My wishlist on the last day of 2010 : Generous doses of serotonin

I have one month to wrap up a part of my life this January, and I hope to do it well. And then hopefully I go home with sturdy and rational opinions, calories and calm. Sounding right is what I should be getting used to.


Always remember : There are six impossible things before breakfast.


There might be another city to look forward to as well.
I can hear the bookstores calling for me already, readying up a glamorous world that I side stepped and skip hopped. And D says that you'd rather be living in a city with those stunning TIME OUT issues rather than one without.


This blog would no longer consist of mutilated experiences and wallowing self help dwellings. My invisible audience deserves better and..


...I could do better


Happy @)!! (2011) 


I raise a toast to the devil's drink that kept us sane throughout.
xoxo

Because all I ever wanted to do was mow lawns, cut grass and kiss the flowers goodnight

I have been dying to feel Tim Burtonesque since quite sometime now. The closest I've gotten to is wearing black.

Weeks end badly. Worse, I feel Kafkaesque.

I ran up the stairs today because that was the only exercise I could afford. I could’ve redefined the phrase ‘tired to the bone.’

A steaming hot water bath, boiling tomato soup, one black coffee, one cigarette and I am still cold. All of a sudden I realize it’s not the weather anymore. Its just me. I am just cold.

You just wait it out..says D..New Year’s around the corner. Things look pretty glum for a New Year. Adding to all that glumness is the queasy fact that I would be selling insurance policies for three fucking months all by myself. On the bright side, apart from inconsequential learning, I would also be working on a piece titled A Bird's Eye View of an Antisocialite. 

And perhaps it was time I realized that staying away from him would do me more good than harm.

Life just gets harder, and as it gets harder, harder it is to sustain madness, to sustain brilliance and anything even remotely beautiful

So I raise a really sober toast to great writing and great ideas.

Great writing doesn’t come from regularity and monotony. Great ideas aren’t thrown at you periodically. It’s a flash of a second that you fail to register. One great idea gone just like that, struck by lightening, cold dead feet kissing the wet ground.

The dead man and his whore

 

Fooled myself again did I? This is me filling out a post dinner feedback form.I do not like the shaping up of things at times. Two years ago, even though I was sentimentally whacked up at least I knew who I was. Here adding to the identity crisis is my existential crisis.
But I have been writing really. Writing out fliers and write ups for a club that has pretty much over sensationalized every grain of belief that i had once looked forward to as inspiration.
I mutter words like passion, creativity and out of the box thinking like they were mechanically drilled into some forlorn human heart. The misery, however, is due to the fact that the more I write it and the more I say it, the less I seem to believe in it. 
But these such absolute misery would entitle me to say..Fuck mechanics..and Fuck the fliers..I will write and eat and drink and love. 
I would have my say, though seemingly unheard..just like the dead man would have his whore.


xoxoxoxo

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

“I've grown tired of love
You are the trouble with me
I watch you walk right by”

-Anne Sexton.

The mesmerizing cat eyed woman. I read her when I was fourteen and I just wouldn't forget. 

Hyderabad as of 20th May 7.00 pm

I called a friend to go chamleon hunting together, they flutter about here and there around the campus searching for a new lease of life. I think I will name them. Storm swallowed the heat like a flimsy pill. I haven't written in ages, only this time i do not have the time to do so. I got a new skin, did I tell you? Its amber and hides the angst I carry around in my bag. My bag's red though.
The dog : black, stained brown. He sits astonishingly erect when the sky grows glum. 
And he's always looking for something, so am I.
Oh yeah and there are people around here. Whatever. xoxoxo

,.,.,.,

In my loneliness I read the world
and in my passion I ate it.

Star and I

She has her eyes closed and he looks up to heaven and neither of them notice the grass is on fire - Jeanette Winterson 'Sexing the Cherry'

You are half asleep and suddenly you wish you aren't. The hours gnaw at you. The dogs are barking, stirring up a racket and the half moon shines with unusal madness. The barking grows louder and louder until it grows on you, propelling you to get out of bed and now here you are pressing your nose against the cold sheen of the glass, hanging by the window to see what the hubbub's all about.

The dogs are out in numbers - wolfish and savage. Apparently a newbie wandered into the forbidden area.

Was he (the dog) crazy? Yes it would have to be a 'he' and now go on call me a sexist.

Anyway they corner him now, those bitches ready to tear into him. There is no stopping them. Maybe he'd put up a fight, maybe he'd not. Come morning he would lie in a pool of his own blood not ready to forgive himself as yet.

You don't care. All you care about is that you're missing a pillow. Like a dream you walk straight back to bed. You feel a tickle at the back of your neck where your hair stand upright and the day's only a few hours away.

A breaking thread moment.

I dwell on these, I've been told not to dwell on these by the wise ones I know. I am not the sort to carry advice on my sleeve. I am all about proving people wrong. People and people alike. Self realization - a very basic human notion has been slighted by us - phantoms of fortune. Call me old school, but I am all about bringing it back.

xoxo.

This Woman's work..

Writing Tharoor off came easy and yet we hardly seem to bring to consequence the work of this woman, who leaves behind a crunchingly distasteful legacy of darkness and stone. Estimates of what she might have spent on her beloved statues add up to a whopping 80 crore (including expenses for security and maintenance)

 But the irony of the fact is she hasn't generated enough funds to initiate the Right to Education Act. Yet after being mauled by some bitter criticism she veiled her reluctance to do so by holding the Centre responsible for the implementation of the act.

But apart from everything else one prime clincher that takes us a step further in adjudging her failure as a leader is the absolute lack of compassion. Her refusal to provide for any sort of compensation to the debilitated families of the CRPF jawans who were the unfortunate victims of the Dantewada massacre, while she adorned herself with a multi crore garland  (and diamonds sometime back) is nothing short of appalling.

The goodwill ensconcing the heart of a politician (a leader nonetheless ) has a few obligations if nothing else.

So while we analyze the demise of Tharoor's political career and his foot in the mouth social blunders or Chidambaran's adamant ego that broke down as he tearfully tendered his resignation after owning up to the Dantewada tragedy spare a thought to India's very own army of inglorious politicians who bask loud and clear in the country's backyard and keep getting elected over and over for the years to come, refuting the very possibility of change that there is - that there has to be.

I stop right here, saving us the suspended consequence of our inaction and ignorance amidst a cloud of blatant hypocrisy that persists.

Donald Barthelme

But have you noticed the slight curl at the end of Sam II 's mouth, when he looks at you? It means that he didn't want you to name him Sam II, for one thing, and for two other things it means that he has a sawed-off in his left pant leg, and a baling hook in his right pant leg, and is ready to kill you with either one of them, given the opportunity. The father is taken aback. What he usually says in such a confrontation is,"I changed your diapers for you, little snot." This is not the right thing to say. First, it is not true (mothers change nine diapers out of ten) and second it instantly reminds Sam II what he is mad about. He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane becasue when he loved you, you didn't notice.

- The dead father.

21st cenutry romanticism

He sits there, upstairs like somebody's ghost

I go visit him

I bring him cake

He throws it away

and yet he takes.

Miss Parker and the vicious circle.

Please God, help me write like a man.

-Dorothy Parker.

The edge of reason.

At first there was trouble and nothing more. The land was barren and the fields were unkempt. Slowly we carved a life for ourselves out of trouble. Harvesting  some thought and planting a culture we forged on ahead into a fallacy. Then we grew discontent and weary with the sun, rain, wind and storm. So we walked straight back into trouble.

And then all the madness began.

The day after thunder.

The end of this one sided, constipated conversation was marked by a bitter irony.

So how is it that I end up talking to your ego and not you?

Slam goes the glass.

Ego. The cataclysmic bird that flew way too far only to wind up in a barbed bush.

There..I say and place mine on the table. Half open.

He couldn't part with his though.

The night was starry and stone cold dead. You could whisper and be heard with astounding clarity.

On the night like this I cut that man in two, because what I am looking for is more than a piece of his mind.

So I am having quite a tough time doing the math on my life.
I'd need some help with that.

A Hypochondriac? The buck doesn't stop there.

Me? A Hypochondriac? Quite a baseless allegation.

Though I might have faked panic attacks before Math exams and confounded a few friends here and there with paranoia and a propensity toward self destruction, it was all in good time.

So then it happened.

At a fancy little place. Having some fancy food. It could have been the prawn, chicken or the curd based chutney. I never knew and will never know.

Damn these mosquitoes I said when I came back home.

Where ? asked the others obliviously.

And then there was this maddening heat. But it was only summer.

Two hours after having a very over the top meal, I was famished. Another clue.

So I dug deep into the fridge and bought out some milk. Protein shake at two in the morning. Whoever heard of that.

Woke up on a nauseatingly bright Sunday morning. All good in time except that my hands were swollen and my bulbous fingers stuck out the over ripe palm of my hand.

I itched like an addict denied of the very stash s/he yearned for.

After cooling down under the shower I developed a migraine yet again this couldn't be a post LASIK after effect because it had already been a month since I had gotten it done.

The diagnosis read Cholinergic utricaria : An autoimmune allergic condition (basically a hypersensitive reaction to the body heat) that is supplemented with a host of other unrelated rather stange symptoms ranging from mood swings, depression, migraines etc etc all of which I wasn't a stranger to.

Fancy name huh?

Apart from medication what would help me get better?

Consistent exercise they say.

wtf.

xoxo

But the tweets would continue nonetheless...

It kills me to watch Tharoor walk out of the great Indian political coterie. One last strand of intellectualism wantonly wiped out. Its back to the Mayawati's and Mulamyam Singh's and Narendra Modi's and AXECUSE MI how can we forget -  the Lalu Prasad Yadav's. The nature of this post does not however discuss whether or not Tharoor is guilty, infact considering the twists and loopholes in the system we will never know. Never know what each of them (Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor) had on their minds and up their sleeve. So we wish all well in the end.

Lalit Modi can kick back and relax for now and finally zap the deal on the much awaited Gujju team that he so dearly wished to include (pardon the racist ideology..its an anathema that befalls every individual inhabiting this country and I happen to be no different.) So Mr Modi (ermm Lalit ie) you better have your fun while you can. You better do, yeah cmon get kickin with your raunchy cheerleader companions before the IT sleuths come knocking at your door, and the media starts off with an expose' of your haunting criminal records.

All this squabble over nothing. Come on, we deserve better.

As for Tharoor, he ought not to be felt sorry for. An ex UN diplomat and a competent author, he definitely will come across more charming things in life. For now atleast he can tweet in peace without having to worry about another erupting scandal. 

Raising a toast to myself..

I just realized that this happens to be my 101th post. Although unread, unpopular and irregular I believe in a little celebration..So I am going to wear my hair down and ride off into the night.
A presto.
 

Alla

Forty one bloody degrees. With my lemon flavored Fresh Wipes almost nearing exhaustion, I finally decide to step outside the car and wait inside the premises of the clinic. Government run organizations barely provide any respite from the heat (except if you happen to be a politician ie) but I decide to take my chances anyway.

My doc friend signals me a I'll be there in ten and I sit down on one of creaky chairs in the waiting room under the wailing fan and wait.I glance at the local language newspaper lying in front of me and when I realize that I can't read a decent sentence without dissecting it disrespectfully, my shame gets the better of me and I look away.

'Alla? Get back here.'

My first impression of Alla is that of an eleven year old, it is only later that I learn that she is actually twenty two. Her beanstalk like figure patiently waits at the gate and her bony fingers break a crisp biscuit into four neat parts. She hurls those at the stray dogs now gathering around her. The dogs meanwhile trying hard to conceal their surprise at being fed this morning, or any morning for that matter, regard the biscuit pieces with some suspicion. Nonetheless after some sniffing around they quite relish the feel of cream and sugar. They look at her greedily for more, their tails up in the air ready to start wagging as a token of their appreciation. But somewhere in the depths of her tiny brain Alla is disgusted at being regarded with suspicion. She frowns and walks back inside.

Alla is wearing a screaming red blouse that adorns shiny buttons at odd places. It sticks to her and from afar she looks almost flat chested. Below is a terribly long black skirt with pint sized plastic coated mirrors at regular intervals. Wherever she goes, she has to drag herself along to get moving and yet she seems to leave something behind. It indicates her lack of confidence. Her hair is pulled back firmly into a pony that looks ready to be ripped off her head. She looks quite healthy by ordinary standards and beautiful even if it only weren't for the harelip. Her eyes are curious,ovoid and coffee colored.

Ears and nose all well and nicely proportioned.

Only the prescription that she is fiddling with is a bit disturbing so as to speak of.

Chlorpromazine (Largactil)

Haloperidol 10 mg twice daily.

While her mother keeps her baby brother from crying, Alla is folding her prescription paper until there is nothing left of it. How she wishes it just goes away. Once, twice, thrice and there..almost gone. Her mother catches her doing what she is doing and furiously smacks the back of her head while snatching the piece of paper away from her.

Alla is red faced and close to tears. An insult she would remember for quite sometime now. Days even, weeks perhaps. Months later when even the slightest memory of the event has faded to dust, Alla would wake up crying because she just wouldn't forget.

Alla shows the classic symptoms of schizophrenia. It doesn't stop at that she also suffers from a severe version of obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety. And to think I jokingly referred to myself as an obsessive compulsive maniac, I clearly had no idea what I was talking about.

Alla is terrified of switchboards, my doc friend continues unfazed by my reaction. She thinks that there is someone watching her through those holes. Keyholes are terrifying too, so are cracks and half open curtains. They are all watching. She has actually cello taped every crack and hole back home. She hasn't even spared the toilet seat. Sometimes she won't even go out because she thinks maybe they are watching her though the sky!

While all this sounds like an interestingly high on LSD experience to us, think about what a nightmare it must be for poor Alla.

Alla stands on the brink of a volatile future. Her family can't afford psychiatric treatment, only drugs sometimes to keep her down. Luckily for Alla there are quite a few NGO's that have sprung up as of late and that are championing the cause of mental health and related issues. Alla's parents aren't really convinced of the promise and the future they seem to offer. They want her married off as soon as possible so that she would become someone else's headache. This family of six survives on the father's meager wages as a tailor.

There might a have been nights when Alla must have stayed awake for hours together, while the fear of somebody being out to get her continued haunting her.

Reality escapes her Kafkaesque imagination.

For Alla and the like, happiness lies at the bottom of the chest, covered by layers of guilt, doubt, suspicion and insecurity.

I hope she finds it someday.

Meanwhile the family is wondering at what cost should they bear the burden of this madness that they can never really understand.

'As long as she doesn't kill anybody' says her mother.

I'm thinking..

I am thinking what it is like for youngsters like ourselves to grow up in a confusing and distorted culture of thought and paranoia where the choice to believe or not to is constantly being threatened by the likes of popular culture on one hand and enduring toxic tradition on the other.

I am thinking to what point could our judgements regarding sexuality, freedom, morality, pathos and life be stretched until broken or scarred.

I am thinking at what precise point did the killer think it was alright to shoot and kill.

I am saying this because everyday we are faced with a choice - of seeing a man die, a child beg and a woman fall. Of going to work and not caring, of turning on the telly that displays a plethora of  accidents, affairs, scandals, calamities and realizing that these people on those screens are just like you, and just like you they believe that a good breakfast could start off the day with great enthusiasm and so would a good night's sleep. You could smile at the waiter and not know he doesn't have a home to go to and you could smile at the foxy secretary not knowing that she gets beat up by her man.

Very Quoteable indeed.

Better drunk than a whore I'd say.

-Anthony Hopkins in Short cut to happiness.

Before I left.

I imagined pretty much of a party before I left the city. Endless coffee, conversations and hugs with people I thought I truly cherished. Quite contrary to that the days grow on me while I sit at home. Seems like I have managed to wrap up an extra layer of flesh on me. The other day I read Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost.

And I just thought I'd put it in here : Not because I think it has some queer sort of a significance and certainly not because I think I can relate to it but becasue I simply love it

Having just said that I realize the that I have taken the longest time ever to get there- halfway into the gist of those very lovely words.  In the course of an ordinary and rather boring day how many of us do things purely for the love of it? I wouldn't be needing any more fingers than the ones already adorning my pale little hands to make that count.

Fireflies in the Garden

by Robert Frost.

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies

And here on earth come emulating flies

That though they never equal the stars in size

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star like start

Only ofcourse they can't sustain the part.

So I am going to keep doing what I do well or atleast I am going to keep trying.So should you.

Crumbling paper

Honey its called a writer's block and its not fantasy fiction.

I am currently under repair and on the road to recovery.

Eat well.

Sleep well.

Be well.

& Don't let the heat get to you.

The color of memory - Geoff Dyer

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you : 'This life as you live now, live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh and everything unutterable small or great in your life will have to return to you all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again and you with it, speck of dust!'

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him,
'You are a God and never have I heard anything more divine!'

School for morality...

School for Morality.

First of all I would like to say that I love my school,every bit of it because quite frankly it made me what I am today and what I am is not a bad person although not tremendously accomplished. Also the coaching institutes are after all doing their job and delivering the best (or what they think is the best) to students and the results are there for everyone to see. Results are what matter in the end whether you like it or not, and most often its not about the things you like, its about the things that you are supposed to like.

Lately the one question that I've been asked endlessly is : Have you watched Three Idiots?

For some vague reason now I have taken up an antagonistic view towards mainstream Bollywood flicks. However after countless recommendations I finally watched the movie. Decent. But it kind of worried me. The first thing that came to my mind was rebellion without understanding a cause. It made me imagine hundreds of students chucking their textbooks at teachers and gathering on a stage after which they start dancing to the tunes of 'Aal izz Well.' Ridiculous? Wait there is more..I imagined the demand of quality education deteriorate to the demand of do away with the education system and the consequences seemed pretty much horrifying,Fortunately it struck me soon that most of us are a sensible lot. Most of us have dreams and aspirations that we wouldn't end up doing nothing about, and most of us also realize that there is more to life than a movie. So why don't we feel good about ourselves and capable enough before I move to somewhere else?

I was at a GD PI session at some XYZ MBA training institute. For those unfamiliar with GD PI let me elaborate : GD stands for group discussion and PI for personal interview – the final stage of the selection process before you get into a B school.

'You guys have decided to enter a rat race..' shrilled the voice of a man standing before me.

And I knew where this was going after that. I could sense the adrenalin levels of the classroom zoom up but mine were lower than expected. Enter the corporate world – a world of greed,insatiability and rats. Rats who keep scrapping their teeth against a purpose.

Objection was futile as he questioned the very purpose of my coming to the training institute. To get into a good B school? Voila.

I am not a dumbwit I know what to expect, I know that the corporate world is a ravenous place but the face of which has changed tremendously in the last few years – enter a world of catering to consumers at a wider level including those at the bottom of the pyramid,enter corporate social responsibility and enter sustainable development. This is the corporate world I thought I wanted to be a part of. The one that thinks different more than it thinks profit. Why then are we still being taught about rats?

Profit is the ultimate objective of any organization (barring a few non profit organizations) including spiritual ones like the Art Of Living foundation..Why then force it down the throat of a corporate civilization?

Lesson two started off with attention seizing tactics..scream,raise your voice,bang against a desk,cut short a girl stammering to get her point across and do anything and everything to prove that you are the leader.

Because supposedly the only thing that the B school guys look for is “Leadership skills.” Ha remarkable..I'd very much love to see an institution or organization that consisted of only leaders who have come to believe that their strengths comprise of aggressiveness, outrageous confidence and a megalomaniac mindset.

Whatever happened to the innovators,the problem solvers,the creative lot of them,the dark horses and the analysts?

Lesson three never happened for me. I sat reading Herta Muller at a park. Unproductive I believe but equally calming until I can think of something else.

School was long time ago, I can hardly believe that it has been more than six years and I still survive on the very memory of school. We had moral education classes first thing in the morning. We used them for completing assignments and homework and the teachers got some handy paperwork done during these thirty essential minutes. We had textbooks for the same. Textbooks that taught us honesty,selflessness and courage. Once in a blue moon we had to open these and then browse to Chapter 12, page 34 that read 'Kindness.'

Death of freedom of expression

Art was supposed to have no boundaries, it was to flourish and redefine all forms of dogma and belief. Only it wasn't to be.. not in this country at least. I was thoroughly convinced of it today when reports of the legendary M F Hussain (who currently is residing out of the country on account of a self imposed exile courtesy the shiv sainik's and bajrangdal activists) was conferred upon with an honorary citizenship by the Qatari royal family where he is currently residing. His critics might slam him for doing so but what was he to do when in actuality he was driven out of his own country? I am glad that the Indian government has been embarrassed left, right and centre. But what about those who created the problem in the first place? They haven't ended their baseless rampage against whosoever and whatsoever.
Hurting religious sentiments in the form of art is violently reprimanded; destruction of public and private property is however shamelessly authorized in the name of some banal protests.
The great Indian malaise when it comes to nudist portrayal of art and sexuality alike is appalling. What are we so repelled by anyway? Shouldn't corrupt thought process and bothersome narrow mindedness repel us a thousandfold more?
What are you beneath your clothes after all if not nude and why do you find it so terribly disturbing? And why is the sexuality debate still locked up behind closets and heavily bolted doors? Surely the second largest populated country cannot be a stranger to sex and the blessings to follow thereafter - why not start talking about it? Why is heartfelt conversation about anything buried six feet under?
It isn't just about art, even authors have been vandalized for putting forth supposedly disagreeable notions regarding 'sensitive issues.' And at the time of crises when they are being ambushed by certain caustic sections of the society they are promised everything apart from security and support - by a country that caters to a picture perfect constitution and prides itself with being secular and democratic and ahemm..FREE.
What is freedom ?  
And are we really free?
I think we should start asking ourselves.

 How exactly is the above derogatory? What do you have to say about the one below?

Freedom is a choice we make every minute of the day. Speak up before its too late. You are questionable to your country, the people around you and to humanity.


 

The book of the century..

 

 This book's been a saviour. Here are a few quotes from the book that keep the memory of it alive.

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."  

"Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend." 

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."  

"Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One." 

"When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and its time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you dont even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.  

"The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving."

"In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real."  

...They flank me-Depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don't need to show their badges. I know these guys very well.

...then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity;but he always does that. 

"He was powerful and I died of love in his shadow."  

"'Go back to bed', said the omniscient interior voice, because you don't need to know the final answer right now, at three o'clock in the morning on the Thursday in November. 'Go back to bed', because I love you. 'Go back to bed', because the only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer." 

 "La Dolce Vita"

Have a great day folks.

Keep reading.

Keep writing.

 

 

SNAKE

Group discussion sessions are fun, not that I am expecting any fancy calls from fancy B schools - I just go there to have fun. Something I haven't done in quite a while - place my point across a table and walk off very elegantly. Well it could be disappointing as well especially when nobody's buying my point. After one such disappointing session I decided to withdraw from the next one.

I always make it a point to put down whatever I have to say..it includes quality adjectives - those that serve as the perfect accessories. I like it that way.

A 'tiger' was a person who dominates the group discussion - ie bites flesh off verbally. One such tiger sat down next to me. He glanced at my note pad and his face broke out into a nasty grin.

'Interesting...' he said teasingly 'but nobody ever listens to you, I mean I am being frank here -- your flamboyance and elegance or whatever you call it is pretty much unnoticed'

I grew queasy. I felt like I had been transported back to school - unnoticed and invisible all over again.

'You know I am right..' he whispered again.

I spent the next few minutes preaching about how frankness was not always appreciated in a civil society.

After which there was absolute silence.

'You scare me,' he mumbled.

'I what?'

'I could fight off any tiger who got under my skin, but you.... you I don't know, you scare me ..I don't think I would be able to fight you off'

I sat there still and momentarily stunned.

Our counsellor went on elucidating on the avoidable concept of spotting a tiger and dealing with one.

You can either be a tiger and bask in the privilege of being one..or you can't.

Not all of you are tigers.

All of you can't be tigers.

Out of the blue he looked my way.

'I wish you knew you were potentially capable of handling a tiger - you very much are. I'll tell you one thing - your a snake - you can tell a tiger to shut his trash and back off.'

Hissssssssssss.

Was I to be embarrassed? Or bask in the glory of being a snake? Or not give it a second thought?

I quite liked the title of snake though.

'See I told you..' he whispered. 

Happy Now (Lucinda Coxon)

I am wondering at what point it became acceptable for you to stand in this house on which I pay the mortgage, drinking the drink I bought out of the glasses I washed in front of the cake I baked and talk that fucking talk. All- and I think this is a lovely touch for which I must take full credit- while I'm wearing an apron.

Working towards a better tomorrow

'Beauty is only the first touch of terror we can still bear.'
 - Rilke


Sometimes we don't see it ourselves - the ripple beneath the surface of the smooth waters, the dirt beneath our shoes or the holes in our pockets. Behind the beauty stands the beast, he loves her and she loves him, that's how the story went and that's how the story goes.
Today we pride ourselves in being the fastest growing democracy - despite the whirlpool of chaos, distress, political fiascos and unnecessary (even harmful) jingosim. Rilke was probably talking about the bad underlying the good - he was probably talking about that which couldn't be seen or sensed. I would like to paint a different not so pretty picture for you though - We sense the bad, we see it and close the doors on it.
Bad need not be anything definitive - it could be red tapeism, it could be corruption, it could be the most unacceptable form of ignorance or it could be the fact that we choose to ogle at it without doing anything about it. It is only until recently that we have started to step out of these closed doors.
We celebrate Indianness and call ourselves culturally nourished, all the while in another part of the country the daughters of our soil continue to be harrassed, burnt, tortured, raped and broken.
The other day our respected Home Minister spoke of how even someone like Kasab was being tried fairly and justly for his crimes against the country emphasizing on the quality of civility this country has to offer. Why then is the justice system so fraught when it comes to the common man - one of our own?
You take to rebellion when Indians are subjected to racism in Australia but how exactly do you deal with it when it runs rampant in your own neighbourhood? Do you fight or even lift a finger to protest?
On the brighter side,
I applaud Corporate Social Responsibility, I applaud the inclusive growth agenda just when it looked like the government had grown immune to those who live a sub standard level of existence. After all what good is the green revolution when people in your country continue to starve to death? And what good is the technology boom when there are a vast number of villages devoid of a very basic amenity called electricity? And what good is the pharma boom when health care is the privilege of only a handful few?


Lets face it - we live on belief. Belief is like pneumonia - it is contangious and it spreads. Even though it lets you down it doesn't stop you from growing.
Remember morality comes from within and it doesn't exactly stop at that.

The things we don't care about anymore...

A broken coffee mug, a dead plant, shoelaces, the dripping tap, the actors who aren't in the  lead, the guy you dumped, the girl you dumped, failures, dead people, withered flowers, an ordinary day, a cold cup of tea, bills, unpainted walls, incomplete sketches, bad books bad movies,Angola, Cambodia, blunt pencils, pens that do not write, used up notebooks, the beggar on the street, the girl with a razor blade in her pocket, the old woman crouched at the corner, an unnamed painting, an unwashed pair of socks, torn clothes, dead animals, clouds in the sky, the summer sun, dreams when you can't sleep, water when your already dry, the 'ifs' and the 'buts' and the 'maybes', the underdogs, the least probables, the loners, worn out clothes, read mails, bitter hope, God - when you lose the one person you love, Love - when you lose the one person you love, money when your fucking rich, people you haven't spoken to in years, the girl you shared lunch with, cracked mirrors, a T shirt you hate, a tiny beetle on the floor, food that hasn't been eaten for weeks, bread with mould, clocks that stopped working, clear endless sky, details when you fucking tired, the crow, cartoons when your 40, caring when you've lost everything, a single piece of crayon, a used up piece of chalk, fantasy, rainbows and a piece of your mind.

The year I turned Feminist...

Happy New Year folks.
I've been looking forward to the new year for a long time.I guess I just wanted to leave a few things behind.I'm excited about the new year,I drafted out a shady sketch of what my resolutions looked like over a pork pepperoni pizza (my last chance at outrageous junk food before I make my resolutions stick) Rosh had his fill of those weary garlic breadsticks.

2009 had its own high's and low's.
I took the year off to decide what I had to do, but by the end of the year I realized that you never take 'time out' to put your life into place.You just move on graciously or not so graciously.
I also realized that 'the fun stuff' is not really where my head is at the moment, because right now my head just wants to bang against a wall to prove a point.A god darn important fucking point.(read : does NOT imply self mutilation.)
I think I should let it do that.For all you know I might crack it open and have some sense flow out of me.

The year end leaves me lost as always and tells me I have a lot to do, without really emphasizing on the conspicuous details.

Realizations : 
Even dumbwits have excuses, but a pessimist has none.A pessimist is single handedly the worst person you could be.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Summer love is like summer sun..hot and short.
It kills to be different, kills every part of you.And I have died every one bit.
Its never too late to start over.
People who do not judge you in the truest sense of the word are a rarity.
If people could keep me on the tips of my toes, so could work.

Happy New Year.
(Resolution number 7 : Write regularly,write a bit every day,write in wind,storm,rain and sun,write when happy and when sad.)

XOXO