something. Availing of the nearest reflective surface, giving my self the once-over and not really finding anything remarkable or strange about my own appearance, I thought nothing more of it. Until I began, over the following weeks, to catch it more frequently.It took me a while to figure it out,and then, when it finally dawned on me that is what it was, I chuckled about it. I even allowed a moment to be smug, I must admit, before catching myself.

Since then however, that faint feeling of self-congratulation that accompanied some chap or the other noticing me (or to my mind admiring the not-entirely-unpleasant figure I have managed to acquire these days) has entirely vanished. In its stead is, a growing sense of distrust, an increased awareness of the space around me, and the urge to walk faster and out of sight of anyone whose attention I might inadvertently catch. The acute awareness that unsolicited attention is a double-edged sword has set in and we are now wary all the time, again.

A couple of weeks ago it was, someone brushed past as I was on the crowded street that leads home, and neatly extended his hand to smack me on the ass - well he tried anyway, he got my back and it stung! And ofcourse everyone noticed 'cos I screamed out something. But they all just stood there, no one saying a word - alternating between judgement and pity in their eyes.

Why, just yesterday a man purposefully bumped into me at a bus stop. Full on. The bastard! I was so furious because I knew he intended to do it. But before I had a chance to do anything, he just turned around and ran off. The asshole had timed it so, even if I had caught him, I had the choice of hurling abuses or getting in the bus which was quickly moving away. Ofcourse I got in the bus, mostly just stunned at his gall. I found the first seat, and plonked myself down besides another young lady who had apparently seen the whole thing unfold. She asked me rather contemptuously why I hadn't just slapped him. As though that were the most obvious, natural response to something like this. I told her I was too stunned to and I didn't see it coming. In fact, I wouldn't have slapped him anyway. I just don't think it's prudent.

Anyway, she informed me that the little twerp in question had most certainly done it on purpose, and that she had seen him returning to a set of friends whom he had proceeded to high-five, for having successfully accomplished his task. Not surprised at all, but quite indignant nevertheless, I reminded myself that this probably happened to every woman at some time or another and that it could have been a lot worse.

I know this. Because ofcourse, ALL the women I know have a dozen stories each like this to tell. Why, I have plenty of them myself. So why am I so aghast, why does this suddenly feel remarkable, why do I suddenly feel so violated by what was quite a common fact of life for the first 21 years of my existence - "Are female ? Be groped!"

And then I realise, I haven't experienced this in four years. When I moved to Belgium I left behind quite readily the travails of urban indian living. And eventually, when I came back,I was terribly out of shape. Thus rendering me quite invisible to these jackasses apparently!

So for the last four years, I haven't had to worry about people ogling,winking, air-kissing, whispering a hasty 'hey baby' as they passed me by, shoving into me, trying to touch my breasts, or pat my ass or grope at whatever part of me they could readily reach. For four years I just walked down the street and no-one bothered me.I got used to that. Too soon!

For all my ranting, I know that it just begins all over again now.. I don't honestly believe there's anything to be done but grin and bear it. Besides curse violently after the offensive episode has concluded to get it out of your system that is.

Sigh! Perhaps there is something about being over-weight that I will miss - people leaving me the hell alone!

2010-07-28T00:56:00.000-07:00

I think I have to begin to write again. It is constancy in uncertain times, familiarity in estrangement, clarity in a rising tide of incoherence - the only way I feel some semblance of a grip on things. For, at the moment,I am unanchored, terribly unsure of how my life will unfurl, which way the winds will blow.

All I can do is knuckle down, settle in for the long haul, keep hope and seek some catharsis in the meanwhile. Which is really all my writing as ever been.

So here I am again.

For You

2009-06-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

Since every one of my 6 readers was very kind and encouraging after the last post and urged me to write more, here is another one. It was written on the spur of the moment in about 10 minutes and because it was rather spontaneous and inspired by something I'd read, I didn't want to meddle around with it too much. So I have no clue if it's any good or sounds totally cliche. I'm better at angry poems, I think.

Inspired by Carol Ann Duffy and written for someone.

----------

Tonight, sleep is restless, like an unwell child
I whine and toss over again.
I say your name softly and mutter curses under my breath
But you aren't here, so I say it aloud:
'Damn you!'.

You are walking, somewhere.

And I, being used to you, in sleep
feel the absence,
of your leg draped over my hip.
Which many nights
you used as leverage,
to pull even closer in some morning hour.
Sometimes, just to breathe nearer.
Or half-asleep, to bury your face in my hair,
(happily kept long just for you.)
Or if you didn't whisper it earlier,
awaken me into a surreal cocoon of love and night
with your soft, tender, moist kisses
left delicately on my spine.

In this cold room of mine,
too far away from you,
I wait,
And dream such warm dreams of us.

A Poem (And A Disclaimer)

2009-06-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

This is one of the few things I've managed to write in recent times (nearly a year). And apparently I seem to have lost some of my confidence in the meanwhile because I am terribly unsure of whether this is worthy for anyone else's eyes. But, I will take a chance and post it anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, they say.

I couldn't decide what to call it, yet. So for now, it remains untitled.

P.S : If it's awful, do be kind.

Here goes :

My beloved is brown.
Not a weak cafe-au-lait brown.
Brown-er.
Like the ripe, gooey tamarind flesh
that spills out of heavy, fallen pods
in the summertime.
A manly brown.

She is fairer, they said of me charitably.
(Just as it ought to be), by more than a shade or two.
Yet, I suspect, only barely enough for them to approve.
For mine is a warm shade.
Like the strong, south-indian, filter coffee
that swirled silkily in silver tumblers
on that morning we were married.

But it was only last night, in a loving moment,
when he held my hands tenderly in his,
and then later our fingers intertwined,
in a crisscrossing of light and shade,
that We first noticed this.
And laughed.

Now, he amuses himself by saying
I am the exact hue of his favourite brew.

I Love The Whole World

2008-12-15T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've listened to this everyday for the last week and it just lights up my day, makes me feel like a million butterflies in the sun, like that awful cataract of cynicism has been removed and I see the world all over again, in all it's little glories. And I am madly, crazily in love again - with music, with words, with the world, with life.

2008-12-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Today I don't care about how the words come out. I don't care to make an impression. I don't care to construct anything. I just need to let it out : This evening, I heard some brilliant live music. And it's left me feeling high and my mind boggled.

Over the last two years I've been away I've been really lucky to have had some great musical evenings, and occasion to listen to some of my favourite musicians live. All the while, the recurring thought coursing through my head was that I needed to soak up as much as I could, because once I got back to madras I wouldn't be able to attend events like that.

Today changed that for me. It was a concert on par with anything I've ever heard abroad. In our own Alliance Francaise.. I listened to three brilliant musicians, playing some of my favourite pieces.. Le Petit Orchestre Swing de france - a trio comprising Laurent Zeller a violinist, and two guitarists - another Laurent and Gilles parodi, who together made some of the most beautiful music I've ever had the pleasure to hear live. There was Serge Gainsbourg, Django Reinhardt, Cole Porter, Edith Piaf in lovely arrangements.

It was intimate, the setting. That always lends itself to being drawn into the music, if it's good. And the artists really let loose.. they performed so freely, with expression and laughter and such good vibes. The violinist, the only one that spoke english, was wonderfully comical. He joked and laughed and had all of his eating out of his hands. So much so that one might have actually forgiven him if he was just above average as a violinist. But he had to go and be brilliant - absolutely, undoubtedly gifted! The notes he coaxed out of that instrument had me absolutely on the verge - of elation. He was the embodiment of energy in the music when the piece called for it and the epitome of soulfulness in another piece. The guitarists were quiet but had a wonderful body language.. It's amazing how much that tells you.. They didn't speak any english and yet their smiles, the tilts of head, the cheeky smiles said it all.. They were enjoying themselves, they were feeding off each other's energy like all the really good musicians seem to be able to do and they played their hearts out - laid it all on the table so to speak... It was marvelous, the energy in the room towards the end. The applause was the warmest I've EVER heard from an audience in madras for ANY thing. It was spontaneous and the yelling for an encore was the most obvious thing to do - OF COURSE they had to play some more! There was no other way about it...

I came out of there, my heart light, my spirits lifted, my mind ablaze.. Such is the delight of an evening of good music.

2008-12-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

The big wart on the side of your neck -
that icky, sticky extra drop of flesh that jingle-jangles
three inches from your ear - first drew my notice.

Not the mozham of fresh jasmine threaded into your plait,
nor the clumsily pleated pallu fanned across your high backed blouse
or the diamond thodu that made your ears droop.

This alone made me reconsider your pitch black hair,
tied (on second thought) too long and too tight,
And the infant cradled in your arms, that now I see, must be your daughter's.

2008-10-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Kathy pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose rather clumsily with the back of her wrist. They had become loose and seemed to keep sliding off her rather tiny nose. It was particularly frustrating on these summer days when everything that touched her skin was too hot. The plastic frames felt heavy and the relentless moistness of the little pearls of sweat wedged beneath them really annoyed her. She couldn't understand why her parents wouldn't buy her contact lenses even after all her attempts to demonstrate why it was logically imperative that she have them. She sat crouched against a wall, under the asbestos shed in the tiny room on their terrace that they had built to house all those unused odds and ends that had long lost their place in her home.

There was a rusty fan that she had found in the clutter, the first time she had tried to make space for herself there. It whirred a little too loudly and always gave away where she was. Not that it mattered, because for the most part, they left her alone. But she liked being lost to another space and time when she was reading and the whirring dragged her out of that world every so often. She did like to stare at it while she mulled however, the revolving blades hypnotic, almost dulling. Twirling idle strands that fell on her face, she would lose herself to a reverie, slipping in and out between make believe worlds and dusty reality.

She unfixed her gaze and looked down to her book. It had a lovely soft leather cover, a deep red hide. The kind you had to pay a lot of money to buy these days. She held a finger carefully between the pages to mark her place as she surveyed the gold lettering, bold and antiquated, etched into the leather. Closing her eyes, she ran her finger over the grooves and indentations of the title - Lord Of The Flies.

Reality

2008-10-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm back in madras. I rarely get the time to be online. And if I do, it's only been to communicate with someone specific. It's such a change from the last two years when I was plugged in nearly 24x7.

There is so much to say, so much has transpired, so many revelations struck. But I need to catch my breath. It might take a while to get back into the groove of posting - I have been writing, just not online. And somehow, strangely, I like that it's not been for any audience at all.

But I miss my blog too. So here I am, back, if only to say this :

If you are in Madras, and are free this weekend, you really should consider watching Theatre Y's production of the Manjula Padmanabhan play 'Reality' at Alliance Francaise.

I've only just got back after watching it. I went to cover it for a local magazine (I've just begun to freelance) and am quite blown away - both by the content and the quality of the performance. The passion of the players shines through. A couple of them give spectacular performances. The play itself is serious, intense and mature for the most part with dashes of comic relief and dollops of satire. I won't say any more now because I'm yet to write my review. Suffice it to say it'll be glowing.

There are four shows a day both Saturday and Sunday. If you can spare a couple of hours, I urge you, Go watch!!!

O Fortuna

2008-09-05T04:09:00.000-07:00

I love a Capella singing. It is the ONLY form of music that literally raises the hairs on my neck. I've been following 'The Last Choir Standing' on BBC for the last month or so, soaking up all the good singing, new arrangements of old songs, reminiscing sweetly of my Stella days and how much fun it was to be a part of good (if small) choir. So, last week when I watched Ysgol Glanaethwy perform I was moved to bits - by their singing too(even though it wasn't a capella) but mostly because what they chose to sing was O Fortuna.

It is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. Haunting and powerful. For the last 10 years I have nursed the impression that it was written by Mozart - (no thanks to a wrongly titled torrent ) So when I heard it again on tv, it suddenly struck me that the song had lyrics - presuming they were written for an opera by Mozart because they sounded italian-y, I went a-digging.

Apparently, and this took me quite aback, the music is relatively new - 1935 or someat like that, written by a chappie called Carl Orff. Oh the disappointment (of sorts) - my untrained ears were convinced it was older. And oh, more interestingly, the music was written for the lyrics , a poem from a 13th century collection called Carmina Burana.

Wiki had a translation of this one on its page. And I absolutely fell in love with it. It seems so Roman somehow and yet I feel so much familiarity - almost as though elements of the style have percolated through the centuries (or maybe it's because it's a translation that it sounds like that to me). I've been playing it over and over in my head for the last week and have become quite besotted with it, so thought I'd share, in the hope that it will enchant you as well..

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are constantly changing,
ever growing
and waning;
hateful life
now oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.

Fate - monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.

Fate, in health
and virtue,
is against me
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!

Of Nightmares - II

2008-09-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

My previous post was a reaction - a gut response to what I had just read. I realised that almost as soon as I had published that post and briefly toyed with idea of replacing it with something that reflected my thoughts on the matter rather than my feelings. A part of me needed to qualify why I felt the way I did. To replace sentiment with logic. But I refrained. Primarily, because I think I am entitled to express my feelings and I think my feelings on this reflected my outrage and certain (even if slightly farfetched) fears that some among us may have felt but not had either the avenue or the inclination to express. So while the post remains untouched for that reason, I am obliged to now elaborate what I think.

In the few days since I first read about this online, I’ve had quite a few heated discussions with friends, managing in the process to elicit a range of opinions broad enough to represent a substantial cross-section of urban people that one may come across, or so I’d like to imagine. But more importantly, my own thoughts on this have crystallized in the act of listening and explaining my stance to another.

Cutting out the bullshit, what it comes down to is simply this: People are threatened by a shift in social hierarchy. The Conversions (presumably to Christianity but me thinks it's more the mindset than the religion ) – now a much vilified word – is apparently supposed to explain and excuse the violence. ‘The dalits are being converted’ they cry, ‘Hinduism is being threatened, how can we be expected not to retaliate?’

To them I want to say… ‘Yeah, right!!! All of a sudden you give a shit about people that you have treated worse than pond scum , that you have shunned and cast out of your society, that you have trodden upon and taught your children to tread upon. Suddenly, you want to pick up arms in their ‘defense’ - you dare to pretend that you care - you lying, insecure, hypocritical bastards! ’

But ofcourse there is absolutely no point in addressing people that resort to violence. Instead, I want to address the ‘educated’, the ‘aware’ and the yet-somehow-apathetic (or would they prefer narrow-minded)

To them I want to say this.. ‘Think, people, think!!! Why are you so threatened by this if you are secure in your views? What are you so afraid of? Is your faith so shakeable that if some other guy gets converted you suddenly are threatened? Ok, say that 60 % of the people in your apartment complex are converted to another religion, are you going to start questioning yours?? If that is the case, then you need to re-think your faith. If it isn’t, then you might want to extrapolate that to realize that maybe even if all the dalits in Orissa get converted, it doesn’t matter. It shouldn't. Just mathematically, for crying out loud, 1 in 5 people in the world is Hindu. You belong to the fastest growing (by sheer reproduction rates) religion in the world.’

And let’s call a spade a spade, what is the big deal about conversion anyway? If something is shoved down one’s throat, if it is forced, of course I find that abhorrent and I will crusade against it with you. But if it is consensual, why does it bother you people so much. Every one of us is always trying to convert another to their point of view. I’m doing it now. You did it the last time you had an argument with someone. We always want people to come round to our point of view because we think we are right, that our point of view is more valuable, carries more credence. But all of a sudden, when it comes to religion, it is so terribly taboo. The horror of it! How could one possibly think that?! I think it’s perfectly alright for me to campaign for my set of beliefs.. religious or otherwise, to tell people I think I have a better idea, a better philosophy, a road to salvation – As long as I don’t put down another, and don’t disrespect you, I’m doing nothing wrong. And just incase you didn’t remember, our constitution endorses this freedom.

Of course the devils advocate in you might immediately fire back by oh-so-cynically (and condescendingly) claiming that perhaps because the dalits are so helpless and downtrodden that they are extremely prone to suggestion, so vulnerable that they are easily swayed and influenced, that to them, the mere suggestion of a different religion is akin to coercion and is going too far. To that, I would like to point out, that ironically, it is this religion where they will find recourse, this religion that actively reinforces the notion that everyone is equal in the eyes of god , that they are not second-class citizens, that offers education and a chance at a better life for their children , that considers them valuable and important members of society, that just might raise their self-esteem and awareness and standard of life enough for them to just maybe start thinking for themselves!

There are still those that will claim that dalits are forcibly converted in the more classic sense of the word, a notion much touted. In response to this I must say that I know that the church in India ( certainly after the graham staines thingy) began to consciously refrain from converting people, with the express directive that baptisms were to be performed only if the individual fulfilled expressed a sustained desire to become a Christian. (And why wouldn't the dalits, god knows christianity offered them an out from the oppression of caste-ism)

This was done for two reasons, first, out of respect (and maybe a little fear) for the religious dynamic in Indian society. Secondly, because whatever the transgressions in the past, there was a reaffirmation amongst the Christian community (both clergy and people) that any measure of force is against a very basic tenet of Christianity (freedom of choice). Personally, I think the Church has its hands full enough keeping the people that it has from leaving and should have outright refused to convert people in the first place. But that’s another story for another post.

The bottom line is all the tsk-tsks in the world are entirely useless. Something must be done. But what? Erm… we’re back to square one! One is left with the resounding conclusion that there really is nothing that can be done except try to temporarily protect these people in some way and get justice for those that have been victimized.

In the bigger scheme of things, it’s seems too late for this generation. The violence will stop maybe when it ceases to serve some higher political agenda for those VHP, RSS (insert expletive of choice) that feed on the ignorance of the masses (the self righteous, self-appointed protectors of our religion and moral fibre!!) which is when they will call off their goons. Until the next time they need to pick on someone that is.

We cannot fight them. I certainly cannot fathom how we can. Their poison feeds on disparity, it is spread by enforcing existent social hierarchies, by scaring the upper classes that are already terrified of losing their ground in the superiority scale, and preying on the uneducated that are gullible enough to believe that the dalits and Christians are the cause of all their problems. The voices that do cry out against this are too insignificant to make a difference to those at the receiving end of this violence.

At the end of this, there is no catharsis for me. Only the dulling certainty that I have pissed many people off. And yet I am compelled to express my point of view. Not only because I identify with the persecuted in this case but because too many of us pussy-foot around this sort of thing, not taking any kind of stand, which does absolutely no good, rather, intensifying and perpetuating all the horribly ignorant notions surrounding this. And even though I have no illusions about changing anybody’s opinions, I had to say all this - because I have a conscience and a voice.
…………..

Update : No sooner than I had posted this, I opened my feed reader to find this. God bless you Parceval!

Of Nightmares

2008-08-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

I read this today.

My first reaction was 'Will I have to live in dread that the day will come when it will be me, my family that is running from the mob'

In the past, on occasion, I've expressed to a few of my close friends how, in quite a personal way, I feel threatened by all the communal violence. They don't seem to get it – or at least, they didn’t then. As it so happens, all of them belong to Hindu families - which is something that is quite strange to vocalise because it is barely in one's consciousness and never factors into any part of our dynamic.Sadly now, it has everything to do with it.

Despite the fact that they are extremely aware and intelligent, they simply don’t understand what the fuss is all about, why I'm so hot and bothered, why this seems to affect me so deeply. But let me qualify my remarks though before they offend. What I mean, is simply this - a white man in 1950s New York could never really know what it felt like to be black in Mississippi – the lynching and the mobs might have appalled him but he’d never ever relate simply because it is not the kind of stick that you can ever accurately imagine yourself at the other end of.

With my friends, I can see in their eyes this lack of comprehension, the unspoken insinuation that surely I’m over-reacting because the thing is, because no matter how much one might extrapolate, how one might try, it is incredibly difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone whose existence is threatened by just their identity. So, while, to my friends, this persecution is too far away, removed from their reality, something to click their tongue at in sympathetic resignation and then forget,to me, it's real - a distant but looming threat that clouds my mind with 'someday what ifs'.

To their mind, it could never actually get so bad that I would be in any danger. And god knows, I hope they are right. But I just don't have that kind of implicit faith in our society anymore.We have too volatile a dynamic. And time and again in our recent history we have seen the smallest incident trigger such phenomenal violence. As a nation we are scarred by those memories. And ashamed. (or atleast we should be) But as individuals that were not directly affected, many of us remain largely detached. In the immediate after-math we are of course appalled at the extent of human cruelty, sympathetic to the victims but too easily we transition into conveniently tut-tutting our collective guilt away. Perhaps it is easy to, because it happened to THEM - someone, somewhere that we simply don’t identify with.

While that is understandable, it does not make it forgivable. I always imagined it was and would always be a Hindu-Muslim tussle - Centuries-old resentment mixing with fresh poison - and while I did empathize, there was also a lot of resignation that went with it. And so I distanced myself. Saddened and sympathetic - but in real terms, unaffected – not unlike my friends until a few years ago, when it finally dawned on me that I , as it turned out, am part of that THEM.

The images of the terrible carnage in that horrendous episode in Gujarat that were splashed across papers and screens left stains on my soul. It was the first time in my life that I sobbed for someone I did not know. It left me for days unable to speak, completely ashamed of my countrymen, deeply admiring of those that stood up against it and lent a hand and determined that I would never stay silent again. Since then, my thoughts on this have only precipitated further. I am now acutely aware of how the little-est of incidents can so easily escalate into something mammoth, how religious hatred is routinely condoned, if not actively fostered, how much this erodes at the fibre of our society, how important it is that the moral, logical, sensible among us, stand up and speak out vociferously against this.

Having always thought of myself as half hindu and half christian - both identities being so well integrated within me that I can no more choose one over the other than I can pick a favourite eye, I find myself now forced to separate the two. The christian in me is deeply threatened by what is happening in Orissa - one is left only to imagine whether it will sanction and set precedent for, a new wave of violence towards christians across the rest of the country? (or pretty much any minority the fundamentalists choose to target ) The Hindu in me finds this sort of violence so abhorrent. And that too in the name of Rama, so deeply shaming.

Memories of the Graeme Staines incident come rushing back as I am writing this. It was around that time that there was a strong wave of anti-christian sentiment. And it wasn't just in Orissa although it seems to always boil over from there .The violence was across the country. Churches burnt, Nuns raped, Priests murdered, Children tortured... Andhra, maharashtra, U.P, Bihar, Tamil Nadu even Kerala! And we were fearful. In churches they prayed for peace, and were counselled to be patient, to have faith, that it would pass. But every christian I met, was deeply disturbed. In hushed tones they murmured to each other 'Now, I can imagine what it can feel like to be a Muslim in this country'. Except that it was worse. There was an overriding sense of helplessness that hung about them - They just didn't know what to do. The christian community is still small and insignificant. They could not retaliate. They would not get violent. They just took it. I remember that year well - marked by grave conversations and even graver jokes about how the RSS was bored of persecuting muslims and had decided to pick on the christians for a change. I remember feeling helpless myself and thinking that the Muslim community would never have taken this lying down. In the throes of my misguided 15 year old indignation, I fantasized about lining those murderous bastards up and having them shot for doing this. I remember swearing in dead seriousness that I would leave the country before I was betrayed by it.

And now, 8 years later, it seems to be happening all over again. Deep inside me there is an abiding fear that my friends are wrong and there could come a day when I will be made to feel a stranger in my own country. That it will not matter who I am or what I believe, only that I have one foot in the wrong side of the statistic. Everything else about me will cease to matter in the face of the religious fundamentalism that seems these days to lurk round every corner. I have nightmares, that to the madding crowd, I will not be Indian, nor tamizh or mangalorean, just christian - the daughter of a Catholic man and an Iyer woman who brought shame to her community by marrying him.

-----

Post Script : A poem that hangs on a wall in my mother's office perfectly describes my sentiments. She has it there to remind her of the evils of everyday apathy. And even though I have already quoted it here, I want to again. It encapsulates how I feel - it is my nightmare.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

--- Pastor Martin Niemöller

Change

2008-08-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

I've been getting way too many complaints about how my blog is difficult to read because of the font/background contrast thingamajigs..

So, there. This drab no-nonsense template must suffice until one is at leisure to make it a little more pleasing to the eye.

The thesis is all consuming... And frustratingly, a million ideas will want to flower just when I have no time to put them down. But I will be in India soon with more time than I know what to do with. One is of course, in true form, terrified that the minute there is time, the idea tap will clog and the words will dry up.

Uffff!!!!! Aaaargggh!! Ayyoooo! and all that...

An Avatar

2008-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Those black beads of anger pierce and stare.
No trace of 'you' anywhere.
Only bulging belligerence.
The eyes. The look.
The curl of contempt
scathe like venom from honeyed lips.
And oh, that throbbing vein does evidence.
How frightful you are when you rage.
Unrecognizable - I'll say it again.
With your claws unsheathed.
Vicious, cold and unaware
of the way your face contorts and nostrils flare.

Corporate Grease

2008-08-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was woken up by the shrill trilling of the phone last night. It was Akshara. I looked across the room to the blue digits of the clock on the wall, it was 4 AM. 'What time is it there? Did I wake you up?' she asks hurriedly. I manage a 'no' , knowing she wouldn't call unless it was important - 'It's ok' I mumble, 'Tell me, what's up' .

'He just won't take the hint!! And I'm so fed up, what do i do? ' , she cried, the irritation bordering on distress evident in the strained higher pitch. 'You won't believe what he did this morning, he put me in such a spot, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it except to just keep gently but firmly rebuffing him.' My protective 'you shouldn't have to take this kinda crap' feelings aside, I knew she was right. So far, there was nothing she could do except coldly ignore him. So, I nodded, sighed and just listened as she filled me in on the morning's incident.

She had met him at work, at a job she began not two months ago. It was the perfect job. Everything she was looking for. A fresh start. It was almost providential, the way it had materialized. They had been really impressed and made it clear that they wanted her on board almost immediately. I had been so proud. She'd been brave and ridden out some storms and definitely deserved a break. So when she finally did start working there I couldn't have been happier for her. Everything was taking an up-swing. Until this.

In our post-first-day dissection she jokingly remarked, ' There's something greasy about him and I'm not referring to the tub of gel he works into his hair every morning' . We just laughed girlishly, not really thinking too much about it then. But It wasn't very long before she mentioned him again. He had begun dropping by her desk a couple of times a day with absolutely no business to discuss, just 'chatting her up' . Something about what should have been perceived as just a friendly gesture felt off. As she put it , 'greasy guy is just a little too nice'. I suggested rather flippantly at the time that perhaps she was reading too much into it. As it so happened she wasn't.

Things at her old office were very different. The atmosphere was much more open and the manner amongst hierarchy was one of familiarity. But that was a big MNC in Mumbai. Here, somehow, in madras, it doesn't sit right. Even though everybody in her office is quite young, there is something about the culture of the city that makes informality beyond using first names seem too forced. So when she first told me about greasy guy, I jumped to the conclusion that this was all it was - a difference of opinion about office formality.

It is a well-known but small establishment, where she works, the kind of place where you cannot afford to dislike anyone or be disliked, because you're thrown in together with pretty much everybody in the course of work - It is what one may call a 'close-knit corporate team' - a bit of a euphemism that is often used to describe an organisation that is understaffed and overworked. Be that as it may, as in the normal course of things, she was introduced to him. He is one of her superiors. Not someone she is directly accountable to. But definitely one of the bosses.

He is divorced, he confesses to her among many other things, at what he tells her is a team lunch. He shows no sign of embarrassment when, as she asks to wait to order, he tells her that unfortunately no one else can make it. Brazenly, laughing, he adds that he is glad they can't, almost daring her to call his outrageous bluff, perhaps even leave. She fumes silently, not wanting to antagonize a superior at her new job, pretending to be interested, through a meal where he proceeds to talk solely about himself. That afternoon as she recounts it to me in a hurried chat session, she vows she will avoid him at all costs and that will hopefully be that. He calls her four times that sunday.

Later that week he presses her repeatedly to go out with him. Have a drink, take a long drive, go for a movie. She tells him over and over again, that she can't. Firmly, no - concocting an array of excuses all clearly untrue, hoping he will take the hint. He doesn't. We wonder why he has no pride, why he won't just stop asking after such repeated rejection? Why doesn't he see that being her boss and putting her in such a position amounts to harrassment. Perhaps he does. And he likes it.

She doesn't laugh easily at work anymore - banter with colleagues is inhibited - he seems to somehow always surface. He lurks, greasy guy does. Amidst the others, he throws her knowing looks, like they are close friends forced to formality. He winks at her and smiles, and others see this, but not her cold looks. She is furious, afraid her colleagues will perceive something that is not. So, she works harder than ever these days. barely looking up, filling every moment in activity, skipping lunch with colleagues so she doesn't have to see him. He still calls her unnecessarily. She doesn't pick up.

Coming from a big corporate environment, inundated with feedback forms and a mechanism in place, however (in)effective, to protect from this, she is unsure of what to do presently. She is afraid that it will come down to her word against his and he will smarmily deny it. Except for the 11.45 PM telephone calls, I remind her, there is proof of that. That there haven't been any remarks or conduct of a sexual nature is something she clings to. She thinks (or hopes) he's just another one of those boorish men who simply won't take no for an answer but is intrinsically harmless. I think staying quiet and hoping for the best is taking a biggish risk.

Yesterday, he informs her of the new little mini-project they must work on together, just the two of them , he says with a big smile. He's arranged it with her boss and everything. It turns out to be legitimate, even if her contribution is unnecessary. Obviously she can't refuse. It is work. Nevermind that now she is forced to spend much more time alone with him, in a conference room, possibly having to fend off more direct advances. I tell her, that the next time he asks her about anything outside of work or tries to contact her after hours, she must be polite but firm in telling him that she doesn't appreciate this kind of behaviour and finds it inappropriate. In the meanwhile that she should talk to the other women at work, find out if greasy guy has made a pass at anyone else in the pass. Or at worst she must talk to her boss. Another friend suggests she lie and tell him that she is engaged. It's a small office, I don't think she can sustain the lie. Besides, I suspect that it won't faze him. It is not love or any genuine feeling that drives this man, neither does a fear of any perceived impropriety. He's 17 years older than she is. And he can't take no for an answer. You'd think he'd have some sense, the old, greasy fuck. Is it some form of sadism, to watch her squirm silently, to feel power over her ? Is it a game?

I do not want to say it to her, because I don't want her to think it's her fault, it isn't. His attentions were rebuffed as soon as they were recognized. But I know how people can be. Her open, friendly girlishness is attractive - as is her ready laugh and smiley eyes. Maybe he takes this as invitation. I know that many men are narcissistic enough to think it is all aimed at them. Maybe it is that she is open about enjoying a drink that he has misinterpreted - the old 'women who drink are women who are loose' and therefore fair game. Something I've heard all too often for me not to make the association. Maybe it is that she is 'modern' in a city that is still mind-blowingly conservative. But I do not want to blame a culture, a city, however prejudiced, for this man's indiscretions. I will not make excuses for someone just because he fits a stereotype.

Tomorrow, they begin their joint project. I'm hoping for her sake he will be professional, stick to work and toe the line, even if barely. Going by the past few weeks, maybe it's expecting too much. These things more often escalate than die down I'm told. So, in the meanwhile, I guess I'll turn the volume up on my ringer just in case she calls. From 5000 miles away, the only thing I can really do is hope and listen.

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

UPDATE : In the short time since I've put this post up, I've already heard from quite a few people. All of whom, (four of them being very sympathetic men) know at least 1 person who has suffered through this sort of thing or worse. Appalled enough by how things can be to write this, I'm horrified even further as it occurs to me that perhaps it is far more rampant than I imagined.
I always imagined that when this sort of thing happened, only meek women wouldn't have the courage to speak up. Now I see that sometimes speaking up has consequences that forces one into situations where it means choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea. It can mean setting yourself up for public scrutiny, accusations of mis-conduct (because ofcourse, a woman invites all the attention she is bestowed with) and many aspersions of guilt.

While it's all very fine to rant academically about this kind of thing, those lucky enough to work in a great environment (including me) have little idea what it can be like to have deal with this on a day-to-day basis. Especially for those that work in organisations that don't provide a framework of liability/accountability to check this kind of misbehaviour. Behaviour that is clearly improper, that makes it very difficult for a woman to work and yet doesn't cross over into what ( I think) would constitute sexual harassment. Does anyone know what the line is? Legally, maybe?

November Rain

2008-07-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

It is a cloudy day. The sand is wet even where the sea can't touch. The tide is high. We are sitting by the shore, on the ridge, just beyond the waves. It's been a cold,wet November week. There was respite today. Only clouds - dense, grey but translucent clouds, hopeful beams filtering through. We have nowhere else to be. So we are here, lost to this. We stare ahead. At the roaring and crashing of waves and the white foam trails on the shore. A lonely gull is fishing. Paper bags and coconut shells bob in the muddy water, keeping time with the tide. Ships sit on the horizon. The late afternoon catamarans are pulling ashore. We just watch, leaning against each other. The sound of the sea is lulling. We are lost in thought.

I feel something in the air change suddenly. Like a promise broken. The breeze bites. We huddle closer. I smell the moisture and sigh. It will rain today after all. We talk of this and that, interspersed with long turns of silence, absentmindedly grabbing handfuls of sand and letting it slip through the gaps in our tightening fists. Our sentences trail off, our voices are low, almost murmuring. A raindrop falls on my cheek. I look up at the sky, and nothing. Perhaps it was the ocean mist? We just watch the crabs jump out of their holes, kicking up dust, their pale brown scales perfectly camouflaged, scurrying across, leaving fresh tracks on the sand that waves wash away in a minute We fiddle with the shells, ponder the prawn pink and ivory white while idly dusting off, irritably, the coarse grains pressed into our skin, digging into my heels and his elbows. Now a few more drops fall, heavy on our noses, eye lids and upturned palms.

A boy tries to sell us 'kadlai'. He is encouraged by our amusement at his impish smile and tries his best. Our laughter heralds the fortune teller. Insisting she will tell us if we are a good match, grabbing my palm to read it. I will not have it. And finally she leaves us to our solitude. It is getting dark. So suddenly the air is heavy, ready to burst and fresh black clouds loom dangerously in the horizon. When we turn around, we find we are alone, everyone has disappeared.

It will start raining soon he says to me. And we agree it's time to go. We pick ourselves up and hunt for the shoes we unintentionally buried in the mud. Not two minutes have passed and I wonder if I am mistaken, but the tide has risen, the waves are now 4 feet high. And the gale has begun. The clouds are coming, casting ominous shadows. 'Apocalypse' - the word leaps to my mind, for this is how I would imagine it. There is no time to say it. We begin to run.

Quickly, sprinting, footwear in hand, shielding our heads in vain, but it's too much to fight - this crazy wind. It has blown us back to a halting canter. We push ourselves against it and the raindrops that are pelting away. The sand rises like a tornado, not circling but carries rather in sheets. And then it stops, because the rain has finally come. And it is torrential, cyclonic - like Orissa. We reach the car wet like we just swam in the sea and get in just in time - The rain comes down like panes of glass, piercing, clanging away mercilessly at the metal hood, battering our car into relentless motion. And we are inside, shaking, cold and stranded - I joke about warning signs and tsunamis. Lightening strikes what feels like ten metres away from the car - I'm terrified into silence.

It is dark like dusk. Tempestuous.

We can only wait.

And just as suddenly as it arrived, it has vanished. Not moved on, just disappeared. The violence erased. The rain is now a trickle from a stubbornly leaky tap. Glad, we laugh nervously as he puts the car into reverse. There is not a soul on the beach. It is peaceful again. Static and calm. Like nothing moved.

It is too suddenly just a memory.

Maybe we imagined it.

July 12th , 2008

2008-07-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

The dark passageway through which I passed held no clue to the vastness of space that it emptied into. The evening was just beginning and the cachak-cachak of a thousand plastic cups being crushed under heavy feet into the sticky, beer sprayed floor provided a steady static. A vast cloud of smoke hung low over the swarm of people beelined to the front of the hall. It certainly smelt like the fog over a sea of weed. Maybe it was my imagination because I had come in restless, excited and a tad wired after a long day at the lab but it was a little relaxing.. I got there twenty five minutes early, held my breath as I pushed my way through the bottleneck at security hoping they wouldn't discover my camera - I knew I had to record this, it all seemed too surreal already.

There were galleries at the two flanks of the stage. I would be right at the front when the concert began but until then I wanted to sit for a bit, perhaps figure out what my agenda for the rest of the evening would be. And so, I plonked myself on the first step, rummaged through my bag for the schedule - but seeing a blur, I realised I was too wound up with excitement - with the absolute momentousness of what was to come to be able to think anything after it.

To my right was a beautiful african woman in dreads, immaculate white teeth and high cheek bones. I caught her eye and smiled and blurted out something about how big this place was. She smiled back disarmingly and we began to talk about this and that. She was 50. In the dim light I didn't notice the stray gray roots in her dreads. We talked about Jazz and what we were to witness. She'd been going to these festivals religiously since she was 20 - Perugia, Montreux, Gent - she rattled off the times when she heard some of the greats. Apparently she was Surinamese but had lived in the Netherlands since her girlhood. We talked about this and that and she gave me suggestions about whom to watch. I had to blurt out that it was my first time and how excited I was to be here - she looked at me so maternally and said, ' it's always beautiful to be part of something so much bigger than us - music you know, I mean, not just a festival - We are as important as the musician - our energy matters , so you must let go and just open yourself out to it '

I'm not sure I understood at that point what she meant. But I nodded anyway. And just then the curtains began to draw. She leaped up and tugged on my sleeve. 'Come, come' , she said. 'Yes', I told her, 'I want to go right up front, as close to the stage' She laughed and said.' Yes, yes, We must go in front, no point listening to music like this, sitting, we must be able to move' . When she stood up, her six feet, lean frame came as a surprise. But it also meant she couldn't weave in and out of the crowd like me. She was thoughtful, quickly realising that I wouldn't be able to see, even though we were quite up ahead in the crowd, spoke in quickfire dutch to a couple of giant dutchmen standing in front of us, to let me go ahead while she stood back. Just then He walked onto the stage, softly whispered into the mic, a very humble 'I am happy to be here' before picking up his guitar. He turned to his band , with a 'Here we go, 1, 2, 3' began the familiar strains of 'Graceland'.

It was what Oprah would call ' a full circle moment ' . It was the most profound culmination of a lifelong connection to a man's music. A connection that began the day my dad first held me, the day he softly strummed those tunes on his guitar to soothe my tears , a connection that was cemented over all the years that followed.

And it was all mine. As I stood there amidst a sea of strangers - swallowed up by the crowd, now thoroughly separated from the only person I had exchanged a few words with, I was careless and for the first time in my life, I was never happier that I was alone. I didn't want to share this with anyone else. I was free to feel , free to cry, free to dance like there was no tomorrow, free to sing along at the top of my voice and not feel guilty about making it all about me , not feel self-conscious and inhibited.

There I was, in a dark hall, standing fifteen metres away from my favourite poet, and I couldn't believe my fortune. In my last two years in Europe. I have done many things I thought I would have to wait half a lifetime to do. And each time I find myself standing in the midst of one of my dreams, I am immediately overwhelmed and for a moment all I feel is gratitude. I say a little thank you to the man above and then let myself take it all in. No one event epitomizes that more than the evening of July the 12th.

Paul Simon was singing. I don't remember too much of anything else. Just a euphoria...

" And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying "

He went on to sing a lot of songs from 'Graceland' - peppered with ones from his Simon and Garfunkel days. (like a beautiful rendition of Mrs. Robinson - which the whole crowd heartily joined in on the the cacoocachoo) . His old, knobbly hands strumming the guitar effortlessly. His pale skin and sunken cheeks visibly despite the shadow of his hat and the slightly protruding belly , awkward on his 5 foot 1 inch frame, betraying his 67 years but his voice, amazingly, unchanged - his quiet, understated presence, nonetheless felt.

He didn't try to do outrageous things to his music, or infuse it with anything alien just because the venue was a Jazz festival. He stuck to the essence of it . And yet, he did very interesting things with the arrangement, and slipped in some very cool improvisation, that sat so naturally that you could easily think it was part of the original, unless you knew his music well. It was something I found entirely unexpected because somehow I suppose I've always been so moved by his words that I almost forget he is equally a musician.

There was a point when he had the audience keep time in a sort of flamenco style with clapping, to his guitar playing. Let me tell you, it was some complex clapping. Yet, it wasn't any attempt at showmanship. He just began to clap a certain way and the audience followed - if they hadn't, I doubt he would have done anything different, or said anything as vulgar as ' come on, let me hear you rotterdam' . Come to think of it, he said barely a word and yet it was filled with character. There were all kinds of crazy instruments, some of which I've never seen - Like a chappie that wore an armour-like vest with metallic shards that you had to scrape up and down to produce a percussion-like effect. Everyone in the audience looked as befuddled by it as I felt. And yet it all felt perfectly natural. It fit.

What was supposed to be an hour's showcase ended up as a two-and a half hour concert , the last half hour of which was heralded by the most thunderous, heartfelt, unanimous encore ever sounded by an audience that I've heard. There was feet stamping, hooting, wolf whistling, and rapturous applause for ten intense minutes before they returned and began with one of my favourites. The Boxer - it's my dad's song. And I wished he could have been there.

As the last strains faded and the bows were taken - I screamed impetuously ' Woo hoo... Thank You ' rather impulsively in the general direction of the stage. I don't know what I was thinking. Ok, clearly it was un-thought out. Doubt He heard it anyway but there were plenty of people that did. And when they turned around to look and saw this brown, chubby, short girl , grinning wide, cheeks aflush, completely unaware of what she just did, applauding with all her might and it made them all laugh.

"But it's alright, it's all right, I have lived so long and so well"

And on that note, with lingering smiles and soft sighs, we left.

Men!!!!

2008-07-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

Brother, boyfriend, father, friend, boss, acquaintance - Whatever relationship they have with you, men can be infuriatingly impossible. Now that's a strong statement to come across and possibly seems even stronger if it's the first line you read. There are two ways, in my experience, that people might process that . The first would be, and I suspect that women and that rare breed that is men with no latent misogynist tendencies fall into this category, 'Wow, she sounds pissed off, wonder what happened' . There is however a second way, and I mean not as much blame but plenty of offense if you were that average joe that thought 'here we go, another feminist diatribe - why in god's name do they always have to dramatize' .

Now, there are plenty of things that one could potentially take offense to in that statement ' 'diatribe perhaps, 'dramatize' even, but I will pick my battles - What is most offensive to me is the 'always' .

If you didn't react like that, let me first congratulate you. If consequently you don't see my point - let me venture to explain. It offends me immensely when a woman (more pertinently me) , her opinion, speech or behaviour is dismissed as being too emotional. First off all, when I say dismissal, it invariably implies haste. It also implies an unwillingness to understand something properly but most of all it is presumption at it's highest level. Maybe a little more context shall help illuminate what I mean - There are many a times when either professionally or personally you encounter a situation which demands some sort of exchange of ideas, expression of one's thoughts between a man and a woman. It doesn't really matter what the exact situation is, all we need for our little recipe is a little time and a man and a woman that take opposing sides or disagree. Lo and behold, within the hour any chance of something productive coming out of it is lost. Because there is this pre-established dynamic, among others, that women are emotional creatures, incapable of objectivity and therefore unqualified to have opinions on anything because they are of course inescapably under the spell of these torrid moods and heavily influenced by them . Perhaps, if you are lucky, dealing with a somewhat sensible man, and you have never ever slipped, let even the faintest sign of any kind of emotion show, ever, your reputation as a useful, contributing member may yet not be lost. If not, you can forget about it. They will never take you seriously. If in these discussions you happened to agree with them, you may hear it be said of you that you are an intelligent woman. If not, and do beg to disagree, it wouldn't surprise me that they will say ' she's smart but you know how women are.. a bit emotional'. When you argue, you are being shrill. When you disagree, you can't accept the truth. When you are confident, you are stubborn. When you try to prove your point, you are an egotistic. When she is reserved, she is stuck up and my personal favourite, when she is unemotional, an ice-queen.

Apparently I'm not the only woman terrified that she will burst a vein whilst trying to deal with this sort of thing. It happens on every level, in every kind of relationship. And I'm sick of it. Women can be emotional - it's true. But, and please try to pay attention here my good chappies, so can men. In exactly the same ways. The only difference is that women indulge the men and recognize it for what it is - a temporary lapse of reason. Whereas all the men I've ever known and my friends have ever known are so quick to hand out that yellow card 'Emotional' - one infringement you get the card, twice and you might as well get out of the game - no one will take you seriously any more. When men get emotional we as a society contrive to forgive them - we use manly sounding words like 'cantankerous' and 'cranky' or 'fractious' whereas the women get stuck with 'moody' , 'emotional' or another personal favourite 'PMSing' to describe similar sets of behaviour.

That glaring but common place injustice aside, what really bothers me is, and it doesn't seem to me too hard a concept to expect a man to grasp, that just because someone can get emotional , it does NOT mean that it dictates their every word, their every action. That she could have reacted sharply Only, that sometimes, in the heat of the moment they are more likely to feel a little more sorry or a little more betrayed than they should and at worst a little less objective. Emotions cloud everybody's judgment. And like the clouds, invariably clear - it is a temporarily affliction. In the sobering everydayness women have as little time as you kindly gentlemen to stop and pander to our emotions.

As the words pour out I know they have no effect on you sir. You are convinced of course that we, as a tribe, are marked by this. The faintest memory of one escaped tear, one catty reaction, one less than objective thought expressed is all it takes to forever be branded - to forever have to keep defending everything you say hence from being shot down with the oh-so-presumptuous 'let's not get emotional about this'.

I hate that phrase. If you want to turn me into a murderous, cauldron brewing, spell chanting, cursing witch you couldn't choose better. There, that made me emotional. Satisfied? Because you presumptuous, absolute imbeciles of men, there couldn't be anything more unintelligent, more counter-intuitive than the act of telling someone whom you are convinced is ruled by her emotions that they should not get emotional. Do you really think that statement is helping your case? That a person in the throes of emotion will, on hearing these words, be shamed into acknowledging this and immediately drop their remonstrances in favour of calm and collected logic because you've put it so well?

It is incredibly insulting. Do men really think that women are active, brewing emotional volcanoes waiting to spew onto them and smother them in the suffocating ash of our feelings? Now that was a tad dramatic. But you'll be surprised how many men actually think this.
So I say it again. why is it so hard for men to understand that just because women display their emotions now and then that they aren't dictated to by it?

I asked a friend this. A man. And pat came the reply. "Because they ARE emotional. Think about it", he said with the quiet confidence that I couldn't possibly have until he suggested it. "Aren't you emotional now, worked up about other people thinking you get emotional too easily ". I was stumped. Apparently, somehow, he had missed that while concerned, my thoughts flowed, I was rationalising, my initial anger had melted into forming a coherent channel of rightful indignation. And now disappointment. I was trying to fight too much he said. "Even if you aren't emotional, most women are..you know, that's how women are made, to be in touch with their feelings, they can't help themselves. It's ok. It's necessary. It's hardwired into you all just like it is hardwired into us to be the providers. So men will treat you the same way they've noticed other women behave. I guess it's difficult because you think you are different, but you aren't really. You can't see it like the way I do. To me, you are emotional."

My frustration knew no bounds and I told myself to breathe, reminded myself he was a friend, proved him wrong with the very act of restraint (but ofcourse he can't see inside my head) and finally realised it really was just that guy's issue - it just made me want to smile sadly, sigh and say "When it comes down to it, emotion never held us back. So we may have cried a little - probably in anger or helplessness. And It was release. Like kicking the shit out of a punching bag but without having your muscles ache the next morning. And we picked ourselves up after that and did what we had to. It never stopped us, we still went to school, went to work, took care of the kids, cooked, cleaned and did bloody good jobs of it too. So why this fear of emotion?? Why this harsh accusatory tone? Why the scorn and contempt? Why the presumption that it holds us back? And if we lapse, like I'm sure you do, why is it so imperative that we need to be utterly objective and rational 24x7 to have to prove this to you - Why should we be forced to prove anything in the first place?? Is it the price we pay to be on equal footing, to just simply have the luxury of not being dismissed ? What is so terribly wrong with acknowledging one's emotions anyway? Do you see it as a sign of weakness. On the contrary, my friend, it takes courage to face up to things, deal with it and move on. Would you prefer instead that we shy away, or just bottle it all up for when we are old and bitter and grey? How is that so hard to see, that being capable of expressing emotion and being emotional are two different things?? And if at worst, you can't understand this, why can't we just be different, emotionally without it affecting other spheres of our interaction, as long as we can be logical and reasonable at all the times that matter??"

Gonna be an Engineer

2008-07-04T03:36:00.000-07:00

- Written by Peggy Seeger in the late 60's if I'm not mistaken. I've always enjoyed this song. It's very folksy and sing-along. There is only the faintest tinge of bitterness under all the tra-la-la-la of it.

I couldn't find a recording of her singing this song on youtube.

So, this is her brother singing it - the relatively more famous Pete Seeger.

p.s: The audience seems slightly taken aback in parts.. notice their shocked appearances at certain junctures in the song. (Clearly, they weren't expecting this to be part of the set) And ofcourse the laughter when it was more politically correct to be amused by it.

On Children.

2008-07-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran

------------

The Bureau

2008-07-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

My mother has a green bureau. I don't know if that's what it is - it always seemed more like a cupboard to me. But she called it that and it has stuck. She's had it for as long as I can remember. It was in our two-room house in Anna Nagar where I was born and it moved with us to the house we still live in, the house where I grew up. And there it has stayed. Standing silently at the end of a little, dark, oddity of a passage that led to my room. The deep bottle green paint has chipped off in places and rust betrays its age and although slightly rickety and worse for wear, it has remained mostly unchanged through the years. Like the other furniture in our house, it is comfortingly constant. It stands in the same corner, mostly invisible, only noticed by outsiders or if one bumped into it by mistake. Come to think of it, it doesn't require too much effort to bump into. It looms. At 7 feet, it is the biggest piece of furniture we own and is responsible for obstructing the entrance to my room, forcing me for years to have to squeeze through into my precious sanctuary.

It always seemed like a brooding bureau to me. The big Godrej lock held all it's secrets in. My mothers secrets. No one else had a key - not even my father. And she rarely ever opened it. When she did, she would always make everyone leave the room. A source of great annoyance when I was an adolescent. I would yell and remonstrate to no avail. 'I don't care what's in your damn bureau, you can't evict me from my own room'. But I nearly always did. I was immensely curious. And I would try to imagine what it held. Gold and jewelry I used to like to think - that she would eventually give to me. Or perhaps old letters - from long lost loves. Books of poetry she used to read. Old report cards perhaps. Pictures of her in pigtails. Maybe she kept her Will there. Or her just odd things from her childhood.

Taunts by my father and me about all this secrecy never could force her hand. She wouldn't say a word - only laugh and roll her eyes.

A few years ago, I discovered a black and white, yellow edged, slightly dog eared picture, of my mother as a child with her family, lying on the floor one morning. Apparently the jangle of keys I had heard at 6 AM wasn't part of my dream. There had been a tryst with the bureau . I confronted her with it as I remember. Rather cheekily wanting to know why she felt the need to sneak around at unearthly hours. And for one small second she hesitated - I didn't really understand the expression that flickered on her face just long enough for me to notice before she quickly rejoined with a smile and a cheerful 'it's really none of your business sweetheart'.

And it wasn't. I hounded her too long about the contents of that bureau. Always irritated by the enigma - unable to understand what she could probably have to keep from us - her husband and children. And it always set my imagination ablaze. Torrid affairs, childhood secrets - A past?! My sense of romance knew no bounds. And I simply couldn't get my head around it. My mother! The one that woke us up, fed us, drove us, worked 10 hours everyday - only to start all over the next . What could she possibly have to hold secret?!

For the longest time, I couldn't reconcile myself to the fact that my mother has always been an intensely private person, as well as a woman capable of keeping her own counsel. What I know of her and how she used to be before she was my mother - is only what my father has told me. He accepts this about her. Half reluctantly, half admiringly. It was one of the things about her he fell in love with. He once let that slip when he thought I was too preoccupied with cribbing about amma to listen. But surely it must pique him a little. Or irritate him slightly. He is like me after all. Rather, I am like him after all. And so completely different from her. Such an open book that I have always struggled to understand this about her. That there is a part of her that no one else knows. Just a little part of her that she keeps from everyone else, a compartment she doesn't often visit, that lays standing in a corner, filled with a life time of memories. Like a bureau.

I did allow myself to nurture the belief that growing out of childhood would signal the unlocking of that lock, the opening of those doors. That in adulthood, Amma would trust me with those long enclosed contents of that bureau - with her stories, her confidences.

And now that I finally find myself on that threshold I am taken entirely by surprise. It is not what I expected. The contents haven't been revealed to me, nor do I want them to any longer. And yet I find that the bureau does indeed contain something for me. . It certainly wasn't gold or the gorgeous silks I hoped were waiting to be passed down to me. Nor anything as glaring and indecorous as a sudden, ready flow of a life time of confidences from mother to daughter. And yet it is substantial, an inheritance of sorts - a legacy if you will.

It seems too simple almost for all the build-up and curiosity that it was chased by. And yet it is profound . The legacy of the bureau, as I see it now, is the very idea of it - so strange to my nature and yet something I recognize as possessing the potential to be of great value to my life. It is wrapped in the understanding of what the bureau has represented to my mother, why it is so important that it continues to stand there, why she has guarded it all these years and rightly will not share it with anyone else.

At a time in my life when I feel transparent and laid bare, insecure about the content of my character and struggling with my identity, I've begun to see how important it is for me to have my own little bureau - a place where the truth and essence of me could lay tucked away, in safety and privacy. Not static, but not in a hurry. Gently being nurtured into maturity, as I evolve in my own time, away from the glare and harshness of life and everyday scrutiny.

27 Degrees

2008-07-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

It's impossibly warm and the table fan swishes far too loudly. My skin prickles - reminiscent of old madras summer days - and my hair is tied up in a knot that I don't have the patience to untangle - but atleast it's off my neck! I'm irritable and the Clapton playing is not right today - it's just getting on my rather raw nerves. There is a deep, relentless gnawing at the walls of my stomach - crying out for some nourishment. My last proper meal was 16 hours ago. And there is nothing in my fridge!! Aaaaarghh!!!

Damn this stuffy, smothering, impossible heat!

How do I love thee?

2008-06-25T04:06:00.000-07:00

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

One of my favourite sonnets of all time. I wrap myself in every syllable, saying it aloud - oh, the musicality of it! And how the sentiment rings true to my mind. I can lose myself in how wonderfully poignant every word is... wishing all the while, that I may someday be able to love thus... unreservedly, with every fibre of my being. Sigh...

Why I Write.

2008-06-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Something came up today to make me examine why I write. I realised it's because I can't contain my thoughts. They overflow from within me, the trifling lot of them. It isn't just my opinions or my thoughts on a particular subject (however unimportant) - it's everything that enters my mind. What I had for breakfast, why I couldn't wake up early like I planned, how my boss looked at me icily...I'd write about it all if I had the time. And if I thought someone would read. I don't know why that is - that I need to babble on about every little thing I see, every last realisation I have. I think I can safely say that it is not ego . I am under no illusion that I have a unique way of seeing things, processing the world around me, or that I have particularly revelatory thoughts - I've read enough to know that. And yet, I am desperate to be heard. As though in the transient occupation of another's consciousness I am somehow connected in the only way I know how to be - with words.

But it can't possibly be the only reason because as far back as I remember, I've written. Scribbles in little notebooks. Confessions in diaries. 'Poems' in penultimate pages of textbooks. Always trying to say something in my own way. And almost never really having anything particularly of consequence to say. On a bad day, I berate myself endlessly for ever bothering - I am capable of perceiving in myself a mediocrity so stunning in its suddenness and magnitude that it enfolds me like a cow in a twister and lifts me away to where everything seems to reverberate with the resounding notion of how very ordinary my writing is, and more pertinently, how very pointless it all is. Even if just for myself, even if just to indulge my own ridiculous need to vocalise everything.

On good days, I know exactly why I write. I don't have to have something profound to say. I don't need people to like it or relate. I am unfettered by fears of mediocrity. I write because I have to. Because I feel like a full cup, because my fascination, my sadness, my indifference, my exuberance, my melancholia have not space to reside within me and thus must overflow into as tasteful an expression of myself as I can manage. Because I accept my insatiable need to express my every perception of life and the world as it happens to me. Because writing is my solace, the only constant, the unconditional best friend. Because it inspires me to be my most honest self. Because it calms me. Because writing teaches me, and is patient with me and allows me to see and understand everything in my own way. Because I enjoy it and time flies when I do. Because for the briefest periods, it pours out of me. Because it is the only thing that can consume me entirely and engage my rather fickle attention. Because every thought I conceive in it's basic form begins to arrange itself in my head to form as beautiful, musical and coherent a sentence as it can. But most of all, I write because it is in the words that I see emerge, who I can be, my best self.

On my good days I know that these are reasons enough to write.

Today was not one of them. But I wrote. And I feel a little better. Maybe that's all that matters.

Harmony

2008-06-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

I have this little dream
Of us grey but far from old
beside a roaring fire
untouched by the cold
of our winter.

We smile and begin.
At ease, just listenin to the other
and to a rhythm plucked in 3 by 4s
by decrepit hands in perfect time
with soft, pale notes intently played
on the ebony piano in the corner.

Viva Hollandia!

2008-06-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

That football fever has caught me up is no surprise. It happens every couple of years. Timed perfectly with the Euro and World Cup. I know the game well enough for someone that does not worship it year round. Dad does. My love for it is the accumulation of the crumbs of enthusiasm that dropped from his table over the years. I love the game in little, charged bursts - like wodka shots - not for regular consumption but simply marvelous when you do indulge.

That many predicted the Dutch would lose tonight has only made the victory sweeter. I've decided for the purpose of this tournament to adopt the dutch team as the recipient of my effervescent and untiring support (save for spain, which is my favourite team - but we have to see how in form they are ) seeing as how I am happily living in their country and ofcourse how well they played today.

It was a very charged match - today's. (and oddly enough I was watching it with a bunch of italian supporters) and Holland played brilliantly, creating nice openings, some very nice plays, well executed passes, a good defense and atleast 2 beautiful goals. The italian team, reigning world champs, scrambled to find their footing let alone form.

Watching a good side , the side I support, win was in itself a great start to the tournament and a lovely end to a tiring day. What ensued as a result was surprising but vastly memorable. The first sign we had of it was after the first goal when we heard a thundering and banging that seemed much more real than something emanating from the t.v .. we hopped out onto our balcony only to see about 400 other people in all the neighbouring buildings, on their respective balconies, cheering wildly as they flung triumphant orange (ofcourse) toilet paper off into the sky and watched it stream down, drumming and blowing conch-like horns loud enough to wake the dead. They yelled when they saw us, lifting their beer mugs to meet ours with imaginary clinks.

After that, we realised that every time holland missed a goal (and we did narrowly a couple of times) we could literally hear the collective groans of an entire neighbourhood if we muted our t.v.. A sense of camaraderie grew and when Holland finally won, never has my neighbourhood been so alive.. People honked their horns, rang bells, thumped balcony walls - even set off fireworks if they could lay their hands on some.. A brilliant feeling.. Reminded me of how madras erupts when we win at cricket..

Rotterdam in the horizon is pretty enough with it's twinkly lights but tonight with all the fireworks, it was spectacular.

I simply love how sport makes us feel so passionately.

P.S : A little ditty that's so catchy - they play it a lot on t.v these days 'cos it's about holland's chances in the Euro and it's gotten totally under my skin.. Don't know if you can make it out because the song is in typical dutch sing-a-long style.. but many references to the players and coach ..

2008-06-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

When the plane lands, I will be truly alone. No one will know who I am. No one knows where I am. There is some strange allure in choosing solitude.

Of Fears And Loathing...

2008-04-29T04:38:00.000-07:00

For the longest time I wasn't quite cognizant of the fact that other newspapers existed. I imagined, that should people read the news, it was in English and that it was 'The Hindu' . Along the way, gradually dispensed with was the former notion. For in my regular trampings across such neighbourhood establishments as the grocers on village road, one was bound to get one's eggs or peanuts wrapped in that oh-so-familiar but really quite incomprehensible to me, tamizh print. The latter notion, as is rather the point of this narrative, proved more stubborn to banish.

Having grown up in Madras, I had never ever questioned the synonymity of the word 'newspaper' with 'The Hindu' . It was just one of those things. You could wake up on some idle Wednesday morning, all groggy, with your brain cells functioning just enough to remind you that you need to impress on your mother that you want the dosas to be crispy, only to find at that early hour, the front door wide open and your father pacing up and down the front hall, with a determined stride, muttering away. Stray words ( 'the imbeciles' perhaps ?) are just about discernible from under his breath. The moment he notices your presence he will exclaim, even if for the 15th time that morning, "Where is 'The Hindu' ?? Can you believe this.. It's 6.30 AM and no signs of it yet !! We ought to chuck these chaps!!" .

Should you dare to point out that he probably just woke up and cannot have been waiting that long, you are greeted with a scowl of such contempt, followed by an indignant "How is a man supposed to read the news... ". The tone of whose expression will, depending on how late the paper boy is, go from being righteous to indignant to injured to plain and simply pleading. In between these little outbursts, he will launch back into that pensive, purposeful stride in the vain hope that his beloved 'Hindu' will somehow materialise by sheer virtue of his loyal, heartfelt remonstrations . The quiet morning air is slightly heavier that day for the soft repetitive muttering of a disappointed man.

You have to understand however that it wasn't just my own family that held it in such high esteem as to allow their children to be deceived thus. It has probably been so for generations upon generations of proud madras- kaarange. It didn't matter who you were or where you came from, once you were settled in Madras, you read The Hindu. You may not have agreed with them all the time. Some may have thought they were a little too liberal and some convinced they were a tad conservative , but which ever way you leaned, you learnt to recognize very quickly that they were constant, by and large striving not to fall into those familiar pits of prejudice. All in all very solid and dependable dispensers of the news. So you read them. And let your children believe what they did.

Once I was old enough to care, I began to notice in my bi-annual travels to such 'journalistically distanced' places like Bangalore and Hyderabad, in my Uncle's house or the grandparents homestead that they didn't possess the good fortune of receiving this paragon of journalism into their homes. - I was positively shocked. "The Deccan what?? " I would ask in my cocky ignorance, quite sure that it couldn't possibly bear much merit. But since the deviance was observed only twice a year, I didn't think much of it once I was back home.

When I turned 14, my grandparents moved in with us for a certain length of time. For some reason that I do not recall, we started receiving 'The Indian Express' at home as well, probably at their request. One couldn't help but notice the glaring differences. To my mind, it occasioned the striking of reality´s blow - other newspapers did exist in madras and people apparently did subscribe to them.

Every 6 months thereafter, most faithfully, I would look to my dad to have what became a much repeated conversation thereafter about the circulation figures and market share and other sundry seemingly trivial details that served only to reaffirm my rather childlike faith that 'the hindu' was the best. Eventually when dad gently broke it to me that it was after all the 'The times of India' that was the largest selling English daily across India, I insisted with wide-eyed certainty that it must be that they didn't get 'The Hindu' and simply didn't know better.

Now the Indian Express is not a terrible paper, it isn't even a bad paper. But when you encountered such dogged loyalty, as the english-reading masses of Tamizh Nad who are bound to find any alternative ersatz, one must expect it to be consumed with the faint, bitter taste of disdain? And true to form for a long while, I refused to read it, wondering why anyone would spend time with a newspaper that wasted it's space on colourful pictures - what seemed to me at that time, a testimony of its need to capture readers that could not be attracted by the merit of it's content. This, my dear reader, was that glorious time that every madras-kaarar remembers nostalgically, when madras was not chennai, when it was a tucked away metropolis by day, asleep by 9:30 and up by 5, unaware of its own charm and still in possesion of a distinct, if slightly bourgeois identity. A time when an expensive coffee was to be had for 7 bucks at sangeetha and spencers didn't have stages, The time when the hindu was still black and white, wearing it's old, pre-revised,down to earth, I-am-substance avatar.

But the times, they were a-changing. Madras was opening herself up, slowly, unwittingly and rather indiscriminately as it turned out, embracing in its stride a certain tolerance that one could only imagine would be good for us. However, the vultures of new enterprise were lurking, ready to pounce, waiting to feed off our utter innocence, unwilling to leave a good thing for what it was. Naively, we were succumbing to the previously forbidden allure of racy commercialism, The Hindu held out as long as it could, eventually bending enough to keep ahead in the race but realising that just being a virtuous supplier of the news wasn't going to cut it anymore.

New supplements, many 'customer-friendly' additions and a colour edition didn't change the fact that Madras was gradually growing into being the complacent spouse, bored with her steady companion, flirting with the idea of dallying along on the side with the competition that caught her eye. The affair with the much established 'Indian Express' surfaced surely enough and though they didn't succeed in usurping The Hindu's hold, they became widely acknowledged as playing a strong second fiddle, spurring the hindu on to renewed efforts to rekindle our attentions and loyalty.

And so it remained for years, 'The Hindu' never really threatened even if often challenged. Until one fine day, crawling in from within the woodwork, came this young trashy little upstart. The journalistic equivalent of Paris Hilton. All glossy, Little evident substance. You've got to hand it to them though, with advertisements that were abound with sexual innuendo, they could only hope to sell to the new 'chennaiite' - The poor, displaced, probably IT type, who has just begun earning his daily bread and was barely interested in what was happening around him beyond who was spotted where and with whom, the kind of chappie or chappette for whom the chief consideration in the matter of choosing their newspaper was its entertainment value - The only ones, I imagined, that would be enticed by the ridiculous 99 Rupee subscription fee. ( DC has subsequently changed their advertising strategy to something much more 'family-friendly' - very smart move, because all said and done this is still Madras we are talking about)

Albeit amusing initially, I was growing quite alarmed as to how many of us were actually taking to it. Were we becoming a lazy city, whose interest could barely be held by content that was becoming too intellectual for what had become our 30 second attention span? That's when it occurred to me that perhaps this whole newspaper business was mirroring the way the whole city was changing..

Why this scorn you may ask? I can only say that it comes from a deep love for the people and culture of a city I was born and raised in. Madras has changed so much. Too much. The roads are just as potholed and the politics haven't changed since the sixties.. But in the last three years - something has come upon us all. Is it part of some bigger trend - We ARE changing as a country but it is never so visceral as when you come back to your city every 6 months - the changes hit you like a bolt of 220 volts on a wet day.

I went back last Christmas only to find a variety of new 'reader-friendly' supplements and other assorted, suspiciously tabloid-esque additions to the usual. They are so reader friendly they might has well have 'Dumbed down for your reading pleasure' printed on the top. I don't know if you recall, on the 1st of January this year the Indian Express had a photo front cover , it was full page, a picture of people wet and a broken stage with a screaming headline about the Savera TRAGEDY. Everything about it reeked tabloid in it's style and coverage. That it was not about a scantily clad celebrity just about redeemed it, yet somehow seeming like only the next step. And I won't even bother talking about what the DC coverage of that was like. Give me a break, are you actually telling us, that it was the most important news you needed to proclaim to the masses. Or perhaps you will claim that you are re-defining the term 'front-page news' . The hindu's front page on the other hand seemed sober and staid in comparison - something about the prime minister's message and militants in kashmir and Gaza. Clearly, the Indian Express won, seeing as I remember their front cover.

One cannot deny that we are increasingly becoming consumed with sensationalism as a reading public but I think the onus is on journalists, editors and reporters to attempt some semblance of balance, consciously endeavour to put things in perspective and keep the bullshit to a minimum even if you cannot actively crusade against the whoring of the hand that feeds you..

Or is the error mine, in the presumption that newspapers are meant to inform and educate. The bottom line, I now see, is that they are businesses. They need to sell. And what doesn't evolve, will die I suppose, especially in a society that seems desperate to keep up with rapidly increasing numbers of yuppies, and newspapers cannot help but cater to them - and so it happened that we can only digest our news if a liberal dose of entertainment is thrown on to the plate as well. But for heaven's sake whatever happened to journalistic integrity? Or doesn't it have any place in the face of cut-throat competition and circulation figures?

I will come back to India in five months. I just hope the situation isn't so entirely disgusting that I will stop reading newspapers altogether and turn to the Internet instead to avoid having to witness the fence that our society is precariously perched on and feel betrayed each morning by which side it seems to be falling over into. And I hope, at the very least The Hindu doesn't succumb by lowering it's standard, if it hasn't already.

When I Stop To Think Of You, I See....

2008-04-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

-
The picture of your exquisite neck
and the ebony tresses
carelessly tracing your waist

The picture of your painted toes
and epicurean hips
sprawled sensuously over my leather lounge

The picture of your limousine eyelashes
and the curve of your spine
curled gracefully in dreamless slumber

The picture of your caramel skin
and delicate fingers
crushing cigarettes into marble tops

The picture of your dissatisfied lips
and downcast eyes
staring vacantly into a tea cup

The picture of your sorry smile
and pointed heels
walking deliberately away from me

P.S : Admittedly, limousine eyelash is a stolen phrase.. But I just couldn't resist it.

Motherhood

2008-04-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I worry about the kind of mother I might be. It's not something I like to dwell on. I'm too consumed by clinging to the last shreds of my own childhood for it to be a conscious stream of thought. But we are not islands and occasionally, I am situated by circumstance as a spectator to the tiniest acts of selflessness. That two such diametric emotions are so instinctively evoked by being their witness- warmth and fear- befuddles me. I'm immediately touched by the everyday-ness of the act, it's invisibility, it's insignificance to anything except that present moment, how one could have so easily chosen to do the easier thing, with no worry of guilt or consequence and yet choose otherwise - it never fails to warm my heart. Invariably, I've noticed, it is accompanied by a deep sense of fear, that in the same position, I may not have made that choice.

At some point of time, I think we've all had these images of ourselves as 'cool' parents. More often than not, they were reflections of the choices our parents made. Reaffirming what we liked and rejecting the mistakes we realised they made, unabashedly so certain, we told ourselves how we'd never do this or that, projecting so naturally our own often fleeting impressions onto our future offspring.

At 23, the age my best friend will get married and my cousin gave birth, I find myself letting these thoughts linger a little longer. I wonder if I'm part of a new generation that is on its way to being so self-absorbed that it will consciously reject parenthood and I wonder if that is a sign of it's weakness or strength. For my own part, I'm hopelessly stuck smack in between. The demons of biology and culture raise up a storm at the mere thought of never having children and yet I am worried by how much it will consume my life, what I will have to forego if that is the choice that I make.

For the most part I like to let these thoughts just stew on a back burner, but they seem to have this uncanny knack for sputtering up a little now and then, giving rise to a little panic and leaving me with something to ponder about. I've gone through phases of being absolutely sure I never wanted to have children and equally intense phases of being absolutely sure that it was an experience that I cannot have lived my life without. For the most part, I lean to the latter.

But I worry. That I will never measure up. That I will fall horribly short. That if my child won't stop crying after 24 hours of rocking for the fifth time in ten days, I might be so tired, I will want to give her up.. If my daughter is dyslexic, I might be too proud to see it. That I will drag my children to a tennis court whether they like it or not, because I'm so sure of myself. That I might smack them in sheer frustration for just being children. That if my daughter told me she was gay, I would think I could talk her out of it or if my son brought home a girl covered in tattoos, I would tell him he could do much better. That I will find it hard to love them if they are not as quick or gifted as I would like them to be. And if they are, that I will be too involved. That I will not give them enough space. Or, that I'll over-compensate and give them too much space. That I will pretend to be perfect and they will see through me, That I will try to make their choices for them. That I will make the wrong choices. That I will be too self-involved to give of myself.. That I won't be able to let them learn from making mistakes, That I will forget what it is like to be young. That it could all overwhelm me so much that I will want to leave. Or worse yet, that I might get bored of them and just become indifferent.

But because I can't see these things anywhere on the horizon in the way my life looks right now, I can delude myself into believing that when the time comes, I'll magically be this incredibly secure, fully equipped, all wisdom installed, user-friendly , ready-to-go mother. To a certain extent, I believe it's true though. That in time, I will learn enough to make my guesses educated and my choices a little more informed, so even if I'm driving blind, I'll have developed ultrasonic hearing, good enough to feel my way through difficult situations and tough choices, however unfamiliar.

The thingamjig is, even if I get all the bigger things right, I doubt that I'll ever be able to do the things my mother did - Stand on a swelter-y summer evening in a furnace of a kitchen making dosas for an hour as my hungry fourteen year old polishes them all off and I have to eat day before yesterday's now stony idlis with last week's kootu - Remain calm as my week passes by in a blur of work, cooking and chauffering my kids everywhere - Put up with the adolescent tantrums and 'I hate you's with the dignity of a princess. Desist from laughing and manage a little sympathy when my pimply faced daughter refuses to go to school because she's embarrassed and all the millions of seemingly insignificant but wonderfully unselfish things that you do because you just know it's the right thing to do.

My mother has been my rock through everything in my life. She is the wisest, kindest, most beautiful person I've ever known and my relationship with her, always exceptionally close, has only become stronger over the last few years. She is just short of perfect in my mind. I couldn't have asked for a better mother. I, however, have been a very mediocre daughter. But I'm learning and hope to do much better in time. And she is the reason I want to have a child.. Because through all the doubt and fear, just the thought that I can share that kind of bond, to give everything of yourself, to feel deeply, intimately and inextricably connected to another human being, is an experience unlike any other and the prospect of which thrills me as much as it stupefies me. And I have been lucky enough to be able learn by example. Hopefully, someday, when I've disentangled enough of the mess, I'll be ready to be more like you Mama.

(Ir)rationale

2008-04-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

As rivulets of salty tears trace my laugh lines
You just stare.
You can't think of anything to say.
Do you even care?
Why does it always leave you this way?

Is rationality your own only recourse...
pragmatism your only friend?
What about touch and love and smiles?
Don't believe they can soothe, help to mend?

Or was it ill-timed, my temporary gloom?
Inconvenient for you perhaps?
Busy with something else?
Would you prefer if I re-scheduled?!

What were you thinking..
How did you just sit tight
and watch and not even try
to console me and tell me it would be alright
and that i shouldn't waste my tears and cry...
over what was probably spilt milk and trivialities

Why couldn't you see I was distraught
And just wrap your arm around my shoulder
instead of showering me with accusatory whys,
and preachy wherefores - thrown at me,
a veritable overdose of 'reality'.

Are your sensibilities that inept?
does my despair leave you cold?
Is it too much to ask?

Ha! But I presume!
I can't really know..
You will demand the benefit of doubt
and refute and remonstrate and vehemently insist
that I unfairly expect unexpressed desires and lip service

And I will beg to differ.

The Winter Of Love.

2008-04-13T13:07:00.001-07:00

There are times .. I want to hurt you so badly.
My face, stony and still, will greet yours - aflood with confusion,
and I will watch the love mix with the betrayal in that solitary tear that you will let fall.
I want you to feel the same pain you inflicted on me. Nay, worse.
And when, I will wear your mask of apathy, toss my head nonchalantly,
and leave.

Only to relent, turn around and rush to reassure you.

Ode to the Woodlands

2008-04-12T02:56:00.000-07:00

The tiled roof through which the sunlight streamed on a sultry june afternoon, the overgrowth, that had us as children convinced, ghosts surely abided in, the long gravel-ly driveway laden with the promise of crispy dosa, delicious bisi bela baath, and show-stopping coffee in those familiar chipped, white ceramic cups.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I grew up there. Mid-week treats were always 'idly-vada-pongal-dosa' at Woodlands. The children's playpen had this magical allure where rusted slides and creaky swings presented themselves only as the promise of endless hours in merriment. The memory of the ice cream man in his van - yes there used to be a mock van (or something) and the hideous outhouses for toilets are memories so opposite and yet somehow welded inextricably together, both equally doused in a fondness that can only mean real love.

Ever since I can remember, we went to Woodlands. It was our sunday evening ritual too, right up there with going to mass. When we got our first car, me and my brother would beg to be allowed to sit in the car and ask the food to be brought to us on those stainless steel trays that rested on the window, even if it meant being half eaten alive by those infernal mosquitoes that thrived in all the wooded overgrowth.

We always got special treatment there (which only meant the food came really quickly) because my dad, who would speak in kannada or tulu to the waiters had been coming there with my mother since they were dating -26 years. He knew most of the 'old-timers' as he called them, their stories - they would talk about family for a while , about home - udipi or mysore it was usually. And they would inquire about me and my brother like we weren't present.. And only acknowledge us with a soft-spoken parting in kannada , so invariable that I could mimic it's every cadence- study well, be good children. And it would always make us grin - it seemed like something absurd to us.

As I grew older, it started to become much less of a family event, shaken off with all the rest, in a desire to be more independent. But it was still where I let my dad take me for breakfast every tuesday and friday morning, after the crazy 5:30 AM IIT coaching class and before dropping me off at Stella. Lovely conversations about everything and nothing over hot puris and brilliant pongal. We had our little ritual - Chat until we finished our food and over coffee we'd read the newspaper - just the two of us and it was always so quiet and tranquil at that time of the morning. The joggers having consumed their coffees and yacked, usually had dispersed and we mostly had the place to ourselves. It didn't seem particularly remarkable then. It was all just so matter of fact. But now when I think about Woodlands, that is one of the most vivid images that I can recall - so it certainly meant a lot, even if we were unconscious of it then.

Being in Stella for three years naturally meant that we considered it an extension of our campus (minus the nuns) - along with gangotree, sathyam, shirdi and spencer's ofcourse. Friendships cemented over six rupee coffees. My best friend and I would spend hours talking about everything - books, politics, cosmology and calculus, at those rickety tables, earnest , bright-eyed and broke, often sharing just one coffee between us - or in the summer a 'cool drink' before we teared ourselves away to that reluctant half an hour of a walk home.

I shared a special association of the place with nearly every body I cared about - My family, my dad in particular, my best friends and later - a boy I fell in love with. I remember the exact table we were sitting in when he first held my hand, the people around us that I imagined must surely be staring at us, I remember the damn cat which rubbed up against my leg making me jump in fear and his consequent amusement. I remember looking around nervously to see if anybody I knew was around.. We went there all the time - early enough for breakfast, most often for lunch, saturday afternoon tiffin ... even though it was often in mortal dread that the waiters would recognize me and let something slip to my folks... It became 'our place'.

And now to think that it is to be no more.. More's the pity! Well I just hope it's open long enough so when I come back, I can have atleast one last tete-a-tete, a cup of coffee or two and say my goodbyes to one of my favourite little corners of the city.

2008-04-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today's the day that validated the last three months. It's the day that I live for.

I felt myself again - like I'd awoken from a deep sleep completely refreshed.

My mind was working. My curiosity in full attendance. My thoughts racing. Alive.

I felt so gloriously alone, I wanted to scream it from my 17th floor balcony.

A deep, moving 'fuck everybody else' resonated with every fibre in my body.

I felt like Howard Roarke and Larry Darrell in one rather cocky female package.

I felt strong and completely in control.

I felt like I didn't need ANYONE.

That the silence didn't deafen me.

I felt adrenaline and serotonin racing each other in my brain.

I felt unafraid, that I could take anything that life could throw at me and as I type it now a flicker of fear passes through me, that ' what if', should I be tested and fail miserably... but it's tomorrow already. And yesterday still holds.

Eulogy

2008-04-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of you just a few days ago Chubby. Wondering what you were upto, what your plans were. If you were going to the U.S.. I was sure it was something interesting..

It's too bad I didn't know you better. You were always there, one of the crowd of 'kids' my brother hung out with, too soft to be heard but impossible to ignore. You had such a quiet sense of confidence about you. And the loveliest smile. Your earnest eyes sparkled behind those tiny frames you wore - I remember that really well. You had the gentlest of manners, so polite and respectful - we could all have learned a thing or two from you.

Calm and so very intelligent too, I remember thinking every now and then how lucky my brother was to have you around. I haven't spoken to you in two years and the last time I saw you I could only think how little you'd changed since school and how nice that was. None of the boyish immaturity about you- I wish I had known you better. I was so completely and utterly shaken when my brother told me this afternoon.I can't seem to internalize it.. How completely unfair life is, how fragile , how fleeting, how tragic.

Everyone you came across was touched by the wonderful person you were and you will be missed so very much by all of us that were lucky enough to know you.

You will always be in my thoughts and your family in my prayers. Rest in peace.

Michael Clayton

2008-04-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

Michael Clayton is not profound. Neither is it particularly revelatory. Or subtle. That the New York Times had to say this about it ("It’s a story about ethics and their absence, a slow-to-boil requiem for American decency") speaks only that George Clooney is a much loved poster-boy, who will readily raise his sword in a portrayal of the eternal and ever-so-romanticized struggle between conscience and materialism.

There is no denying ofcourse that Clooney is anything but a wonderful actor. But with this movie, it almost feels like he's falling into a sort of stereotype - the guy that carries the weight of the world, keeps its secrets and determinedly fights for justice.

The movie is dark and grey and haphazard in what I can only imagine is expected to aid in keeping the mystery alive. But beyond the surface, there really is no strong, compelling point. The focus is diffused which is a nice way of saying that the sequence of events aside, there is no emphasis, it's just all over the place. There is but a cursory glance at the issue causing all the controversy which is only the excuse for all the ensuing big bucks struggle and drama.. And If you skim over all the exciting conspiracy of it all (something in every fifth american movie), the equally oft portrayal and indictment of corporate greed, you find yourself in possession of a strong notion that the whole thing is just a trifle too contrived.

Piercing eyes and determined looks aside, Clooney looked out of place as 'the fixer' - a little too suave for someone supposed to do all the dirty work. If this story was all about Michael Clayton the man then it was barely held together - His gambling problems and a few 'compelling' father-son scenes didn't do it justice and couldn't have been any less subtle if they had a running subtitle that said 'we're trying to show you his life outside of the work he does'.

All in all, if you watch the movie, you will definitely be distracted for a few hours, perhaps even quite entertained.. and if that is all they were going for, it's fine (Oceans's 11, 12, and 13 - cases in point - all very entertaining) But if you watch this after hearing about how wonderful a movie it is, one of the best of the year etc. etc. you can't help but scream.. because there is nothing original about it, and nothing that merits all the praise and attention it's been getting. George can do a lot better.

The Story Of My Life

2008-03-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

P.S : I've fallen in love with Lev. My favourites are "Conversation" and "How to break up" . The cynicism and insight beautifully interwoven suits my mood infinitely.

Hummus not Hamas.

2008-02-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

After being persuaded to experience the much extolled delights of Hummus by a friend in London last week, I must admit that I was rather slowly won over. My initial apprehension was stoked by it's rather elemental presentation - a plastic container which carried nothing more than a label that said "Aphrodite's Houmous" in bright blue greek-style alphabet , "Contents: chick peas, sesame tahini, red chillies" and a seal that just about kept the stuff from spilling out. Reflexively, I remember wondering as I gingerly touched the tip of my finger with a little smudge of the paste to my mouth, "Where's the rest of it? Where are the lists - of ingredients, preservatives, 'health facts' , expiry dates and other assorted warnings?" Rather a double standard I'm afraid, considering the number of times I have happily gorged on street-side pani-puri, blissfully unmindful of the far higher probability of contracting a multitude of diseases from water that was undoubtedly infected with a delicious variety of viruses.

Living in the 'first world' now, it's amazing how easy it is to veer to the other extreme, become hyper-conscious or even paranoid of everything remotely threatening to one's state of well being. Initially amusing, over time you find yourself starting to look for the assortment of seals by the various issuing bodies for approval of what once were very simple choices. It's quite insidious really how one is lulled into a need for this sense of security. We begin to almost push ourselves into a sequestered bubble of living that is defined by all things branded - organic labels, stamps and health hazard warnings, leaving us zealously over-protective and thus far more vulnerable than when we were a lot less discerning.

It occurs to me now that perhaps I was looking at it in entirely the wrong way. With the mercurial rise in the number of chemicals in food stuffs, rather than feel anxious by the lack of information, maybe I ought to have been reassured because the humble can of hummus was indeed,just that simple, as I subsequently discovered. Still, no expiry date? Quite disconcerting!

How good it tasted on a slice of bread was enough to divert my attention and break that rather tedious chain of thought. Delectable! The sheer potential boggled my mind . I love experimenting these days and chickpeas are enough of a staple with us for me to imagine integrating this into the kind of food I like to cook, besides consuming it in it's more traditional preparations ofcourse. Living in an immigrant neighbourhood myself, I was confident I'd find some really good hummus and falafel.

Excited at the prospect, my first evening home, I made my way to the nearest grocery store owned by a foreigner, a rather comical looking chappie with a positively greek looking mustache, walrus-y , it seemed to take up most of the space on his face. I wasn't really sure where he was from. My neighbourhood is inhabited by an assortment of people who are obviously not dutch but not very obviously anything else either. Most of them seem to speak the same language and a large percentage of them are muslim as apparent by the meticulously covered heads of their women-folk but it's not something you can really ask, they seem a bit clannish and most relevant of all, none of them speak english. It's either a highly accented dutch, which is tough enough for me to follow in it's normal avatar, or their native tongue - so that sort of puts a spoke in the wheels of any conversation one might hope to have had with them.

I am greeted by a cheery "Goeden Avond" as I enter and the old fashioned bell rings for the grocer's attention. I finish picking out some fresh fruit and a miscellany of spices that is impossible to find at the supermarket. I take my time because I must pick my words in dutch to ask him for what I want. I make my way to the counter and begin with asking him if by some miracle he speaks english.. I'm sure I've asked him this before, nevertheless he patiently answers me with an apologetic shake of his head and a parting of his mustache that I take to be his smile. I sigh and let the words out stumble out, that I'm looking for some hummus, preferably fresh.

From his rather vacant expression I realise that he is not catching my drift. So I decide to keep it simple and just repeat " Hummus" a couple of times.. he showed no signs of recognition and I'm ready to give up. I shake my head and say 'forget it, it's fine' but he insists that he will find what I'm looking for. So I tried again, with a different emphasis, ''who-mus' I say to him.. you know, 'houmous' ?? Hamus? Hummus ?

Suddenly his eyes flicker and then open wide open, round like little pale marbles, deeply agitated , they were straining out of his deep sockets. With his voice equally perturbed he says something I cannot understand in rather voluble dutch. I ask him to slow down and repeat himself, telling him my dutch is poor.. and that's when it happens, he stares straight at me and asks point blank if I am Arab.

I am completely flummoxed. I don't think I look remotely Arab. And even if I do, so what? It occurs to me that maybe I don't understand what he's asking. I repeat his question and he indicates that that is precisely what he means... And I tell him that I'm not and he doesn't seem convinced. He asks me where I'm from and I am rather puzzled and a little concerned by his sudden interest in my antecedents. I warily tell him I'm Indian and it is when he responds that the penny finally drops. He says to me , ' Ah, India, Indians are ok, I'm from turkey' he declares matter of factly granting me his seal of approval. Turkish! Well that explains a lot.

He smiles easily again, offers me a bag of chana and insists that it is 'hummus' - the Arab word for the chickpeas themselves but that it's not the same in turkish - I am happy to be able to pass it off for a mistake. He seems to be under the illusion that I have made an effort to try his language and is faintly amused, however dismally I have obviously failed. It turns out that he doesn't seem to know the preparation (which surprises me since I am given to understand that it's quite popular in the region ) but it's quite clear he doesn't think much of the Arabs. He launches off into a bit of monologue, to himself almost because I can't for the life of me follow what he's saying - it's in dutch, so I presume some part of it is for my benefit. I decipher that it has something to do with how Arabs are this and that... Apparently there is no love lost. Since I am not entirely abreast of the political situation and unsure of what kind of issues they have with each other I try not to react too much, I just smile and thank him profusely and leave as quickly as I can.

When I come home, I look it up and find that the dish is actually called hummus bi tahina ( "chickpeas with tahini" ) . I should have got it right the first time. It's specially ironic because while I was in london, a young comic that we went to watch was joking about how he once got himself in quite a bit of a hot-spot because he unwittingly mispronounced hummus for Hamas.

I wonder, in retrospect, if at some point he thought I was saying something about the Hamas. God knows, with my bad dutch and pronunciation! As it turned out, it wasn't too sticky a situation but the absolute awkwardness, transient hostility and ensuing confusion could have been well avoided. Would it have made a difference to the venerable grocer if I had taken the trouble to get it right? Or would 'hummus' be all he needed to hear to jump the gun? I wonder...

It's rather sad that milllions of miles away from our homes, in a land where we are all strangers, all equally alien and atleast physically disconnected from our past, we can't let go - Unforgotten prejudices are carried around in our pockets ready to leap out at unsuspecting strangers on an idle tuesday evening...

What A Wonderful World

2008-02-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

Life has a lovely way of pulling you out of the swamp. Just as you feel you are beginning to sink, your twisting, turning and struggling proving entirely futile, something utterly simple and unexpected happens along your way to help you out of it. Sometimes it is as un-poetic as a good friend that makes you laugh and sometimes it really seems like God's sense of sublime puts on a show just for you.

Yesterday was just another day that I filled up with busy doings of not too much consequence, hoping for some meaning out of the total or atleast no time to think about the lack of it. When it came time to leave, I zipped my dark winter jacket on and pulled on the parka-esque hood. The wind these past days has almost knocked me off my feet. I set off in a brisk stride to exit the maze that I must go through to get out of my lab, hoping to have as minimal exposure to the nasty chill as possible. Wrapped tightly around my neck, my red woollen scarf was nearly choking me but there is hardly a choice there. It's near-suffocation or pneumonia. Choosing to risk the former for it's relative transience, my chin tucked in and my eyes fixed to the ground and my mind in some far-away place and ears plugged in with some music if only to isolate yet another sense from the rest of the world , I neared the tinted sliding doors that finally lead outside. I remember thinking how pointless they were in the land of clouds and rain.

I stepped out and instinctively waited a second for my eyes to adjust from the fluorescent, energy-saving whitewash brightness to the dark only to realise that the sun was still up. The sun was still up! I felt this lovely, warmth suddenly wash over me. It wasn't from the sun, I'll tell you that. "Where has all the IR gone? - Long time passing" is my favourite refrain. But I felt ecstatic.
So much so that rather excitedly punched my friend in sheer delight, yanked out the headphones and I hopped and skipped and jumped and flipped and laughed out loud. He was almost embarrassed by me I think.

That's when I saw it. A giant bubble of flaming orange about 30 degrees off the horizon at the end of a long canal. I jumped for joy. It really was so beautiful. I can't describe to you how rich that flame was and how there was red and yellow and orange and all sorts of colours all mixed up and yet so distinctly observable. I knew it was meant for me. I just knew it. It felt so private because there was hardly a soul around and it was just me and my friend and two people scurrying by on a bicycle with hardly a clue as to what they were missing.

And we just sat there in silence. For twenty minutes, in the cold, sepia evening, I felt free and happy and reconnected. With God. I watched as the sun slid further down until it seemed to sit on the water at the end of the canal. God, it was the so entirely beautiful that I can't stop from saying it over and over again. One of those memories, I know I always want to keep. All I could think of then was how grateful I felt for 'the sign'. To not be overwhelmed by the transitory, to have faith and remind myself of all there is to see, to do and to look forward to. Such goodness and beauty would be wasted if I let what now seemed to be such trifling troubles interfere with my enjoyment of all these magical moments however fleeting.

As dusk crept over and I emerged from my reverie, I found myself grinning ever so widely. Unable to resist resorting to that happy cliche , I rode back home, with a smile on my face, singing softly... "I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night and I think to myself....."

Dilly Dallying..

2007-06-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

My room smells like chrysanthemums. The smells wafts about like a bee dancing gently, weaving through petals. 'Tis a pleasant addition to the sting of an air that is moist and heavy with the presage of thunder that comes nightly to keep my insomnia company.

The pale light struggles through glass bay windows that are shut tight. Should I stop to look up, I am greeted by the vast, green magnolia tree against a grey sky . Invisible birds, enshrouded by Miss Magnolia, are trilling away - out of time with Mozart who plays on, oblivious and cheerful.

It is 4 PM. I want to go for a walk and smell the roses on Mrs. Van something's front lawn. My senses are heightened although my brain feels dead. I simply cannot seem to concentrate. But I stay rooted to my seat, crouched over my desk, feeling too afraid to get up, too reckless to work.

A cloud has passed. And a ray strikes me bright and cold in the eye. Shall I just sleep for a while perhaps? Only if there is some chance that I will wake up and find, I'm somewhere else, doing something else.

Since that can't happen, Tally-Ho!! The fox has been sighted!

Someday..

2007-06-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Aidan's mother called me today and as we were talking I could hear his pitter pattering and the squeak squeak of his baby shoes, which on a good day, I find mildly annoying. I braced, because I was sure that our conversation was going to be constantly and abruptly interrupted every seventh sentence with motherly remonstrations such as "Aidan, get down" , "Aidan, crayons are not to be eaten" , "No, Aidan you cannot have another cookie before lunch". I tried to reconcile myself to it while hoping desperately it wouldn't show in my voice.

Mothers are so perceptive when it comes to the way people react to their kids. As though reading my thoughts, she began apologetically "I'm sorry, you know, I really can talk it's just that this is Aidan's most active time of day. So if you don't mind, I'll have to mind him, but really, I can talk"

Sudden pangs of guilt struck. Ok, so she has a baby. I should cut her some slack. God knows, I've stood by while people have cut me off for far more trivial things. I made up my mind to be quite unmindful of the little rugrat's claims on his mommy's attention, or atleast pretend.

Just then, a funny thing happen, Aidan come up to the computer and said," Are you talking to Sneha Aunty mama?" in the cutest baby voice ever.

I started!!

Sneha Aunty ??? Geez!! There ought to be a statute of limitations on how you old you need to be for people to call you that!!

And Cutest baby voice ever ??? What!!!

Did it mean I was enjoying this if i was giggling mirthfully at just the sound of his voice?

Aidan's mommy promptly noted that I wasn't as anti baby as when I first beheld her child (which she duly remarked on then with a rather wry "he's not going to bite you know, you can hold him closer" ) and asked gingerly if I minded talking to Aidan. Rather surprisingly, I found myself acceding to the suggestion quite readily.

It was when his perky, almost cherubic 3 year old voice squeaked out, "Sneha Aunty, how are you" that I knew I was totally falling for the whole enchilada.

Aidan grew bolder while telling me about his red fire engine and daddy's new "impla"(Chevy impala ) in which he went 'ta ta and vroom vroom' . After ten minutes of a conversation with a 22 yrd old , he had to bribed into giving up his self established monopoly over conversation with Sneha Aunty by the allure of drawing her a picture of his house.

With him settled comfortably close-by with his crayons, mommy dearest and I resumed our catching up. It had been too long. It was so strange to hear her say 'parenty' things to Aidan every couple of minutes. I told her as much. She didn't seem to take offense. I think she understood that none was intended. She admitted that sometimes she was convinced it was a different person that had taken over her life.

She asked about my unattached existence with the tinge of been-there-done-that-but-that's-no-longer-my-life kind of envy that I can only imagine a young wife and mother might feel. I started to say something but found instead that I was rushing to reassure her. I felt a little guilty. I started to mutter about how she wasn't missing all that much. But I think she knew that I knew that she wasn't quite reassured. I quickly changed the topic. Back to Aidan.

He had run out of patience. He wanted to talk to Sneha Aunty again. Apparently, mommy informed me, he had taken quite a shine to her. Meanwhile, I had absolutely no clue how to engage little Aidan on the phone. But then the best part of talking to a kid, is that it doesn't need to make any sense, it doesn't have to have a flow of thought, it doesn't need to be logical or anything. It's just getting the little guy to open his mouth and knowing that something cute will invariably tumble out.

That's all I really wanted. Because the sound of his voice, his giggling, the way he pronounced my name was enough to make me : Happy.

I told his mother that. I told her how happy just talking to him had me today. She seemed taken aback by the graveness of my voice but took it in her stride. I was struck by how strongly I was affected. And how good I was feeling. It was weird - for lack of a better word.

We managed to squeeze in another half an hour of conversation before we had to say quick byes. I told Aidan I was waiting to see him again. I told him to be a good boy in the way 'grown ups' told me not so long ago. I had nothing else to say, but I wouldn't have minded at all if Aidan and her mommy had stayed online and I could have just heard them for a while.

Finally when I cut the line, I sat back in my chair and let the little tike's voice echo in my head and allowed myself one sigh. That's when I realised my cheeks were hurting so much from all the smiling.

The thought of little ears, little feet and cute little baby clothes.. I thought of my little finger being encircled by that little hand, all warm and soft and pink and how that was one of the loveliest feelings in the world. And I began to laugh.

What on earth's the matter with me!! I've long been ambivalent about Kids. I've known some really nice ones but way too many brats. It's kept me grounded to reality. I didn't allow myself to get carried away by gurgles, mostly because I knew that that was about when the drool was about to begin puddling on the sleeve of my beautiful silk kurti. I could only just about manage to plaster a smile when ecstatic but slightly deluded parents of little mister Einstein-in-the-making regale me with the coincidental mutterings of actually quite incoherent words they think they might have coaxed out of their two year old just that day.

And yet here I was, happy as a pin. There are some days, like today, when I know that despite my insatiable need not to be tied down, to experience everything that I imagine that life has to offer, it will all be quite inadequate and incomplete, if I don't have kids.

Definitely not anytime soon for there is so much to do, so much to see, so much to learn. But someday.

Someday... I'd like to be a mother.

The Love Letter

2007-05-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

For some reason, seven years past watching this movie.. The words have stuck in my head, having just heard it once.. and I finally found them today.

From The Love Letter , an engaging and refreshingly different movie that I enjoyed immensely..

Dearest,

Do you know how much in love with you I am? Did I trip? Did I stumble - lose my balance, graze my knee, graze my heart?

I know I'm in love when I see you. I know when I long to see you, I'm on fire. Not a muscle has moved. Leaves hang unruffled by any breeze. The air is still. I have fallen in love without taking a step.

You are all wrong for me and I know it, but I can no longer care for my thoughts unless they are thoughts of you. When I am close to you, I feel your hair brush my cheek when it does not. I look away from you sometimes, then I look back. When I tie my shoes, when I peel an orange, when I drive my car, when I lie down each night without you, I remain,

Yours

(I just love the last imagery.. "When I peel an orange, I remain ... ")

Surprise! Surprise?

2007-05-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

After watching five concerts in Brussels by big acts.. I suspected as much !!

I think the only really genuine act I saw was Chick Corea .. even though I didn't really understand his often stormy, mostly 'all over the place', 'abstract art' equivalent of music all that well...

Coming in second, I suppose, was Dave Matthews (whom I am going to see again in a couple of weeks (yipee! ) ) But then, I always imagined that he would be a little less contrived... Even if the encore was rehearsed , it was certainly true that the audience pulsed to hear more.. He certainly managed to make the concert personal and intimate. Ofcourse it was a small auditorium and a solo concert.

The absolute pits, you'd be surprised to hear perhaps, was Bob dylan! He played his set so monotonously. Every song sounded like the previous one. It was so tight it seemed like the set was programmed for ten seconds between each song to allow for applause. And finally, the encore was so contrived, I almost groaned aloud. (And I usually get quite into the mood so to speak, at a concert, so if i'm groaning it's because i'm awfully disappointed) Frankly, it seemed to me that he was sick of his own songs after forty years of it and was fucking with everyone by playing them in what seemed like a completely absurd arrangement! I really think I wasted my time going to that concert.. But that's another story!

'Naked'

2007-05-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've often wondered about how older people view sex, how important it is to them, is it biological reasons that leads to a decline in sexual activity with age..

Captioned "Ten women and men discuss what sex is like when you're old enough to know better." , 'Naked' is a short film by Rachel Dretzin featuring ten 45+ people in different levels on the relationship ladder talking about their sex life. It is intensely personal, often quite centred on the person's feeling. Shot in a staid, serious all-attention-focussed-on-you kind of way, it's a keyhole view into a world we will only know all too well once we get there...

Watch this

I honestly think it gives you some insight into human desires, the human body and our social outlooks.. but I'd like to hear your impressions, if you care to share them.. I had planned to write about it actually, but then decided against it, maybe will think about it more and write later.. for now, would much rather hear what you think..

Frustrations..

2007-05-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

What happens when you get off on the worst foot ever with people you actually need to co-exist with? What if you realise you are just too different and they don't really care one way or another and are quite willing to presume you are a bitch? Do you knuckle down and spend time and effort coaxing them into thinking you are actually a decent human being or do you try to tip toe your way through, hoping you are mostly unnoticed, knowing full well that you will probably never fit in.

To make matters worse, it suddenly dawns on you, that their opinion, although personally unimportant, matters after all in the larger scheme of things... What then?

Well , then, my friend, you shove your precious little tail between your embarrassed legs and lump it! And hope they will be generous enough to reassess what they think, because being ladylike in the 'look pretty, smile a lot and speak when you're spoken to' kind of way should suffice and it is all your pride will allow !!

Pride and Joy!

2007-04-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

At long last, after many many searches in flea markets high and low : I managed to find an original 1975 copy of the Bridge over troubled water LP in a second hand store for 3 euros. What a find! I'm almost too happy for words. Evidently.

Simon and Garfunkel are one of my favourite artistes of all time and this is my favourite album of theirs. I only wish now I had a gramophone to listen to the record. But in the meanwhile, It's going to be my centrepiece - my pride and joy. I'll put it in my 'music room' someday when I have my own house.

Dad's going to be quite pleased to see this. His favourite songs are on it ! As are mine!

Anyhoo, I'm too thrilled for words , as aforementioned. :)

P.S : Sorry about the glare on the first picture and the yellowness of the second . The damn flash! And the damn lighting in my room!

Just A Thought..

2007-04-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

I heard this on a popular TV show recently and it set me thinking . "Do you want a life of happiness or Do you want a life with meaning and purpose?" The character goes on to explain why the pursuit of both is futile and how they are two completely distinct paths , two different philosophies.

I agree, I think. In fact, I've been struggling to articulate this myself for quite a while now. In my experience, I've found that the times I'm happiest are not the moments with the most meaning. Happiness, I believe, is a state of contentment and harmony with one's present circumstances. In those moments you have to cut out the baggage of the past and block out the thoughts of future and focus on the step , the smell, the touch , the now!

To some of us, this comes naturally. To others, we will never see it. We think we are happy when things we want, happen. But that's just what we would like to believe. What it really is to our mind, when you get that promotion or win that medal, is a validation of our existence. It's a pacifying of the ego. It is corroboration to our mind's need to believe we have control. I've come to believe, after some reflection, that 'Real Happiness' is neither orgasmic nor exultant. That's muscle and chemicals. That's a very western conception. Happiness must be the mellow realisation that at this moment you are fine with how everything is, that you are not struggling, aching to change the state of how everything around you is.

Meaningfulness, however, is the antithesis of that. In fact it's a whole different ball game. Striving for meaning in one's life means you must keep looking back - to constantly learn - and keep looking forward to constantly create and manipulate circumstance so that you can incorporate whatever it is that you know from experience to mould your life as you desire it. It seems to me a lot more artificial and contrived (if you allow some degree of abstraction) because what you are trying to do is to coerce a particular sequence of events instead of making your self harmonious with what is happening.

Now don't start with me, I'm not saying you should take things as they happen to you. What I mean is, that to allow your mind to be eternally preoccupied with where you are going and where you want to go and how far you've gone can be quite tiresome and often futile. Instead, what if you don't struggle and fight so much. What if, you try to focus on finding a sense of equanimity while doing what you think gives you some sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. Will that make you happy?

Actually, now that I think about it, these two poles represent the deep chasm between Western and Eastern philosophies. Hmm.. Suddenly I think I see the wisdom in our ideology. We're too influenced by western ideas to be free enough to see how our own are actually superior. I need to think about this more before I can confidently write about it. So I will not go into why I think this. So I guess I will end rather abruptly on this note. But if you have any thoughts on this.. Do tell.

The Usual.. Diary-esque BS

2007-04-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ingratitude is the most pitiful pitfall that a possessor of good fortune can fall into. In close pursuit for the title is Indifference- which might lead you to shrug at it- and Ignorance ofcourse is as bad a crime - to not even realise how fortunate you are. . I stand accused of all of them in turn.

Quel Dommage! Hiding like a turtle in a shell has long and often been only a confrontation away for me but it was always very temporary. I just didn't notice that along the way I began to lose my spirit! My 'wonderstruck eyes' have been in retreat. I've been too self involved in my petty little troubles and qualms with the world to live fully. My curiosity has waned. My concentration is non existent. I'm distracted and listless and completely self absorbed. The last few months, to call a spade a spade, I've been a whiny wimp. And I'm almost ashamed to look back and reminisce because it only serves to remind me of how utterly girly (in the cruelest sense of that word ) I've been.

It took a conversation with a young cousin to remind me of all the spit and fire I once possessed. Which is not to say, that I want the unrest of my adolescence to return. I only mean, that in the process of trying to get myself to be a little more lady like, I've gone and lost (or misplaced is the way I would like to put it) one of things that made me , me! A bit o' spunk!

I need some sense of balance. Most times, I rue my ineptness at handling situations, social and otherwise, with a truck load of self pity on the side and try to bumble along or I swing to another extreme and get all superficially fired up for a few days, pretending to be 17 again - But unco-ordinated clothes, 'I-don't-give-a-shit-what-you-think" , cynicism and a lot of swearing just doesn't quite cut it at 22.

So what do I do! What do I do??? Is it possible to have fire in the belly and peace of mind at the same time? Which do I even want? Problemen! Problemen!

Like a priest giving a New Years Eve sermon , I tell myself that the Impossible is often just seemingly so. Things are fixable!

It requires gumption and perserverance and I used to have reserves of atleast the former. As for the latter, I'm going to learn to. I'm really going to try. I want to. I'm hungry to be hungry again. How strange and Ironic it is, to realise that you are just another human being if one integral thing about you disappears (something you didn't even know was possible) .

I need to do this. What 'this' is, I haven't mapped out entirely just yet. But I will. Soon. And then maybe this feeling like I'm fighting windmills in my head will go away. This sense of not having lived the day well , the emptiness that comes of wasting away, of atrophy - of mind and body - is eating me up.

2007-03-17T01:49:00.000-07:00

My love, you came to me like
Wine comes to a mouth
Grown tired of water all the time
You quench my heart and you
Quench my mind

--- You've got to love Dave Matthews ! And this isn't even his best.. But I'm currently tripping on Two step! It reflects my mood - happy and in love . Besides, I like the simple simile !

Love, Sex and Dying...

2007-03-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

I went to a dave matthews concert on friday night. I guess I've already told that to pretty much everyone I know out of sheer disbelief that it happened. I want to write about it for only one purpose. So that I don't forget that night.. So forgive me if it's not exactly a concert review. That is hardly my intention. It shall be riddled with my own impressions, centred around my thoughts , my mood and as it always ends up being, shall be about me!

The night started typically enough. I was waiting. He came - late and stoned. I wasn't surprised! It WAS Dave Matthews we were going to see ! We tripped our way through a metro ride and usually straightforward streets. I was 'tension paati' till we reached - paranoid we were going to miss him altogether, convinced we were lost and while I frantically looked around for signs of the damn concert hall, I was treated to such gems such as 'All roads lead to rome, and therefore we go to rome take the return road to AB hall from there, since there is a road that leads from there to rome too' - Mary Jane Mumbles!! The giggling began, a reaction to his ever so peaceful demeanour. I resisted the urge to reach out for that joint !

So we arrived. Realised we were late anyway, turned out that so was Mr. Matthews , So stayed out, on the broad belgian road and lit up the other joint. An inspired but nevertheless futile search for food later we headed rather disappointedly inside. I'm really beginning to believe that you can be passively stoned.. I think, if at all, I like it best that way.. That way I don't have to suffer the tar and worry about premature greying!

And so it began.

The first thing that happened as we entered the dark, over crowded opera hall - Someone spilt beer on my nice shoes ! I felt like I was in one of those frat parties in a hollywood college movie. Everyone was drinking, it was FULL of americans and you could smell pot everywhere! We pushed our way through - We were standing audience and what with all of these huge 6 feet pluses, I couldn't see a thing! I struggled to find a decent vantage point, much to my companions amusement. But he was sweet, he obliged me even if with a patronising smile on his face. Much wiggling and adjustment-of-stance later, I could finally see, when I craned my neck!

The stage was set simply and yet it was incredibly beautiful - Smoky, perfect lighting !! Just the man and his guitar I thought, until I realised a couple of seconds later , there was NO way that the guitaring was just one person's - The song ended just then and the spotlight moved, accompanied with an awed "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Tim Reynolds" - I was under the distinct impression it was a solo concert! I felt a sudden rush, the evening was just beginning.

I will not describe the night as magical. It was fraught with one rather unpleasant, niggling problem that I will not dwell on just yet. Instead I will say, what it was, Surreal !! We looked at each other for reassurance - not in that fake, exagerrated pinch-me-i-must-be-dreaming way- but real oh-my-god-ness gleaming through our dilated pupils. The instinctive hug that followed meant we didn't need to say "I can't believe this is happening"

There is nothing like going to a concert with a fellow fan. Someone who knows and loves the music. You exchange little tidbit trivia between songs, whisper oh-fuck-wasn't-that-awesomes after that phenomenal guitar interlude and just have someone to grin away so widely at, someone who feels just as lucky you are to be there in the moment, just listening to a couple of guys making music.

Ok, well, not just a couple of guys!!! Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds , Dames en Heren!!

So you're a fan, you know his music, you love his voice, you indulge his eccentric verbal meanderings with amusement writ on your lips, you've always wondered if it's real, Can he be as wonderful a performer as he seems?

It turns out, that's a resonating "Abso-fuckin-lutely!!!"

For one, he's high or maybe that's just how he is, but i suspect it's also the former, and it's so strange to actually hear those verbal hiccups that have come to be so familiar on his LIVE albums.There are two things you simply CANNOT help notice about Dave Matthews - First, his sense of humour! Second, his capacity to improvise!

The concert was quite intimate. He preceded each song with a little background about it - how it was written - some anecdote, something it reminded him of - something usually pretty funny. His humour was indefatigable that night. He kept the crowd engaged in him, not just his music. He made fun of americans, and ofcourse there's no better way to win a European's heart or an Indian's for that matter ! The only problem was often he would run the words into each other and it would sound like a rather multi-tone mumble!

One of the funnier bits of the evening was that about 6 or 7 songs he began with a rather indistinct guitar strumming, while he began with a different voice and often just deadpan he would say "This is a song.. Well uh.. This is a song about Love, Sex and Dying" It was particularly funny because invariably the song had absolutely nothing to do with that. But just the whole mock seriousness, he pulled off so well

Every now and then he lapsed into this peculiar manner of doing cartoonish voices in the middle of some very serious thing he was saying. I've noticed this in his Live at Luther concerts too and I always thought it would be very weird hearing it at the concert and I was right! At those moments he sounds like a 60's american radio broadcast doing a retro comic piece with accents of all manner! Out of place - but ok, still funny!!

Now his improvisation is rather interesting. At first I didn't even realise it because he was doing it with songs I wasn't familiar with. And then came along a couple I did know and he actually deviated quite a bit in between. Dancing nancies was one of them I recall. I actually liked the live version better. I suppose he sort of goes with the flow of how the crowd responds to the songs. Or perhaps he uses each venue as a chance to try out his musical experiments on our predisposed-to-like-it ears.

He sang two whole songs that he just made up.. on the spur of the moment.. reacting to the audience and the pulse of the crowd.That was phenomenal, it took me a minute to realise that the lyrics were about Brussels and that evening, it started out innocuously enough, with tim just plucking away at seemingly random notes and dave strumming a few chords.. almost like the beginning of a record session. And then he plastered his face with a mock seriousness and sang funny things about the crowd. I wondered if it was a gimmick. Or he was letting himself have a break. Or he had forgotten what he was going to sing. He's a professional, so I doubt it was the latter. I suspect he was just being entertaining. He probably knew we'd lap it all up anyway.

The highlights of the evening were renditions of Gravedigger, Satellite and Sister. Oh and ofcourse, Tim Reynolds' cover of Kashmir - Brilliant, only one word to describe it! I screamed myself hoarse through the song. He's simply A-list!! Another interesting event, a prelude to a rendition of one of his newer (and it's really beautiful) songs called Sister was a little episode of Dave losing his temper very momentarily. He was talking about what the song meant to him , about his sister who was murdered and what the song meant to him etc. and in the middle of it all, a guy yelled out several times, the name of some song he wanted Dave to sing and it was so disruptive that Dave just pointedly looked in the general direction of the crowd and very reflexively told the guy to shut the fuck up! Truth be told, nobody recoiled in horror, it was fully warranted and a lot of us wanted to do precisely that anyway! What a rude asshole that guy was! The sad part was, when a minute later Dave forced himself to recant and apologize.. Dammit, it's such a pity that when you're a big star you don't have the freedom to speak your mind and you have to politically correct lest you be written up as the bad guy in the morning's issue, even though you might be reacting fully within your rights as a normal human being in a perfectly socially acceptable way!!

The only sore point (unfortunately it did have a lot of bearing on my spirits ) was that I was stood for four hours with no space to move, in the quite uncomfortable shoes - Trust a woman! After an hour standing, I thought I was going to die, My friend and I realised we might as well take a break and get some beer so we'd enjoy the concert better when we did get back.We got out of the hall, sat down and began to sip a beer, that was nice except that after the second hour , when we took another break and another beer (Now, I'm still a novice and Belgian beer is something else) on an empty stomach, let me just say, it wasn't just my uncomfortable shoes that was making it difficult for me to stand still in one place ! Damn my need to wear nice looking ( => uncomfortable) shoes, God knows, nobody can see them in the darkness anyway ! I really would have enjoyed the concert more and not needed to fidget as much if I was about 15 pounds lighter or wearing tennis shoes.

While moshpits are fun the first time around, I think I'd much rather take a seat thank you very much. Standing in an extremely cramped environment for three plus hours is not fun!! Speaking of which, the Europeans listen so stolidly to the music. They don't move. they nod appreciatively. What kind of an audience is that! Dave Matthews is exactly the kind of guy you want to rock with. I don't mean head bang but surely you want to move a little, the music is so, to use a much abused word, groovy that you want to be able to sway a tad! Strange people, strange!.. Well, I still did and I had a lovely time of it too!

I really wish a couple of my friends could have been there. I KNOW how much they would have enjoyed it. I missed them a lot then!! Hopefully someday we can all do it together. I guess in the meanwhile, I'll count my blessings and feel really grateful for such unexpected good fortune.

The sentimental fool that I am, I saved the ticket stub.

P.S: Weedboy, thanks for looking out for me and delighting in my delight :)

Meandering...

2007-03-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

I went to Brussels this morning. We took the number 71 to Avenue de Adolphe Buyl. ( I wonder what he did to deserve the honour) It was a long ride and I got to see a lot of the city that I hadn't had an oppurtunity to before. First of all, I must say, I hate being in a new place if it's for any other reason except tourism ( for lack of a better word) . Besides, I'm afraid I am much too spoiled to find public transport in a big, crowded city, enjoyable - In fact, it really gets my goat.

In Brussels today, I was clearly out of my comfort zone and I felt like a fish out of water - unsure and struggling. Brussels is quite a bustling city, and with a million inhabitants it's bordering on overpopulated (for it's areal size) . Now you may think that sounds higly pretentious and even hypocritical coming from me, having been brought up in a city of 8 million people. But we have relativity to consider, have we not?

My frame of reference for comparison is my peaceful little university town of a 60,000 people - half of whom, mercifully, make their exit every weekend to their own homes around the country. I realise how much I have grown to love living in a small town - where you know where everything is , where you can recognize the bus drivers, where they can recognize you, you know how the 'system' works , people smile or atleast nod at you, where traffic stops for pedestrians and people are polite and patient.

As I struggled to explain to the bus driver where I need to go, struggled with the switch of language, struggled with a map, I realised how much I had settled down into my little niche since I first landed, how six months ago, Leuven and Brussels were all the same to me.. Alien! Now, In all truth, I can say that there are two places I feel comfortable in - home and Heverlee.

A funny thing, the mind. Mine ached to soar and explore. Always straining against the leash of circumstance and lack-of-opportunity, my curiosity always was my most heightened instinct. And then I got what I wanted. I left home. I came to Belgium. And the drastic nature of the change tossed everything upside down. I found myself constantly seeking the familiar and sticking to what I knew and understood. It puzzled a close friend of mine for a long time, he didn't seem to understand how it was that a girl so seemingly open in her views suddenly clammed up. I didn't expect it myself. If someone had suggested that I'd be so terrified of the things that I find I am, I would have pooh-poohed it!

I guess in the beginning, it was pretty simple. Everything was too strange. I was completely unaccustomed to anything except the familiar. I suppose now, I'm a little better. But in the last six months, the same fear that held me back also made me begin to really appreciate the small town life. It's made me see what I missed out on being brought up in Madras.

I wonder every now and then , if it's a case of simply, the grass being greener on the other side. You want stability when you have adventure and vice versa. I am reconciling myself to the fact that I'm not who I want to be and I can't change myself into being an uber-adventurous spirit just because I choose that that is the image of myself I like. This is what I mean, when I say that I'm discovering myself bit by bit with every little incident - such is the power of being thrust straight into the deep end - Ofcourse, it's a good thing I figured out how to swim soon enough!

Thanks to a certain someone for moral support on that :)

2007-02-14T00:20:00.000-08:00

I love. Do you know? It has filled my being with so much. So much! I cannot venture further. I cannot describe it, although I have tried in vain. Not realising, that perhaps love was not meant to be explained, nor even shared, that It is personal, that there is no one else who can possible feel exactly as I do and there is no experience thus far comparable, so can I even draw a likeness?

Declarations and gestures are an outcome of the experience , not the experience itself. I can tell you i'm ecstatic but you can't know how I much I actually feel. Wanting to make you see what I see and feel what I feel is somewhat akin to trying to describe what the ocean inspires in me. I can only close my eyes and feel. I must stop in time, live the moment and let my senses dwell on the sand slipping under each fading footstep, the wind brushing that strand of hair across my face, the smell of the sea that is so unique, the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. The force, the beauty, the wonder of it all ,the entire experience, is a sensory overload, and simply defies description , exactly like being in love.

So, I will not try. I will only say this. It is unlike anything I could have imagined. It is beautiful. It is overwhelming. To think about it, inspires no further light on the whats and hows , only the discovery that warm tears are coursing down my face. I close my eyes and let the tears fall, knowing that what I feel is love. I draw the image of your smiling brown eyes in my mind , full of love, your voice, your smile ... I'm just picturing it all now..

Holding me, teasing me, laughing, your awkward dancing , reaching out for my hand every time I sit next to you, much to my surprise- even in front of your friends, driving with one hand, despite my protestations, just so you can continue to hold mine with the other, insisting I shift gears , you kissing my cheek, you sitting across me with that silly, over-dramatised smitten look on your face, your eternal clowning ... I don't lack imageries... They come flooding forth - thousands of them - with such an immense warmth attached to them that it seems like all my thoughts of you are almost literally 'tagged' with affection and love..

Love, if i know anything about it, is about now.. It's about this very moment.. And I wonder if you know, sitting at your desk , that I am thinking about you.. so fondly.. That at this moment I love you like I have never loved before.

------- Posted with permission to reprint , Remember? :)

2007-02-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

I feel like such a little child today. I am possesive. I have a secret and I want to bury it. I do not want to share. But oh.. yet I want to revel in it.. I want everyone to know that I found something so wonderful, I want to gloat , I want to scream.. I have found such a little treasure!!!

Perhaps it's not a big deal to all you adults out there.. You reservoirs of staidness and impassivity.. Mock my childish exhilaration if you will.. Perhaps, It is just an uncommon little pebble to you.. But I think I found a gem.. It's shiny and pretty as the day! I found something that I never expected to.. And I'm euphoric!

I am usually so averse to advertising anything on my blog : But I make an exception:

http://www.putumayo.com/

Check it out!!

You will see: It is a record label. Now, what's so special about that? They make 'world music' records. Nothing new there either. I found it in a little picturesque town. Nestled in a corner, in a quaint shop on a long and narrow cobbled stone street. I stumbled in there quite serendipitously and happened to hear the most beautifully rhythmic folksy tune I'd ever heard.. I was so excited, I asked the very obliging sales assistant what music it was and she was kind enough to allow me to sample four of their cds in her store, unmindful of what other customers might feel .. and ofcourse, I loved it so much I spent a bomb buying just two of them!!

All the way back on the bus I couldn't sit still. I rushed home, just so I could open my little package and delight in my little discovery, dumped my stuff on the floor and plopped the cd in.. And just chilled for an hour!

What a mood the music creates!! I abso-fuckin'-lutely LOVE it!! Smitten as I am, I googled and found more! Managed to sample their other stuff online and have made up my mind to buy two cds a month or something especially the latin and african and european stuff.

The blues are nice.. But then I have been listening to the blues for a while now.. and I've heard better. The other stuff is what really appealed to me.. It's just so.. exotic to my ears.. I feel like i'm in a french movie or something when I listen to it! (Funnily one of the compilations (I bought this one and it's marvellous) is called French Cafe' and let me tell you.. It's exactly the kind of thing they play in a french cafe - especially one very memorable one in Rennes)

The thing about this kind of music is that you need to start off with compilations like this. Unfortunately, you can't just start up your favourite P2P and get everythin g you want because these are indigenous music groups. IF you are not familiar with the style yourself already, it's very difficult to wade into it. Imagine a foreigner trying to get into carnatic music just with the internet!

Oh, I'm sooo excited!! Just can't wait for more!

P.S: Brugges is a beautiful town... A post on that soon hopefully! Oh and dutch classes start tomorrow.. Looking forward to that as well. All in all , life is getting full. Here's to full days and content dreamless nights!

2007-02-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

So I cried.. Well sobbed is more like it.. Twice!! During what is commonly considered a comedy!
I don't know.. I feel such utter sadness when I see old people suffering, even if it on screen.

It must be hard to be old. Your body is weak and you are weary. Yet, you have to trudge along. Maybe even alone. The world has passed you by. Everything is different .You have to struggle to just keep up. And no one will let you be. The grandkids dismiss you or just plain old ignore you. The kids are too busy to stop and say hello. Your opinion is not valued anymore. Everyone is so impatient with you. You have to put up with patronising comments and a general air of condescension, if you are lucky. On the flip side, you can be outright made to feel unwanted. And all the while, there is the remembrance of your youth that constantly rings in your head. It can't be easy knowing that you aren't needed (except maybe emotionally) by anybody.

Fate can deal you a worse hand - You don't have family that cares enough to help you out. You are poor as a church mouse. You struggle through everyday. Thank God for religion... It's for lives that may hold no joy , no reason or logic.. It's the occupation of hearts that yearn for hope.

Old people, pay no heed - pride comes before the fall - their time will come! Chant your mantras, pray to your gods, occupy your minds, pass your time .. Insulate yourself from the reality that has left you behind .. It maybe your only comfort!

2007-02-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

There is so much beauty in the harmony of two voices I could almost cry ! Today, I happened to hear a rendition of Raghuvamsa sudha and Vathapi Ganapathim , the only two carnatic pieces I can honestly recognize beyond doubt . It was sung by the now quite acclaimed Ranjani and Gayatri sisters.

The truth is I find myself falling in love with carnatic music. Not just because of what I heard today. It's been building over the years.. One of my best friends plays the violin. And ofcourse on the mater's side there has always been quite a lot of the carnatic buzz happening... I learned to really like the instrumental stuff quite some time ago..But I just didn't get the singing. I mean, I didn't 'feel' it. I could appreciate that what I was hearing was beautiful but it didn't strike a chord.

For a long , long time I thought there was no "Bhaav" or atleast not as much bhaav in carnatic music as I thought music ought to have. But I guess , I just didn't know.. It's altogether a different language and you need to understand it before you can judge. I made a mistake. But, that's easily rectified. I know that there is an ocean to discover and I'm so excited. Almost as excited as I was when I first began exploring jazz a couple of years ago. I guess it's time hadn't come. I was too busy listening to all the music I did already know a little about.

I've been having a lot of these little musical revelations. And everytime I want to jump up and down for joy, listen to lots and lots of that kind of music, talk to somebody about it, ask their opinions , ask for direction.. But it's such a shame that I don't really know enough musically inclined people.

For quite a while now, I've been interested in hindustani music. I found a piece in Indian Ocean's music that reminded of how much I need to be listening to it. I love the sound of a human voice singing a raga. It is so exquisite and pure. And when there is emotion in the music it is all the more beautiful.

When I was in madras last month, I remember watching Andrea Bocelli on tv, he was singing a duet with this beautiful black woman who had a voice that could only just match his. Not that she wasn't magnificent in her own right.. He was just in a class of his own.. His voice..

I'm listening to a lot of opera too.. Well, to be honest not a lot, but some.. I got my hands on a collection.. It seems quite nice.. Very classic pieces. Anyway, I'm sure it's good enough place to start off from..

Anyway, what with the internet, I won't need to try too hard to get all the music I want to listen to.

Here's to new beginnings..

2007-01-28T02:38:00.000-08:00

I feel the need to apologize to you. I don't know why exactly that is , I certainly can't remember anything in particular that I might have said or done.But that is how I feel... Sorry!

Perhaps, I might best describe it as a welling up of emotion that cries out for a new beginning , a desire for change... And so , I imagine, that by taking responsibilty for all that has changed over these past months, much to both of our dismay, I suppose, we might clear the air and begin anew. I say anew and not again because I realise that what has transpired can never be relived There can never be 'again'. The novelty of falling in love , of being gripped in passion's hold, has passed us by.

It is such an emotion, so violent in its feeling , that it rocked us to our very core, like a storm-tossed ship in the night .We struggled to find our bearings , forced ourselves to hold off from completely withdrawing into a surreal world. But we survived that and reached the morning, the morning that brought with it , mellow tranquil beams of light. The light we knew was real, whose peace beckoned, in the unrest of our passionate spirits.

But now, it seems that after all, we do not want it. It is too peaceful,this serene,calm friendship that has followed. We have relaxed into being who we are secure in the knowledge that someone loves us and cares for us very deeply, like the still water whose depth is difficult to gauge. And yet, we are unsatisfied. After all, should thrill and uncertainity be our aphrodisiac? Is it? Stability,Security,Honesty,Love - Don't they tip the scale? Can it be that turbulence is what we really seek?

Or is it our mind's recourse from the boredom of the permanence that our hearts may desire?

2007-01-27T02:42:00.000-08:00

It's 11:30 AM and I woke up half an hour ago. The sunlight was streaming through the windows too brightly for me to keep my eyes shut and I was beginning to feel hot. I looked at the time and jumped out of bed and logged on to check MSN weather.

It is FOUR god damn degrees and the skies are blue!! No wonder!!! It's 8 degrees hotter than yesterday!

I'm in a great fucking mood!!! The first song was perfect.. CCR!! It's just set the tone for my whole day!

I'm going to go out and get me some sunshine!! I'm going to have a wonderful meal ! I'm going to study my butt off !! I'm going to just be... Happy!!

2007-01-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

I'm giving my mind away,
In little bits and precious pieces,
With the things I say!

Initially aimless, awkwardly conceived
Often hurried, admittedly naive
sometimes incomplete trains
of my thoughts and impressions
don't instantly transform into coherence

Quickly, help me, I can't seem to clot them.
The devil words, that are born in a rush.
Too alive! They clutch and drag
and convey my just-borns away.

Gushing, oozing , struggling
the letters seep out of me. Bleeding me
dry of opportunity,
to just stay still.
And perhaps even dwell a little
Longer?.

Long enough to introduce myself.
Too late , they are gone.

And I'm left standing there
staring after my run-aways,
[stamped, in retrospect, definitively : Mine!]
the orphaned parent,
betrayed and unsure
but aware of clocks ticking
and creativity leaking
slowly out of her.

Wondering where,
and whether, to begin again.

2007-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

The only thing I seem to write these days are letters to the lover.

Ruminations...

2006-12-01T02:26:00.000-08:00

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on now,
cause theres too many places Ive got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I cant change.
But please dont take it badly,
cause lord knows Im to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
Cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird youll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.
Lord help me, I cant change.

An Unintentional Ejaculation Of Hitherto Latent Thoughts!

2006-11-25T00:40:00.000-08:00

It's raining now. The autumn colours are out in the dulling splendour. It's 1 in the afternoon and I don't have any class today. I decided not to go anywhere because I wasn't in the mood for it. I was reading a book, which I just finished. I have to go to the bank around 2:30 or so..

I've been really listening to a lot of music. You know, there are spells where one finds that the notes seem to rise up and penetrate one's ears with such intensity and clarity that you can savour it with more than just your hearing....

I thought I would write for a bit. There have been so many thoughts coursing through my head - this last one week has been so strange! I've had this intense, serious face on. Is it that I've had a lot of time? Or have I just been thinking too much?

I'm beginning to like honesty more and more. Is that a funny kind of statement to make? I find that I'm losing interest in posing and pretending. Which is not to say that I don't still do it. I do. It's just that I recognize it a lot more and consequently I'm trying to tell the truth as much as I can. Not just out of fear of being seen through. But I'm getting tired of it for some reason. The posturing leaves me feeling tired and guilty. It's strange - since, all my life I've survived on portraying myself as such and such - a different face for everyone!

There is somehow a comfort in the nakedness of it. I groan inwardly everytime I am talking to someone and I find myself trying to seem more knowledgeable than I am - A trigger, that hardly would tug at those conscience strings before.

I find myself more pensive. Seeing myself for who I am, a little even if not very clearly. I have for example, realised that I am a very simple , mostly uncomplicated human being. I would like the enigma of being complex and misunderstood. But if I look beyond the superficial things, I see that I am not chasing after a glorious future. I am not chasing after enlightenment. I am not eaten by the desire to know why the universe exists. (Although, maybe if someone finds out I would be very interested to know what it is.)

This realisation has brought one very dramatic change in my outlook. I find myself not looking down on people whose approach to life is even simpler than mine. I am understanding why some people may want to stay at home and chant mantras and be content with just that. It's all a question of where you draw the line - At which point is one content to leave questions unanswered!

I'm curious. But not as curious as I thought I was. Or perhaps I'm not as curious as I thought I wanted to be. I find myself realising that so much of everything was/is part of the masks that I wear. And getting rid of some of them is unsettling but I feel strangely and gradually relieved. Don't ask me when this happened. It has been an accumalation of thoughts over quite a while now. And I think it started with meeting A. Which is when I decided I wanted to be absolutely honest - not after years of getting to know them, but right up from the start.

I do not know if I will revert to my inherent insecurities. I know that they still exist and it will take time and much persistence to make them disappear. But I think I am on the right track. Whether serendipitous or not, I am experiencing a sense of clarity in introspection that I did not expect or even ask for.

I'm beginning to question everything. What I want from my life. What gives me happiness. (Something I always seemed to have a ready answer for) I don't know anymore. I think I always suspected that I didn't really know. Hence all the deliberation and not very much action. I suppose one might dismiss all this as 'growing up' or 'maturing' or something. But these are such hard learned truths that I'm hardly inclined to accept that it was a process that was just waiting to happen.

A lot of this introspection had to do with a conversation I had with G. I spoke to him for three hours a couple of weeks ago. And we talked about his philosophy to life(he has one!) and he was explaining why he did or didn't do certain things. His quest to figure things out... I wonder if that makes him a more restless spirit. But by all appearances, he is at all times content and although seemingly weird to everyone else, I know he enjoys himself to the hilt. He is happy.

I've known for a while now that my happiness is not necessarily to be attained in a similar way. I think the one thing we did agree on was that everybody has their own salvation. It's not one universal heaven for everyone.

Anyway, I'm still much confused about everything. I'm questioning my motives for every action. (Am I writing this to seem more intellectual, introspective etc.) You see my line of thinking.. I don't know. I hope not. I think I'm mostly writing this for release. Some very funny changes are already beginning to happen in me. It's all so strange. But I'm beginning to understand why some things are the way they are. and that can't be a bad thing can it?

A Day In The Life..

2006-11-22T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's 10 PM and I'm tapping away at my much used keyboard. I've had about a glass and a half of white wine and I can feel the faintest signs of a headache coming on. The glass stands idly beside my laptop, unsipped in ten minutes. It is half empty. I'm in a strange mood. I'm listening to Malaguena on the guitar. I'm thinking of nothing in particular. The plucking of the guitar occupies most of my consciousness.

The song ends.

I should finish the wine and go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day.

Moral of the story : The words shall flow better when the wine doesn't!

Musings..

2006-11-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting at a corner table in a cafe in Brussels Central station trying very hard to make the tiny 2 euros worth of cafe au lait last an hour. I'm slightly ticked off. I don't like being made to wait, certainly not for longer than ten minutes. I just made a phone call and was informed in a still slightly sleepy drawl that it shall probably be atleast an hour. It's 10 AM on a saturday and the station is bustling.

I am impelled to stand and stare, something I've, for the most part, tried to avoid this past month. I'm afraid of being with my thoughts alone for too long. But it's alright today somehow because I can write. I'm unobstrusively seated at a table for two near the glass door with my little black note book out. In between furiously scribbling away, I sip on the already slightly soggy styrofoam cup and look at the people around me, noticing every detail, relishing the utter freedom of the moment and feeling tremendously lucky for being able to live my dream.

Two tables away, are seated a noisy bunch of sixty somethings. The women, wearers of the same bright red shade of lipstick that looked good on their once young faces, cackle and talk loudly in that slow, harmless way that elderly women have. I think the women are younger than they look. One can tell a lot from the walk. But their faces are lined and horribly made up. They smoke like chimneys, going through about five cigarettes in twenty minutes. That would explain the raspy almost abrasive voices they all seem to possess! Both the smoke and their loud voices that spit out harsh, french-esque words are really beginning to grate on my rather delicate morning senses. I have an awful cold and the smoke is really getting to me, I just want to leave. But ofcourse, I'm obliged to stay, I have nowhere else that I can be my inconspicuous self.

At another table is a woman dressed in a Santa Clause red suit. She's rather portly and waddles. She just walked past me and her stomach shook from side to side, ever so slightly, like it was in simple harmonic motion with a tiny but noticeable amplitude. My imagination runs away with me, I am staring at her and imagining a white beard sprouting from her rather pronounced chin... And suddenly, I can't help but giggle. Oh no, I can't seem to stop. I put my pen down and laugh heartily for fifteen seconds. Great! Now, everyone is looking at me!!

I've been staring aimlessly outside the door for the last three or four minutes. I didn't notice when an exceedingly handsome young man entered the cafe but he just walked past me looking for a place to sit down, the cafe is quite crowded and I'm secretly hoping he sits down opposite me. But alas, he seems to have found himself a seat at the table of an old, dishevelled man, the only other vacant seat.

I'm trying not to be obvious about watching the young guy. He looks so lost , almost as much as the trampish old guy he's sitting next to. His eyes are vacant and he stares straight ahead while fumbling around in his pocket for his cigarettes. He is so young, that is what strikes me the most about him! And when I see him light up that cigarette I can't help but sigh. It makes his greek god looks, suddenly so human. He is dressed immaculately in a striped black power suit and a loosened tie - de-stress at 11 in the morning? Suddenly I can picture him at a long ebony conference desk in a swank office, keen as a pin , but an underling, watching dismally, while some fat manager type takes credit for his ideas!! I like the romance of the imagery!!

I'm lingering over cold coffee now.. It takes me by surprise no matter how often it happens, how quickly things can get cold here. It's only been 8-9 minutes and already my cup has gone from piping hot to a room temperature of 15 degrees!!

A flashily dressed young stud with two prominently displayed earrings gleaming from his ears, a bling bling watch and a shaven head just nudged past my table. I looked up from my writing long enough to notice him primarily because of the annoying skeech-skeech of his shoes.. oh wait.. no.. his god awful, shiny to the point of being harmfully bedazzling RED, new NIKE boots. You know, the kind that only (if at all) professional footballers just about manage to pull off. Jeez! Talk about the power of marketing! Like a friend of mine remarked the other day - someone in the marketing department is high five-ing his colleague, while his counterpart in accounts is hearing the Tching-Tching of the money machine go off , what with all the suckers they con(vince) into buying absolutely useless but frightfully expensive 'luxury goods' that add little or no value to them or their self esteem, one or both of which is usually the objective of buying something, wouldn't you say?

I look up from my little rant and notice the handsome young guy has left. That's when it strikes me, the cafe is full of old people. Probably because they are the only people who have time to linger. Or is it just that they stand out? There is this faint illusion of seeing much more older people here than back home. But then again, it could just be that elderly people here probably get out of their homes more frequently than old people back home who by and large are quite content to stay indoors as much as possible.

Older people here are just so conspicious in their loneliness and many a time, in their helplessness as well. They are almost always unaccompanied and even if they have company, almost never by anyone from a younger generation. It's sad how impatient we are with infirmity and age! I delude myself into believing that back home people have more respect for elders and have more of a sense of duty to old parents and atleast some affection! They seem so forlorn here. Is it worse to be poor or lonely?

Old age and old people has always depressed me immensely and I suddenly don't feel so cheerful and excited about things anymore. And no, I have none of the arrogance of youth - I feel no disdain or contempt or even indifference. Infact, quite to the contrary, I am humbled, reminded of my mortality and human-ness, filled with contrition over my usual state of ingratitude for my senses and health. Everytime I see an old man shuffling in the cold , all bundled up ,or struggling to grip the railing of the bus with his arthritic fingers, my eyes just well up.

I'm reminded of my grandfather. And I miss him so badly. It'll be a year since he died, on the twentieth. I wish he had lived a little longer, to know that I was sitting in a cafe in Brussels and thinking of him. He might have been so proud. But then again, he only just wanted me to be happy. I must get up and go somewhere or do something else before I fall into a brooding, melancholic state. I simply must!

I think i will leave now. I can't sit here much longer It's been an hour and I suddenly feel so restless, anxious to begin my day. .

The cafe seems to separate the temporarily aimless from the eternally purposeful... One only sits, if one has no place to be walking to...

Shutters!!

2006-10-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

Life's shutters are down, locked shut for him. It is the sunset of his life. His face is etched with the hard lines of a life lived in resignation. But his eyes bewray all.

His gaze is intense,straight ahead, unafraid and yet so full of anguish. There is betrayal written all over his face. In that moment , the years of practice, making peace with his fate, swallowing desires, deserts him, he realises that he is indeed naked , that he has nothing, that he is the object of pity..

The click of the shutter is confirmation of his fear - that it is his stark nothingness that is the only reason he is the subject of another human's interest.

But then, I'm presuming... I don't know.. I want to ask..

Has he had much happiness?

Has he loved? Has he been loved?

Has he seen worse times?

Was his life spent trying to keep body and soul together??

Has he had better times?

Does he live in his past?

Does he feel forgotten? That life has passed him by?

Has he something to look forward to?

Does he still dream?

Then.. I look into his eyes and I think I know the answers..

Tears start to fall. .

P.S; A friend of mine with talent and an eye for interesting subjects took this picture.. The words are mine..

The artist and his response!

Dasan take a bow!

(You can check out some of his pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dasans/ - It's really good stuff!! )

'A Loving Couple' - In Amsterdam!

2006-09-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

This a Picture that I took of a Rembrandt at the Rijks Museum. The painting is titled 'The Jewish Bride (A Loving Couple) ' .

All of us have our own sense of aesthetics. We look at something and we know if it appeals to our sense(s) or not. But, as I wandered around the Rijks Museum last weekend, it dawned on me that no matter how much I had read of art history, I needed to actually SEE a lot of art before i would be able to tell anything just by looking at a painting.

Art requires a lot of knowledge in order to be appreciated in its mulitude of facets. It isn't like music, which, if you are into, you can feel a stirring. It isn't as emotional. Or perhaps, I'm just not as responsive to a visual stimulus. Or it is something acquired with exposure? I'm not sure as yet.

Of one thing I am certain though, I am in awe. As I went through room after room, I wanted my eyes to dilate ten fold so I could catch minute details, about the paintings, that my eyes would not have otherwise caught. The little ridges in the canvas, uneven blobs of stray paint at the edges, everything.

I could just about distinguish a Rembrandt from a Vermeer. And even that, I think had more to do with the fact that I had looked at loads and loads of prints of many of the famous artists in one of my mad fits of interest in art.
Vermeer's (as made famous by the movie 'A Girl With Pearl Earring' - a painting that I wanted to see but looked for in vain ) works , I found, are a lot easier to understand. They have more colour, I think. And the subject matter is usually a scene from real life. For ex. "A Music Lesson" , "A Soldier And A Girl" etc.

Rembrandt's were very interesting as well. I will not venture to say anything about him. I don't know enough. His paintings seemed a lot more intense to me and they were a lot bigger too. I took a picture of this one because it seemed to me the most beautiful, plus it was one of the larger rembrandts. (If you find the picture a little dark , it's because one isn't allowed to use the flash while taking pictures )

The Rijks museum is a tribute to Dutch art . It was the first museum (of three) that we visited in Amsterdam and boy, at the end of it.. I was just so full of enthusiasm and 'joie de vivre' . It hit me over and over again as I walked up and down those halls that I was living my dream and I felt so grateful. If I didn't say a little prayer of gratitude then. I am now.

The Museum sits on a beautiful square called Museumplein ('Plein' as I realised later mean 'square' in dutch) in the vicinity of the Van Gogh Museum (Which I want to write about separately because he was my first love) . Sharing the spotlight in museumplein is also the famous Amsterdam Diamond Cutting District which I didn't really find that impressive. (But it gets a lot of tourists nonetheless. So maybe it was just me.)

Only about ten percent of the exhibited pieces in the museum are by world reknowned artists - Otherwise there is a lot of dutch art through the ages on showcase which is beautiful ofcourse. The renaissance art, I found very interesting.. Although, to be perfectly honest , I didn't know any of the artists except Rembrandt and Vermeer and one or two others.

If you are in Amsterdam, Rijks museum is worth it if you really enjoy art or rather if are willing to enjoy art. If you aren't.. Give it a miss. There are plenty of other things to see in Amsterdam.

Castles, Streams, Woods ..

2006-09-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

A Couple of days I ago , I went on a long walk in my neighbourhood , which just so happens to contain a castle and a stream and woods.

It's mindblowingly beautiful and I decided that I absolutely had to try my hand at taking a few pictures.

Here's the outcome of the effort.. Tell me what you think..

http://picasaweb.google.com/risingmercury/

Sunshine And Grass!

2006-09-28T11:22:00.001-07:00

It was 2:30 PM , the sunlight streamed through our classroom windows, I wanted to be outside soaking it up, (there is only so much sun that you can see in a day and my skin screams for its daily dose..) but, instead, I was stuck indoors waiting for a professor who finally didn't turn up. Hmph!! Wasted time..

It was however , pleasantly purposeless! I had managed to strike up a conversation with a couple of nice hungarian chaps and got so engrossed in talking to them that I hadn't noticed the time tick away , and when suddenly, one of dutch guys stood up and anounced that we could leave if we wanted, I noticed it was 3 O'Clock. So after winding up our conversation - and it was an interesting one I might add - our little class trooped down the stairs out into the gloriously sunny garden outside our faculty building .

I was still chatting with the friendly hungarian, ( I would use his name except that I don't know what it is - I was too deep in conversation with him to stop midway and ask what his name was.. Irrelevant details!) his very quiet compatriot who just seemed to tag along and a very engaging, cheerful young greek classmate (from cyprus!! ). It was fun - My first real conversation with someone who wasn't Indian about something that wasn't necessary information.

As we emerged from the building, headed towards our cycles, I noticed the greek guy slip his hand into his pocket and bring out a matchbox. I braced myself , I don't enjoy second hand smoke at all , so I moved slightly away, towards the friendly hungarian and continued listening to him tell a very interesting story about a revolution in hungary in the 1950s. I was hoping greek guy would atleast have the courtesy not to blow the smoke straight into my face.. ( He turned out to be a gentleman alright!) , So, it was not straight into my face, but about ten degrees away.. Charming!!

Just when my nostrils detect the smoke, It strikes me that it has a really funny smell.. I paid no heed initially , but the smell was too funny for me to ignore.. And I looked to see what it was.. I caught a glance at what he's holding between his fingers expecting to see some weird looking cigarette.. Instead, to my absolute amazement , I saw some little brown twigs sticking out of his 'cigarette'. And then it hit me, Wham!! It was a joint!! I noticed that the hungarian guy was also looking intently at his 'cigarette' .. And I was convinced!!

It was broad freaking daylight.. And we were in the middle of the campus! Did the guy not realise that this isn't Amsterdam or Cyprus or whereever the hell smoking pot is legal! I wondered if the hungarian guy was going to ask for a drag.. because he kept staring at the guy smoking up.. maybe he was just as perplexed as I was! Just then a cold gust of wind blew and I shivered - almost shuddered even, it was so cold and so strong. The guys noticed , the delightful little history session had just come to an end anyway, so they urged me to get onto a bus quickly and got on their bikes and headed for home.

I am pretty sure that if we had stuck around longer, the very genial greek might have even been so kind as to offer me a drag..

I wonder if I would have taken it!

(Ash and Gayu, (and most everyone who knows me well) I know you are laughing your heads off by now.. just the picture of ME, smoking pot!! Ok, granted! I guess that is funny! )

Solitude Sucks!!

2006-09-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

I've been indoors all day. It's so cold, my fingers are numb and I'm barely able to type. Too cold to go outside. I've been chatting, talking, sending pictures pretty much all day long . Inane activity - just to keep me occupied. I have no books to read. No tv to watch. No distraction from the loneliness staring straight at me.

The weather is depressing dark and chill. And although the morning afforded some social interaction with young stefanie and benjamin , my next door neighbours in the second storey of the two hundred year old house that is now to be my home for the next year, i'm starved for company.

I've been listening to some hindi music. Mostly because it reminds me of home.

I feel terribly alone.

Desires!!

2006-09-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'm in Europe. I have waited and waited and dreamed for an oppurtunity like this. And I have been lucky. I got what I wanted. Two days away from the start of the academic year and ten days into arriving here, I want to go right back home. I want to forget all this fuss. I want to go back into my little cocoon and stay there!

I want the familiar back again.
I want to understand the language spoken in the streets.
I want to know my way around (and not have to struggle with a map!)
I want to see autos and even fight with auto drivers.
I want to go to murugan idly kadai and eat steaming hot idlys and chutney and sambar.
I want to saunter through a crowded Spencers.
I want to see the sun at 6 in the morning.
I want to climb the 7 floors to the home i've lived in for the last 15 years.
I want to walk along the shore and sit on the beach and hold hands with my boyfriend.
I want to see my boyfriend.
I want sunshine.
I want to be able to MEET my friends.
I want to talk to my dad in the evenings.
I want to see my mom first thing in the morning.

Sneha has seen europe and thinks its very pretty.

Now she wants to go back home!!

A Rush Of Blood To The Head??

2006-06-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

There are some moments when epiphanies wash over me like the rough tide, cold and striking , awakening my mind and heart, shaking me out of my indifference, making me aware how utterly meaningless my life actually is, how pointless every act thus far has been, how I have not very much direcion, nor very much perspective and most importantly, I have not very much human empathy.

Does it not exist at all? Or am I unconscious - wilfully , it might seem , drenched in apathy? From the moment I wake , right through obsessing about my hair, wondering how to get slimmer and when I can afford to buy an Ipod , I realise there is no sense of purpose in my life. What are all these hours that I live? To what end? Why do I breathe? Is every act of mine just an act of sustenance - a means to continue living? Finish the next assignment to make a decent grade, to get a decent degree, to get a decent job, to get a decent husband, raise decent kids and have a decent life??

In the midst of my mundane, self absorbed life , every now and then , I chance upon an intervention. A voice, a thought, a book, a song,a programme on t.v perhaps- that stops me in my tracks and arrests the inevitable avalanche of one inane moment of my life tumbling into the next. I stop, to feel - a real love ,a sense of empathy, a need to live the compassion that is neatly tucked away to convenience my daily existence. I feel an outpouring of emotion - Of much gratitude and great regret. Gratitude for a life free of torment, hatred , oppression, violence and Regret over millions of precious moments squandered away carelessly. Moments that could have been spent in making a contribution. A contribution to what? Or to who? A contribution to something I believe in.

It is in these moments that my conscience is challenged to tell me something more meaningful. Something more meaningful than disapproving of my quick temper or reminding me that I shouldn't be quite as judgemental as I can be sometimes. It is in these moments that my conscience grieves at it's own silence and promises never to allow itself to be suppressed.

My life has been scattered with these moments. True, they are few and far between, but I realise that they are what have shaped me, if I can claim any shape at all. It is in these moments, I realise I just want to help. Someone. Anyone. I want to forget myself , my insignificant little worries and focus on something that is much bigger than me.

I am an ordinary human being - full of inadequacies and insecurities but in these moments I truly forget about that. I am aflame. I really do feel that I'd like to spend my life doing something worthwhile. I don't know what exactly.. Help raise money? Teach poor kids? Run down the street to the old man sitting under the hot sun and give him whatever money I have?

I'm not so naive as to believe myself capable of anything monumental. At the same time, I know that all human beings are born with great reserves in them - reserves of Goodness that they might be completely unaware of. I recognize a little of that in myself in these moments.

Thus far, I have failed to grab on to these fleeting revelations , I've let it drift past me each time, not doing very much about it. But, something has struck a chord in me today that resonates louder than ever before. I was reminded of a human tragedy so atrocious, a blot on the page of history so large and so damning, that it will never be forgotten. It should never be forgotten. As it was to me today, it stands a reminder of how much humanity is in dire need of a collective willingness to stand up against oppression and injustice.

Can I actually do something? What do I do? Can I weave this temporary cognizance of human suffering into the thread of my life and in the process make my own protest against injustice however small , significant nonetheless?

I have not figured it out yet. I'm still processing all of these thoughts running unrestrained in my brain. I am confused. I am disturbed. I am ashamed for my fellow human beings - ashamed at the savagery we are capable of. But most of all, I'm determined. I'm determined to find my place in this world - find a way of truly contributing.

Perhaps I am naive for believing that we can instill in ourselves a sense of social conscience - for believing that all of us ordinary folk can rise above the limitations we have set for ourselves, in our mind, and believe ourselves capable of selfless acts, acts with no vested interest , involving lives that maybe in no way connected to our own, just because it involves a principle, a value, that we believe in.

It is at this point in the chain of my thought that I am reminded of the poem that my mother has pinned up in her office :

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

--- Pastor Martin Niemöller

I read it now and my determination is renewed. To find my place, make my contribution.

Sadness

2006-06-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

I miss you daddy.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you. And today, the grief is overwhelming.

Summertime.

2006-05-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

The smooth strains of the saxophone flood through the room. Hushed at first , Wisp-like even, gradually swelling till it reaches climax and then slowly it ebbs.. That's when Billie begins to croon "Suummmmeerrtimme.... " her smoky voice evokes images of a beautiful black woman, singing in one of those dimly lit , uptown jazz bars in the 40's philadelphia, mesmerising everyone in earshot.... I close my eyes, I'm pretty darn mesmerised myself.

"Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry"

The song with such innocent lyrics sounds so seductive... Billie makes way for Louis to smoothly step in..

"One of these mornings
You’re goin’ to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take the sky
But till that morning
There’s a nothin’ can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin’ by "

The masculine, hardly smooth-Sinatra , but oh-so-sexy voice of his complements hers perfectly. It is throaty and a little rough in comparison to the fullness of hers and yet, if it's possible, just as mellifluous.

Just when you are revelling in how beautiful the song is and how wonderful they sound individually, it gets even better. They begin to sing together. There is only way to describe it. Stirring.

Billie begins again "Suuummmmerrtime..." And Louis goes.. "da da da zi zi da dou..oooh.. di ti da zou zou da... " in the background while she continues to sing. There is a perfect resonance of sound. And It occurs to one, that how it sounds is exactly how it should and no other way.. A Musical Tango! Seductive, Passionate and simply Enchanting!

Of Love And Gratitude!!

2006-05-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

There are some moments in a girls life that are just Monumental. The first crush , the first time a boy holds your hand, the first kiss, the first ' I love you' (And all you feminists, before you start yelling about how a relationship and it's allied moments are not the most important/monumental thing to happen to a girl, I will say , I completely agree.. But it sure is one of the things we hold dearest to our heart... And I say a girl'slife because I am one and I can make a generalisation with slightly more authority than I can about men.) . For many, especially those of us, who for one reason or the other don't get into relationships prior to getting married, find moments of another nature to label monumental . But this post is about a girl who has and therefore for those who have been in love at one time or another and know what I'm talking about.

I've been in love twice. The first was of the unrequited kind and filled with all the passion of a first love. The boy could do no wrong. I could endure all. But , 'twas not to be. I languished in silence all the while that he was around, convinced of my inadequacy and his brilliance. Eventually, I began to crawl out of my shell but by then he was gone. I wasn't particularly a shrinking violet but I am strictly old school about making declarations of love or the likes of it. I don't make them. Friendship was all I could ask for and that I had . I settled for it.

Subsequently, I discovered it wasn't unrequited after all. But by then the scales had fallen, the ardour had cooled and maturity had begun to set in. It made me feel wonderful. But that was it. I was a kid. So was he then. We had grown and become different people, which is not to say that we were even remotely alike before. I think we were like mutually exclusive subsets of the universal set of human traits. Not really opposites, but just so different. I won't even try to explain the attraction , I don't think I can. It wasn't particularly rational. But it sure was love. I still miss things about him. I miss his lectures to me - I was a wild child. I miss the way we looked at each other - the intense gaze . I miss his light brown eyes. I miss being mad at him- I was, a whole lot. I miss our rather weird conversations. Most of all, I miss having him around.

But the wheels of time continue to roll... I got over it. And for a long time after that , I hid. I told myself that I didn't want to be in love again. The only kind I knew was often times agonizing. But the hiding was in vain... Fate had conspired!

One year ago, to the date. I fell in love again. Mercifully, fate was merciful despite his conspiracy. And ofcourse, I was sensible enough to hold back until I was sure that it was mutual. Which in fact, wasn't really that long.

We conversed away endless hours. We made each other laugh hysterically. We fascinated each other with the breadth of our perspective and knowledge. We felt the chemistry intensely. In short, everything clicked.

We were (and still are) young and there was nothing to stop us... And so we plunged headlong... Patti smith knew what I was feeling then...

" I'm dancing barefoot,
headed for a spin,
some strange music draws me in... "

Careening. That describes it best. Careening towards being madly in love from the word go.

I am not too fond of cliches but some things are cliche for a good reason. So, I will employ one here. I'm am more in love now than when this happy madness began. I guess , there is depth to feeling that can come only with time.

So, this is gratitude.... for a fate that brought me to someone who is as passionate as I am, someone who keeps up with me (And THAT's hard to find..Ha ha), someone who informs me I'm arrogant, is arrogant himself, challenges every word I utter , takes an opposing view on almost everything we discuss but does all of this in his signature witty and clever manner, so I can't possibly hold it against it him.... someone with a great sense of humour,a dash of idiosyncrasy, oodles of intelligence, someone who is plain old fashioned NICE, someone who finds me fascinating, attractive and intelligent, someone who for the most part, just gets me, and when he doesn't just accepts me as different and most importantly, someone that loves me.

For a year of love and happiness, for a year of someone to hold hands with and slow dance with, for a yearr that held so many firsts.... I'm so grateful!!

Reader's Block!!

2006-05-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

I was a voracious reader. It's so hard to admit that i have'nt been that for about a year now. But before I became temporarily, intellectually burned out, I ran on heavy fuel - Atleast two books a week. And I don't count the John Grisham's and Michael Crichton's in that list. That kind of stuff was the snack to fill the time between the full course servings of great writing. I read all the time. I much preferred reading to t.v, I preferred it to going out, heck, I preferred it over pretty much everything else, even music I think, and that's saying a LOT !!!

Since then, for reasons seemingly unfathomable , my metabolic rate had drastically fallen and I could not consume in the same fashion , or with the same passion as i did. Six months into that state and I convinced myself that I had made my peace with it, I threw myself into music to make up for it and hoped I would get back to reading 'one of these days' as though it was something that would just happen.Well three months later, I took stock , I had read TWO books. I decided it was getting a little too out of hand. I had to do something. So, I did. Discarding advice not to 'force' it, I made my self read things i knew i would enjoy even if it wasn't particularly stimulating. Like good old Wodehouse. Just to get back into the groove.

And I just kept re-reading dear old 'Plum' and not particularly graduating to anything more thought provoking. And what made it worse, is that I had gone and bought a whole lot of books right before I stopped reading...

Here's a list, to give you an idea...

1) Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
2) Don Quixote - Cervantes
3) Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
4) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
5) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6) Vanity Fair - William Thackeray
7) The Glass Palace - Amitav Ghosh
8) Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Stowe
9) Portrait Of A Lady - Henry James
10) Ulysses - James Joyce
11) Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce
12) Women In Love - D.H. Lawrence
13) One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcis Marquez
14) Art Of War - Sun Tzu

These books sit on my shelf, collecting dust , waiting to be perused.. (been dying to use the word!) I've began several of them in turn, hoping that something in any of them will grab me by the collar and shake me out of this inability to keep my attention focussed long enough to finish the damn books.. But no.. So far, save for pulp, I haven't managed it..

I've decided, however that I am getting back to them.. If I have to suffer through them.. I'm getting quite sick of reading the first thirty pages and not being able to proceed past that limit. It's making dents in my self-image. Ok, perhaps I'm taking it a little too seriously.. But hey, that's how i was brought up.. On books and music.. And I feel like I'm losing my religion so to speak.. Well one of my religions at any rate.

So, I have two weeks in may and two in june before college begins again and I've decided I'm GOING to read these books somehow!! Perhaps, it seems a little too ambitious to you... you may think it a little too much for a month's worth.. but a year or two ago, I could have done this in a couple of weeks... Heck, I feel like an out of shape marathon runner who is just getting back to running and finds his lungs burning for air and a break after running the first couple of miles.

Frankly, I doubt if i'm going to be able all fourteen of them.. But i'm going to try! I've made a start.. Reading Women In Love now.. Hopefully in another couple of days I'll be able to say i've finished it and more importantly that I enjoyed it....

Ramble, Ramble..

2006-05-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

I am in hyderabad. I spent sunday just lazing around at my grandmom's getting spoilt rotten and eating far too much for my own good. I watched a mediocre movie (King Arthur) and slept more than I have had the luxury of doing since my just-concluded-semester began.

A little aside on the movie.. In my opinion, it is nothing special. It bears no resemblance to my childhood favourite "King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table". It has no references to camelot (or none that I could gather) , they screw up Merlin's character and the legend of Excalibur. Even though the focus is entirely on arthur it seems almost superficial, like the writers haven't manage to etch out much in terms of depth. Besides, the movie has a lot of weird looking people with bad hair and body paint, a barely-decent-looking King Arthur in Clive Owen ( which goes against my policies on film casting and last of all) . I have no clue what the fuss is about Keira Knightly. I took a long, hard , unbiased look at her and all I could manage is ,"She's Pretty!" but why she continues to enchant my brother and cousin and a whole legion of other men, I simply cannot comprehend. There are thousands of women much more beautiful than her. Well in my opinion that is.

Yesterday, I woke up later than I have since my last semester began - 9:30 AM . I've almost never woken up later.. All my friends think I'm a freak for not being able to sleep past 7:30 most days. Anyway, it was bliss. It's easy to sleep late here in hyderabad because it's not so hot. Yes , It is not so hot. Especially,since my body has dragged itself from hot, sweaty madras - A land where you sweat while you stand under the shower. Well maybe it IS actually just as hot. But it's much more comfortable. At home, perspiration accompanies even my dreams, it leaves me not in peace. And here, with the fan on, i'm perfectly at ease. The trick, I suppose is not to get out of the house until the evening.

I lazed some more, began reading A Beautiful Mind . I ventured out in the late afternoon to catch a movie at the locally famous IMAX theatre. Shite, you step in there and our sathyam cinemas seems like a joke!! (But hey, the downside of a amphitheatre like auditorium.. Everyone can see you if you get bored and decide half way through that you wanna just make out... Or maybe people in hyderabad don't care if you can see them!)

SO, I watched the much raved about Rang De Basanti. I must begin by telling you that I don't usually watch hindi movies. And for a very good reason too. I find most of them too ridiculous for words. I don't think it's any kind of bias. I just really think most of it is crap.

Now as for this one in particular, let see.. The movie certainly wasn't predictable. ( Thank heavens!! ) Infact , it nearly touched the other extreme - completely ridiculous. I mean, a friend of yours dies in an accident (even if it is because the state has endorsed a bad deal and made cheap planes) so you go kill the defence minister. What the fuck kinda sense does that make?? I mean, I can see how it may appeal to people who have no meaning or purpose in life.. But really,this is being absurd...From what I could garner, the theme behind the movie was "There are some causes worth fighting for, some causes worth losing your life for, some principles you uphold no matter how intense the oppression." So, they start out saying that the freedom struggle was one such cause where people were united in the struggle to be their own masters. And I agree with that. Then they switch to Ajay Rathore's death and how that inspires them to the same sort of fervour... Jeez!! That's where the storytellers lose me...

Frankly, I fail to understand how one can equate or even compare a struggle for basic human freedom with fighting corruption. I'm not saying fighting corruption is not a worthy pursuit.But at the risk of sounding extremely cynical. One is a fight for life, whereas the other is a fight for what most will consider a moral highground.

Anyway, my impressions on the movie aside, I had an interesting evening subsequently.. I walked from IMAX to this eatery called eat street.. The place is huge, along the lake and packed with people on a monday night.. Very strange.. Anyway, gayatri and I meet up,as planned after she's done with work... by the time we find a place to eat, the noodles are stone cold, we get through half of it and start our walk back towards imax , ice cream in hand. As we walk, there is a drunken dude who runs after us , screaming obscenities, he chases us a good hundred metres, during which time i'm completely spooked.. This is the second time something of this sort is happening to me in hyd. (The last time, I was 16 and was followed/stalked/sung-cheesy-love-songs-to all the way from banjara hills barista to anand nagar where i live, by a guy in a car as I was walking back those 2 Kms) I relax after making sure he still isn't after us.. Apparently the expression on my face hasn't changed though cos gayatri tells me to relax a couple of more times..

Anyway, it's late in the evening and i've done nothing all day except acquire some very interesting jazz music (9 cds worth) from an uncle with good taste.. And visit some relatives. Waiting to get up late, taste my music, read some more and yearn for the weekend...

Hopefully, there is gonna be a Paarttyyy!!! Staying over at gayatri's... Maybe i'll even have occasion to say 'Salut!!'

Ladies And Gentlemen, A Guy Friend Of Mine...

2006-04-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

The following is a chat on google talk.. It reflects how different men can be from women in the way that they think about some things I suppose... I've always had more male friends than female so I've come to accept these differences and just laugh at them but sometimes it actually strikes me that no matter how much of a tomboy i was, I've become a woman who now has far less tolerance to male idiosyncracies. I find a lot of things that I used to just accept at face value , as downright stupid.. That's not to say, I think men are stupid.. No siree, The following conversation was with the most intelligent person i know... And probably one of the most intelligent people i'll ever know.. And yet sometimes , I want to smack him on the head and ask him to be less of a dick!!!

So here goes..

Sneha: busy?? I just thought i'd say hello, it's been awhile..

Friend: no

Sneha: then why on earth does it say you are busy?

Friend: because i don't bother changin my status .. And it stops most idiots from chumma messageing me

Sneha: lol... ok

Friend: what are you upto?

Sneha:i'm writing something..

Friend: writing?

Sneha: ummm.. well trying to atleast

Friend: why..and more importantly what?

Sneha: for the blog.. and what.. well not sure yet..have you got your phone fixed?

Friend: my cell you mean?

Sneha: yup

Friend: no

Sneha: idiot.. get it fixed please.. It's very painful not to be able to get through to you if i want to..

Friend: i find life better without the cellphone

Sneha: i can imagine!!

Friend: most of my college mates are irritating me

Friend: they are always organising bloody get-togethers..last year crap
why can't people just leave me alone... i can't stand human beings

Sneha: hello!!!!!!!!!!! you are talking to one!!! Do you even realise...

Friend: i am sorry, but i mean in general..

Sneha: and if you dare say , i don't consider you one di,... i'll kill you

Friend: no..its not like that.. I don't mean you..ok.. maybe the human beings remark was slightly over the top..

Sneha: yeah... SLIGHTLY

Friend: but in general.. i can't bear with this obsessive need that people have for other people
Sneha: lol.. ayyo!! What are you going to do when you get married and have little Friends running around the place

Friend: yeah.. well if the kids are like me , it would be alright.. and good for humanity

Sneha: Ok, first, whoever said kids are like the parents.. And second , wow.. you aren’t contesting the you with a wife and kids imagery!!

Friend: Btw, did that happen in your last year at that place you were studying before

Sneha: (and he ignores my previous statement) No man, thank god.

Friend: good for you

Sneha: Actually, it was more like I just didn't go to any of that crap. I only went for the official farewell which we left in half an hour and went to bike and barrel.

Friend: yeah.. Isn’t it kinda boring..

Sneha: yeah kinda

Friend: i find it not only extremely inane, but also very irritating..i can't stand my college mates.. They are just so dumb...sometimes i sincerely feel that the world would be a better place without those irritating bastards

Sneha: J Isn’t that being a little harsh. I mean, I know what it's like to be surrounded by people who you think are just too stupid for words but to want to kill them off.. come now, is that nice??

Friend: yeah.. well i don't care about whether it's nice... Apparently there is a crazy get-together today

Sneha: ok? and?

Friend: yeah.. there is one today.. thats all i know the thing with these get togethers is.. i find no incentive in going there. I just can't get the point of the whole affair

Sneha: what incentive do you want?

Friend: anything

Sneha: there is surely the food

Friend: which i would pay for? thank you, but I would like to decide the place, when i am paying for it. And by incentive i mean something that would probably make me go there

Sneha:yes I know what incentive means da…You know , you are quite the definition of misanthropic

Friend: no..

Sneha:What do you mean no?? If that’s how you are , that’s how you are and I for one am ok with it.. And btw what would be a good incentive , hot chicks types??

Friend: not necessarily..

Sneha: phir kya?

Friend: something that would suit me..

Sneha: like a supercomputer to play with?

Friend: that would be fun .. of course..but you know..there are other fun things that people can
get together and do.. apart from sex that is.. even though I can't think of anything..

Sneha: oh really like what...??

Sneha: it's a get together for crying out loud.. the point is to meet PEOPLE... but when you hate people it's kind of pointless for you isn’t it?

Friend: maybe you are right..

Sneha: what fun things can people get together and do?? play spin the bottle as though you are 16?

Friend: what fun is spinning a bottle?

Sneha: ayyoooo!!!! Krishnaaa!!! what do i do with someone like you!!!

Friend: why?see.. let me put it this way, i am not really misanthropic, really, i mean it.. just that
I hate most of the people i've met so far.
if you haven't noted it... i used ‘most’ in my previous sentence.. that means there are some people whom i don't dislike

Sneha: spin the bottle is a game where people sit in a circle and someone places a bottle in the centre and you spin it..

Friend: and?

Sneha: and which ever two people the ends point to, have to kiss

Friend: yuck..

Sneha: lollllll… why da, I always got the impression guys didn’t mind a few free kisses…

Friend: think of the possibilities

Sneha: such as? someone having to actually kiss you... I know that's tough for them

Friend: what happens if the bottle comes up with a homosexual argument.. something like 2 guys or 2 girls.. (2 girls would be fun.. though...)

Sneha: you would say that... pah!! What’s with men and lesbians??

Sneha: no, see.. from what I understand , unless they are willing... you spin again

Friend: this game would never work… no would want to make out in public

Sneha: it's not full and full making out…just a kiss

Friend: come on..

Sneha: anyway obviously that holds no appeal for you.. so let's move on

Friend: no.. i do like the idea of getting kissed..

Friend: just that I don’t think it will ever work…but the thing is who in public will be willing to do
that... this is Chennai.. with a capital C, which actually stands for conservative

Sneha: I guess you are right… I certainly would’nt kiss any old guy.. besides we aren’t teenagers with hormones coursing through us uncontrollably… A hypothetical question though.. What if you had to kiss a girl you found completely unattractive , would you still kiss her??

Friend:why would i not kiss an unattractive person….i don't lose anything. See.. if she is like a weird vampire with blood sucking teeth and all that I might think twice..

Sneha: oh my god...

Friend: what?

Sneha: the way you put that is gross...

Friend: see.. What is it that really offends you, the way I said it, or the what I said…

Sneha: oh god!!!! Never mind what offends me, you probably won’t get it.

Friend:if its a woman who is ordinary looking , not a "hottie" or even moderately unattractive.. thats ok..

Sneha: anyway.. Let’s talk about something else da.. I just don’t get the male perspective on things like this..

Friend: see.. i WILL definitely have a problem if i am interested in her enough to want her to be my gf or something

Friend: but if its just a kiss..

Sneha: hey can i put this conversation on my blog

Sneha: this is priceless

Friend: lol.. go ahead… but.. Don’t portray me as a total misanthrope. as i said. i don't like most people. but I do like certain people (you for example are quite ok)..

Lovers!!

2006-03-30T21:49:00.000-08:00

It's eleven fifteen, or therebouts, in the morning. And I'm on Mount Road . All I can think about is getting to where I'm headed, as quickly as possible. I'm cursing the heat , cursing the cop at the signal , cursing the traffic and pretty much cursing all through. Not one of my best days!

We pull up at one of the several traffic signals on that arterial road. I look around me, not particularly noticing much. Everyone else, I suppose , is also in their own world. The fact that we share a space for a couple of minutes and hate every second of the wait is probably all we have in common. Or maybe not!

Suddenly, I hear peals of laughter... It pierces right through my reverie, striking me as so out of place as to almost jar my senses. I look around to find that the source of the sound is a girl around my age, in a car. She's giggling so hard. And beside her in the car is a somewhat cute, if he wasn't so scruffy looking, guy. Now, this piques my curiosity. Finally, I stop focussing on the heat and all the unpleasantness of mid-morning traffic. I love watching people.

They seem to be in an extremely animated conversation. Their voices are loud but not particularly coherent at the 10 feet distance that I am from them. Naturally, they've attracted quite a bit of attention. My city is still it's good old conservative self. If it happens to perceive a girl and guy together , it will, as sure as the sun will shine, jump to the conclusion that they are in a relationship and promptly shall it's judgemental nose be turned up in disapproval.

And as I look around at my fellow travellers , I realise they have not disappointed. There is much disapproval in the air. "How CAN a girl and a guy openly enjoy each other's company?" Almost sacrilegious! As for me, I'm too amused by the couple and everybody's reaction.

I go back to looking at them a little more discreetly, the traffic has moved a little and i'm closer to them. I'm trying to gauge what their relationship could be. As it happens, I need wonder no more. The most unusual public display I've ever witnessed unfolds. The guy is talking really loudly, almost at the top of his voice and she's sshhhhing him , telling him to keep his voice down...
Then He's saying to her " But sweets... That's how I feel... I don't care if everyone knows.. Infact, I want to tell everybody" and then still at the top of his voice he continued , " Listen up, everyone... I love her.." I don't know how many people heard this, most of them had returned to the business of minding their own business. A business they would have readily abandoned,had they happened to pay attention to the guy's declarations, in favour of a lot of laughing and pointing.

I am so tickled. I look at the girl to see her reaction and she looks positively embarrassed , as one might expect. I think the guy might have gone on with that particular line of conversation with the world, and he did look like he had a lot to proclaim, expect that she seems to be pleading with him to keep quiet while looking around to see if everyone is looking at her. I look away , I wonder if she notices my broad grin. I can hear her laughing still.... She isn't unduly upset.. She must be in love with him too!!

As a friend of mine would say... "Awwwww, How CUTE!!! "

And the traffic light glows Green!! I smile to myself, thinking how that guy probably doesn't realise he made my day a little brighter.

One Hundred Metres Later : The lot of us are forced to halt at yet another signal... I'm looking out for the couple's car. I am quite disappointed for the couple of seconds until i eventually spot them. But then, the passenger window is rolled up. Damn!!

I reconcile myself to having seen all there is to see. But, apparently their little exchange is not over.. I hear the girl protesting pretty vehemently and the guy is trying to roll down her window. I catch a glimpse of her face and she's flushed with embarrassment. And then the guy leans out, points to the girl beside him and yells to the nearest guy - An auto driver as it so happened - " Listen dude, I'm in love with this girl ..." or something very similar, in Tamil!!!! So i'm pretty sure a whole bunch of people heard and understood what was happening. The auto driver definitely did and so did his passengers.His face broke out into a huge grin and he burst out laughing. I wonder if there's a scene like that in some tamil movie that the whole little episode reminded him of. Well , at the very least it I think it might probably be something he'd go back and tell his wife or whoever at the end of the day about the crazy people in the city!

I wonder if the dude is a bit tipsy. And realise it's highly unlikely. It's too early in the day. And he's driving straight. SO, it must be just being in love?? What do you know!!! It can do strange things to people!! I guess if it were me, I'd be mighty embarrassed, not unlike that girl. But it must be pretty awesome to know that someone is so utterly in love and so happy as to want to scream it at the top of their lungs. I know a lot of people might find such behaviour ridiculous and absurd. But I'm a romantic. I don't know if i'd particularly care for this method but I love the sentiment behind it.

It must be wonderful to be madly in love...

Identity?

2006-03-27T01:17:00.000-08:00

And then, she chose to emerge from the shadows of an alias and a long absence...

Ok, so it's been a while since i've written..And, as is evident, I'm rusty. Bear with me.This is a work in progress.

Six months ago, I was pretty sure that I was done with blogging. It seemed to have run it's course. But I'm back because I miss writing. I miss the community. I've played with this idea for quite a while now ( the idea being, getting rid of the psuedonym and getting back to blogging.) And have finally realised I have no need to hide behind anonymity anymore.. So, say goodbye to Mercury..

And hello to Sneha!

Hopefully, this change will be accompanied with a renewed zest for writing...

Little Packets Of Old Emotion

2005-11-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

I found this shelved somewhere in the cobwebbed corners of my harddrive. It took me back a year in time. So much has changed since then. And yet as I read these two hurriedly scribbled bits, I recollect exactly how I felt when I wrote this... I have no names for these little packets of old emotion. Whoever imagined they'd stay so fresh.

Anyway, I felt like putting something up.. So here it is..

So he came for me, we had our laughs
And then, it got dark, it was time to go
So I watched, as slowly, his silhouette faded.

The bitter taste of resentment lingers.
-------------

That's where that train of thought ended... In retrospect, I can see they were my efforts at being cynical and nonchalant..

--------------

The world I used to know,
My haven...My little corner
The one you found me in...
The one you made me emerge from..

Disappeared...

My world became you..
The centre and the focus
My escape, my comfort,
My refuge from reality

So,nightly, I climbed my faraway tree
and met you, my moonface, on top
we climbed together the ladder
to reach our enchanted world.

It was Shortlived.
You realised we did'nt belong .

But I had already plunged
Right in..Into the sea of delusion
Convinced of everything "us"

But , eventually, time’s current
Dragged me back..
Onto the shores of reality

Catharsis.

2005-10-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

I've caught myself on more than a couple of occasions in the last few months. Typically, i'm talking to one of the four close friends I made at school. My "Best Friends". (That term seems almost antiquated as you grow older.) Or, i'm chattering away in this completely at-ease kind of way about absolutely nothing at all , in the way that I can only do around them. And then I find myself tuning out a little - i'm hearing their voice but only listening to them at some superficial level. One part of me is preoccupied with looking at the way I am with them and how different things are with everyone else. And that's only the beginning of the thought train.

Considering that I share such different relationships with the four of them , it seems almost strange that I find almost the same pattern of thought coursing through my mind , irrespective of which of them i'm speaking to. I believe, this whole thing in my head has happened enough for me to notice that it has a set pattern. And it bothers me no end even as I'm engaged in thinking it.

This introspective, behavioural self-analysis or whatever , definitely comes between having a proper conversation as one would imagine. But then again it usually begins when the tiny , but noticeable silences begin to creep in. The realisation, that the silences are comfortable, I simply don't feel the need to say anything particularly intelligent or put on that (somewhat more) mature mask that I keep in the jar by the door (Yes - like eleanor rigby), always makes me smile contentedly.

Often times , the conversation is about something we have talked about a million times - the most boring , inane bit of conversation you ever heard and though I might be a trifle bored, or for that matter, very, very bored , it's still alright. Because these kind of conversations, if nothing else, reinforce the fact that there are still some relationships that exist despite the fact that you are telling the same joke for the twentieth time or are cribbing rather more childishly than usual.

That's not to say that we don't still have wonderful conversations, but what with us doing very different things and having very different interests and not as much time anymore - it does'nt happen quite as often as I thought I might have liked. And yet, that is when I feel vastly lucky. With idiosyncrasies by the dozen, mood swings and eccentricities , i'm quite aware - it can't be easy being one of my friends. Infinite patience is obviously one trait they all share and perhaps a sense of humour- they must, for being able to live with all the ridiculous things I can come up with. But this makes me wonder, about why and how friendships like these last , when all they have holding them in place is , perhaps, a long thread of time...

Funnily enough, so far , all of these thoughts are dispassionate. Not tainted with the faintest bit of emotion. Mere reflections on what is. But here is where the dispassion ends. And in it's wake, hits the realisation that, very soon , I lose my friends to the US of A. All four of them. At one stroke. And for a couple of moments, till I force myself to snap out of it, I'm almost steeped in despair.

I have no regrets about not getting there myself. I still could (and maybe still will ) end up there. But that does'nt decrease the sadness that , when they move , it will be a struggle to keep the friendship alive. Crazy work schedules , tight budgets , new friends and a different environment will ensure that there is a considerable degree of estrangement.

Conversations will be about catching up and not about keeping abreast. They will contain lots of "Remember how.." and "When I was in madras.." kind of phrases. Sure , I know change is inevitable and it need'nt necessarily be quite as bad as I imagine it now, there IS always email, cell phones and skype.

As I reach this point in thought (and I do so with unfailing regularity) , mid-conversation I want to stop and say something about what's on my mind. But the words won't come. Reassurance , however much I seem to need it , I am too proud to ask for... Even with them...

All of a sudden , I'm disgusted , for allowing myself to be carried away to this particular island of a thought... A place, in my mind, where I am completely marooned from any rationality.

So, on one hand , I want to be told that these relationships will last and that the people I am most myself with will always be the people I can be the most myself with . While on the other hand, I know damn well that it never can , in the way that I want it to and even expecting any such thing is a recipe for a lot of unhappiness and disappointment.

And so it ends with me firmly telling myself that this is an absolutely pointless stream of thought, thinking about what might or might'nt happen a year hence- an indulgence , egged on by some vague(or not) sense of insecurity , something I definitely should'nt dignify with too much time.

Then I hit upon the capital scheme(or not so capital , perhaps... but nevertheless..): Write. In the hope that, perhaps, expressing these sentiments will put their ghosts to rest...

I Chanced Upon A Transfiguration...

2005-10-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

Discovering music is one of my favourite pastimes. And I love playing paleontologist most of all - Resurrecting long forgotten music while browsing through the dusty, long untouched shelves of tapes and Cds that belong to my parents - The preoccupation of choice for many a lazy afternoon. For the most part my parents taste is mainstream- for their own time , I mean. But every now and then , looking through their stuff , I'm caught unawares by something delightfully different.

Recently, however ,as I was sifting through some old CDs,I found it was'nt even the music that held my attention.

I happened to find this CD by a chap called Leonard Cohen. Now I have heard of him but never listened to his music so I sat myself down to soak in a different sound. (I'd heard it described as "Different".) And true to reputation it was (or atleast , so I found) . His music... Well, it is weird. I shall reserve further comments on it and say only that I think it's different. Anyway, the point of this post is about what I found as I was looking at the jacket.

On the inside of it were the following words printed in a scrawl :

Transfiguration . That's what occurred the night of 13th December. Since then I am not just a human being. I am inhabited by god & love bleeds and burns within me, but what caused the transfiguration was the mad mystic hammering of your body upon my body.Your soul entered mine then and some union took place that almost killed me with its INTENSITY. I cannot justify my outrageous claims I can only relate what happened before. The fire burns me but ...

The notes break off, followed by "This writing is from the work of Daphne Richardson (1939-1972)".

For some reason , I love these lines and they have struck such a chord in me. Subsequent to reading this , after much much mulling on the perfectness and beauty of even the sound of these words spoken aloud ,I found my attention shifting to it's author. I was bubbling over with curiosity as to who this Daphne Richardson was. A Google search later I found extracts from an interview with Cohen...

Q: Who was she?

A: "A girl I met in London who, for various reasons, found it difficult to
survive at any level, and who finally killed herself by leaping from the
BBC tower . She had a considerable poetic talent and I hope to publish some of her writings."

Somehow , this does'nt satisfy me one bit. I read the extract out to several of my friends. But no one seemed to find it as fascinating as I did. Bah... Even in appreciation , it's tiresome to be alone...

Anyway, I found this so soulful and intense for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps the thought is'nt exactly particularly profound or novel. But for some reason , I love everything about the sentiment and the way it's expressed. For days after reading this , it kept playing in my head. And I wish I could find the rest of this piece of writing. Unfortunately, that is precisely what I have been unable to manage.

On a completely different( and quite obvious )note... My writing is still facing several road blocks , I must confess. Infact , I seem incapable of mentally digesting anything except music offlate. So that would explain the long absence. It is a reflection of my state of affairs - this indifference. And although that in itself is a subject with much scope for holding forth... It has become quite old on this blog. And so I shall refrain from writing until I do actually have something, that I think , is worth writing about.

Trance.....

2005-08-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stood transfixed - not wanting to move....

You've been listening to your favourite music and the next song begins - The familiar strains of a thousand nights, inexplicably and magically transports you to a place , today , that it does not seem to have taken you to before...

You stop what you are doing and drink in a sound that is so so so very rich.... The present moment is everything suddenly-and you want to lose yourself in that slow plucking of the guitar -

The sublime strumming - You smile - the comfort it seems to bring - Deceptive. You have no inkling of the storm that it is only just beginning to stir up in you - Then the voice begins and you close your eyes - shut them tight . You ache to drown out everything else- including the memories that might be flooding back...

The lyrics you always loved suddenly acquire new meaning - you feel the song is yours. No.You know that it's yours -no one can understand it like you do now - It was written for you , for this very moment . And the music , Oh the music - it is so beautiful it almost hurts... You reach over to increase the volume - the loudest you can manage it , not even opening your eyes to do that, if you can help it - you think to yourself that you are going to play the song over and over and over again - maybe until the day ends and you drop from exhaustion despite wanting to keep awake - Upon which, You kick yourself for missing that one note because you spent that microsecond thinking that thought instead of just listening... And drowning...

Every pore of your skin now seems to breathe the rhythm... And you feel more alive than you have ever been... You rise and fall with each note... You ride the wave - And let the music carry you - But as the intensity increases , you feel you need to hold on to something - yourself even - The angst in the voice has touched its crest and the chords it strikes in you are too many to be fully conscious of at once . But you want to be - you want both song and time to dilate...

The words continue to spin in your head - their profundity , simplicity , beauty , love and harmony hit you so deep , all at once you discover depths of feeling you did not know existed .

Intuitively , you know that this piece had to have been written in those rare moments when the musician IS his music and there is no ego .....

For those minutes, you are the response - The response that the inspired musician spends his life trying to evoke...

Humility descends upon you in those moments and you realise how truly fragile you must be for the music to be able to rock the safely harboured ship of your consciousness enough to un-anchor it .... But perhaps it is the music that is just so powerful.

Outrage...

2005-08-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

This is a report from the Times Of India website - A piece I originally read in the paper itself some time last week.. Anyway , it shocked the daylights out of me...

Read on..

MUMBAI: Five days ago, sessions court judge Laxmi Rao convicted a man to seven years' rigorous imprisonment for raping and kidnapping a minor but released him on probation after 45 days in custody. On Thursday, Judge Rao did it again. Suresh Vanse, a resident of Matibai Chawl in Borivli, was pronounced guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl but sentenced to imprisonment "till the rising of the court''-or, effectively, for just one day.

The logic behind the diminished sentences is the judge's ostensible concern for the 'humanitarian' angle. Both Vanse and Paramram Sarane, the first offender, were the sole bread-winners of families and had a large number of dependents, noted the two judgments. Interestingly, in July the judge had sentenced a woman convicted of seducing a young boy to five years' rigorous imprisonment.

Vanse, the offender in Thursday's case, raped his 14-year-old domestic help in 1992. He cajoled her into keeping mum by promising her that he would marry her soon. It was only when the girl became visibly pregnant that her father, a handcart puller, lodged a complaint with the Samata Nagar police station on September 7, 1992. The subsequent medical examination proved that the victim's age was somewhere between "14 and 15 years". Vanse even tried to get the child aborted but doctors refused on account of the girl's frail condition. When the case came up for trial in the sessions court, said public prosecutor Lata Chheda, the victim testified that Vanse had had sexual intercourse with her.

Vanse was ordered to pay Rs 50,000 in compensation which he promptly did on Thursday. Of this, Rs 25,000 is to be given to the victim and the other half to the girl child she gave birth to in 1993. The victim, who's from an extremely poor family in Sindhudurg has been in Mumbai since the incident, earning a living by doing menial household chores. Her 12-year-old daughter now lives in Sindhudurg with her grandmother.

Taken from the Times Of India.

Here

There isn't a day that passes when there are'nt several reports of rape or murder in the newspaper.And over time , we have become desensitised to it. We just click our tongues , shake our heads in sadness for a second and move on to the sports section... In the newspaper, also do we read , of the government's many screw-ups and scandals - Nothing seems to faze us anymore. For the Innocent to be wrongfully accused - we are accustomed to , For the guilty to manipulate the system and be acquitted we accept with practiced equanimity... But this is different. Please tell me that you feel my outrage... Atleast in some measure.

I do not claim to understand the criminal law system and its intricasies as it is prevalent in India. (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) . I realise, also, that the reason we appoint judges and allow them the liberty of pronouncing sentences at their discretion is because we believe that each case is unique and for a single law to cater inflexibly to thousands upon thousands of accused, would probably be unfair or to be more precise ,unjust. So, the law suggests a socially acceptable punishment - which by and large the judges are expected to mete out. Except when they feel that there are special circumstances which require either that the law be altered or that the accused receive a degree of exemption because of special circumstances.

And hence we hand pick men and women who are supposed to

1) To comprehend the prevalent law in all its intricasies

2) To have the stomach to make tough 'judgements' (to be corrupt or not to be..) and the mind to discern and be fair...

because they have been picked for the aforementioned qualities- We , rightfully , expect them to be a fair minded set of people with a keen sense of justice...

If you are laughing at my naivete , or if you think that I can't imagine how awry a state , the system of appointing judgeships , really is in , I will have you know otherwise. The 'education' I have received has ensured that I am sufficiently cynical about the State as an institution of welfare. But this is not about the practiced cynicism that we so conveniently hide behind. It's so easy to shrug one's shoulders and end the discussion by saying something flippant like "Someone must have been bribed" or "everyone these days is corrupt" or better yet "the woman must be off her rocker".

But what happens to the kid that got raped - What about her?? She's lived long enough in the knowledge that she has been wronged. Then the matter is made public and her humiliation becomes multi-fold. She endures the ensuing trial with as much dignity as she can muster. And finally, the man who raped her is convicted.

The system has pronounced him GUILTY. No doubts.

Imagine, if you will, how she might have felt at that point. Relief coursing through her veins-Exhaustion-A simple longing to just get back to some semblance of normalcy.
And then the bomb is dropped. A system she probably did'nt have faith in to begin with, that has given her some hope by convicting the bastard , cruelly snatches it right back. The man that violated her most basic of rights has to endure no more than a day's imprisonment. And oh.. On what grounds.Surely , nothing is going to change the fact that she was raped , but at the least , would'nt you think , that she hopes the judicial system will not make a mockery of itself and her by issuing , in effect , a one day sentence for a crime which is punishable by seven years.

Where is one day of custody in comparison with 2555 of rigorous imprisonment???

Special circumstances- Now, I have no frame of reference as to the different circumstances that merit a reduced sentence. Off the top of my head , I can only think of a mental illness or a serious physical illness. Even those cases are quite debatable - but let's not go there.

The issue at hand is simply this : What message does this judgment send out??

Is the Honourable Judge trying to tell us 'junta' , that if you are a father , and earn far too little to feed the brood that you have brought into this world - and you take it into your head to rape/kidnap/murder anyone(let alone a minor) and you actually go through with it - Then the law may be considerate to you simply because you happened to not comprehend the benefits of family planning and you let your financial affairs remain in disarray??

This sounds like one of the tax reductable items. Why don't we advertise it??
Have lots of dependents , rape someone and you can get away with it by paying a Rs. 50,000 one-time downpayment and a day in jail. But, sorry, if you are a more sensible and thoughtful member of the middle class you don't get the same concessions.(If you are thinking , why would a sensible and thoughtful member of the middle class commit the gruesome act of rape - Don't be so hasty in dismissing the thought - Sensible and thoughtful people can do be pretty horrible things too. Presumptions are dangerous and stereotypes constantly break the mould every second) Ofcourse the really rich and the really poor can't be in the scope of this discussion- they are quite simply, above the law. The really rich , because of the power that money buys. The really poor , because they have nothing to lose.

Back to the report - Notice if you will , the reporters mention of the judge's previous indictment of a woman. "Interestingly, in July the judge had sentenced a woman convicted of seducing a young boy to five years' rigorous imprisonment.". But I suppose , we can only speculate as to what he might have been alluding to. I seriously wonder , how the judge could , in all conscience (but then i'm making a big assumption here- that she has one) make such a seemingly ridiculous and obviously gross violation of the justice owed to the victim.

I'm afraid ,I don't seem to be able to be as caustic as I really want to be -I think it has something to do with the fact that I am simply too flabbergasted - The magnitude of the offense it does to my sense of justice. You come out all guns blazing , aching to demolish an argument that is seemingly flawed. Then you realise, that you have made a presumption in assuming there is any argument to demolish. That can only be if there is some semblance of logic or reason present . (If there is , for the life of me , I fail to see it...)So at the end of the day , we have a man who has committed a gruesome act - the highest level of human rights violation - And he gets away virtually scot free.

It makes one think...and despair. And as a woman , I guess I am a lot more cognisant of how this might affect me...

So tomorrow , if it happens , that the neighbour's creepy chauffeur or the weird watchman, or just any old tom - takes it into his head to rape me or someone I know and by some miracle manages to get caught , goes through the system and ends up being convicted , then ofcourse , I should understand when he won't be put behind bars , because while he was raping me , he forgot that he had seven mouths to feed back home , and the judicial system must give him allowances for the fact that he has a lot of dependents depending on him and a bad memory. For the rest of you rapist bastards, too bad... who asked you not to inundate this already
over-populated country with your progeny before you decide to rape us???

I repeat my point... I know.. It is my indignance and consternation at play..and even if it serves no purpose other than to vent .... I need to emphasise how ridiculous this seems to me...

And so finally, after screaming ourselves hoarse about the "injustice of it all" , where does all this leave us? What faith can we have in such a system? Is feeling outraged and sorry , for the poor girl and the thousands of others like her, all we can do? Will tomorrow be another day of mockery?

P.S : If someone who happens to read this , can shed any light on this seemingly inexplicable 'virtual condonement of sin' , I would appreciate it if you could enlighten me.. I do truly want to understand this...And perhaps , I don't know a lot there is to know...about the law and this world.

Some Arbit Gyan I Found Interesting!!

2005-08-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

I received this rather interesting piece of gyan (well technically 'pieces') by email , It was titled " Whoever said history is boring..." .( Well, for starters I don't think history is boring at all... I think it is fascinating , like a lot of other things and I love it!!!) However, I'm not quite sure to what end this was originally written ... Did they just put together an interesting set of insights into certain aspects of 14th century life and how it relates to modern day language , for the heck of it?? Well, in any case, it certainly it held my attention ( and in these days of ennui , pour moi , that's certainly something! ) and it definitely seems to make sense. I'm not quite sure if all of it is entirely accurate ,especially the references to the origin of certain phrases , but the explanation seems plausible and definitely makes sense and I suppose that means at the very least it lends itself to being food for thought... I guess you will see what I mean once you read it..

And since I found it interesting I thought I would put it up on my blog - In an effort to resurrect it , you might say! It's been dormant for far too long.. There are reasons and reasons.. And I would hardly like to point fingers but I'm afraid I have to attribute it to the entrance of a certain someone into the sphere of my rather mundane existence.. Not to say that he has spiced it up Too much (me being far too resistant to too much change) , and what with him being a staid , sober ( ha ha ha ....) person himself... Nevertheless, he has certainly occupied my thoughts a lot...if not entirely!!

But excuses , excuses ... Yes, the amazing feeling of novelty that still persists three months into this relationship has lent itself to submerging me in a state of distraction , but there is (fortunately for me ) another (and the main) object of blame!
The lull (that just must lift one of these days , even if i have to hire a crane to do it ) is due , I believe , to the overwhelming ennui that seems to have settled comfortably over my sky -
That seemingly immovable entity, coupled with the inertia and sheer laziness that I constantly fight - finds me exceedingly frustrated , and fervently hoping that all of it will evaporate as quickly as it seemed to set in , all those months ago...

In that earnest hope.. here's what I was referring to:

(Oh and I could'nt help including a couple of comments and a little extra gyan , just 'cos ... Blame the cynicism that comes with ennui!!)

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, // Yeah right , I think in Madras ( still can't call it freaking 'Chennai' ) , if we get water in our taps we'd be pretty darn happy!!! // think about how things used to be.Here are some facts about the 1500's:

--Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence, the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

// Thank god for Chanel et al. Now , we could probably dispense with the flowers... Seriously though, I knew this , and it's also, I think , for the same reason that women wear flowers in their hair in india , but here, mercifully there was a lot more water and it was'nt quite so cold and people understood the concept of Hygiene and consequently it was a far more regular occurrence...I mean - the bathing!!! //

--Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence, the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

// Gee! Who would have ever thought... And what were we women complaining about!! We were'nt suppressed ...we were THIRD from last .... It was'nt us who got thrown out with the bath water... But then , I think that was probably a practical thingamajig... Who would make up the bath and get everyone to bathe the next year!! //

--Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (like mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

--There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. // With a menagerie on the roof... I'm sure it was immaculately clean! // Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

--The floors were layered with dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor."

--The more affluent had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet , so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A heavy piece of wood was placed in the entranceway to keep that from happening. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

--In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

--Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

--Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

// This is why , here in more enlightened (if i may say so) india , we used copper utensils , because copper is one of the most chemically inert substances and it would'nt react with the acid or many different salts contained in our food - so we were saved being poisoned by our own utensils!!! Although to be fair , we did'nt eat tomatoes until they were introduced to us by the europeans.. , but i'm sure there are other equally acidic food stuffs that we did and could have led to our demise , save for , well , i guess , the wisdom of a few here //

--Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

--Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.

// And to think that people now shell out exhorbitant sums for the same effect... I just need to check if Lead ,in combination with alcohol, can induce atleast some hallucinatory effects - And if it does...Hire some thugs , pass out the lead cups free for a bit and we might begin a thriving cartel right here ...Oh and incidentally , we might even manage to help contain the population explosion by knocking off the unfortunate thrill seekers...//

And someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence, the custom of holding a "wake".

// Presently, ofcourse , we just hook them up to the ECG machine (or is it something less complicated than that even? )... and the expense of a wake , the anticipation and suspence of wondering if they will live , disappears...But then maybe back then , that was the fun part for everyone else... bet you anything , the men ran bets , maybe even a nice Winner-takes-all pool , everytime someone was found on the side of the road...while the women sat by discussing which one was going to get to skin him for not "returning her call" after he'd slept with her.. And the poor soul , if somehow cognizant of this would wonder .. " To wake or not to wake..." //

--England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, about every 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a " dead ringer."

// This bit is actually pretty darn morbid !! //

Now , whoever said that History was boring !

// Like my friend meera mentioned in one of her recent posts , anything can bore the death out of anyone if the source of the information himself is bored with what he saying ... Thank god for books, the wonderful neutrality of their face!! //

Last Evening : Old Friends , Memories , And Much Wide Eyed Listening

2005-06-29T03:16:00.000-07:00

"I met my old lover
On the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled
And we talked about some old times
And we drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy afler all these years....."

- Paul Simon

A decade , when you are twenty years old , is (yes, I know you can do the math) half a life time...lol.. Quite a long time to remember someone you have had no contact with.

It's been that long since I last saw the scrawny, quiet , bespectacled kid that I held in secret admiration , with the unwavering awe that is only inspired in a ten year old.

Time can change things drastically - The scrawny kid , I discovered yesterday , is now a tall , good looking (I always knew he ,eventually, would be) , twenty-three year old guy. The glasses have disappeared and I noticed, much to my delight , that he has a positively divine smile.

So, No, He (obviously) was'nt an old lover.(lol..though , perhaps , five years down the line , I would'nt mind being able to look back and confer that particular distinction on him...lol.. ;-) )

But I did meet him on the street last night , He did smile , and I was so glad to see him. We talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some rather non-alcoholic drinks. Although , I'm sure he might have preferred otherwise...Lol...It was great. Meeting him.

I don't think he ever knew that he was the object of my very innocent , childish adoration. I was never the sort of girl that bandied her feelings about to all and sundry. Mine stayed strictly in my own mind , any kind of display was mortifying. In some ways , I guess, that still has not changed. Well , so atleast it was a good thing that I did'nt have to deal with him remembering me as the pesky kid who threw adoring , bashful glances his way. Thank god , I was'nt that kid.

His parents and mine were old friends. We were also neighbours . We went to the same school. We spent a lot of time playing cops and robbers and all the other silly games that kids play - Him , his younger , idiot brother , my younger , idiot brother and I . That was until he moved to the U.S permanently. After which I lost touch with him completely. Ironically enough I kept in touch with his brother, off and on ,atleast. His brother came back to India every couple of years. This chap did'nt. Or rather , has'nt . In ten years.

Like he mentioned several times, It was so interesting to see how time has altered so much. Things , places and people in our distant memory seem so much better,so much more exciting and so much more taller respectively...lol

Before we actually met , I wondered if it would be awkward , if we would have things to talk about , if silences would be prolonged , or worse still , if the urge to fill up the silence with inane conversation would wash over me and that I would bore the bejeezes out of him with my seemingly endless prattle.

Mercifully, all my fears were unfounded. (I think) The conversation flowed easily. I did'nt feel the need to engineer or direct the conversation and possibly make an ass of myself in the process . Or search my brain frantically for something , anything to talk about . True , at first , we spoke as strangers. But there was this strange bond that I suppose I can only explain by saying that it comes from knowing someone as a kid. Even if only , that that bond is one held by some vague memories and some not quite as vague ones.

My memories of him , or rather memories of which he was a part of are quite varied. But for the most part , I remember him as the boy who included me in the boisterous games of the neighbourhood boys , despite the fact that I was a mere girl..lol..
He did it in the quiet , firm - "Eyy, let her play da..." , kind of way - No fuss or show. He constantly rescued me from his silly brother who bullied me endlessly. And I guess that in itself probably earned my eternal gratitude , if not admiration . I remember him once telling my dad , " I'll look after her , uncle.." I think it was when we wanted to cycle to the park which was a couple of kilometres away and my dad was'nt too sure if it was safe - At that point I recall being suffused with the kind of smug joy that you can so unashamedly feel only as a child. It's such an innocuous incident but it has stuck in my memory...I doubt if he remembers any of this. I did'nt , could'nt bring myself to, ask him if he did. Because it means much more to me than it would to him. Strange. The amount of fondness that I feel for someone from the oh-so-distant past. No I think , it's fondness for the memory of him and the times which he was a part of.

Now, he is the absolutely fascinating (atleast he managed to keep that image for the 5-6 hours I spend with him yesterday...not a mean task, I should add) guy , that in some vague way , I always pictured he would be. The advantage , I've always found , of being a relatively reserved person , is that you can achieve this air of enigma that a lot of people find very attractive. It makes the people you are around curious about what you think about everything - simply because you are not particularly forthcoming about it. At any rate , that's how it is with me.

And so , we talked.Well, He talked and I asked lots of questions and listened.I discovered , that his life has had such a vast amount of experience. Yes , yes , we all have experiences. But his are so diverse and rich , on account of the fact that he has immigrated to a different country , travelled all over the world - in his short life- met so many different kinds of people. I could go on..

So, with my earnest-but-I-don't-want-to-look-too earnest look that I am wearing , I ask him a million questions about his life. For a change , I want to talk nothing about mine. We talk politics , culture , liberalism and host of other things. I hear about his years at Purdue and the exchange program on which he went to Oxford. About the british political science professor who smoked a pipe and said..."Alright then , laddies..." ever so often. ( that he mimics oh so cutely) . About his current course of study- A Masters in Maritime Archeology.

Uhhh...Yeah...Diving for sunken ships and all that..People still do that..lol...He did a bachelor's degree in anthropology and archeology . When he tells me that , Im surprised. But it's not just his choice of career...It's all this vast amount of knowledge that he has..It was great to be able to talk to a guy who had travelled so extensively- he's backpacked for all over England , Ireland and Europe. I suppose travelling alone gives you a lot of perspective about culture and everything.

We talk about the most dangerous kinds of bears- the time when he saw one when he was hiking...how he turned and " Didnt exactly walk back" ...lol..And about surfing in adelaide , where he's studying now , and great white sharks and how one of his neighbours got eaten by one...

Yes, I know , I probably sound star struck...But personally speaking, I have never met someone with such a rich amount of experience of the world. And it was absolutely fascinating. In a way , it makes me feel like my life has been so freaking empty and devoid of any real LIFE. But I guess , it was great - I think I probably spent most the evening and dinner , with my face in hands and my eyes wide open - attention completely held. I seemed to forget , at several points in time that it was'nt just him at the table - That his brother , who was also there all the while , was probably hating the fact that I listened perfunctorily to him and waiting to get back to talk to his brother, who was hogging all the attention...Not intentionally even .Even my parents , who have met so many interesting people , were quite charmed at dinner. He was polite and funny - respectful..lol...I sound positively dizzy...lol..

In any case , the night , however enjoyable , came to an end. And yeah , this time around, there were noises made about keeping in touch and all of that...I don't know if that will happen. I doubt it. But I'm thinking that maybe ten years down the line - or perhaps sooner , I'd like to meet him and sit down and talk about all the stuff he's been upto and maybe if my life gets a little more off the beaten track , I could contribute to the conversation. Maybe his life won't be as fascinating to me , a couple of years down the line , as it seems to be now - Hopefully because I would have experienced some of it myself and I won't be so naive and star struck anymore...

And then I can look back at last evening and it will be a part of the memories and we will talk about it...and I will tell him I fascinated I was with all the things he talked about, how it infused me with so much determination to get myself out , to see the world....And with the ease and comfort of old friends...we will talk of our old school and how the buildings seem less imposing now and how those were good times , when we were kids. How nice it is to meet old friends.

On a completely different note...

Oh..To be young and in love...

Intoxicating.

More Meanderings And My Favourite Poem

2005-05-31T04:07:00.000-07:00

I have always been drawn to beautiful language.And what better manifestation of that than Poetry. When I try to recollect when the fascination began ,I realise that it's been there for quite a while , right from when I was a school kid. Back then though, as far as I remember , I liked it because of the rhythm and the rhyme, and just because it was a little different and I understood it better than the other kids. A silly reason , but one that has sustained my interest over all these years ,long enough for me to begin to enjoy it for it's actual beauty and wonder it inspires in so many.

It always came easily to me. Poetry, that is. And I took to it all the more for that.I loved the metaphors and the meandering ,the eloquent descriptions that were meant, if only, to evoke vivid images in one's mind. I loved that I could get it when no one else seemed to it. Lol...I loved impressig my teachers..This one in particular especially...He was young and really handsome (your eyes are popping out..yeah I know...In madras...but he was) and spoke impeccable english in a deep baritone(which was good enough reason for me to fall in love with him - he turned out subsequently to be a womanising bastard...but hey you can't be perfect...lol) and we were all totally spell bound when he read out a poem. (lol...So mister Godfrey sir , if you ever read this...Thanks..You sparked my interest..).

(I remember reading Shelley and Walter Scott and all the nice ballad-y stuff , which had such nice rhyme schemes and everything, way back in 6th standard. In fact , some years I remember solely by the poems we did in class...How weird is that..lol..I never somehow took to indian poets until very much later..I guess 'cos translations did'nt really rhyme..lol..anyway, I got over that...Thankfully.)

Eventually , my liking for poetry ceased to have anything to do the person spouting it and became a more of a pride thing. Yeah , well , you see..since all of my friends were total geeks , and I guess in that respect I got left behind , they would be the ones explaining stuff to me. The math or the physics. And my way of helping them back , my means of restoring my image everytime I needed their help , was to explain language.

(Uhh...we needed each other's help 'cos in 11th and 12th we had such horrible teachers in school that it was better that we tried to figure things out by ourselves than to inflict the torture on ourselves ,and endanger our future thinking capabilities by letting them have anything to do with the injecting of any kind of information or ideas into our brain...)

Perhaps it was just that my friends had no patience with it. I don't know. They seemed to dislike it so much. English was a chore , just something to be gotten over with. And Poetry to them was the worst of it , It was something to be mugged up if need be and thought about just enough to answer questions such as "What do you think the poet means when he says..?" And even , then it would be me who would be frantically contacted the previous night (no one ever studies english except then dummies) before an exam to come up with answers to the obvious questions.

And I was the authority.Well ,that is to say, in my class, in school. Ok so you did'nt come to me when you could'nt figure out a math problem , but I was the official english tutor for the entire class. And that being the case , and my pride being at stake , I could and would never bullshit. I'd think about things , what they meant from different points of view and everything and give the geeks their fair exchange for all the times I needed their help. Maybe that was even why we became friends , at least at first it began as a symbiotic relationship. (Isn't that true vishnu??)

However, even after I left school and after my first year in college , when I was no longer obligated to read poetry , I found myself increasingly gravitating towards it. I cannot claim that my exposure is deep or even wide. But what I've read so far , has left me thinking , musing ,pondering for days on end. Just like other things I've read , I guess , only the difference being that this drew me on a more emotional level than the stuff in books.

Some poems have haunted me. And I can't help repeating the lines over and over again to myself, like the tune of a song that gets stuck in one's head.Because they have struck such a chord. Some have been so cynical as to have left me quite disturbed. Some, I've even found, can be a source of so much mirth. (like this poem I put up on one of my earlier posts by E.E cummings).

But the poetry I like best is the soulful, romantic kind. I'm a sucker for it and can lap it up in quantities that many people find quite nauseating. In the beginning ,I was'nt particularly discriminating. After a point though , you learn to see what makes a Poem brilliant , when in fact it maybe saying something quite similar to any one of your dime a dozen pop ballady things.(uh..Can't believe I actually mentioned both in the same sentence...Gods of poetry , please do not caste me into eternal hell...lol)

So, yeah I totally trip (A friend of mine would have me say "Get off to.."..lol) on Shakespeare , Byron , Yeats , Browning..The acknowledged and established greats. But if there was one poem , that I had to pick , that was my All Time Favourite...The one that really moved me , that I love , that I recite in my dreams because it haunts me so much , it would have to be "Tonight I can Write The Saddest Lines..." By Pablo Neruda...I've only read one compilation of his poetry...the one from which this poem comes. But I know I will probably love it all.

Anyway, I've been reading this poem a lot offlate for some reason. And I can't get over how beautiful it is. I don't know if you will see in it , what I do , or what loads of other people probably have...But there are so many things about this poem that I relate to so well...Anyway , no description of mine will do justice to it so I will just let you read it ,if you will..

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.This is all.

In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain,but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

-----------

Hmmm...I guess poetry is an oft repeated subject on my blog and I suppose I might have even mentioned the same things I've said here , in a previous post. Bear with me though , It's just a reflection of how "into" it , I am.

I just re-read this poem and I can't get over how awesome it is...Anyway , offlate I've taken up reading poetry again , I had stopped for a while in between...So , well , if you have any suggestions...

Tell Me Your Dreams??

2005-05-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

There's this really old and popular song , if i'm not mistaken , sung by buddy holly ,that goes as follows:

Dream
Dream dream dream
Dream
Dream dream dream

Whenever I want you, in my arms
Whenever I need you and all your charms
Whenever I want you
All I have to do is dream
Dream dream dream

I can make you mine
Taste your lips of wine
Any time, night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz
I'm dreaming my life away

I need you so ,that I could die
I love you so, and that is why
Whenever I want you
All I have to do is dream

This post has nothing to do with the song except the title...All I Have To Do Is Dream...and the fact that dreaming really seems to be my prinicpal past time or atleast my most favourite one off late.I know that they say that if you want your dreams to come true , don't spend so much time sleeping..(this holds for awake dreaming too..so maybe we should say if you want your dreams to come true , don't spend more than ten minutes dreaming everyday)

It can get pretty scary because , as time goes by instead of dreams becoming more of a reality....they seem to remain more unreal. And then like the song goes...you realise that..."Gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away.."

So I decided that I would list out the things I want do in my life , so I don't lose sight of them ,however small, knowing that now is not the time to be thinking about it and then as soon as these god damn exams are over I will start to take notice.And I will use them as a reminder on every road I take , to see if that's the road I want to be on.

Why all the fuss you ask , the melodrama and all that jazz...well the thing is.....I'm graduating in a month (I think.)and I have no clue as to what I'm gonna be doing next.

You may ask ,in the hallowed words of Rachel of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, New York

"Yeah , what , so???"

I'm probably among the millions of seemingly aimless souls who will be awarded a degree (for no particular achievement) this year. Now, to be fair to myself , It ain't like I have nowhere to go...I have a couple of things lined up..But none of them seem anywhere close to where I'd imagined myself. In all this rush and preoccupation , I keep stopping to wonder if all the effort is worth it? If the direction i'm heading in , is the right one? And a myriad of other racking doubts that are bound to cloud one's mind when one is in the process of a "Transition".

So , I decided to stop a while , even if only to indulge myself , and think about all the things I really want to do.And make a list , so even if I end up making ends meat by doing paperwork or coming up with dumb ideas for people to buy..That will only be my preoccupation. And I will look at this list and this shall be what I will do with my life and what I want out of life. I guess a lot of things might get added or removed from the list as life goes on and I experience a lot more things but as of now ,This is it...I think ,These things will make me happy.

So ,here's what I came up with:

1) I want to learn to dance the salsa , the tango , swing , fox trot , cha cha cha...and go dancing every weekend.

2)I wanna learn to ski , I want to go parasailing , sky diving , water skiing , ice skating , bungee jumping ,white water rafting.

3)Explore India-villages and all-not just the touristy thing- Rajasthan,Orissa,Leh,Darjeeling-everywhere.

4)I want to spend 3 months (at least) in each of the following places :

- Paris : to haunt the cafes , camp at The Louvre , the Musee d'orsay and absorb French culture even if it's on a shoe string budget

-Florence and Rome : just to visit all the churches , see the frescoes and Michelangelo's sculptures

There are other places on my list. But the above mentioned cities are long dreamed about destinations.

5) I'd like to live in Europe for one simple reason and one reason only ('cos I love madras dearly ) . Because ,I'm told, in Europe, everyone slogs for ten months and vacations for two whole months, irrespective of whether you are a janitor or a high powered executive- They believe that life is for the living and work is for sustenance. (Hear Hear)

Or, I don't mind a job here that will afford me the same luxury and the same monetary benefits..lol

6) I'd like to be in a job that can afford to let me have a house by the sea...(tsunami regulations adhered to etc. ) where the biggest room in the house is the library.

6)And have lots and lots of books and CDs or DVDs or whatever manner of music storage we are gonna use in the future.

7)Speaking of music, I'd kill to learn to play the violin.

8)I want to learn to speak tamil ,because by god, it's my mother tongue and how will I convince my kids that they need to speak tamil when I'm living in a house by the sea in europe ,if I don't speak tamil myself.

9)I want to learn hindi and urdu to understand all the beautiful hindi lyrics of old hindi movies and faiz's poetry , which so far I have only read translations of.

10) Add spanish , italian and french to the list of languages for the following reasons

-Spanish-just so I can read Neruda's poems in their original.
-Italian-so I can understand Opera-I fell in love with italian after watching Life Is Beautiful..
-French-because I laboured for a year and a half over it and it's a beautiful language , and it will help me understand the menu where I live in europe..lol

11) I want to be able to read copiously- and still more

About all the learning part..That I should do sometime soon..It's difficult as you get older , I hear.

So for now , That's all I can come up with. For the most part I'd really like to travel every year and spend time absorbing culture and language of different places all over the world.

Anyway,these are my somewhat humble(?)dreams..I would love to hear that I'm not the only dreamer in this world...lol..So tell me your dreams..?..uh...corny...lol..well anyway...

After Sunrise , After Sunset

2005-05-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are two wonderful and refreshingly different movies that I had the pleasure of watching back to back a couple of days ago. And since both of them appealed vastly to my rather overwhelming sense of romance and yet managed to remain withing the realms of realism-I loved it.

Both of the movies in fact are just two-hour long conversations. But wow..what conversations. I don't mean that they are particularly profound , the kind of conversations that people never have. Not at all, they are the kind of things we can and maybe do talk about. But the beauty of it is , that these two strangers are able to have meaningful conversations and connect on such an intellectual basis (atleast seemingly- ofcourse Ethan Hawke is hot and Julie Delpy is absolutely a natural beauty) and be around each other with such ease-

So this is what I would call a thinking romantic's (is that contradictory ...no, romantics do think...I think..lol) dream come true movie- Why? Well , on the one hand you have the romance of two complete strangers meeting on a train and connecting with each other almost instantly - and yet as they are spending that evening they are both fully aware that what they have is transitory , they realise that they are stuck in a moment ,so to speak , which will pass eventually and they have to get back to reality-and reality is what they decide to hold at bay , just to experience the magic of the whole thing.

Anyway , if you have'nt seen both of the movie and if you are'nt a complete cynic of the highest order , you should definitely watch it..Unless your idea of a good movie means that it should have some/all of the below

-A wicked villain (ok maybe you could think of time as that..)
-A major conspiracy to kill the president/blow up america
-The F.B.I/ C.I.A/Cops
-lots of sex
-lots of bashing up of hero by villain and eventually vice versa
-a story line (this movie is completely in the moment...not much of a story- but in this case it is entirely perfect)
-A love triangle, with/without "yeh shaadi kabhi nahin hoga " type tantrums.

Before Sunset , is the sequel , and unlike the usual trend , not at all disappointing .Infact it's faithful to the original ,realistic and yet wonderfully romantic.Before Sunset is about what happens when the two of them happen to meet 9 years later.

Anyway , since I love both of these movies so much, I thought I would pay a little tribute to them by putting up the poem (from Before Sunrise ) and the lyrics of the Waltz Song (from Before Sunset)

I love the poem although honestly, I don't understand certain bits of it, if anyone has any idea on what the first part means, the second is plain enough, but things like Limousine Eyelash?? is that to mean that they are reallly long?? And daydream delusion , does he mean that she is so perfect she seems unreal, like a dream that he conjured up??

Anyway here it is:

Daydream delusion
Limousine eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
My delusion angel
My fantasy parade

I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you
You'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me by now?

Ok and this is the song that Julie sings to Ethan in Before Sunset- It's pretty ordinary as lyrics go but it fits that scene so well , it's in the context is what I mean. And it's beautiful and haunting the way she sings .
(Imagine a french accent as you read this...if you can..)

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts
Let me sing you a waltz
About this one night stand

You were for me that night
Everything I always dreamt of in life
But now you're gone
You are far gone
All the way to your island of rain

It was for you just a one night thing
But you were much more to me
Just so you know

I hear rumors about you
About all the bad things you do
But when we were together alone
You didn't seem like a player at all

I don't care what they say
I know what you meant for me that day
I just wanted another try
I just wanted another night
Even if it doesn't seem quite right
You meant for me much more
Than anyone I've met before

One single night with you Jesse
Is worth a thousand with anybody

I have no bitterness, my sweet
I'll never forget this one night thing
Even tomorrow, in another arms
My heart will stay yours until I die

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my blues
Let me sing you a waltz
About this lovely one night stand

P.S: ...One night stands- My friends and I were'nt quite sure if we are as much against them as we used to be before watching this movie....that is to say..one night stands with Ethan Hawke..lol

Blah Blah Blah...

2005-05-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Trials exhausted , the final test came- Disastrous!!
The last lap , my lungs burned and then collapsed.
No steam , No will. Did I expect this?

I think I did, That's why I'm numb. But I'm also tired ,
as is my conscience. Of the guilt and time mis-spent.
I fill my days now, with renewed vigour. Dance , Music , Books ,Escape!

So don't ask me and I won't lie.

What I want to do , and what I may have to end up doing...

My sights are on that bright star , of which all I feel now is the promise of its light...

-------------------------------------------

That said , onto more cheerful things. This post is gonna be rather fuzzy i'm afraid...It's been so long since I've written , I'm terrified that I've forgotten how.

Ever since my exams got over last week...and I officially became Freeeeeee....(Yay...)I've watched three really different movies...I say different not because I didn't immensely admire them , but because I'm not sure if everyone else will....I wanted to write a review for it , but I'm tired after spending a day doing nothing and an evening cooking (more about that little adventure later).

The movies I mean are
1)Sideways :which has unusually explicit sex scenes for a really classily(is that a word?) shot film (Among many other things).
2)Before Sunrise :Recommended to me nearly a year ago by a friend- refreshingly different film , but if you don't like simplicity and/or profundity , a slow screenplay and a certain sense of romance-don't watch!!!!
3)Spanglish: An adam sandler movie makes it hard to imagine that he's the same guy who starred in that excuse of a movie -Little Nicky!!!

I also managed to begin writing this really weird goofy spoof-story that was concocted on the spur of the moment and narrated to me ,one which I shall probably complete one of these days and put up here. Probably in two or three parts. It's turning out to be really long...

Am currently reading My Experiments With Truth (by M.K Gandhi , sillies) .But I think I'll save that for another post. So many impressions to write about. And my exhaustion might render it superficial if I tried to express it now.

Speaking of which ,Exhaustion I mean , I valiantly tried my hand at making pasta today - penne actually. It did'nt turn out exactly the way it was supposed to , (but that's 'cos I was trying to cut down on cheese content) but it was reallly nice , atleast that's what my brother said...And he , I might mention , is your discerning connoiseur of cuisine , one who has no qualms about letting me know , in no uncertain terms , if something i've made is repulsive or even slightly short of his rather high expectations.

Anyway, after an evening of shopping for ingredients and slaving away in the kitchen for two hours , my gourmet meal was ready. Penne with a light white cream sauce , Baked potatoes and sour cream , steamed and tossed vegetables and cheese garlic bread.

Not bad no? For a first time, trying so many things at once! Mom tried to dissuade me from anything too elaborate.She kept insisting that I neednt have to take so much effort.(This was a belated Mother's Day gift!)

But I had decided I would and By jove, I was going to. I think what she was really afraid of was that in the process of making this meal , I would turn the kitchen upside down. Well, I didnt- Using about 25 different vessels and not doing the dishes after wards does'nt count as that no?

If you're wondering what the whole "No?" thing is about...It's a really adorable french affectation , or supposedly french affectation that I picked up from my french prof a couple of years ago and forgot after I completed my language credit requirement . Along with the rest of my french.

I picked it up again after watching "Before Sunrise"- Btw, if you watch the movie , pay attention to the poem in it...the milkshake poem, you'll know what I mean if you watch it , It's beautiful.

Anyway, getting back to my cooking , I called pretty much everyone I could to tell them I had cooked. And surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) all the guys reacted in the following way:

1) What?????......You cook??????? Since When????
2) Sneha , don't Bullshit me , you don't know how to cook!!

I re-iterate that I bloody well do

3) So , umm...do u cook well???

No--I'm just boasting in the hopes of enticing you into a eating a lousy meal 'cos that would just make my sadistic pathetic life a little happier and I could hate you for it!!!!

4) Ok...then I'm coming tomorrow, you can cook for me!!

My entire life is at your service..sure , anytime , just name the menu and i'll name the price!

5) yeah...uhhh...so what time...

Do your mothers not feed you??

I told this to 6 guys and all of them reacted more or less like this....and two of them are mere acquaintances so it's not even like anybody can say that maybe they know me too well or something such thing!

Anyway,so if you get held up by traffic on your way to work or play , tomorrow afternoon , by a string of people clammering for more--Don't blame me-I can't help that I'm a good cook!!

Lol...the secret of being a good cook at twenty: Refuse to learn how to make dal , chawal , roti , sabzi!! That way , if you are a girl , you will not get cajoled /coerced into cooking daily ,thus causing burnout and making it an enormously loathsome exercise , whose drudgery has to be endured for the rest of one's life (unless one is really lucky enough to marry a nice chef who doesnt mind bringing leftover home)-

This is a policy my best friend meera and I have adopted and found to be invaluable. She has many wonderful qualities but does'nt know the front end of a stove from the back end. You ask her though...if she can cook and she will , without batting an eyelid , confidently affirm that she does. Ask her what her repertoire consists of and you will hear the following:

a) Brownie
b) Pineapple upside down cake
c) Muffins

etc..

So, she comes through as someone who can make oh-so-complicated stuff..so everyone assumes she can do all the routine stuff..

Well in short she and I are the Marie Antoinettes of this world , offering our family and friends cake instead of bread or pasta instead of saambaar saadam. And since they will not have cake/pasta everyday (thankfully), we plead helplessness for their lack in taste and escape the "You're 20 and you need to learn to cook , not just to fend for yourself but when you get married what will happen ?" dialogue.

On that note..I think I better toodle off to bed-though the night is young , the morning beckons and the rambling must stop before it gets to painful....

I don't think I better write quite so late at night...

(lol...am giggling my head off , just realised that in a trivial , childish way , the previous sentence rhymes and couple of more sentences previous to that rhyme as well...I think...The night is intoxicating.What is it about the still air and the crescent moon that makes me so hiiighhh....

It's such a beautiful night. It really is .And I have a strong feeling I'm gonna regret posting all of this in the morning...)

Exams!!!!

2005-04-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

This blogger has to take a month long , circumstances-imposed ,sabbatical.
Unfortunately , in this world of unpleasant, unfair, painful, and trying things that plague our existence , there is an added burden of having to spend periodic intervals in the first 21 years or so , of one's life , studying for and writing exams.

And since this blogger will be writing her last and final set of that offensive and burdensome (if that's not a word , I move to have it inducted in the dictionary.) exercise in order to receive an inane piece of paper that says nothing about her actual knowledge , mastery and skill level, a.k.a the university degree , she has decided that she will conquer her powerful urge to be lazy and indifferent and actually actually study hard for it. (Or somewhat...as the case maybe)

To everyone else , also engaged in similar pursuits of making as much good at the last minute can afford , I wish you the best of luck...If you are anything like this blogger , you will need all of it!!!

See you later , alligators!!!!

P.S: I have forced myself to write this post for two reasons. One, there are less chances of me lamenting over the fact that I have'nt written anything nice in a long time. Two, I stop myself from writing mediocre crap (because I'm too occupied to write something decent) and reassure myself that when I am more free, the writing will get better 'cos I will have time to think !!!

Remembrance

2005-03-30T02:39:00.000-08:00

Rosemary Means Remembrance

Rosemary, I feel you slipping away
Pray ,do not desert me.This solitude
Is terrifying .And to confront each moment,
I ask only,that you continue to haunt me.

You are the dead rose whose smell,
Though faint, is never lost.The
Withered ,yet , enduring petal that
Faithfully lies ,between two yellow,
Frayed, pages filled with memories.

Unfazed are you by the inconstancy
Of fading ink , the words that slowly
You watch die,You continue to echo.
For your stain is etched more permanently.
And it tells of a love that you symbolized
And surely ,he once felt for me.

Something I wrote on the spur of the moment. Feel free to tell me if you think it's crappy.

Catalina...... Anyone????

2005-03-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Has anyone had occasion to read Somerset Maugham's "Catalina" ??

The reason I ask is that , I have to submit a book review on it by the end of the week ,and although I have read the book before and am currently re-reading it , I find that I am in need of some sort of perspective on the more serious aspects of the book.

In particular, the arguments and the attitude the author portrays about a)The spanish inquisition and religious fervour in general b)the undercurrent of cynicism in the entire story(which i don't remember from before) c)The hypocrisy of the clergy
d)anything else you might have noticed that is special( or not )about the book...

I did enjoy the book very much the first time I read it (which was a couple of years ago) . But now as I re-read it , my ideas about it seem to have changed a lot and I find myself a lot more critical about the writing , narrative style and the story line itself. Therefore , since no one I know (or whose opinion I care to ask for ) has read the book , was wondering if anyone who happens to read this might care to tell me some of the impressions that the book left on you , either positive or negative....

Considering , that this book is one of the lesser known books of Somerset maugham (and I think it's his last)...atleast everyone I know seems to blink when i mention it...I'd be great if anyone could give me some suggestions perhaps..'Cos I can't seem to decide what to focus on...and the assignment has to be 3000 words...So..lol..Can't (and ofcourse don't want to) bullshit..

So , If any one can help...I'd be eternally grateful..

Blue Streak And My Birthday!!

2005-03-14T04:13:00.000-08:00

This post is not about the movie "BLue streak" or Martin Lawrence ,maybe if it was it might be slightly more entertaining but it is instead, a rather long winded account of my birthday..and a couple of things that happened before and after that pleasantly uneventful day that simply felt the need to recount on my blog!!(This was written on the 12th but I did’nt have time to put it up since exams were on..)

My Birthday was great!! Actually it was pretty ordinary as birthdays go ,in terms of presents from parents and stuff but this time I guess, maybe, I was a little more appreciative of everything..and grateful ..So, Muchos Gracias to everyone who made it special …You know who you are..and you better be reading this…except you atticus…you can just go hang…

This is what I wrote that day :

By popular demand (read vinod's "Me want new post, and soon!! " comment) I'm (obliged to be) back!!

The last couple of weeks have been madness. Looking back now, it seems very hazy. But ,I suppose if you don't work consistently there are bound to be times when all the work in the world lands up on your table to be finished in the last 3 hours , 3 days or 3 weeks...all of which, is probably absolutely insufficient to get the job done as well as you can possibly do it!!

So, we compromise on quality of work! I usually end each day with a healthy ,"F*** it!!! , I can't do anything now anyway" So, my CA Tests (internals, mid-sems or whatever the hell you want to call it) just got over. And the 3 hours of sleep that I managed to steal on each of those 4 consecutive days is something that I find I am incapable of surviving on. So yeah , although the sleep deprivation should have taken it's toll on me...Yesterday was simply great!! (Today, however, is a different story..)

Let me start at the very beginning:

At 12:00 , the morning of the 11th of march , I was awakened by calls from friends with their birthday wishes and demands for treats etc. etc. .These were words that were spoken with much affection and good will between 12:00 and 12:30 and the very words that I had no recollection of at 2:30 in the morning when Vishnu (he’s nocturnal and therefore my official waker-upper during exam times ) called me for the second time to wake me up to study for my solid state exam (which I had’nt yet begun then , and eventually did’nt begin at all!) which happened with such perfect timing , to be exactly 20 yrs past the day I was born!!!!Yay me!!!!(Bah!! my birthday has always been bang in the middle of exams!)

It's 6:45 AM : I’ve just discovered that I’m still in bed and have been since about 3:15 when I gave up studying with the F*** it!! ( as aforementioned )and crawled back into bed despite vishnu’s entreaties to “drink coffee and get moving.”

7:45 AM : I’ve reached college and my three best buddies began a loud and very rousing rendition of ‘happy birthday ‘ ,(The first of 4 that day! !) thus disturbing all last minute muggers (lol…not as in the thugs that stick you up and that haunt the dark alleys of NYC…but just as annoying) who had to contain their irritation at being disturbed because they couldn’t possibly tell us to shut up…meghs and gayatri would fix them with a glittering eye..lol..

7:50 AM : After wrestling among themselves and their consciences they decide to give up and just give me the presents before the exam , even if as they put it “ it causes me to be overwhelmed with emotion and choke on it and therefore do miserably on my test” (Ah! ! my friends…Your concern…lol..but the thing is it was pre-ordained that I do miserably anyway , you see , that happens when you do not engage in an activity called ‘studying’! !)

So , I am handed three presents ,and I try to guess what they are before opening the wrapping despite gayatri’s insistence that I should’nt “feel up” the gifts.. Anyway , so I got a book…that was a great present…anyone who knows me would probably find it easy to shop for me…I’d settle very happily for a good book. (Vishnu , this is for you…take the hint…especially since you are rich now!!)…

And next was a stuffed doll…Now this mystifies me , ‘cos my friends know that I’m not one of those typical girls that go ga-ga over a stuffed toy…but hey! the doll was actually very cute and it was shall we say , “capable of calisthenics” ! ! ! So , no looking at that gift horse in the mouth… …lol Lastly , was something that I found really special ….A bottle of blue hair mascara ..Umm..yes…you just read that right…I did say I liked it and in the same breath also mentioned it was BLUE! ! !

See, I’ll give you a short summary as to why it’s so special
-Have always wanted to streak hair blue…
-Never had the courage to ask parents
-Finally asked them a week before birthday
-They made lots of noises but after much consideration said yes ..(Wait to go , mom and dad! ! Very cool of you to actually agree to suffer being in public with a blue haired offspring!)
-Thought it was gonna cost me 1500 bucks , but turns out my hair is too black and stuff has to be done to it if the blue has to show
-The stuff plus streaking blue comes to a nice round sum of 4 grand. (yes..Indian rupees ..current exchange rate 43.84 for a dollar)
-Me being conscientitious about amount of shopping already done , felt obligated to decline despite parents’ grudging acceptance to shell out…
-Was very disappointed
-Consoled self with a promise to indulge in whims costing 4000 grand the minute I begin working (Which could be a long way off…)

Therefore , for all above mentioned reasons , junta around me figured I was sort of disappointed (despite best efforts at the stiff upper lip) So , they decided they would get me the next best thing : Temporary blue in a bottle…I was thrilled..

Am currently sporting short hair that is streaked blue (Although considering my natural colour is jet black it’s a bit hard to see…sort of looks like veronica lodge style blue) and you know what…it is’nt ghastly and the proof of that is my friends and especially my parents have’nt disowned me! ! !

I must admit, however , that I shocked the daylights out of the faculty and staff at college..I got lots of "Whaaaaat Maaa.....Why did you have to do this ..." And then open-mouthed stares followed by "Oh my god...Your hair is blue.." (Duh!!!!Can't you see!!)and many many others like it...but then that was half the fun anyway…(Oh , if anyone knows of anyone else with streaked blue hair in chennai don’t tell me…I’d like to think I’m the only one…)

Umm…back to my birthday..Daytime was usual, went to lunch with parents…had to study for the next day’s exam(nuclear phys) and did’nt end up doing too much of that..was too excited ..about what..I don’t know..but I was just so thrilled…

Anyway , so all my friends called from out of town , even the crazy ones who are too busy being IITians (bah! ! !..ok..ok am not complaining da..you called at least! !..lol...) and then finally we went out for dinner.

Dinner was ,in one word: Fabulous.

The Crown at Residency Towers, has the most beautiful view of madras ever and it is so god damn romantic! ! ! It’s unbelievable! Unfortunately no special someone to speak of . (Damn! !) However, I am immensely grateful to parents for suggesting to treat my 5 friends there…

Dinner itself was great…everyone loved the food. My friends got the singer in the lobby to sing happy birthday for me while we were waiting to arrive and they sang along(that was second time) and then they surprised me with a cake (which I think in residency is complimentary) and sang another happy birthday (the fourth time…...they already sang once when we got seated at our table…I think everyone at the restaurant between 7:30 and 10:00 knew it was my birthday..lol! !) at the top of their voices..Was exceedingly sweet of them although I was a trifle ,no!! actually very, embarrassed. But the place was so beautiful

Suggestion to all single guys trying to pattao a girl: Take her for dinner there...She'll be convinced in a hurry!!!!

The ambience was awesome..and the lighting perfect..It could not have been more beautiful...Ofcourse we had to hang on to everything ,Literally!!!! Including napkins because the wind was a bit strong...lol.

As I was driving back home , was thinking what a great day it had been and all that…despite exams (Thanks you guys for coming despite everything…especially you meghs…) and then thought how I had got such nice presents and all and when I finally got back home just as I was going to bed parents called me to give me last present of the day…(They had already given me quite some stuff before) A cellphone! !

Now if you’re thinking that it’s not big deal…you’re absolutely right…It is no big deal and I’m probably the only person in chennai as of march 10th who did’nt have a cellphone , not like I particularly minded but dad is very very very anti-cellphone…So considering that , it was a really big deal…So that just made my day…More because it was symbolic of them giving me my space and freedom than because of the actual object itself.

All in all it was really great…Oh and to my silly brother…Where’s my birthday present????? Your deigning to come back for the hols (As though you have a choice!!) will not pass of as a present and in any case is not good enough!!!!!!!!

P.S: Was sitting in gangotri today with friends and happened to remark that they had sung Happy Birthday four times that day and suddenly atticus jumps up and says…Hey…I don’t like the no. 4…What say we make it five…So gayatri and meghna and atticus launch into another rendition of happy birthday…3 days post facto…Ah well..It’s good to feel loved…but I have a sneaky suspicion that they were trying to see if Gangotri would give us anything complimentary ….As If! ! !