Lucca's foibles

2010-01-27T07:11:00.000-08:00

On a more cheerful tone -

My second Mangalacharan class today. sort of enjoyed it, but I was nervous. Well, I think I was. Suddenly it was hard to concentrate and I couldn't pick up the steps as fast as (I'm sure) I could have. My teacher remarked that I look 'lost'. Maybe I was.

The happiest I have been in, say, the last six months was my three days in Sharada's house. I told her that and I remember her chuckling. Why, she asked, it's a very pedestrian life!

Pedestrian, perhaps. But I loved it so much - listening to her pleasantly incessant flow of stories and thoughts, chopping carrots and beans, flipping chappatis. Home.

Getting to know people is work; staying affectionate is work; relationship, for the most part, is work. Is it possible to block out emotions, attachments, and expectations completely? Pain seems to result from these, and if we can block them out -

But of course we must be prepared to live without hope, without thrusts of delight.

When was the last time I felt happy? Really happy - completely without apprehension or worry of any kind?

2010-01-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

1. I seem to no longer have any capacity for thoughts.

2. How can crudeness and sophistication coexist?

2010-01-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

Loneliness is funny because it's so pointless and hopeless.

2010-01-09T07:07:00.000-08:00

I need to learn to love life again. I need to find what makes me tick. I've been relying too much on other people's presence to be happy. That's not good.

I have been feeling that people I love don't care for me that much. Maybe I expect too much from them, and I feel that way because I'm doing too little with my life. I'm beginning a graduate programme next week, and I feel, strangely, even more restless than I was last month, when I was without a job. Are these nerves, I wonder.

I am in a frenzy, trying out everything until I find something - something that fits, something that feels right, something that gives me the feeling of being complete or - since perfection should be impossible - near complete. Maybe I should move to a new place. Maybe I should move back to Chennai. Get married and have children? Yeesh.

But right now I am keeping myself busy with many things. Odissi. Volunteering at the local library. Being a graduate student. Joining a theatre group. Re-learning Tamil with determination - in which undertaking papa is a big help. Learning Sanskrit (particularly because this ties in with odissi). Reacquainting myself with French. Beginning Hindi yet again - and hope I don't give up this time. Writing a story. Planning to take up sitar classes. Who knows what I will find out about myself and the world, whom I will meet. I need to find something so that I stop feeling so empty.

2009-03-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to do with my life. When are you supposed to find out? And what if you never do?

2009-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

2009-03-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Well. Every day can be a day of ranting. But I feel particularly ranting-provoked today. It concerns a certain antagonism with a certain Person Too Irksome To Address (P2I2A). In any academic inhabitant, one expects every single Person to be civil and considerate. I find my capacity to do either is sucked dry everytime I'm face to face with P2I2A. I snort in class during lectures whenever I glance at this Person and see her tilting her neck to one side until it seems at the point of breaking, with a smile stretching ever so far. I'm sure it must be a wonderful exercise to the muscles, but I'm concerned. I snort whenever I spot her standing on the corridor, charitably re-rendering past lectures to a few rather unfortunate souls. Lately, I have acquired the ability to snort silently. And I do this whenever I see this Person, because it reminds me of all her previous actions that have made me snort before. Should she, should she ever try anything funny, I will handle her with the power of Speech. It's regrettable that anyone should receive my snorts. But really, in the words of that wonderful Frenchman, I can sincerely ' fart in (her) general direction '.

Kabir’s Duck

2009-03-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Kabir’s Duck

Damn it, Kabir cursed silently, feeling the bump on his forehead. The clatter that issued as he hit the metal bin was loud enough to wake the entire street. He had hit himself against the steering wheel. He adjusted the rearview mirror to try and get a look of the thing that had unceremoniously scuttled across the road. The swerve was lucky and impulsive; minutes before he had been listening to a brokenhearted woman on the car radio recounting a relationship that just ended. The glow from the neon lights wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the street. He was about to back the car up when he heard it. The sound was low at first, almost indiscernible. It grew more distinct as he listened. A duck.
I hit a duck, he thought. Out of all things, a duck.

To Kabir’s relief, there had been no dead duck. The thing had only appeared traumatized. Kabir found it rooted to one spot behind the car, a little more than a duckling, quacking wildly. He wasn’t sure how to approach it, and he had sat cross-legged in the middle of road, waiting for it to calm down. He had then bundled it in his jacket and driven home with the duck on the front seat next to him. He found the whole episode baffling. He had never seen or heard of a solitary duck crossing a city street late at night.

The duck was still pale yellow in colour, with a small bald patch on top of its head. No sooner had it seemed to settle down in the tub did Kabir realize he had no idea what to do with it. He didn’t have a plan when he decided to bundle and carry it home; at the time it seemed the right thing to do. If you hit a person, you wouldn’t leave it lying traumatized on the road. You would carry her home (it was easier for him to think of the victim as a she), feed her something hot, make the necessary phone calls, probably let her stay the night. Only that in this case, Kabir didn’t know who to call or what to offer; the tub of water was as much as he could come up with.

Which was as well, because the bathroom had, for days, been the cleanest place in the house – and only because it was put to regular use. Since Leela left him, Kabir had remained in bed for most of the time. The neighborhood tended to get too quiet at night, so he went out then to catch a late night movie – so late that he could go home and get straight to bed. He hadn’t opened the door to anybody since her leaving; he hadn’t wanted to speak to anybody. The phone was disconnected and his cell phone, for all he knew, was probably clogged with messages.

It was pathetic, almost ridiculous, he thought, for a grown man to be brooding in bed. It would, of course, be too embarrassing to have his daughter come and console him. He was supposed to have seen enough at his age, 41 years old – enough to know how wrong life could go, enough to not be shaken when it did go wrong. To his surprise, he found himself reaching out for Leela when he woke up in the morning. He longed for someone to butter his bread.

Theirs was a relationship you would associate with fireworks. It was instantaneous – the kind that sweeps you away, the kind that makes you breathless. And unlike most relationships that began that way, the afterglow lasted. He liked the feeling of stability he had with her around. He liked having something to look forward to when he came home after a full day’s teaching. The thought of a relaxed dinner with her, possibly accompanied with a movie that contained very little violence, made it that much easier to bear impossible students and coworkers, the occasional hellishness of university bureaucracy. Kabir thought of this as he squatted in his bathroom, crumbling a boiled egg over a newspaper for the duck to eat.

He browsed the Internet to find details as to how one should take care of a duck. He placed a shoebox lined with cotton cloth in the TV room, positioning a stand-up lamp at one corner of the box. Ducklings, as it turned out, if raised without their mother, should be provided a source of sufficient warmth. The website he referred to also mentioned that it was preferable for ducklings to be raised in groups; they are very social beings and tend to not cope well alone. That made him a little anxious. His presence wasn’t going to help much if the duck was lonely. Obviously there wasn’t much in the way of communication. As if to compensate, he did everything else he could do rigorously. He changed the lining of the box everyday, refilled the water basin regularly, made sure that the duck get sufficient swim-time in the plastic tub.

He hardly left the house in the following days – not even for late night movies. To leave the duck alone at home was out of the question. There were so many things that could go wrong. It could squeeze itself in the space between the sofa and the wall and get hurt. It could choke on something. It could get out of the house and get run over by another car – and this time it might just prove disastrous.

In the first days of being alone, Kabir had gone out to stop himself from thinking. During the day the street was busy and he could drown himself in the goings-on of the neighborhood. But when he lay alone in his bed at night, his mind meandered through alleys he wanted to leave well enough alone. His mind acted like a nauseating child he couldn’t control, and he hated it. It helped to be in the presence of strangers. It was perfect, too, because strangers didn’t know him enough to ask questions about his life. The child in the mind, Kabir learnt, was to be dealt with the way you deal with all impossible children: distract them; give them something to play with.

Soon enough Kabir realized the same effect could be achieved by watching endless television. He read magazines about the recent fashion trends, the latest famous person who afforded a château in the Loire or in Bordeaux. He read about the latest protest against the selling of fur. He spent a significant amount of the day playing with the duck. He avoided newspapers. He wanted, for the time being, no responsibility for global poverty and unhappiness, wars, or for the chaos the world was in.

He had lost people in his life before, of course he had, but it had never been this bad. He had never felt so corroded – as if something was eating away at him. If he were to be logical about the whole thing, about his wife’s leaving, there was – he told himself – very little to mourn over. The relationship, any relationship for that matter, was just a sum of habits. You grow used to being in the company of someone; you grow used to needing someone; you grow used to being needed. Now, he thought, it’s just a matter of dismantling habits. A matter of not expecting her to be there when you come home, not to call or message her, whimsically, when you have something silly to say. But it felt wrong, all of it – like telling the voices in your head to shut up when they wanted to sing. There was no way around it. That was all the heart’s doing.

But a month went by and he found it was possible for whole days to pass without him thinking about Leela. It became easier to think of her only when he wanted to. It was liberating, in a way. He was more in control of his thoughts. He still thought of her when he saw her empty wardrobe, or when he saw his solitary toothbrush in the bathroom. That was it, though: he thought of her. He no longer uncontrollably wished so hard for her to be there and felt a pang that didn’t go away because she, in fact, was not there.

It was possible to live with as little contact as possible with the world. There was the nasty period of adjustment, but it passed quickly enough. Kabir thought it felt a bit like quitting smoking. There was the odd sensation in his stomach after he had gone days without speaking to anybody. Then he felt angry, because the need to talk to other people was so intuitive and he was forcing himself to go against it – like not eating in spite of being hungry. But it wasn’t so bad after a couple a days. The main thing was to keep himself occupied, even if that meant doing the flimsiest things. Kabir reorganized his bookshelf and the spice shelf in the kitchen; he sat down and watched movies he hadn’t seen for a long time; he spent long hours with computer games.

On a rainy Saturday evening Kabir woke up feeling very good about himself. He would fix breakfast as usual, then do what he was in the mood for – whatever was available to occupy him. He woke up to a dark room and a number of mosquitoes on his legs. The TV was still on; two cowboys were dueling. The clock on top of the TV set told him it was ten minutes after six. He remembered he had to switch on the lamp by the shoebox to keep it warm. He turned on the room light and looked around for the duck. The shoebox was empty. Kabir looked under the sofa. He scoured the TV room and the kitchen; he looked all over the house. By the end of the hour, he was frantic.

It must have gone out of the house somehow. The traffic outside was still heavy; he could hear the buzzing of cars from his opened window. He ran shoeless out of his apartment, leaving the door open behind him. He didn’t have to look far. He located it almost immediately: the yellow fluff next to one of the large flowerpots in the parking lot of the building, pecking at something slithery on the ground. Mixed with relief at the sight, Kabir couldn’t help the feeling of something burrowing into him. It all felt too familiar – the panic, the fear of loss. He shirked the thought. He scooped up the duck, clutched it to his chest, and climbed back up to his apartment.

2008-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Out of a year, up to thirty bad, ugly days are nothing. Nothing. I need to remind myself because it helps me cope better with the fact. Phuaaah...

2008-04-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm done. It left me scarred.

2008-04-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

I have started my reading for the next semester -- the most boring books go first. This is a bad reading strategy because you end up reading the better books when you're already bored with the not-so-good ones. Why don't I ever learn?

Of course, that's my way with chickens too. I love wing pieces. And I always eat them last. By the time I get to the wing piece I'm already full. I think it's greed. Incurable.

There is also the problem of procrastination. I watch episodes of Scrubs, House , and Gilmore Girls multiple times. I know I'm lucky.

I'm back - sort of

2008-04-14T02:59:00.000-07:00

I won't even try to explain the year's absence.

2007-06-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Done. It's a good read - if taxing.

B -- didn't I tell you?

goat and me

2007-06-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

The weather has been wonderful. There are a couple of calves near my house. They've just been born. A week ago they were red and naked and now they have started bouncing. I petted one today. Whee!

2007-06-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

My second Ernest. He he. You will never look at rabbits the same way after this book. Seriously.

2007-06-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

No giant mosquitoes (as feared). There is, however, one very incriminating fish. I'm not spilling more.

Good night.

2007-06-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

4 a.m.

It's raining! It will be a change from having my shirt sticking to my back. Lovely.

2007-06-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

I wasn't very excited. And -- my next reading will be something much, much lighter.

2007-06-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

2 a.m

Still with Faulkner. It reminds me of Flowers for Algernon.

2007-06-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

I always say being with people is tiring. Today I stepped out of the Anun ice-cream shop in Radhakrishnan Road (lovely stuff in there!) with such joy. I had with me 200 g of butterscoth ice-cream with peanuts and almond topping. I went home, stored it in the fridge, and got ready to go out again. There was a sort of get-together I had promised a friend to go to, so butterscoth just had to wait. I also had the the last book of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency waiting. I just wanted to leave, get it done, and come back to the comfort of book and butterscotch.

The get-together was as a get-together should be: crowded, awkward, aimless. However. I was there. Had to mingle. Had to smile. Had to be pleasant. The trilogy of agonies. I thought: book and butterscotch waiting. Can't be that bad.
But people knew exactly how to put me off. I began thinking that if you attended anything that involves other people, you should be allowed to carry a list of the things you agree to be questioned on. I dealt with it my own way :

Q : "Are you Bengali?"
Me : "Yes."

Q : "Are you a Filipino?"
Me : "Yes."

Q : "Are you Nepali? My friend's Nepali - she looks so like you!"
Me : "Uh huh."

Q : "You are a Tamilian? But you don't look like a Tamilian! You have such a cute nose!"
Me: *thinks* 'you're such a freak!'

I was so glad to be home. Book is a joy. Butterscotch is a joy.

2007-06-09T03:49:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book called Minaret, by Leila Aboulela. The blurbs promised me I’d be reading something ‘moving’ and ‘beautifully written’. And perhaps I did, but I think I look for more in a book. Minaret is beautifully written, but it lacks excitement. It lacks imagination. By imagination, I don’t mean things fantastical, magical, or strictly outside the realm of reality; it only has to do with creating something. In a novel, it can be anything – the atmosphere, setting, characters, plot. But I think that’s what writing, especially fiction, should create. Douglas Adams and Joanne Harris are such a joy to read because of it.

But take A Suitable Boy. That’s a realistic novel as far as the setting of place is concerned (the name of the place is fictional, but the ambiance is factually portrayed), but the characters in the book are delightfully distinct. There’s also the fact that events in the book are structured in such a way that the characters seem so naturally – almost accidentally – linked to one another. Sadly, the thing that makes all these possible – fancy, verve, imagination, whatever you call it – is hard to come by these days.

Besides Minaret, I also read Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul, and Sasson’s Desert Royal to name a few; all of which are disappointing for the same reason. It seems to me that these books have a purpose other than to be written and read, and that’s probably where the slip is. These books, I think, to an extent, mean to inform, to change perspective, and to fulfill other (to me) equally unsavoury aims. I don’t know – writing with a purpose feels like going to sleep with a purpose : you don’t have it good.

2007-05-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

I would love to see As Good As It Gets written as a book. It should be something along the lines of Chocolate or McSmith's series. The truth is, if you can't look at life as all around tragic, you may as well laugh at it.

2007-05-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

The strangest thing happened. One cannot, I suppose, say that one stumbles upon Agatha Christie - the latter is much too well known to be stumbled upon. This quality of eminence should excuse my cynicism about her books. Then again, it was one of those days when one tells oneself, “it wouldn't be so bad to…”
And so I did. I got one book. And more. I’m hooked.

I have a soft spot for Poirot. He always seems to me to be a near-parody of Holmes. Holmes is enigmatic where Poirot is amusing; charismatic while Poirot’s a bit of a dandy, and Holmes’ twinkling eye is effectively replaced by the taut, sizeable moustache. Poirot’s a funny, likeable man; Holmes is the type you’d like to have an affair with. I can’t help the hunch that General Melchett is rather a reincarnation of Poirot (overlooking several obvious physical characteristic of the former, of course).

I don't even mind that my take on nursery rhymes is forever altered. :D

2007-05-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Because Perry Smith was such a smiling man, I am further disturbed. His wasn’t one of those genial smiles that invite one to relax, but a smile with a hovering quality – one that disguises rather than communicates. And what it hides is not clear either. It has a feel of superiority, a soft quality of mocking; one that says, “Ah, I know why I did what I did, but you’ll never understand. Why ask?”

Now I’m upset because I can’t rationalize. I don’t know what should keep someone from being violent – or bitter, or melancholic, or loving. I don’t know.

2007-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

I gave up on Dreiser like I did on Hawthorne. The man's too sedate and austere. Hawthorne too. It feels like being in a public lecture when I have something more exciting to do, and I can't wait to flee. And I did. I whispered my farewell to Mr. Dreiser (after the last spoonfull of my butterscotch ice-cream), set the book aside and mourned a little. I knew something wasn't right when 200 g of butterscotch ice cream only took me through two pages. Sigh.

2007-04-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

Life is Beautiful is beautiful. Benigni is beautiful!

I did think that the flm ended rather abruptly, but there's a certain sweetness about it that persuades me to overlook any flaw. I love the elegance, the splendor, and the fine blend of the morbid and the joyful - something like laughing in the face of death, literally. What a joy that we have that word - bittersweet.

2007-04-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

“ I asked Mother about the deaths and she said people kill themselves when they are very sad, when they live in very sad houses and have nowhere to go. Which made me worried because if you stand at the bus stop and look at our house, it looks like a crying face. Its windows are the eyes, half-closed by curtains, while the rain, wind and sun have marked the wall, streaked several lines, two of which look like tears, one below each window. The mouth is the balcony, curved down under the weight of iron railings, rusted and misshapen. Like the stained teeth of someone sad, someone very old.”

- If You are Afraid of Heights; Raj Kamal Jha

I dozed off at six today morning; the night and I have become good friends. We will probably have an unruly affair. Well. After a three-hours sleep, I’m still in that twilight of consciousness, but I know that I don’t understand the book. It doesn’t make sense to me. And I don’t feel persuaded enough to read it again.

2007-04-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

I need to be with people who don't ask stupid questions, who don't ask too many questions, who realize immediately the stupidity of their question if they happen to ask one, and stop.

People who do not belong to the above category are purely, utterly exasperating.

If one needs to ask questions, one should at least make them clever.

2007-04-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

"...each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves...we need oxygen and a candle to help. The oxygen would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. ...Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lit. "

- Like Water for Chocolate; Laura Esquivel

I have no idea food can do so much. And - never has violence been so sweet.

2007-04-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was at the British Council today. A very unpleasant afternoon. My auto driver was rather indecent, but the prospect of an air-conditioned room and a cluster of Lovely People urged me on at that derelict gate of the library. Sadly, people were not so lovely this afternoon. The security guard turned out to be indecent too, if not more; the woman who handled ' book returns' looked morose. Absolutely morose. With lips hung down on both corners, and deep sighs coming out every now and then. I am determined to add that the flowers in her hair didn't make her look any prettier.
Well. I hadn't paid my fine. When she scanned the books on my returning them, she gave me that morose sigh. I detested that. I detest any kind of sighs being addressed to me. People should say what they mean. A blow of air has a quality of open-endedness, which increases the risk of a person being offended by the same.

I hope nothing's very wrong with her (what's with the heavy moroseness?). But the morose-woman requires a gentle lesson in enunciation.

2007-04-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Emma – why so wayward?

I finished it. Today. On a mottled bench on a windy afternoon in college. I have a feeling I was going ahead of the book the whole time I was reading it. I knew whom Harriet Smith is going to end up with. I knew who’s after Jane Fairfax. I knew, particularly, who’s going to sweep Emma off her feet. Somehow, it wasn’t as much fun as Pride and Prejudice, even though I knew (then) that Darcy Darcy and Liz were going to be together. I don’t know why. Too many hints, probably. Too expository. Not as mischievous as Pride and Prejudice, or even Sense and Sensibility. But still, still made me chuckle.

2007-04-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

" I gorged myself on memories."

" Innocence. The one time you see it is when a woman takes her clothes off and cannot look you in the eyes."

"...if you get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere; but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face. Accepting the sadness. Knowing that to pretend it was all gay was treachery. Treachery to everyone sad at that moment, everyone ever sad, treachery to such music, such truth."

"...more and more suffering for more and more. And more and more in vain. It's as if the lights have fused. I'm here in the black truth. God is impotent. He can't love us. He hates us because he can't love us. All the meanness and the selfishness and the lies. People won't admit it, they're too busy grabbing to see that the lights have fused. They can't see the darkness and the spiderface beyond and the great web of it all. That there's always this if you scratch at the surface of happiness and good ness. The black and the black and the black.
I've only never felt like this before. I never imagined it possible. More than hatred, more than despair. You can't hate what you cannot touch, I can't even feel what most people think of as despair. It's beyond despair. It's as if I can't feel any more. I see, but I can't feel. Oh God if there is a God. I hate beyond hate."

- The Collector; John Fowles

I finished The Collector yesterday, but was too low to write. Now I'm back on my creaky chair (it's getting a bit frightening), with my smelly blue blanket. This, by the way, is a blanket that's so worn, it's not warming anymore. It gives me that snug feeling I need when alone. The smell, on the other hand, keeps it safe from possible theft.

Back to the book. Eerily delightful, but I find the ending a little dissappointing. Then again, it's the idealistic me. Thinking back, the book ends as it's supposed to - wouldn't work otherwise. The motif is the action of collecting - M needs to be a part of the exhibition. She has to die. Nobody would agree wilingly. I love the way it's written. I love the way Miranda and Caliban are brought in. I always think attempts to do such things put you at a risk of sounding redundant.
The philosophy of the book reminds me of The Fountainhead. Although, I suppose Rand's idea of the 'Few' is so extreme it becomes an independent philosophy.
Also, think about the deadness of Glegg and the life of Miranda - who dies.

I recognise the trickiness of the book. Clever, clever Fowles.

2007-04-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well. Every day can be a day of ranting. But I feel particularly ranting-provoked today. It concerns a certain antagonism with a certain Person Too Irksome To Address (P2I2A).

In any academic inhabitant, one expects every single Person to be civil and considerate. I find my capacity to do either is sucked dry everytime I'm face to face with P2I2A. I snort in class during lectures whenever I glance at this Person and see her tilting her neck to one side until it seems at the point of breaking, with a smile stretching ever so far. I'm sure it must be a wonderful exercise to the muscles, but I'm concerned.
I snort whenever I spot her standing on the corridor, charitably re-rendering past lectures to a few rather unfortunate souls. Lately, I have acquired the ability to snort silently. And I do this whenever I see this Person, because it reminds me of all her previous actions that have made me snort before.

Should she, should she ever try anything funny, I will handle her with the power of Speech.

It's regrettable that anyone should receive my snorts. But really, in the words of that wonderful Frenchman, I can sincerely ' fart in (her) general direction '.

2007-04-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

Kiss lonely goodbye. I need to remember.

2007-04-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

If it’s magic, then why can’t it be everlasting?
Like the sun that always shines
Like the poet in his rhymes
Like the galaxies in time

If it’s pleasing, then why can’t it be never leaving?
Like the day that never fails
Like on seashores there are shells
Like the time that always tells

It holds the key to every heart, throughout the universe
It fills you up without a bite
And quenches every thirst, so --

If it’s special, then with it why aren’t we as careful?
As making showy dress and style
Posing pictures with a smile
Keeping danger from a child

If it’s magic, why can’t we make it everlasting?
Like the lifetime of a sun
It will leave no heart undone
For there’s enough for everyone

- S.W.

2007-04-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

" "Sit down beside me! sit down beside me until I am quiet inside and able to stand again. My legs are trembling, and if I try to stand now, I'll fall. Sit beside me, Bess." "

" "If my brother is killed in this stupid War, I shall spit at the world. I shall hate it forever. I won't be good. I shall be the worst of them all, the worst that ever lived." "

"There was swift and fierce terror in the boy. Suddenly he was running away. The few people he saw in the streets now seemed full of death, too. They seemed suddenly ugly, not beautiful, as they had always seemed before...He had never before known fear of any kind, let alone fear such as this, and it was the most difficult thing in the world for him to know what to do. His poise was all gone - scattered by the fear of the horror catching up with him, and he began to run again. This time as he ran he said to himself, almost crying, "Papa, Mama, Marcus, Bess, Homer!" The world was surely wonderful and it was surely full of good things to be seen again and again, but now the world was a thing to escape, only he could think of no direction to take. "

- The Human Comedy, William Saroyan

I’ve never read a lovelier book. All I have to say.

English, August...

2007-04-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

English, August...

...is something I'm thankfully done with. will write more later.

2007-04-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

"Have all beautiful things sad destinies?"

"Die then. Sleep. It was not a safe game to play - in that place. Desire, Hatred, Life, Death came very close in the darkness. Better not know how close. Better not think, never for a moment."

- Wide Sargasso Sea; Jean Rhys

Ask, then: what's wrong with Antoinette?

If you're particularly lyrical, go with the first. If you seek validity, take the second.

I don't know why we go mad. Maybe it's that - the mesh of things that you can't extricate into particular chords. To not think is like standing on a precipice, knowing that you'll eventually jump. Antoinette did - rather majestically. Argh.

2007-04-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

3.45 am.

Nirmalendu, dead and gone. The day he died, I didn’t feel a thing. I started a sketch with Chinese ink. I copied it from a drawing on an old, fading postcard; the drawing accompanied by two rows of Chinese calligraphy. Such complicated beauty. It was a swimming suit catalogue: the postcard rested between two babes in bikinis. It was a drawing of bamboo stalks; vivid in the foreground, dull and faint in the background. I didn’t feel a thing. I looked for a plain piece of paper; there was none. Only the ruled college notebooks. I drew on the first empty page. I loved Chinese ink. I loved the way it dries on a page with such certainty, the multiple shades it produces, the smell, the ease with which it leaks from the strands of the brush. I concluded my first stalk of bamboo. Rather powerless strokes, certain but gentle – the resulting colour was brown. Reddish brown. The purple-black of the ink and the almost-yellow of the paper. All this and Nirmalendu dead. I dipped my brush into the glass, the tip pressing against water and the gloom of the ink snaked in; it coiled and traveled down, down to the bottom of the glass and it coated the water. Gloom hugged the water; the water like a sheet, soaked, every bit of it, in black. And I wept.

2007-04-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's 2 in the morning. I'm thinking of --

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot,
Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

We're rascals, scoundrels, villans, and knaves,
Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs,
Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirate's life for me!

2006-10-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

The best word ever said on TV is 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. Prince George, the walrus, mispronounces it. And never gets it right. This is a devoted example of a versatile word. When you're angry, red in the face, say it. It makes for a good distraction. When you're feeling over-intellectual, say it. It's such an elusive word, it'll make you red in the face. All considered, it's just a word that rings beautifully. Something like 'supercalifragilistiexpialadocius'.

2006-09-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Flasheart: Always treat your kite like you treat your woman!

George: How do you mean, Lord Flash? You mean bring her home to meet your mother?

Flasheart: I mean get inside her five times a day and take her to the heaven and back!

2006-09-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Is something potentially wrong if you are serene when there are chickens dancing on your screen? Roasted, too.

2006-09-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit fond of the mute, wiry thing on my bed. Nothing innovative - my telephone. It substitutes almost everything: food, time, agony with self. Tonight I was on the phone with a friend, made a casual remark and responded to with, "You're sarcastic."

Ah.

Well, sarcasm is for me what an ever-boisterous laugh, joke overdose, or deficiency in speech is for others. It lets me off. To flee from a mundane speech before I get holes in my earlobes. To take flight from unpleasant, looming things.
Another thing incredibly loveable about sarcasm is the smack. In brief, (most) people are hanging meat (or hovering - absolutely your call) and everytime I do sarcasm, I get a smack. It goes way in, squelchily. That keeps them away. Sort of like garnished pesticide.

One needs sarcasm for sheer survival. The logic of the case is that one needs to work towards being a knight (or maiden) in a polished armour. Sarcasm is my polish, my metal. Take that away and I'm limping, drooping, lessening.
I can be perfectly nice too. If people stop turning into hovering meat.

2006-09-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Every living thing who believes that education leads them to something very, very good is supposedly familiar with that curious, itching sensation on the bottom. The seating accommodation may be leather, skin or wood. The bottom still hurts. What does that tell you? Over-extended period of sitting without relief?

Then the focus should lie on revolutionary reasoning to get these bottoms off. What's the blockage? Lectures.

Impertinent question: Why should bottoms suffer for the privileges of education? Yes, bottoms are little people, but what about democracy? The liberty to get off when they need off? Come on.

2006-09-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

If I refuse to speak to a person, that's because the person is a thickie. I do sound like an arrogant ass. Don't mind.

2006-09-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

As I understand it, the stomach is a very versatile thing. It is capable of a variety of bowel movements to dry your analogical capacity. Its lifelong scheme seems to be to have you perpetually amused, present along with the very becoming cleft on your forehead.

I came home with a rather soaring mood today, only to have it flattened like a fleeing cockroach. What's funny is everyone seems to ponder on my future more than I do. I hold the bucket, the water comes pouring in. I love to make people laugh.
I like writing a thing like this. About upturned stomachs and leavened cockroach. Or expand, and act it out.

Because finding a likeness for a spiteful stomach can take you hours...and you'll get used to - and love - the almost-drenched feeling. And...um...yikes!...uh...got to go...

2006-09-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Being with Pea feels like sitting on a bed of nails - if those things still exist, or be kind enough to think of a contemporary analogy. I am expected to defend myself continuously - thus confirming my strength - against sarcasm (I'm an enthusiast, but I know my timing), pessimism and diffidence. If I'm rather sinking on a pile of manure when I make my plea, I'm a couple of inches deeper when I'm done. And Pea doesn't want much from life, I suppose; it's enough to find faults with things, even with the most natural of them, like rust on a bicycle.

2006-09-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

A kitten is always at peak; it's when cattiness nears that a kitten starts becoming revolting...

I don't always loathe not being able to stop the worms up there; sometimes it's delightful. It's only when I have something pressing to do that it gets in the way.
But think about other people with similar worms - there must have been some - say, somewhere outside India in the 30s, even before, where Yoga is alien. What did they do?
I don't like the idea of having to resort to something to control things that I should be able to control myself.

Even Neye can be nauseating sometimes. We're very close, but I think that's only because we avoid talking about things we don't have in common. Now if she tells me her problems or if we talk when we're watching a movie together, she seems plain and limited - sometimes naive, sometimes crude.
The other day we got to talking, and she said something about how someone should love only one person in life. It irritates me.

Sometimes I talk little, or not at all, and she insists that there has to be a reason for me not talking: something must have happened that offended me, or made me cheerless. And that's not the case; more often than not, that is not the case.
With me, if something happens - a fight I had, or something that someone did ( and I can explain why precisely that it should disturb me) - I will have it out.
If I only know that something is upsetting - a condition, a person - and the thing is not solid or lucid, and so can't be explained, how do I make it clear?

Then, perhaps arrogantly, I know that I can't expect people who don't have the feelings themselves to understand. That was the problem with Mm.
She prodded, but wishing to listen only what she wanted. Not to understand, or to know, maybe because she couldn't.

Ahhh, but Saturday's not the day to grumble!

Is everyone pink and singing - even if fairly out of tune?

2006-08-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

This is how it goes...

flirts -- teases -- stuns -- excites

Will explicate when my lids can open a wee bit wider --

Hee.

2006-08-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Dee is a curious mixture of peanut butter and a toothache: ordinary and immensely aggravating. If peanut butter were to have a brain, she would be rich. And indeed she is. Perhaps that is what renders her to be perpetually angry at the world and almost everything she comes into contact with.

Let fancy takes flight, and she is a coquettish assassin. Oh, but she does flirt! Leads you on and on, and drops the axe when you're dazed with passion.
She walks in long strides, as if in competition with something and one is lost in rhythm as one watches: heigh-ho, heigh-ho...

I have experienced fairly strong impulses to address the lady as 'pea-butt'. 'Toothache', sadly, cannot really be mutilated to produce such an ingenious moniker.

So there goes Miss Pea-butt, living her peanut-butterish (read: mundane, dull, insipid, superbly tame, wishy-washy) life because she believes it to be peanut-butterish, with an everlasting frown on her face, giving an impression of a ripe toothache, providing others with similar sensations.

And why did I write about Miss Pea-butt? Well. I was aggravated.

2006-08-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. E visits us a couple of times in a week. If I was in my childhood, I would find the pain of witnessing her entrance similar to the bitterest medicine my Mom gave me for stomachaches. It's fascinating that her entrance works in quite the reverse: my tummy squirms, screams, squeaks. Still, Ms. E is tap, tap, tapping into the class.

Ms. E is a furiously blushing, deliciously healthy thing, with - if the lights are not so dim - pinkish cheeks.
Our void, shell-like lives, are graced with lessons of Humanity. The syllabus covers a variety of topics, amongst which are: How to be Human, Hoist Humanity and Hark! Humanity Hovers.

With a husky, rather breathless voice, Ms. E unearths the piling wax in our ears. Her presence lingers, like the aftertaste of stale bread or fusty fish curry.
It's a presence of the sort that balloons and balloons and never pops.

Verdict: Gag her and bury her. Let Peace returns.

2006-08-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

The Way We Were and Malamud's The Natural are playing on Saturday. Also, am going to see Downfall tomorrow. Whee! And whee!

Should procrastinate (re-procrastinate?) on the book, I'm afraid. Am too...what's the word for an unstable chemical element that really can't wait to react? I'm that.

2006-08-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'm learning to laugh at myself. Absolutely frightening. To know that things are not elegant and impressive all the time when it's precisely the absence of that feeling that can make it very difficult. Delightful things are small and momentary; you have to suck it all in right then and there. And they're contingent: one calming look you get in that one moment when you need it, meeting a person when being alone is a tempting and dangerous thing. A similar meeting or look in different circumstances mean something else, perhaps nothing at all.
So you wonder if there's nothing to be figured out, something else to be found out because such a small offer is something of an insult - and to be content with that?
Then sometimes you feel that even contemplating it is asking for too much - when the delight, however small and fleeting, is relieving.
The average feeling hovers somewhere between those.

2006-08-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

To hear it described as 'postcoital sadness' struck me. I always think of it as a sort of melancholy...a feeling of being overcome by something...perhaps even self-commiseration. Maybe that's it though, what you feel, when you cry post-orgasm.
The loveliest feeling ever.

2006-08-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Ladies in Lavender has the capacity to make me laugh and worry. It's beautiful.

2006-08-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

There is a lady that comes to our flat every month. She claims to be a sweeper of some sort; her job is to make sure the stairs in the building are clean, and thus asks for money. Now, this is rather Iagoesque. We live on the second floor of the building and the flat is quite oddly situated; the result of which, we or any other tenants on the second floor never see her about with her job. And men's words, as known, are a fragile thing.

I have always been fairly brusque with her, perhaps because of the supposed superiority that I am naturally in possession of, being the owner of the money. My reason though, is because she knocks with the plastic stick of her broom; two rude knocks usually, followed by a bark. If the door is not opened due to sulkiness on my part (or my roommate's), there comes the knocks again, louder, unrelenting. If I am predisposed to be a kinder person and consent to open the door, she stands there with her heavy arms on her waist, her hair in a chaotic curly bun, broom across the chest, brazen and brash.

She came a couple of days ago, just minutes before I was about to leave for an exam. My respond to her then was, to say the least, foul. My mind - which has acquired that disinclination to stretch - was engaged in the looming exam and the possibility of being late (which indeed I was), and here she was, barking up the door, as if money was her birthright. I told her callously I had no money, that she should come back, and closed the door on her face - with extra force.

Last night, she popped in my head. And I thought that maybe, each time she came for money, she knew that there was a small chance of her acquiring it, and the brazenness, the broom boldness and the bark were done to increase the chance. And she wasn't a beggar, was she? She wasn't going to beg. Alternative? Force? No. That would be something closer to theft.
Defence. Remember how it felt when you forgot to do your homework, or didn't do it for any reason at all when you were small, and then asked to explain yourself? That feeling of being aware that you've done something wrong, but right there, at the moment, there was no escape. Come up with something. An excuse, anything. Fast. And stick to it; back it up with anything you can think of. Or don't say anything at all. Let the punishment come. Let it be over.
But at the moment: defence.

And this is more than just homework, unfortunately. I don't even want to speculate.

This morning I was milder, and she put her hand together to form that bowl-like shape to receive the money. I felt horrid. A bit better too, nevertheless.

My wings haven't exactly grown back though :)

2006-08-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

I just let go of another chance, as the name goes. Let me, though, relish in this fancy: that I am some sort of a fisher woman and chances are fishes. You let go of one, two...because you're not skilled enough; the fish is too heavy and you need time, strength, courage, assurance...and you'll try again and hope to be a little luckier.
To dream doesn't mean you're whisked away; there are the little multitudes within that still respond, quite strongly, to a hug, a word of kindness, a smile and chocolate ice cream.

2006-08-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

The rain poured smugly just as we (me and Jen) were leaving tonight. Like brave adventurers we were, slashed by the rain, venturing out for dinner!
I have been rather down for quite sometime and the weather, oddly enough, cheered me. There is something in gloomy weather that draws you out: couples don't embrace as much in daunting heat, if you insist on an example. Passions are more pronounced. It does play with you, the weather.

Melchett sums it up rather nicely, I think: "Like the gods' private parts are we; they play with us for their sport."

And sometimes, I don't really mind.

2006-08-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

My payasam is burnt. This is the Elegy of the Burnt Payasam:

O burnt, burnt payasam
why did you stay mum?
Amidst the chatter of Vasugi
and the calling of a pee
why couldn't you utter, at least a hum?
Bladders are fussy,
and Vasugi, indeed,talks aplenty
A hum would've kept you yummy...
Now you're a congealed thing
and my heart is aching...
life is so baffling...
but I'll soon be basking
Baskin Robbins is waiting...

Vasugi is wonderful. La la.

2006-08-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

It was a sort of an affectionate tug that hauled me into the supermarket, and a quite large white board with 'Imported New Zealand Kiwis - Special Price' scribbled on it that amused me. You mean people fly across continents for these smallish greenish things? - you'd say. The smallish greenish things had stared at me innocently, invitingly.
I have just finished digging into the small, green, rather-hairy-on-the-outside fruit that is not usually available in the city.
I had sprinkled sugar on the green of the fruit having halved it. Now the bowl-like skin rests on my hand, fairly ticklish, bendy and wrinkled. And I think that's what loneliness should be like - the hollow of a kiwifruit. It's a spectacle of sadness, really, that solitary skin. I have no word for it. It trembles on my hand every now and then, the diameter of the half circle quivering. It didn't look very feeble before, with the flesh inside.

The rain attacks with a vengeance now, as if it has a spirit, resolved in chasing away the heat. It seems to be making a hearty progress with the crows, not so much with the heat. Madras weather is sensational - the heat possesses you, obliges you to close your eyes, and for a little while you feel the heat cracks you open and seeps spitefully through the fresh channels; the rain makes one wistful, if only for the undoing of the dominant heat. I can only compare it to a bath after a draining day.
The electricity is off again, and I have displayed all the animal patterns on the wall. Even a dolphin, and I can tell you it's quite fiddly - one has to twist one's fingers like one does a rubber glove. The beatific light that the emergency light offers flickers now, insinuating a spell of darkness. There it sits, on the small desk just by the door, smugly, basking in the knowledge of its worth.

I let out a small grunt. Quite rightly, mind you. It flickers a couple more times and goes off with a buzz. Dare I present you with an image of a winking, teasing girl that leaves one's view when a bus dashes in between?
I stare at the spot where I know the unbecoming lamp stands, willing it to flicker on again. After all in the books or movies, the winking girl always makes her reappearance - from a street corner, tricking the eye, or suddenly and with a flourish. Perhaps in reading and watching though, I have overlooked a certain trait of obstinacy in these girls, because the anticipated flicker leaves me in the lurch.
It is during this course of darkness that a knock lands on my door. A soft rap in the beginning, then it acquires more and more urgency.
I wish I were back in the house where I have lived in the past three years. Simpey would have rushed to the door. As it is, cowed by darkness and low-level intuitions, I feel my way slowly, squeamishly, to the door. Now I bash my big toe against something metallic: what, I cannot quite say, but it stings nevertheless.
Reaching the door, I try the traditional method of peeping through the keyhole to get a foretaste of my visitor, in an effort to pacify my heart. It will not do. The arrogance of darkness hovers solidly in the air, quite like a sultan on his pompous pillow.
I turn the key in its lock; fearing the bandit that looms in front of my door, ready to chop me up into a multiple little pieces, maybe Figaro too. Figaro is my cat. The nerve in my big toe is pulsating maliciously.

2006-08-07T06:33:00.001-07:00

This time with nails. Enough.

1

2006-08-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

It was a day in October, the month when the bougainvillea trees started parading their flowers. I claimed it a private privilege. Bougainvillea, I was told and so I had always believed, bloomed only in October, and being born in October, it was me they celebrated.
The park where I sat and ate my lunch was pleasantly windy and in October the wind flirted with the flowers. It rocked them to and fro, landed them on the bench, on the paved pathway, on men's shining shoes and women's silky duppattas or hair, then lifted them again, carried them upwards and upwards and let them plummet from a height, like child's play. Sometimes it let them linger a little too long and the soft petals were crushed under young girls' crushing heels, or brushed off shoulders like a persistent nuisance.
Jen was someone who picked up the petals. Perhaps she was born in October and knew about the bougainvillea too.
That morning, deprived of jam, I had a thin slice of fried egg as a surrogate for my sandwich filling. I spread the newspaper open on my lap, and unwrapped the aluminum foil, pushing on the bottom of my package, anxious for my lunch to emerge. And out came a sodden, wrinkled thing that made me pull my fingers away. Lunch I gave up then, opting for walking as mollification. The sandwich satisfied a bin and I trampled along, hands in pockets. And there was the lady who picked up the petal.The purple papery petal had been blown off the tree by the wicked wind, or perhaps, like all things young and pretty, the petal had lessened its grip on the branch and answered to the calling of an escapade. It had landed on someone's lunch and brushed off, falling in front of a man as he walked, intercepting his path like an invitation and rebuffed, now positioning itself on a lady's foot. I had amused myself halfway with the prospect of imminent malice, as most people excelled in, and was almost disappointed when the lady picked it up. I liked to have my surmises confirmed.

farewell to Minstry...

2006-08-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

"Where humans were concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure; and sorrow, for the hopelessness of it all."

The book left me quite unsettled, a little more fearful of life. Which many books do, but I make a point to look for that dash of glory, to balance the scale a bit. Even after a good night's sleep, I still insist that this one is a tad too tragic.
The tragedies you can put in a book are boundless; I think the art is in drawing the margin. An orange sky is pretty, but you can't make it too orange now, can you?
I don't know what draws people to tragedies; I only grasp the trend. Perhaps it speaks more accurately about life; is it really, though, filled with sacks of gloom?
I have an itching propensity to question people with too many good things in their life, never so if the bucket is full of calamities. It comes to me as naturally as mixing in three spoonfuls of sugar into my tea.
This book is my cure. I finally think you can have enough tragedy in a book. Perhaps there is a way to write tragedies into the story if you decide to have so much.

Mistry is pleasant to read, only sometimes he's agonising to the point that persuades you to stop reading, for fear that you may no longer delight in your afternoon walks like you used to.
There is hilarity though, however light; good characters and storyline, structured and carefully written sentences that leave me with that rare delight when I get my tea right - not the too sugary, too black semi-liquid; and it lacks what gives so many books that touch on India a little note of kitsch : extravagant melancholy.
Nevertheless, as I lapped away at the final pages and closed my last, I could only lament on the seeming fact that there is only one flimsy strip of sunshine in the bleak, bleak path of a life. (not with mine, not with mine!)

2006-08-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

I know some people whose lives are so beautiful, so delightful, so...pink.

2006-08-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

My, whom do people go to when they think they're going insane? That you can't think, can't live with yourself anymore. And that sounds egocentric.
It's all right. Insanity is a temporary thing anyway. Everyone goes through it once in a while and gets over it. One should sedate oneself with the thought of million others.

2006-08-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

The sky is overcast. Like the internal circle of a boiled egg - the one that surrounds the yellow.

2006-08-02T02:23:00.000-07:00

Will not let myself be swayed by others or what they say.

2006-07-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

Scratch that. Will lie down and entice sleep.

2006-07-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

I can't sleep. I thought I'd just launch the problem into a big, big space and consider it swallowed, taken away by...well, the big, big space.

Maddeningly enough, sleeping is not a problem of closing one's eyes. Of course, that's nothing new or revelatory; in fact, it may be infuriatingly vapid that I will be provoked to close my eyes and sleep.

No, sleeping is a matter of drifting into the unconscious. Which is quite a daunting journey, to be honest. If being conscious is anything like looking at oneself in the wee hours of the morning having just woken up, being uncoscious is nothing short of catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, naked, in the middle of your period. Disillutioning.

I have spurned the company of the ever pleasant-smelling coffee and settled for warm milk (the mug is the same, so it's not much of a perfidy), restricted my manuscript to Archie comics, shunned the insistent urge to get my hands on the Sims because of the voice in my head that insists I haven't laid enough eggs of worth, and my sleep, for all I know, is busy flirting with others.

Does that famous sandman still come and visit? No, will not think, will not fantasise, will not obsess, will not worry.

Will sit and entice sleep.

2006-07-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

A pic of the class and some of its copacetic occupants. *amused*

a looming thing upon my Sunday

2006-07-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

There is a weighty task looming upon my Sunday. Sundays, thankfully, are still more magical to me than mundane, even though the magic takes a more tricky turn than what is customary.
Well. Let's go back to my looming thing. As a part of that glorious privilege to have a seat reserved in a college, there are the wicked things - assignments.
Rather like itches, really: amusing, distressing, and pleasant to scratch.

Mine, which looms like a gloomy Shadow - minus the scythe - is to alter the ending of a play. Hold the contentions. It does sound offensive to me too, initially. A little more, after I finished reading the play in question; I realised it had been written with a focus, an intention to represent something and more importantly, there is a reason why the ending had been made thus. And I felt a chill I have never been able to explain, similar to one I felt when I still wet my bed and woke in the morning recalling the promise I had made my mother the previous night that I would not wet my bed.
What does altering an ending constitute?
Sometimes it feels to constitute such wrongness as to - forgive the harshness of the phrase - soil somebody else's well-nurtured garden.

I have written this in an effort to appease myself a little, but I have been misled. My heart still hammers at the prospect.

2006-07-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

Madras is a city that leaves you with a cicatrice. I learn, for one, that people get used to anything. It's never so much a matter of enduring or living in inhumane circumstances as it is a matter of getting used to things.
What I come close to asking, every time I come across an article in a newspaper or a journal, when I read a story, or when I meet someone strongly committed to, say, developing the living condition of a community is, do they understand?
Do they understand why or how people cope?
The analogy I cosset myself with is quite unkind: similar to releasing an animal that has been cooped up in a zoo, into the wild. Natural, but doesn’t make the prospect less daunting.
If I see someone sleeping in the side street, chilled under a blanket at eight o'clock in the morning, it seems out of place not to feel guilty. Allow oneself a little lenience though, and ask oneself this (not without a little wariness): what would the fellow do with a computer, a lot of money, or a lot of books? He may be as lost as I would be were I in his place.

My question that morning then, as the thought of being late popped in now and then in my head and the dry, clammy air blew an occasional wind, was : what do they wish for?
It must be the kind of comfort my little room brings me after an intricate day in college, the kind of pleasure some books and movies promise me, the kind of assurance people I know well provide me with. I let my rickety auto carried me to college and let the thought fluttered away.

twittery. twittery?

2006-07-25T05:32:00.000-07:00

Am surprisingly twittery.

Do you know the feeling when you go shopping with a big shopping list, and halfway home you feel that you've forgotten something, but having arrived home, you check and you get everything all right? Is twittery the word?

I suppose I can, for the next couple of hours, read poems with lines that go, "The sun is shining / the birds are singing / it's a beautiful, beautiful day..."

Hhhh.

a matter of contingency?

2006-07-24T07:34:00.001-07:00

I never expect myself to outgrow the sensations, and so the question still leaves me unsettled. It was asked again today, during my innocuous visit to the little corner bookshop. It was meant, of course, as a friendly gesture. 'Where are you from?'
And I would have loved, very much, to lie and go with the short, unproblematic answer : oh, just around the corner.
But I couldn't lie. I couldn't. Although I expect it to be easy whenever I'm caught in a situation where I have to talk about things I find difficult to touch on. Lying, I suppose then, is a matter of expertise. And there are different degrees too. Mind you, I'm quite adept in a number of aspects.

I do think that births are a matter of contingency. Place, time, and the whole protracted chains of them. Whenever questioned about it though, there still sparks a speck of irritation. It feels like someone peeking through my drawn curtain. And it's drawn for a reason. I'm reassured every once in a while when I meet people who know when to lay back and let down their inquisitive antennas. I think people have grounds to speak up and conceal, and that's something one should respect.

Personally, I'd rather divulge the brand of my flip-flops, the butter I use, and how many eggs I eat on average per-annum. But nobody is yet to question me on those.

So lay to rest all these talks on eggs and seeds and contingencies.

Good night.

really...

2006-07-24T02:18:00.000-07:00

Really. One shouldn't be miserable when one can afford not to be.
When you feel your stomach humming, grab a bar of chocolate. The more nutrition-oriented ones, muesli bars. Or salad. Take your pick.
If you feel a little hollow, like an empty eggshell, you dash for Jeeves.
When you feel out of colour, like well-worn socks, you take a deep, deep breath and do something new. Get a haircut. Sing a favourite song in a different language. Try a different soap.
If you feel small (in extreme cases, minuscule), get a stack of self-help books and read. Those with the 'minuscule' cases may try to get the books secondhand.

But I feel hollow and out of colour and small. I will have an hour of Jeeves, luxuriate in a new soap despite the curious smell, but I loathe self-help books. I suppose I will smirk and let myself inflate.

I'm a little down....

Well, more than a little.

2006-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

I don't understand this feeling, but it keeps coming back. I want something and I'm too scared. I'm impatient with myself sometimes. I feel like everything goes too fast now. I have to stop, but there's no time. I'm scared. And it's painful. I need to talk. I don't know --

Aftertaste - The Stars' Tennis Balls

2006-07-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

I have to confess that any book of Stephen Fry’s finds me lean back onto my a-little-too-dirty, a-little-too-smelly pillow on my plastic brownish chair, chuckling in delight every now and then. Words dance and loop and twirl in his hands, like a provocatively competent tap dancer. He makes you gasp, really.
I also have to confess that when I bought the book, I braced myself for a considerably light, relaxing evening, and like a little girl I was who once smirked smugly at a prospect of a math test, I was – to try to put it precisely – walloped.
It was light, the first few pages of it, but then it turned quite grave. And was I disappointed?
The truth is, that having read quite a number of books, I learned – gradually at times, other times quickly, sternly and quite shockingly – that one should never start any book with a smirk or any method of defence. I did close the book, and let it rest snuggly amidst the stacks of my unwashed clothes, but so I did retract it and continue reading it with an expectation list as clean as, they say, the tabula rasa.
And I got back my delightful chuckle. I got back the warm, snuggly feeling from the pages, even as accompanied by the smutty, smelly pillow.
It is a story in the most rooted understanding of it – what you look for in storybooks, really – and has a beautiful ending if you can refrain yourself from asking why. I know what you’re going to say now…right now…at this moment...but stop.

I have Paperweight with me, but following carefully the instruction given, I take care to read not more than a couple of pages a day. It will be sometime yet before I can post my ‘aftertaste’. Let a couple of eggs boil. Let a couple of fishes die. Let a couple of assignments see that they’re nurtured. Let a couple of baths be taken.

I’m waiting to get my hands on other books, maybe Moab is My Washpot.
‘Men have limitations’, I remember a sad, mourning voice said. Money is miserably mine.

Aftertaste – Untouchable

2006-07-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

mood : content

*(faint spoilers)

Truthfully uttered, I’d rather cradle myself in something closer to Wodehouse or Malcolm Bradbury (the other whiz) these days; if I have to touch on something a bit melancholically realistic, I’d go with Ishiguro or the like – something less stark.
But Untouchable has to be read, and it’s done.
And…it’s a ride. I’m not let down.
The evaluation between the pile and the things that make up the pile. Of course it’s easy to see a pile as a pile, rather than as one, two, three objects piled together making up one pile. And that’s where people lose track of what they should do. They take care of the pile, but the individuals remain – only scattered.
The generalisation of people into communities. Sometimes we forget that each man has parents, a brother or sister, a heart. And hearts, I’m sure, can’t be put away in a melting pot to be scrutinised so that one may determine what’s missing. That must be the peak of arrogance – to think that one knows what a heart needs.
I find the man with the hockey stick to be kinder than people who write up speeches and plan to do away with untouchability. Pride works in the strangest way. I don’t remember who mentioned this to me, that all men are selfish, that even in the very act of aiding someone, the self always makes up a part of the motive.
I wonder if you feel it? That feeling of superiority – however misplaced. Of course you feel guilty afterwards if you’re one of those who don’t let go of things very easily, but the feeling is there – that you’re able to help, you know something they don’t, you can do something they cannot.
The thing with the man with the hockey stick is humanity.
There’s an episode with Oscar Wilde and Ross when Oscar was marched off to prison. Ross was amongst the crowd – the crowd who spat and cursed – watching Oscar being taken away; Ross took off his hat and gave Oscar a brief nod. There then, if you happen to speculate on what humanity is – or in its basic form, kindness.

2006-07-16T04:46:00.000-07:00

To my brothers, with a salute --

The clouds now teasingly gather
The conversation has turned to weather
We sit in quiet and wonder
Why to converse is such a flounder?

Me, my charm and poise
You, that ever-so-present voice
We should fit like feet and socks
We together, should be cogs

Diapers are a thing of the past
But days and diapers trample fast
Now you a lass mollycoddled
Me, alas, simply befuddled

Here’s to the days to come
Greet the mornings with a ho-hum!

2006-07-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to the bum! Who's been told not to sob or mop. The Plock-Plock Sisterhood wishes you a very delightful year ahead!

the essentials?

2006-07-15T06:54:00.000-07:00

There are essentials in life.

Water. Of which I have, at the moment, around a litre. Due to the failure to notice when I'm actually running out of it (the process). But I will be salvaged tomorrow. Soon enough.

Friends. Of which I have quite a few. Rather like raisins on a bun - the bun being an analogy for the world, if those two ends of rubbery, fleshy material that's supposed to click and produce a spark in one's head haven't yet done so.

Fear. A lot, really...a panic hen would be a good equivalence. I suppose the only way to shoo it away is to challenge it. In the phenomenal words of Joey, "...stare at the barrel of a gun, pee into the wind!" There's a little voice somewhere inside me that hopes things won't go to that extreme, though the latter does sound quite delightful.

Love. Yes. Always induces you to sing, doesn't it? Or twitter is more the word, perhaps? Through the privilege of certain companions (desirable and otherwise), I've been rather thoroughly informed and made wiser on the subject. There is a variety of the thing - i.e. 'love' (n).
There is one that makes you gooey on the legs. One that makes your cheeks go pink, and purple and green. One that makes every bit of you swells. And many others, as it stands. But there's also one that makes you sing even with an aggresive voice, makes you particular without a face that launches a thousand ships, makes you think being silly is delightful when you're too shy to even make faces in the mirror.

So there.

2006-07-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

Loved things never last. They're kept so as not to be lost,and in being kept they lose something else. Something love cannot restore. Love's passion is hatred's passion. A catalyst in courses of action.

...

2006-07-13T03:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, fuck. Fuckity fuck. Fuck.

tea

2006-07-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

While conversing with myself tonight, a thought popped (occured, visited) about a place where people are very fond of tea. Conversations go like this:

"He left, Mama."
"Oh, darling..."
"And you should see that...that crafty witch! Oh, but Mama, she's so scrumptious!"
"Now, now, dumpling...a cup of tea will set you straight."
"Oh, tea! Yes, of course!"

Or :

"Hello, munchkin...how was work today?"
"Uggh...I should get some tea."
"That bad, huh?"
"Sorted a bunch of paperclips...pink from blue."
"Dear munchkin...I'll go get your tea, and then we can..." (gestures at the bedroom)
"You think...?"
"I'll make your tea...thick."
"Rrrrr."

Charmingly retarded. But tea is wonderful. Wonderful.

(almost) over and done with

2006-03-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

Loving the last days...when the rush-like-mad rabbits part is almost over.

Am going to read a fic that's supposed to be a cross-over between Blackadder and Wooster...may either be very, very obscene, or very, very imbecilic-like. Let's see.
I mean, of course Wooster is endowed with an abstract sort of intelligence, and Blackadder is dashing (nothing short of Jeeves, only a little vulgar)...the two together should be something really new.

Good. Finished with everything, but the exam. But can't even worry about that right now. Lightyears away...
The final draft of project is quite quirky, really...with a map and a sofa on the title page. am not going to explicate, but I think is quite subtle...:)

The project has taught me another thing: that nothing, nothing can ever be perfect, no matter how much you work on it. I made around six copies in total, including the final draft, and still found two words typed together (some carried dirty sexual overtones as a result), but finally gave it up.
The other day someone remarked that wrapping up the project is like having a baby. Considering that very lesson, it rather freaked me out.

ode to coffee, with bits on Freud and such

2006-03-21T02:17:00.000-08:00

Dum dum. Feeling very empty head-wise. Wonder if brain has inflated again?

Also wonder if it would have been a better world had Freud decided to give his brain a little rest.
And a lot others.

Have an odd-tasting coffee sitting on my table. Maybe the way it was concocted. The coffee powder was not really coffee powder...more like congealed brownish solid gunge, portions of which were dropped unceremoniously into the milk. And did put a deliberate amount of sugar.
Honestly. Tastes like liquified coffee candies, perverted kind.

And --

Deepthi's back in town. Still share the same adoration for the fowl family - bless them.

4.10 pm

Also wonder if babies have developed conciousness. (Suddenly sprung to mind because of the baby next door.) Most human rights violations happen around this period. What I can testify for:

- passionate cheek pinching

- (indecent) bum slapping

- forcing one into clothes that, though pretty, have very, very itchy laces

- taking pictures of one in less-than-civilized positions

Maybe Freud is wrong after all. Maybe daughters are more disposed towards fathers because fathers never deal with abominable laces. None of those sex-oriented stuff.

...

Can't explain Oedipus complex, though. Maybe because boys are never subjected to such treatments. And bosom counts, surely. Oh, all right...so maybe there's a teeny-weeny bit on sexual urges.

11 pm

2006-03-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Day was ruined because of lecherous auto driver. Was surprised that still feel disturbed with such common, inevitable occurences: men whistling, etc. Thought am over it.

Procrastination takes very, very strong hold. An exam tomorrow, and haven't studied at all. But maybe a good thing. Optimistic about brain power.
Haven't got a new mail in three days. Maybe something I said implying over-the-top vanity?

Am going to rewrite the essay...excited. Also think the last story is rather boring and disoriented.
Oh, but will go to register for dance classes tomorrow. Will see if the music club still accepts membership, as well. Hope there will be an absence of lecherous drivers, or anything lecherous at all.

Exams will be over by April 17th. Thinking of getting on plane on 21st. The two days should be spared for thorough cleaning of apartment. The kitchen, especially, is a jungle in its own rights - with at least three additional species inhabiting it, not including self.

Think that Kushwant Singh is vulgar. Funny, but vulgar. Not that vulgar is wrong, but not going to start on any argument along that line. Not very impressed. Active imagination, though.

dum dum

2006-03-18T10:56:00.001-08:00

Do not know what to write. But do not think have any other option. Throat is sore, therefore cannot sing. Have been reading far too much and start feeling like Liz Bennet on edge. Artistic mood has been completely pumped out, therefore cannot draw or write anything worthy of later revision.
There. It's 12.30 - after midnight - and am stuck in front of a mute computer screen, convincing myself that life is wonderful. Have just completed a memory round of past crushes - some include singers and actors who, in the course of years, have turned out to be complete perverts or nymphos. The prospect of tragic spinsterhood looms nearer. Not that I mind, though. Maybe. Life is wonderful.
So what to do next? Movie. Ah. Tempting. Very.
Have an exam on Monday. Procrastination is a rule.
So. Good night. And remember that thing about life.

post-menopausal cashier

2006-03-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

Face to face with a feisty bank cashier today. Apparently I didn't put my signature on the right spot (which was funny, because I have always signed on the same spot), and she handed my slip back. I didn't quite catch what she said, because there was this thick glass between us (the ingenuous invention that's supposed to stall crime). Before I knew it, she started yelling at me, saying all kinds of things that didn't meet my sense.

My guess:
- early post-menopausal attack?
- has just put on weight?
- stolen husband?
- stuck career? (I'm thinking that sitting in a small cubicle, behind a glass for ten hours a day has its challenges. And for someone to realise that that's all she's capable of doing, plus the post-menopause thing, weight issue, and stolen husband...)

I'm being mean. And sarcastic. I don't care. I'm not the one stuck in a diminutive cubicle for the rest of my life...(*cackles*)

Adjectives? Naah...

2006-03-16T02:29:00.000-08:00

If I say, "I'm the kind of person who says, 'this is my third cup of coffee, and the bladder is still intact'."
Will people know what I mean? I think they're going to stare at me for what you refer to as a 'whoopsie' of a second, raise their eyebrows to that cynical arch (or do that thing with shoulders that's just incomprehensible), and leave. But do they understand?
Of course they do. In the very, very bottom, undifferentiated part of being, they do. And this is the only way you can express yourself (come up with your own ingenous, slightly indecent phrase, of course), because adjectives are no longer in fashion. They're not enough...and as a form of expression, strangely, not expressive enough.

2005-12-20T05:23:00.000-08:00

The fever has finally gone down. Thank God.
It's not very clear right now whether I smell like my bed or my bed smells like me, but we've been inseparable for the last two days. So, ode to that.
Next, I'm grateful for the pills. The next most humane invention would be these pills in smaller scale. They just have to do it.
Then...tea. It has a natural tendency of making you feel a little less dying. Especially if you put a lot of sugar in, and then drink it till the last drop, you'll have the melted sugar left at the bottom of the cup...that's the best bit.
And susan and vasu. Phone calls make me feel a lot better, even in the murkiest of days.

My voice is still a bit heavy because of all the phlegm. It makes all the Stevie Wonder's songs sound wonderful. Can I get rid of the phlegm and keep the voice?

2005-12-18T03:18:00.000-08:00

Socks are the most blessed thing in the world.

I got the cold. Mermaid got it very recently and I want her to know how much I feel for her.

I've been walking around the house all wobbly pretty much the whole day, deprived of gas and cheer. Bless the socks and balm for keeping me warm.

The peak of my day was when I found that my pills for cold come in different forms - they're all smaller and flatter. Don't you love technology?

"I love you even when you're sick and look disgusting."
- Jamie, Love Actually

2005-12-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you need to be content only with the knowledge that you’re not alone. Without practice. To pull you through, at least. I won't.

2005-12-14T01:33:00.000-08:00

I'm taking time off to write about dreams and dreams that are likely to stay dreams.
Let’s start with the rather realistic one. When I’m done with my degree, what I really wish I could do is to go to UK and take a course in screenwriting and acting. I hope this time we would spend less much time in the classroom.

By the way, I started smelling odd scents in my present classroom. Don’t ask for more, you might be given more than you could handle. To nurture one's imagination in this aspect is uncalled for.

Another one is that I can get over my fear of public – more accurately, the loud public – and get up on stage and sing one more time. The last time I did left me glowing. I can’t tell you how good that felt.

And I love my fingers. I just get to notice them a lot recently, playing the piano, and believe me, they are lovely :)

2005-12-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

We had a Pakistani poet coming over last Saturday. It baffled me – not the poet, the fact that it’s increasingly popular to invite people to educational institutions to give lectures, or just for students to have interactive sessions. What we have, then, is a so-called intellectual arena, with a discussion that varies from politics, religion, and whatnots.
I don’t know what the aim of the discussion is.
It’s like having a chronic case of cancer and refusing to see the doctor, either out of fear or the possibility of having the fear affirmed. At the same time, you don't want to leave yourself feeling that you haven't made an attempt to make things better.
I can’t help the sneaky feeling that the label ‘intellectual’ and the discussions go together. The concern will vanish overnight.

2005-12-10T02:12:00.000-08:00

It may be easier for a fellow to kick someone up the bottom. For that reason alone, it’s really worth being a man. Or maybe, I could be a tough, backside-kicking female for a day. Some really do ask for it. I’m not in the mood for any hyper entry.

2005-12-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

Susan called. Just to check on me. To see how I was. I love phone calls of this sort. People calling you for no reason at all, just to make sure you're ok.

2005-12-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

I want to tell someone that half of the things I do doesn’t matter to me. That half of the things I read and pretend to understand doesn’t make sense. It would be even better if that can be understood as a form of honesty; something that I say because I have to say it, not as another thing I say to earn approval.
Sadly, I need approvals. I’m happiest when I’m with myself. I approve myself. My crappy hobbies, my shallow topics to write about…the fact that I don’t need a thesaurus when I’m writing for myself. The fact that I can talk to myself and insult everyone who makes my list of the nastiest people I’ve ever met and be okay about me being evil. Be okay with the fact that I truly dislike some people and wish the ugliest things to happen to them, even with the fantasies that include myself doing some of the dirty things.

What is it about the part of ourselves that we wish to keep secret? What’s so wrong with letting it all out in the open for everyone to see? What do we not want anyone to find out about ourselves? Why?
Does that mean there is a part of us that we don’t like? Something that we’re ashamed of, and yet we desperately want to keep?

And there are people, of course, who never even ask the questions. And they’re probably the happiest lot. They just get on with what they have, go where the current takes them, never having that nasty feeling tagging along that provokes you to pause and look back…look at how dirty you are.
The thing is, once you pause, you can never move on again until you find out, or come to terms with the reason for the pause. Even worse if you pause, and you could never find the reason. Funny, because the reason should come to you before the pause. If the pause comes first, it’s like something that happens without a cause. Next step? Blow your head off looking for the reason.

From me? Good luck.

Writing feels so much better when you're honest. And it doesn't happen to me often. This is one of the few. Hhhh.

2005-11-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

I think people can be civil to you, agree to be your friends – if you want to call it so – because they don’t think much of you. The ones that do, that respect you in a way, will stay away, probably hating you, because you earn their respect.
The friendly ones don’t see you as a threat; the moment they do, they’ll stay away too.