Dancing on the Window Sill

2011-11-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

I need a new blog. It is most unfortunate that the realisation that one needs a new blog strikes one the day before a paper deadline. But that's typical. Just putting the thought down here, for future reference, since my fickle mind will have shifted to something completely different by the time I actually have time to make a new blog. Yeah. It's like I have ADD and amnesia and everything else all rolled together. No shit.

9 ways to help you get yourself out on a sticky wicket and get back to the dressing room safely

2011-05-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

1. Study. Critical theory, Barthes, Said, Poetics, post-colonial theory, Sara Suleri, Ngugi, Coetzee, Spivak - anything and (preferably) everything.

2. Write yr goddamn term paper.

3. Shop for a hot new dress for your girls' night out.

4. Watch blonde chick flicks that make you sob happily a little and think about your BFFs and drink more coffee before you return to Said's arms.

5. Tequila with the girls!**

6. Go dancing with the girls.**

7. Bake 'em a burnt Shepherd's Pie.**

8. Get your eyebrows done, buy a new kohl stick, and dress nicely again.

9. Remember that cliches are often true.

**To be executed only after May 26, 2011. Conditions apply.

2011-03-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Iss surat se
Arz sunatay
Dard batatay
Nayya khaitay
Minnat kartay
Rasta taktay
Kitni sadiyaan beet gai hain
Ab jakar yeh bhaid khula hai
Jis koh tum ne arz guzari
Jo tha haat pakarnay waala
Jis jaag laagi nao tumhaari
Jis say dukh ka daaroo manga
Toray mandir may joh nahin aaya
Woh toh tum hi the
Woh toh tum hi the

- from Nazr-e-Khusro, Faiz Ahmed Faiz

2011-03-06T09:19:00.000-08:00

I've found the answer to the biggest question of my life on the back of a matchbox.

Poro poro, maa, goyna poro.

2011-02-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

The following observations are to be made about a wedding in my family:

1. Everyone gets really angry.
2. Everyone quarrels.
3. Everyone drinks too much.
4. Everyone cracks weird jokes.
5. Everyone tries to dress up too much for their own fucking good.
6. Everyone falls sick.
7. No one gets any sleep.
8. The bride, her mother, her aunts and her sisters have nervous breakdowns at some point or the other.

The especially dangerous bits can be classified as:

1. Tatyo-gochhano: Chaos. This entails several people stuck together in a couple of rooms, which resemble a warehouse, for at least a day and a night. Two-three people work, the rest quarrel, drink, make pointless suggestions, talk all at once, laugh, cry, and generally make a mess. One person sleeps through it. One child shreds styrofoam relentlessly and with gusto.

2. The women of the family putting on heavy/sharp/pointy/otherwise uncomfortable jewellery: These sometimes resemble Vedic weapons of war, the kind described in the epics. If you have something weighing down or tearing apart your earlobes/sticking into sensitive parts of your neck/scalp, you grow red in the face, lose your temper, and shout at everyone in your line of vision in an incoherent manner. Imagine several women of varying age groups doing this at once.

3. Partying/nights-out with out-of-town uncles and aunties: They get drunk, they get you drunk, they sing on a hotel terrace on the Ganges and you fucking join them, they find out you smoke, they offer you a cigarette, they tell you not to smoke, they tell you to drink instead, they can't really dance that well anymore, but they take you to Tantra and dance like their lives depend on it, they keep trying to pull you onto the floor, and you stand by the bar sipping rum and smiling and discover that, for the first time in your life, you don't feel like dancing to the most insane, foot-tapping, obscene shit in town.
You miss your cousin, because if he was there too, you could have actually done your moves without feeling like an absolute jackass.

4. Make-up: The less said, the better.

5. Shojyatuluni and traditional shaali fun: A word of advice: If you're stupid and high enough to forget to extort money at the right time, don't try later.

Okay, I'm too tired to say much more, so I'll end with the four states of the family home during and immediately after a wedding.

1. Fish market.
2. Mental asylum.
3. Hospital.
4. Battlefield strewn with the wounded.

2011-02-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Because there is too much.
Because I have nothing left to lose.
It is best if I walk away, brother.
It is best that way.

Keep all my love.

Thanksgiving

2011-02-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

I am twenty-one tonight, and tonight, I can write the happiest lines. If I was Egyptian, I would say this is the best birthday gift I could ever get. But I'm not. So, I will say, this is the best birthday gift I could ever get. Because I am like that only. Because I am like that only.

Today, my father posted a status on Facebook. I'll quote part of it here.

Egypt, you brought tears to my eyes today. I'm no longer young, but not yet old ... I'm in that twilight zone where things tend to lose their shine, where laughter and tears don't come easily. But you changed that, even if it's just for a day. Because of you I am beginning to believe that another world may be possible.

My father is fifty-two. I have seen him cry twice. Without meaning any disrespect, I will say he is the greatest sceptic I know. I have never seen him express so much faith in something before. That means a lot to me.

I keep hearing it's going to be another Iran. Or that the military will consolidate its power - which means, again, another dictatorship. I personally think that's bullshit. But even if it's not, it's still much, much better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all - that's an old one. And after 11th February, it's never going to be a complete failure, ever.

I'm sorry; tonight, my writing is rusty, sentimental, disjointed. But I had to give thanks. For the first time in many, many years. To - even harder to believe - human beings.

Put your hands into the fire.

2010-11-17T03:13:00.000-08:00

My sichooashun almost, good people. Except, I haven't even earned the goddamn degree yet.

Mana Mani is angry

2010-07-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

Mana Mani is angry. The river torrents rush down her stony ravines, and she glares. The impudence of no one in particular has stirred her icy blood to mad frenzy. Mana Mani is crazed. The monsoon is in full swing, the madwoman in her has risen. The sky comes down on her and she screams her lungs out in boulders, in pebbles, in little bits of gravel that go hurtling down her sides. Her icy peak is crumbling, she comes crashing down in water. Mana Mani’s anger is like no other. It is anger without reason, thus, anger with more reason than any other.

I climb the sodden hillside, and, stepping up to the edge of the cliff, look across the valley at Mana Mani, the goddess of the mountain. She stares at me, her stony face merciless, and as bitterly cold as the air that bites at my flesh like a wild creature from the forests on the mountainside. I take it all in, that mountain air, which I breathe in in deep gasps, the blue-grey valley, with a hint of violet here and green there, the cold sunlight that diffuses itself over the valley sometimes in a hazy refracted mist, the icy rain that stings my skin in spurts, Mana Mani. I sit down, just short of the cliff-edge; my trousers soak in the water coating the grass. I stretch my legs, and lean back, resting on my elbows, interlacing my fingers over my stomach.

I have waited long to get here. I have dreamt of this mountain in my sleep. I have spent hours alone thinking thoughts of her. I have longed and longed to come to her bosom, till it has seemed to me that my lifeblood has melted from her icy peak into my veins, and warmed there. Mana Mani, the goddess of the mountain, has made me mad.

- Snippet inspired by Han Suyin's The Mountain is Young

With what I've got left of life

2010-07-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

I shall, perhaps, teach/work in a little mountain town, and travel much, much, much - far and wide. And I shall do other things.

It's been a while, and

2010-06-19T02:40:00.000-07:00

I need to write. No really. I haven't written anything in months, except a couple of poems earlier this week. And another blog, but that's different. This blog lies in utter neglect. Simply looking at it depresses me. Dark and devilishly gloomy it is. I need to revamp it. But I'm too lazy to. I've been fermenting, like Sikkimese pickle, and my blog has fermented with me. Now we're oozing filthy bitter liquid. Yuck.

Waxes Wanes

2010-06-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

See how the sun just waxes wanes, waxes wanes, waxes wanes.

How I chase the rain down empty lanes.

See how the page flaps, written in blue. Bitten in two. Mitten in shoe.

And I ask, is the sky really blue?

(Watch the roses grow, the ravens crow, the hangman hang them in a row.)

Her womb tore, so she bled two days. The child returned her steady gaze.

And nightly, they ran down the maze.

(It’s all a temporary phase.)

My best friend, she is such a tease. Like a hunk of cheese. Or a room on lease.

Or a hive of honey-laden bees.

The sky smiles down in a generous way. Today is sure to be my day. I’ll find my way.

I’ll have my say.

The point I make is no point at all. If you step too close, you’re sure to fall. So roll yourself in a warm tight ball.

(I’ll tell you all, I’ll tell you all.)

Watch the sun toss up like a birthing egg. On the broken deck of an ancient wreck.

(The water glows with a million lighted specks.)

If only the hills would make a sign! I’d run and hide amidst the pines. With a little sob, and a little wine. (The trek-wood-hunts are all quite fine.)

With a skirt full of rain and a hat full of pain and a fist full of thoughts to make her sane.

(She knew no blessing, she knew no bane.)

The compass turns on the point, the pin. What I call virtue, you call sin. With your scornful tongue, and your heart of tin. You’ve never lost, but you’ll never win.

These days

2010-04-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

What am I doing? I have three books to get through in a couple of days, three tests, one term paper due on Friday, two Bangla essays to revise and one to write before (extremely late) submission, and...? Here I am, writing about nothing. All morning and most of the last several days/nights I've been sitting here reading pointlessly(?) and listening to overwhelming music that I'm new to and am just beginning to understand, and smiling to myself, constantly. It feels beautiful, and mad, not the least because I have this perpetual feeling that I'll faint at any moment without any prior notice to self, because of the heat. So it's basically between the bed and the computer table. Every other day, some friend or the other comes over, and we lie about on the chhaad or the verandah in the dark and the breeze, for hours. University lies forgotten. What am I doing?

Unstitched

2010-04-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was a bit down earlier tonight, so I started messing around with a sample of that favourite garment of mine, the sari. I tried winding the length of cloth around my body in various ways, with various supplementary pieces of clothing/underclothing to boot, in different attempts. What I discovered, for the umpteenth time, but more decisively than ever before, was that that piece of cloth can be the sexiest fucker in the entire repertoire of female clothing known to human kind at any fucking time in history.

Take the sari I used - a simple, light, soft, watery chiffon with very small, very unpretentious floral prints. You'd probably get one like it for 150 bucks at your local community market, if you tried. Damn, man. That flimsy chiffon makes an awesome evening gown, draped correctly. And what's more, there's almost nothing to the draping.

(I stood in front of my full-length wardrobe mirror, and posed for paparazzi cameras in my gorgeous little evening number.)

Ta chara, I tried the regular sasky drapes that I can never hope to sport in my life, for obvious reasons: social decorum + lack of courage to defy it. Yes, the cavorting will always be confined to the mirror-front, if you know what I mean.

Then there was the ancient nartoki style (or what I imagine it to be). An improvised breast-band tied in a knot at the back - the waddyacallit - oh yeah, the knachuli, then the sari. There was the old-style rural blouse-less sari wrap. And so on. The bare back, I tell you, is set off by a suitably liquid sari that clings to your form, if you've got the form for it.

Anyway, all this messing around has given a boost to my flagging self-image - I'm being brutally honest here - and I feel better. Fuck that man who forced a nice bit of his chauvinism down our gullets at uni today.

Sometimes, you have to be vain and inane and superficial and un-intellectual in order to repair a self-esteem honed by intellect and damaged by an insult that goes considerably deeper than your clothing and the skin you wear under it.

Dedicated to Saswata da, one Neruda-saheb, and that priceless companion in distress, Aparna

2010-04-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

Bangla amar matribhasha,
Bangla amar boroi khasha,
KhNujte giye poribhasha
Holo chichingphNak.

Anubaader teenti maash
Amare banailo laash
Ami khelam solid bNaash
Baajlo ED r dhaak.

Ore goru! Shore dNaara!
Poribhashar jhornadhara
Bhijlo tate jejon/jara
Porlo tader daak.

Eto shobdo kei ba jaanto?
Gunte gunte porisranto
Shobdo khNuje bedom klanto,
Gheelu poore khaak.

Eliot oti gonyo-maanyo,
Lekhao tNahar ashamaanyo-
Anubaader byapari onyo:
Khai shudhu ghur-paak.

Neru-dada, ami dhonyo!
Pass je holam tomar jonyo!
Tomae chhara bukta shunyo!
Jak, shey kotha thak.

Ebar, bondhu, ami choli.
Bhaat khai - shathe pNyeyaaj koli.
Bhallage na - ki ar boli
Dadu dichhen hNaak.

Of Protection, and other things

2010-03-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I want to tell a story. I was never much of a storyteller, but tonight's the night for foolishness. There's a wind outside that tells tales of wet land, wet air, wet water. It says that there's going to be a back-breaking summer, a summer that'll suck the moisture out of your innards and leave you dry as a mummy. It's a tease, this rain.

I digress. I was going to tell a story. That I will. Before I tell the story, however, I want a betel leaf, with the spices well wrapped up inside and ready to be ripped apart by idle digestive juices fermenting inside a stomach kept fasting too often. Why do I require this betel leaf? Because, in order to set the precise mood for the story, one must chew on a betel leaf, like the lady in it.

I digress. The desired paan cannot be procured. So I shall proceed without it.

Once upon a time, a hundred or more years ago, bandits attacked a well-off household in a small village in Medinipur district of Bengal. This was no uncommon occurrence in that day and time. The defence of the house, however, was a different tale altogether.

The ground floor of the house was inhabited by a family of tenants, while the landlord and his family occupied the floor above. One evening, when the master of the house was home, the tenants' son ran upstairs to say that villagers had brought news of a gang of robbers approaching the neighbourhood. It was said that they had set their eyes on the affluent household.

Chaos broke out. The men of the house were in a tizzy. Amidst loud cries of "Dakat!", the mistress of the household quietly hatched a plan. She undid her long, dark, heavy hair. She chewed several paan's in succession. She lined her feet with alta. Then she picked up a sword - the kind with the curved head called a daa in Bengali - and took up her position at the head of the stairs.

The bandits arrived. They broke through the door, ran across the uthon, and began to rush up the stairs with cries of "Jai Maa Kali!". Then their chief, who was at the head of the band, stopped dead in his tracks.

There she stood, at the head of the stairs, her long hair billowing out around her; her large kohl-lined eyes open wide; her tongue, reddened with the juice of betel leaves, hanging out; her hand, holding the daa, raised menacingly. There she stood, and the chieftain trembled like a little boy caught loafing by his schoolmaster. "Tham! Maa darshan diyechhen! Uni nije eder rokkha korchhen!"

The band went down on their knees before the woman. Raising fearful eyes, the chief joined his hands in obeisance, and said, "Maa, bhul hoyechhe, amra jachhi." And that was the end of that.

This story was told by my grandmother. She had heard it from her aunt as a young girl. The lady in question was an ancestress of ours - possibly a great-aunt or a great-grandmother of hers.

Why, you ask, did I tell this story? Because it smells of the rain, that promises to protect, yet..
And yet, it will not. For we all know that it is summer, and that the parched earth of old Bengal will swoon; and that the rain, with its early promises of protection, will betray like the mother's womb betrays the child by pushing it forth into the world: but it will come. It will come one day, like the dark-haired, red-tongued, wide-eyed woman from the story, and protect her sorry children with her sword-the one that cuts the grain like a sickle from the stalks of the green fields where our home once lay.

Is it spring?

2010-02-27T00:44:00.000-08:00

May be it's spring. May be it's not. May be it's just a gargoyle giggling inside. May be it's love.

I have a strange soaring feeling inside my stomach. Like my innards have taken flight. Like I'm flapping my wings, freed of limbs I don't want. Like I'm lying face down on a thick mattress of air, weightless, drifting forward slowly, stealthily - floating on a bank of skycotton, and seeing no lines, no shapes, no symmetry. No crayon horizon. No fluffy clouds. I see nothing but myself, not even you. May be it's just spring after all.

The weather is lovely. It is the weather of colours, but it's actually not, because real colour doesn't exist, it's all in your head. Dye is just dye, but it whispers of colour, so you believe it. I cannot face these colours. They are passionate, they are violent. I cannot face love's colour or colour's love: it is too intense, it frightens me.

I want to swim. It has been years since I've actually swum. I want to swim right now, because the weather says so. I want to dive in, and feel the water close over my head, feel the cool deep heal me in an instant. I want to stretch my body out on the surface of the heaving cool, my arms and legs extended, at peace with the sky and the water and the world. I want to slice the water with my arm and feel it sweep over my back, then over the rest of my body. I want to turn my face skywards as I come up for breath; catching, at each rise, a glimpse of the lamp-posts - blurry circles of inconsistent light in my water-stained eyes. I want to beat the water with my feet, pulling myself forward, ever forward, towards the far side, my final destination, my only destination, beyond which there is nothing else. I want to sweep to the end with one last armful of water, and hoist myself up over the edge, gasping for breath. I want to dive back in, and glide along the bottom of the pool like an eel, till I can hold my breath no more, and must re-surface. And then, after I have worn my body out, I want to rise from the water, sweeping the hair out of my eyes, as the water breaks away from me and plummets back into the pool unwillingly. It will dribble down my back and down my arms and legs as I jog around the edge of the pool towards the changing room. And the goosebumps on my arms and legs, suddenly chilled by the touch of air, will slowly subside.

It is spring, it is spring.

24th February

2010-02-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

I begin the way all ramblers begin - that is, with Gaaah. Re Sa. This is what is known among my current brethren as a rantpost. But I'm not very sure if it is, so keep an open mind. I do not have the faintest idea what this might lead to.

People around me are driving me nuts. Or perhaps, it would be better to say that I am driving me nuts, by means of the machinations of other people's minds, precisely because I do not know what they are. I spend copious amounts of time and brain matter exploring minds that I have no access to. This is most distressing.

My life right now is like a giant jumbled-up jigsaw puzzle. With the pictures on the surface peeling off. I have dreadfully adorable friends whom I am sometimes on the verge of guillotining with my temper. Then I come right back and crush them with my love. Some of them have understood this, and are my friends for all time to come. Some have not, and have faded out of my life. Some are still under trial, but if they fail, I will have no regrets, because while we were friends, it was beautiful.

Ahona is a sweet curly-headed fool. Her brain goes tick-tock all the time. She is as neurotic as I; we're soul sisters. We exhale paranoia and cigarette smoke from our nostrils like depressed dragons over cups of du taka'r steaming lebu cha - usually in the lobby.

I am confused about men. This is most perplexing. The whole thing about I like you-i don't think you like me -i'm sure you don't like me -he likes me -he, on the other hand, used to like me, i think-i liked him back then, but i lied!-i am so stupid - no, he is so stupid-hoshit. Unfortunately, none of these individuals is reading this, or probably ever will. If they had, it might have lessened the confusion.

I can't think of anything else.

Black

2010-02-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

I walked in a silent protest rally against terrorism today. Started from Bhavans, because most walkers were students/ex-students of that institution. We walked to City Centre. We were all in black, walking in a three-line procession, with placards and a single candle at the head. At the CC Kund, we lit candles in the little tent-like enclosure, and observed a minute's silence. The LCD screen was used to flash the message prepared by the current prefects, who were doing all the work and coordinating the whole thing. Quite a few people lit candles with us. After a bit, we started walking towards Karunamoyee with our candles and placards, but for some reason, ended the walk at the Central Park.

Strange are the ways of the media. They recorded every minute of the first leg of the walk, ending at the Kund candle-lighting. They walked in front of us (backwards). They walked amidst us (backwards). They walked behind us. They shot our legs. They shot our feet. They shot our faces. They shot our hands holding candles. They perched on the railings surrounding the islands each time we approached one. They stood up on rickshaws driving in front of us. I believe they would have climbed the trees with their cameras, if they could.

There will be another, larger, youth rally soon. This will cover most of Kolkata. People from all colleges and universities in the city will be asked to participate. The date has not been decided upon, I believe.

The Bakery

2010-02-15T08:48:00.001-08:00

Just realised how personal terrorism is. One of my closest buddies was friends with Anindyee Dhar. I spent the evening with her today. She said it hasn't sunk in. It's come real close this time - it's come directly to our social circuit. I saw Anindyee's Facebook profile, saw her recent activity. It's scary. She'll never log in again.

And the media. My friend's schoolmates, who went to Bhavans today to attend a condolence service, were kept outside for an hour because of them. They've taken to splashing private emotions all over front pages and TV screens. Journalism is all sensation and drama. Like a bloody soap.

Obviously, this post is about the Book Fair.

2010-02-05T20:09:00.000-08:00

And so I made the annual excursion to the Book Fair, which wasn't really annual for me, since the last time I went was in 2207. (I beg your pardon, I meant 2007, but on making the typo, I was too amused to leave it out altogether.) This was yesterday. Mandy and I ran away from the seminar, came to my place, and after sundry refreshments, allowed ourselves the luxury of a cab to the Book Fair.

We wandered around till 7:30 or so. The first store was immense fun. Rare, but very cheap books. We went on a treasure hunt, digging and burrowing and scanning and rummaging. We must have spent close to an hour in that store alone. Forgive me, but I forget the name.

Anyway, we found three very funny books. All three were spotted and bought by Mandy. One for herself (a classic - a Victorian guide to child care or summat - hilarious little sketches with speech bubbles), one for a friend's birthday, and one I chose as a birthday present for myself. It was a treasure trove, that store was.

By the end of the day, I had purchased a Rohinton Mistry, a William Golding, a facsimile of the Gitanjali, a copy of a Professor Shanku, Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, from another goldmine selling old second-hand books for half their original price: again, a diamond, having both the originals in the Urdu script and English translations (Mandy's roving eye - she sacrificed it for me - a million thanks), and lastly, from the same store, a beginner's guide to colloquial Urdu: just what I'd been looking for. This last was my most precious buy.

My jhola hung from my shoulder, heavy as a sack of bricks; my waist felt like it was about to snap like a twig, and my feet were aching. We walked determinedly towards one of the gates, reached it triumphantly, only to find that the gate was, in reality, a toilet. As expected, we were lost. Then we walked in another direction, and eventually reached a real gate. Exit Mandy and Pramita; Mandy boards a bus to Tollygunge, and Pramita finds herself walking along the edge of the Bypass, initially with no empty taxis, and later, empty taxis that the traffic police will not let her hail. So she walks. Then she finds taxis unwilling to go to Salt Lake, one of which ultimately takes her home for thrice the usual price.

To end: Thank the Cosmos for Monidipa Mondol.

Bulleh Shah

2010-01-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to a lot of Qawwali and Sufi lately. Since I do not know the Punjabi script, I'm transcribing some lines that had a deep impact on me - inspite of my being an agnostic - in the Devanagari. These lines are from Bulleh Shah's poetry, as sung by Abida Parveen.

जे रब मिल्दा नहातेयाँ धोतेयाँ,
ते मिल्दा दद्दुयाँ मच्छियाँ नू
जे रब मिल्दा जंगल फिरयाँ
ते मिल्दा गैयाँ वच्छियाँ नू
वे मियाँ बुल्लेया, रब उन्हा नू मिलदा,
अत्ते मिल्दा दलिया सच्चियाँ अच्छियाँ नू

पड़ पड़ इल्म हज़ार किताबाँ,
कड़ी अपनी आप नू पड़िया नई
जा जा वर्दे मंदिर मसीति,
कड़ी मन अपने विच वरिया नई

ऐवें लड़दा शैतान दे नाल बंदियां,
कड़ी नफ्स अपने नाल लड़िया नई
आखे पीड़ बुल्ले शाह आस्मानी फाढ़ना इ,
जेह्दा मन विच वासदा ओहनू फड़िया नई

मस्जिद धादे मंदिर धादे,
धादे जो कुछ देह्न्दा;
पर किसे दा दिल न धावीं,
रब दिलां विच रेहन्दा

- बुल्ले शाह

My Stomach

2010-01-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

All I ever feel like doing these days is vomit. My stomach's screwed me over. This comes of all that chocolate at Milan boudi's.

So I have gastro enteritis, which is food poisoning and/or diarrhoea - summat. I'm supposed to subsist on gola bhaat (with a concession of butter and salt), and liquids. The day before yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore. So when they were all asleep in the afternoon, I tiptoed to the fridge and stole two cubes of cheese.

The doctor said I needed bed rest. So I was told to get into bed and stay there. I failed to see how bed rest could cure gastro enteritis. But then I don't know shit about gastro enteritis. Panda's explanation was that the bacteria die of ennui, which is good enough for me.

Yesterday, however, I coaxed them into taking me to college for the hindustani classical class.

Anyway, I've been getting more or less normal food since today morning. Will attend all classes tomorrow.

Glass Bangles (reposting this bloody thing)

2010-01-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

Glass bangles; clink, clink.
I vomit into kitchen sink.
And then my face goes slightly pink.
I need a drink, I need a shrink.

Grey cells are running loose, about
Those wasted years, that meagre shout;
I know for sure – without a doubt -
What goes about comes right about.

A mountain once crashed on my head.
The ghosts still live beneath my bed.
The sharpener’s pumped with pencil lead.
You’re never dead! the old man said.

My hair grows long, my nails grow old,
My silver turns to violent gold
Since I was cast in Mother’s mould,
My heart was bought, my heart was sold.

Oh blankness, thou pursueth me!
In buttered toast, in cup of tea!
I am not her, I am not she!
The one you seek is in the sea.

The sea, it runs from coast to coast.
I clink my glass in mocking toast.
Tonight, I’ll eat a burning roast.
(Such silly pride! An empty boast!)

So there I sit, and think and think,
And vomit into kitchen sink;
Without a twitch, without a blink,
I down my bitter, bitter drink.

Bangla

2010-01-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

I once tried my hand at writing poetry in Bangla. I produced three short pieces, jotted them down on a sheet of paper, and handed them over to my (then) Bengali teacher at school, who later said the writing was immature. She made just one exception - the third poem, which was about the sea. She also said that my English poetry was much better - having read a few samples earlier, in circumstances I will not reveal. So I felt discouraged and abandoned the project.

I've lost/misplaced that sheet of poetry, but I suddenly find myself wishing that I hadn't. I want to read those little language lollipops again. I wonder what they were like.

I haven't read or written Bangla in a year and a half now, ever since I left school. But yesterday, my grandmother handed me a little speech in my great aunt's memory, which I have to read out later today, at the funeral. I find her handwriting difficult to read, so I deciphered it word by word and jotted it down in my own hand. That was the first time I'd written Bangla in months.

I realise now that my Bangla is in a sorry state indeed. My vocabulary has shrunk, and my spelling has deteriorated again. This is shameful.

I have a sudden urge to write in my own language. I have decided to write a story in Bangla.

Nimtola

2010-01-08T04:49:00.000-08:00

I

So in death she got what she had never got in life. Love, a bit of remembrance, a bit of sorrow. I myself had withheld these - or should I say, had not given her - for reasons I cannot explain.

I helped undress her, along with the nurse. We ripped apart the nighty, tearing it down the front. We forced the stiffening old arms out of the woollen blouse, pulled the gold bangles off the arms with soap water. I saw her naked body, still warm, for the first time. I was astonished. I had always imagined a woman decrepit and wrinkled, like her arms and face - a female monstrosity that would repel the eyes. I had known or seen no beauty in that face with the gaping mouth, a face strangely constructed and almost skeletal. But she proved me wrong, once again, in death. The body was smooth - the almost taut stomach, the proportionate torso - I could imagine that body, even at the age of eighty, arousing male desire. But she had never known a man. She was a spinster. She died a virgin.

II

They had all turned up. Every single one of them. All of them, all of us, who had not given her. They all brought flowers. Most of them wiped their eyes, but some didn't. I know them to be the real ones now. There was just one exception, and we all knew her to be one.

I know little about death. I have seen little of death. I have only heard much about death, read much about death, watched much death re-enacted and enacted over and over again. Theoretically, I know a lot about death.

I was asked to get ready to go to the crematorium. I got out a white and black silk saree from my grandmother's wardrobe, and dressed myself. When I came out, a dining room full of people turned to look at me. I crept to the shelter of the kitchen. Dida was indignant. She was shocked. Silk? Idiot that I was - all I had known was what the colour should be. Embarrassed beyond belief, I took shelter in the pantry. I sat there on a bin of rice, refusing to come out.

I finally did emerge from the pantry, shuffled across the room full of people in an embarrassed way, and rushed into my room, pulling close the curtain with a sharp snap. I changed into a grey cotton saree, and felt the colour descend from my cheeks.

III

We drove through the streets with grandeur, a hearse followed by three cars. The hearse was the usual glass-encased kind with the stretcher inside; the property of some sporting club. I sat listlessly in the car immediately behind it. My cheek was squashed against the window. I had not washed my face properly. I had not brushed. I believe I had bad breath. My hair had hardly been combed. I looked wretched, but I felt blank inside. Just a single, solemn blank. No sorrow, no happiness. Just neutrality.

People turned for a second look as the hearse passed by, blooming with white wreaths and bouquets, smoking with incense. Suddenly a thought struck me. I began to watch the passers-by intently, scanning the streets and pavements around me. There was something I expected them to do; wanted them to do, even. They prayed for peace for a soul they had never known existed. Some put their hands together and briefly touched their foreheads. Some merely touched their noses, then their chests, with a fingertip. Yet others vaguely passed their hands back and forth over their mouths. They all prayed. But I saw one man stop in his tracks, and raise his joined hands to his forehead slowly, keeping them there for a long time. His prayer was true. Yet I know that for the rest of them, it was just a passing thought, a brief action mechanically done. In death, she had found what she never had in life. Suddenly, she was the queen of the city streets, a goddess.

IV The Shoshan

Why must they destroy death's beauty? Death is beautiful. But at Nimtola Shoshan, a row of bodies, like a row of hospital beds, lay in a line, covered by podabolis, tulsi leaves on eyes, cotton in nostrils newly grown silent. She alone, had none. She had her sheet, and her flowers. That was all. We would cremate her our way.

So there were flowers, and the flowers were beautiful, but their beauty couldn't save the bodies from the squalor of mortality and death. The chamber was a crowded municipal hospital room; a metro station far dirtier and claustrophobic than any other. They lit incense sticks by the hundreds, but the incense was ugly. The fumes hit me in the face as I entered, clutching my aunt's arm. The smell of dead flesh mingled with that of the incense. I felt sick. People snuffed out the fire at the end of the sticks, jerking them this way and that in the foul air.

I saw the dead. My eyes passed from one face to another, slowly, across the length of the room. There must have been a dozen of them. The man right before her had bulging eyes, barely covered by blackened lids. His lips were swollen, his face was a heavy balloon of flesh. The hair was white, I felt reassured. The two men before him had black hair. I do not remember their faces anymore - just that one had a beard, and I felt reassured again, I don't know why.

Then I saw her. Her face will haunt me forever. A little child, dark as midnight, barely 11 or 12. The bright yellow ghomta of a cheap chiffon saree framed her face, in brutal contrast with the skin. How they defame the dead with their ugliness! Why can they not let death be beautiful?

A thick line of sindoor was drawn to the tip of her nose. She had been a married woman. The lips were slightly parted, baring perfect, gleaming white teeth. I will never forget that face. Why was she married? How did she die? Was there a connection between the two?

We went to a waiting room next to it. My uncles and aunts took turns watching the body in the main room. Nimtala Shashan is an ugly place. A dirty place. So I had tea with my uncles in one of the shacks lining the other side of the road. But there is more to death than beauty and ugliness. Men stared. They sang. They made comments. While I waited for her to burn inside. Nimtala Shashan is a sleazy place. Where death and sex meet. Men will sing, even in the presence of stinking, burning, churning death. They will sing their naughty songs and pass their eyes this way and that. What is death to sexual desire?

I came home early, hours before the others. It takes a long time to burn your dead. Especially if you live in a city - a city where the streets bear too much life, and the crematoriums bear too much death. Where the dead must wait in line to be burned. Like for paying bills. Or for voting. Or for paying your examination fees at university.

I do not want to end in this way. To be decimated to a thing in a hell house, waiting in a line to be decimated further in an electric oven. I do not want to be snuffed out thus. I want to end with dignity, with space, with silence and orderly gardens and trees and grass and even birds, may be. I will tell them, before I die, that I want to be buried. Or that, if I cannot be buried, I would like to be cremated in the shashan at Boral. I have passed it in a car. I want to die with beauty.

Five

2009-12-30T10:12:00.000-08:00

That five-rupee coin's been there since I was five.
Only, this time, it's in my hands.
Thick metal, thoughtless money; the devil, strangely, finds it funny.
(The little crinkly creases five rupee coins have)
Since I was five.
Now that I'm twenty.
Of five rupee coins, there are plenty.
And into that sea of five, they made an almighty dive-

That.

2009-12-30T10:09:00.000-08:00

I'm wasting my time, I'm wasting my time, I'm wasting my time again.

It's that time of the year again

2009-12-19T03:34:00.000-08:00

Christmas! Someone organise a party, please.

Anyway, enjoy this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owK5tHjL0aE

Snow

2009-12-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to write something specific for a while now, but I haven't been able to put my finger on what it is I want to write. I suppose the best way to know is to let go - let go on a keyboard.

Maa has been holed up in her apartment for a week, with a violent blizzard raging outside. All that snow. All that snow. How I miss it. Even though I spent just two winters in it a long long time ago. You can never stop missing snow. Never. I remember catching snowflakes on my tongue, cold and tasteless. I remember stretching out my little red mitten-clad fingers, and catching tiny flakes on their tips. I remember looking closely at each, and wondering at the marvels nature has wrought. I have never stopped wondering at how each tiny flake has a unique, intricate pattern, the kind one would attribute to human creation alone. And yet, they are not. Tiny, beautiful, symmetrical patterns. Does nature mould each carefully with her own delicate hands, before sprinkling them on the weary brown earth below, like frosted icing on a cake?

I remember the snow angels the other kids would make. I remember running through the snow to the bus stop, leaving impressions of my little boots in the whiteness. I remember the large Christmas tree at Aunt Pam's house, which we would spend hours decorating in the warm glow of the furnace. I remember the lovely Christmas dinner we would have together around her table. I remember the snow burying the cars out in the parking lot, their windscreens and wheels frozen and jammed - the buckets of hot water people would pour on them to get them out and moving. I remember the car skidding slightly as Baba struggled to drive it over the slippery ice coating the road. Oh, I remember so much.

And now, suddenly, I want to go back to the world of snowy winters - anywhere, everywhere, as long as there is snow.

New Moon

2009-12-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Well well well, guess what ended today. Ended with a bang, too. Bad, bad film theory paper. Two of us messed it up big time; the others didn't. Anyway, then we went Dolly'ing. Sohini took a bunch of absurd photos. For the first time in my life, I actually ordered a second plate of sausage salad - but then, my immediate neighbour gave me a hand - or a mouth, should I say - at finishing off the first plate. Yes, beat me by a letter, she did.

After which, we split up. A, S and P went home, while N and the other two P's boarded a bus to Salt Lake, and landed square in the middle of N's comfy bed, where they curled up, but did not fall asleep. Now N, of course, is one hell of an artist (Japanesely). So I decided to try my hand at drawing with her tablet and her pen. Poor me - I assumed it was like a normal pen, but oh no. When I, in my enthusiasm, imagined that I was de-capping the pen, the thing fell apart, the battery popped out, and the other two were in splits on the bed. Anyhow, after N had put the bloody thing back together again, I tried drawing. The result was so ridiculous, that it wasn't a drawing at all. :-| N introduced the other P to the bubble-popping game, which she took to as Joy Adamson took to the lions (I have no idea why I made that reference). Anyway, she's good at it - very good. My attempts weren't as successful.

Besides which, we had delightful ice cream, the flavour of which no one could put their finger on till I - being the genius I am - declared it was lichi. They agreed by and by. Anyway, what matters is that it was good. Very good. This phase of bubble-popping and lichi cream licking was followed by the lol cat phase, which wasn't all that extraordinary; but there was more than one instance of the three of us clutching our stomachs and doubling up with laughter. The high point was:

Skuz me.

- little black cat with beautiful blue eyes -

You haz seen a tail? A lidl black one?

Movie time. Cut to Inox, CC.

N and I had been laughing at ourselves from the moment we decided to watch New Moon. We continued laughing at ourselves while we bought tickets worth 130 bucks each, three days ago; laughed through an after-ticket-buying CCD coffee session; all the way through the weekend and this morning - we laughed and laughed, and we just couldn't stop. We succoured the decision with the thought of cheese popcorn. Now, you ask, why had we decided to watch New Moon? Because, being the fantasy freaks N and P are, they'd read the Twilight series and were dying to laugh their way through a movie that was so bad, it was brilliant. And we did. We cackled, and made snide remarks which no one else heard (so the whole point of them was lost, but what the hell). N and P made some bad puns. I cracked my Irish nun joke. We discussed the racist angle of the film. We made a (should I say racist?) politically incorrect comment ourselves. Then it was over.

And yes, N has just sent me Twilight. I am going to dive back into the world of sparkling vampires and emo werewolves again, after ten whole years.

Amen.

The Private Life of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

2009-12-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

I was reading Hamlet for tomorrow's exam. Was reminded of my Ophelia days. OOma was Hamlet, Dotlet was Ophelia, and the former marched down the school auditorium aisle towards me, as I waited on the stage in my flowing white skirt and my borrowed white peasant top (Hamlet's property), without my glasses and unable to see a thing in front of me. The auditorium was one huge dark room, with a blur of semi-human faces. I lay on the couch with my (first) cellphone to my ear, as Debo(Laertes) delivered a lecture on why I should not love Aparna(!), from - ahem - the airport.

Hamlet, eventually, reached me, and we had that famous exchange. She took a bloody long time to get to the stage - I was getting nervous, my hands were clammy and I was trembling. Anyway, she got there eventually, and we had said famous exchange.

Fast forward to my suicide(ahem). I'm dancing around and singing with a large bunch of flowers in my arms, and a (plastic, methinks) flower wreath thingy crowning my head. I put the Crazy Flower Song to tune meself - and that too, on-spot, because I kept forgetting the old tune every time we enacted the play, and kept making up a new one on-spot. Jaysus. So anyway, they drowned me in long lengths of painted blue cloth that smelled disgusting. And since I had to lie there onstage like that under that mound of stinking cloth, by the time Debo did the "From her pure and unpolluted flesh may violets spring" bit, I was ready to rise from my watery grave and punch the whole freaking lot in their bloody faces.

And the last scene. Not likely to ever forget that. Aparna and Debo at each end of the stage, toy gun in hand, creeping towards each other slowly. Oh wait. At every single practice session, Debo, stalking onto stage, would burst into laughter after "Where is my father?" Everybody else would then follow. There must be something insanely funny about asking where your father is.

As for the toy-gun duel. Ah. They'd bought recorded gunshots. One person had the duty of pressing the button on the tape recorder at the exact moment when one of the lads fired at the other. The coordination was difficult, inspite of regular practice. One brilliant idea my paramour had come up with, was to lighten the mood at the last moment, and have flowers pop out of their guns as they fired, followed by a burst of song (Phool bahaaron se nikla, tyang-ta-tyang-tyang-tyang-tyang-tyang; Chaand sitaaron se nikla, tyang-ta-tyang-tyang-tyang-tyang-tyang).

Then the cast and crew went to Shantiniketan and had one hell of a time.

Old days. :)

2009-11-30T20:23:00.000-08:00

I realise now that there's always a reason people say things about other people. There's always a grain of truth somewhere. It hurts, to have stumbled across the truth at this stage, when things finally come to an unexpected, bitter climax, and all your illusions are shattered. I misread people. I really do. And I'd been so sure that I don't.

Remember the dead.

2009-11-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

Without a Title

2009-11-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

You know, when you set out to write a titled story, a story with a title, the title sort of drifts past you in hazy smoke and as you type your story, you realise that it's far, far away from what you meant, or what the title meant(if it had a title at all). Disconnected, sort of... repentant, almost, head bowed with the guilt of not living up to the title. It's a dangerous thing, the title. It really is. It can unsettle your thoughts for days and leave a little meandering trail of worry weaving in and out of your sleep.

So, when you've reconciled your conscience to the betrayal of the title, you roll up your sleeves and say Ah, let us see. We have not birthed a plot of any importance for a year now. We have not strung two words together, and then two more, and may be even three more, to make a plausible chain of events they'd call a story. A story.

A story.

How do you write a story, then? Well, you begin (to yourself), you pick a line. (Go on.) Then you put your fingers to the board and type it out (yes). And then you look at it for half an hour, and say to yourself - Does that make sense? (no.) Then you look at it for another half hour, and leave the seat for a five-minute coffee-brewing session. After which, you return to your chair and balance your delicate nose on the rim of the brown coffee mug, and inhale, deeply inhale the steam rising up like a mist that burrows into a mountain tunnel, and the train... what is the train? Nothing.

(Nothing, the train. Nothing is the train. The train is nothing.)

So then, you realise, you have no story.

Let's take an example.

The matchstick turned a double somersault.

Look at the sentence. Just look. It means nothing (But it could.) Is it really worth it, looking at this sentence for minutes and minutes and minutes, and thinking, simply thinking, What could I do with this line? What meaning can I imbue it with? What story can I make for the burnt corrupted matchstick that turned that last double somersault before dissolving into fire?

You run your fingers through your hair, combing it, entangling it further and further; brushing those edges of your skin - that you hold alone, against the world - over your scalp; remembering, perhaps, the lingering touch of the fingers of some past lover, or an idle grandpere basking in the mellow sunshine of a winter afternoon, May be - just may be - giving yourself a lead, a hunt on a trail unwinding.

The matchstick turned a double somersault.

The idle grandparent wades back into his own little sea of time. He sits in a little tea shack somewhere in British India, lights a cigarette with a little match (that dissolves into fire), and he says to himself - I've done nothing. The he comes shooting back through time, and then he says to himself - I've done nothing. But oh yes, I learned my lesson when my father came to know, and that was the end of all matchsticks for me. But then again, I've done nothing.

So you prevaricate for a while before asking yourself what the damn matchstick means to you anyway. You decide on a demonstration. You slide open a little box with two black cats facing each other on the outer shell, and take a tiny little stick of combustible mineral matter between the tip of your thumb and your first finger; then you strike it against the box. The impact isn't powerful enough to fulfill the purpose; instead, you lose control of the stick and it does that double somersault before settling down again between your finger tips.

You are stunned. The thing has a life of its own. A flimsy little thing like that holding its front against you - you're awestruck. You sniff at it.You examine the rough side of the box. Little brown-red streaks mark the place of union. You peer at the stick, then you strike it again. It can't bear the friction any longer - it bursts into flame. You grin menacingly, with a strange glint in your eye. You've tamed the beast.

The sulfur wafts into your nostrils, and you breathe in deeply. Relief fills your mind. You relax. You sit back. You gaze at the matchstick as it glows with agony, crumpling under the heat little by little. The flame inches towards your fingers. You feel the heat. You slide your finger tips down to the very end. The flames runs faster. When you can take it no more, you blow out the flame, and the smoke diffuses in the air.

You lit no cigarette. You lighted no candle. You merely killed a presumptuous little matchstick that dared to hold its own before your might. Your cool, wet might. You toss the smouldering carcass into an ashtray and settle back in your chair, knowing full well that you have no story. That there is no story.

The ding-dong theory

2009-11-16T01:30:00.000-08:00

(..which, incidentally, has nothing to do with this post.)

Today I wrote half a philology exam, another complete philology exam, and hung out at Worldview for about an hour sniggering over absurd titles, ridiculous translations and the bad quality of paper in - alas - Neruda and Lorca.

Tomorrow, I have another bloody modernist prose exam, which, it is to be fervently hoped, won't be too much of a bother.

My cousin's getting married in two weeks. I have to get a sari blouse tailored, buy a blue drawstring purse to match the sari, a silver bangle, and new shoes. I also have to get a silver hair pin polished. And learn how to do my hair in a fancy coiffure or, at the very least, a french roll.

My room resembles a cross between a yard sale for second hand clothes and a garbage dump for non-biodegradable waste. The worst part is that the kid I tutor is brought to this room, and made to sit at my squeaky clean desk, which is at complete odds with the rest of the room.

I've just noticed that my maroon school tie is still hanging from the clothes-rod on the door, two years after it ceased to be of any use, apart from occasional nostalgic fits (the kind that make you smile sadly, and heave sad little sighs).

I shall now betake myself to the kitchen, fix myself a cup o' tea, light a cigar, rekindle the dying embers in the fireplace with a nasty-looking poker, and sink into my antique oak armchair with the brocade pearl-encrusted cushions that my great-great-great-great-great grandfather pinched from the.. Nawab of.. erm... Oudh.

--The End--

P.S.: The point of this post is to bore you out of your wits, damn you.

Postscript

2009-11-09T05:49:00.001-08:00

Wokay, so that was the first poem I've posted on my blog. Good response. Now I think I've courage enough to post more, as they come. Amen.

What the streets have taught me

2009-10-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

God knows how many men have lusted for me
On doggone streets; The city beats,
the city beats out of rhythm.
How many eyes the city lies
have looked through smoke and days gone by;
Have stripped me piece by piece.
I’ve felt their touch I’ve felt their lust
I’ve shivered in heat and mud and dust;
And so my city dies.

The more they stare the more I frown
I’m out of bounds I’m out of town;
Them wretched hounds and all the sounds
and all the sounds shall kill me.
What do I wear and should I care
and why I’m bare and would they dare
are questions that don’t haunt me.

And if there’s smoke between my lips
why should they shout you whore?
And if I slip down bit by bit
and bit by bit, and more?
They’re suited booted convoluted
pavement rooted whore polluted
hanging from bus doors.

They say I’m heat they say I’m meat
They say I’m bloody, bloody neat,
They compliment my lines.
They’ve burnt their blood and killed their seed,
they’ve counted sheep they’ve counted beads,
and then my choler dies. Amid these sooty lies.

Shiva

2009-10-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

It is a sea day here. When the sea is rushing at you from the sky, gushing, glowering, mowing you down. Towers of rain have toppled on my head since morning. I dare not leave the car, but I have no umbrella, no no. I look out, and see more water. So much water. The sea breaks on the invisible beach, wave after wave, stick figures jump in and dash about, one has a bandana. Blue, too. They seem happy.

Will the sky slide over the horizon like a snake, and slither off, like a snake, onto a table?

I shall never be able to tame my hair, never. I know. Crow's nest, hay, chowmein. I can coil it and hold it in place with chopsticks, no? My jeans are dirty, dirty in a day. That's what the water does, makes a mess like a child not potty-trained, runs into everything and stains, drains, makes mud out of dust.

This place is called Gurdeswar. Exactly a hundred and five kilometres from Manipal. There is a temple here, that would make a good jigsaw puzzle. If Aladdin is your standard jigsaw puzzle. It is high and mighty and very very whitey and all curious, you know - tangles and knots and such - i could reach out and squash it like wet soap, in my mighty fist, if I had one, like the giant Shiva sitting there on top, all silver and ugly and disdainful-like. The thing is, when silver and gold paint-coated, the mighty lose their might. His fingers are long and delicate. What are all the snakes about? He is well-built; slender, yet muscular. I am infatuated with him. I need some food.

In front of him is a much smaller statue, a woman. Unstitched cloth, but it is as silver and scaly as her skin. Her arm is placed protectively around a male child, smaller, yet as silver. Beside him is an animal, a calf or a heifer. Is she a devotee? Is she a devadasi? Is she me?

Some way off is a chariot, with gold-drawn horses.

Alone on this blue-tiled balcony. There are papaya trees in front of me, fertile with fruit too young to be tasted. The rest is as the rest always is. I feel no different. Fiddling with the little black thing he gave me.

Some music

2009-09-16T00:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to compile a little list of five pieces I used to love playing. I have hardly touched my violin over the last year or so, and am completely out of practice. A certain fellow violinist has been trying to get me to play at least the scales, again. Thanks, I, for the encouragement that will bear fruit some day or the other (i hope).

Something I used to play - let us say - on repeat. I chose this piece to play during a performance of sections of The Merchant of Venice, which we put up while at school.

An exam piece that I was in love with.

Another favourite, but not from the classical genre.

We played this with 2 first violins and 2 second violins, since an entire orchestra was not at our disposal.

I'm really sorry, but I couldn't find a proper performance of the violin accompaniment to this dance, so I've posted the only one I could find.

These, roughly, are my favourite-st. :)

Answers?

2009-09-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

Why should children not know about sex? Why shouldn't they watch sexually explicit films, read 'adult' fiction?

Is it because we're supposed to be ashamed of our bodies? But why?

To whom it may concern

2009-09-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

I have spent years trying to convince you. But I have failed. We all have. So now I tell you - if you want to jump, jump. I have nothing more to say to you. If you do not listen to us, what can we do? We cannot stop you. Your life is in your hands alone.

I hung up on you today, like I never have before. But darling, I did it out of sheer pain and frustration. I cannot make things better for you, and I know that. But you can. Believe me when I say you can.

So if you go, go with the knowledge that we have loved you, and always will. But do remember - you threw away the diamond that was you.

I just wanted to ask

2009-09-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

Do you know how things are when we play hide and seek with our eyes?

Chotto kore bolte gele

2009-08-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Amaro parano jaha chaye,
Tumi tai, tumi tai go.

Lost and Found

2009-08-19T21:04:00.001-07:00

Been a long time. Anyway-

I was in the States from '97-'99. I did my 3rd and 4th grades from East Elementary School, in a little university town called Athens, in Ohio. Best friends: Alicia Boggs (American), and Nur Liyana Hamzah (Malaysian). We were quite a curry, the three of us. Thick as thieves.

So anyway, Liyana went back to Malaysia in '99, and I departed from the States at the same time. We had a teary farewell at our apartment, with Alicia bestowing bead BFF necklaces on the two of us (she'd made them herself). Then there was all the missing and longing and shit after I came back - that lasted for a year or so.

Back to the present. A few months ago, I did a random Facebook search for Alicia, Liyana and a bunch of other mates, some-time enemies and class fellows. Found quite a few, including Alish, who was as ecstatic as I was on our e-reunion. Liyana, on the other hand.. Well, I came across a multitude of Malaysian Liyana Hamzahs, which got me completely confused. So I added one who looked like a possible candidate for the Long-Lost Liyana vacancy (eh, this reminds me of the Disney Anastasia), and she duly turned out to be the wrong one. So I gave up.

Today, about an hour ago, I logged into Facebook and found a friend request from Nur Liyana Hamzah. We got talking, and it turned out that she was coming to India on Tuesday, to study medicine in B'lore. Do I have to note my reaction? I think not.

..Besides which, I'm going down to B'lore, M'lore and Manipal in Sept-Oct to meet me dad. Which means...

I think I'm going to die.

Facebook, I bow to thee.

Dhurr shala

2009-06-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ladakh not happening. Fuck it.

Sunderbans

2009-06-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

Out of all the bits and pieces that made up the day-long trip, the parts I remember most are hardly relevant to the cause.

Sailing out onto the scorching water on our bhotbhoti. Ahona, Sreemoyee and I, draped over the deck - if one might call it that - of the boat, in various positions of relaxation, under a canopy of about four-five umbrellas, smoking away peacefully. The sun was devastating, but we were happy, with our towels and umbrellas and tanning legs and the bloody boat going bhot bhot bhot bhot.

Running up the shore, through the calf-deep clay, arm in arm, linked together in a chain, was ladles and ladles of fun soup. Screaming, mostly, and cursing away to glory. Yikes! Driving through the storm on the van rickshaw - the adventurous part of our adventure, as Ahona called it - and screaming at Nilanjan not to move away from our huddle at Canning station's platform, in the wind and driving rain, because we thought we'd die. Amitabh Bachhan cracking his PJs in the middle of it all, and Dibyo da to compete with him; Jissu Kreesto. "Kumir ke cigarette dile chole jabe." Oof.

A fun day in the sun which found most of us sick the next.

And all I can do is hope away

2009-06-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Keeping fingers crossed about Ladakh. Permission hasn't come through yet. Poleeteekal sichooyashun and weadar. If I get there, I promise myself a nice long blogpost and many, many pictures. Amen.

Yester-world

2009-05-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

The most irrational of thoughts: wishing myself a part of a different world, a world founded in the past. Sometimes, the banality of an existence in the presence gets to me, though perhaps, it's not that banal at all. Nevertheless. I wish myself a woman of the thirties and forties. Why? To have fought a different war from the one I'm fighting now; the freedom struggle could have been mine. I imagine a girl in a saree and with a jhola slung over her shoulder - on the lines of a grandmother pictured as a young woman - going to college. But an even earlier woman than the grandmother - she was an adolescent during the final days of the Raj.

A different strength from the one I feel now, because now, in my limbs, I feel nothing at all. There are our own wars to be fought, but am I fighting them? The question mark haunts me day and night. My feeble attempts at fighting for a cause are lost in the thick smoke factories belch out as I drive past on smooth highways in spacious cars. I don't know if it's guilt I feel or relief, or both. I don't know what I want of my world and what of theirs; that one mouldering back there somewhere in thick leather-bound albums between tissuey pages and black ones.

Sometimes it feels like a huge farce, and nothing else. I've given up watching television. It sickens me. Everything must be about TRPs now; there's not a single decent news channel I can rest my brain on. No. What I get is folks in politicians' paper masks playing an election-time Rock On parody, or dusty African documentaries: you choose, they say(?). Where's the news? Where's the news stripped bare of pointless propaganda and boxing-ring bickering between rustling silk and starched white cotton?

But I've strayed from the point. And I've lost track of my thoughts. I picture an honesty in the yester-world that I do not find today. May be my imaginings are all wrong, who is to say but necessarily partial old people? But may be, just may be, it's not all just a romantic delusion festering in my brain.

None

2009-04-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of complicated theories and pearls of wisdom. I want some simplicity in my life.

Update

2009-04-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

Excitement has turned to tensaan and pheear.

LOA Term Paper Ecstasy

2009-03-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

The time has come for me to decide on a topic for my first (*happy jig*) term paper, and I am excited. Very. In fact, for the first time in weeks, my heart appears to be pumping blood and shooting it up into my brain. The fog in my brain has, partially, cleared. One hopes it shall clear further. That is not because of the fact of its being this time of sem alone. Nope.

Five minutes ago, all I knew was that I wanted to do something on Western classical music. Now, I have a lead.

Thank you Baba, for the very stimulating and brain-stirring phone conversation. I have a book between my fingers now (well, not now, I'm typing) which might just turn out to be precious, very precious. And not just for term paper potential.

How is it that I glanced at it so many times, as it sat on the shelf, but never took down to take a closer look at? What a fool I've been! If only my fingers hadn't merely brushed past it; if only I'd read the back, and not just the spine!

Excitement hasn't figured in my repertoire of frequently experienced emotions for quite a while now. Like a short bout of post- cigarette clear-headedness.

Make way, sleep and boredom, for a batch of newly awakened brain cells.

A life scrawl

2009-02-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

Tripping over my own nonexistent laces, I am. Keen on counting minutes on my cellphone, but, no, really, does that ever work? Seconds - none to show. Tick-tick. Dip in hot water, then in cold. Do I do that? No. The time's past, my friend, it does no one any good. Ganda phooler mala, I say, ganda phooler mala. Maal ta ke? Agey dekhini. Daroon toh. And so on.

Honey, when you see a mosquito, swat it. Don't watch it drink your blood with such deep engrossing curiosity pulling you into the snot-faced little idjut's silent syringe. Oh, for a hot bath and an aroma candle lit in a dark breezy room. In fact, it is time. I shall do so.

So I took it and slept naked under a fan in a candle-scented dungeon, woke up with a splitting headache and nose running to glory. Foul tempered snapping at grandparents taking semi-meals and too much hot soup. I trimmed my hair. I scrubbed my face. I looked in the mirror and saw a ghost with hollow eyes. Eh? I said to myself. What?

Floating around with a book in one hand and Stardust in the other, because Stardust is heady happiness for a head stuffed with mucus, (much thanks, P) and then I thought well may be, it's time I dug out Charulata and watched a simple cotton taanter shari with the ghomta and the shindur er teep high up on her forehead - you know - just for keeps; the old ways. Then I go throw off the fancy stuff and wrap myself in one such. It feels heady and cool. The aroma therapy candle is still lit, a box full of burnt out matches beside it. The pora maati-r bhaar is the ash tray in disuse.

And then Mohan Singh sang to me, Amar jabar byalae, pichhu daake.

So then I said, Chole jai shei aanka-baanka poth dhore? Medinipur er shei graam er matir uthone?

Masakali

2009-02-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

Unhealthy obsession with the song.

Feel free flying featherweight (thank you A'di) featherbrained feminine (gulp) for good for bad or for worse for no reason at all a finicky fidgety flipper-y flickering flibbety-gibbet in a.. uh.. frilly frock.

Lib-bar-ty, libarty.

Why pink chaddi campaigns are good for this country

2009-02-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

There are times when I see things happening around me, and feel so hopelessly helpless about it all. I hear of a gang of fundamentalist bullies, taking out their absolutely baseless anger and frustration on some women they find in a pub, whose area of movement isn't, apparently, limited to the kitchen or the hearth or the office, and beat them up. Sometimes I have this depressing feeling that, in spite of the education and enlightening of minds middle and upper class children receive in this country today, somewhere, in the minds of a small male minority, the (mostly) traditional attitude towards women as wives and homemakers and baby-making machines - a race to be subdued and guided in the ways of life - is ingrained from childhood. And then I desperately hope it isn't true, but I don't know. I really don't.

This is a free country. As per the constitution of India, 1950. The point of the whole democratic exercise being that adult citizens, irrespective of sexual organs and vocal ranges, are free to act as they please, provided it is within the bounds of law and not, in anyway, harmful to any other human creature. I don't see how the male section of the adult population are welcome to sit and booze away merrily in pubs and bars, while the other part, sitting in the same pubs and bars, are not welcome to booze away as merrily. And why subversive (of sorts) numb skulls comment on blogs on the lines of - You want to show us how "advanced" you are? Open a brothel and let us f*** you for free.

So when I see that there really isn't a bloody thing I can do about any of it, I join movements that are supposed to hit hard, in all their inanity, where it hurts, wholeheartedly. And it makes me smile. As it does, I'm sure, for many, many of us in this country. Silly comment to be inserted here - Gandhigiri, heh heh heh.

To whom it may concern - It's really hard to get an entire half of a population down and under your scabby heels.

Or does it?

2009-02-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

I'm too scared to put it up here, so I put it up there. But I guess I'll have the guts to put it all up where everyone can see it some one remote future tense day.

And as for you - I'm sorry. Not friends lost, never friends lost.

Namdeo

2009-02-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I sat through the best poetry class I've done in my 7 months at JU.

Namdeo Dhasal was a dagger thrust into my guts. And he made me bleed. And I bled with joy.
Here was someone at home, our home, not in distant Chile, nor in Mexico - here was a poet who made you bleed - bourgeois and white-collar and urban reader though you may be - about the tea shack on the other side of the road, the curry flowing in the gutter, and the woman in rags nursing her baby on the pavement. There was a poem that screamed at man to do the worst he could do; burn rape kill spill blood tear break every ounce of civilisation that this society paints itself with.

He is savage, he is vulgar, he is filthy, he is raw, he is god.

I bow to you, Nilanjana di.

A meeting on Sunday evening

2009-02-02T06:22:00.000-08:00

Attended a meeting of a street dogs' welfare association on Sunday, with Dibyo da and Madhura di. We were invited by Agnimitra da, an animal lover and a dedicated member of the association. They're trying to sterilise a lot of street dogs in as many blocks of Salt Lake as possible. Since the members are mainly residents of CE and BE blocks, they're concentrating on getting all the dogs in the two blocks sterilized at the moment. They get upto 15-20 dogs fixed regularly, and I'm not quite sure of the average number of dogs per block - know very little about the dogs in GD itself, which is shameful. All I know are a few on my street. My ears were burning when they asked me if all the dogs in my area are sterilized, or if they need to be done, and I could only mumble a reply on the lines of some on my street having been taken care of by a neighbouring family whom I don't even know the name of. This too, was hearsay. They have a lot of work on their hands right now - besides the sterilisation of some, quite a few need to be vaccinated too, against a variety of diseases.

Problem is, they're short of funds and a place to house the dogs till they're absolutely fit again. The idea of a dog camp came up, but the only space available in Salt Lake to hold a camp is one of the bigger block parks. Obviously, the block residents' associations won't give a shit as far as funds and camp arrangements are concerned. Taking them down south is practically impossible, due to financial constraints. I mean, hiring cars alone would cost thousands. Besides the sterilisation cost - 500 bucks per dog.

What really amazed me was the dedication and deep love that these people nurture for the dogs. Every single dog has a name and identity, even; each one is as special as any pampered high breed can be. Those among them who are sick or injured are enquired after individually, and nursed by various members. Every pariah in the neighbourhood is as loved and cherished as the spoilt fancy brats kept by private owners.

Was a really humbling experience. They're experts when it comes to canine medicines and the complexities of nursing the kids. And in the general health of dogs. Got a list of meds for specific diseases and infections, and another of all the vets in Salt Lake. Will be useful. Nursing Brownie alone won't do, says my conscience, but I'm not really close to any of the others, and really don't know anything about their health. But I guess I should take care of some of them at least.

All that really matters

2009-01-31T20:30:00.000-08:00

Are you. You and you and you. I will drop orange ice-lollies by stages, from untasted whole, to last fragment slipping off tongue, to little cubes on the jheelpar's grass that I throw to the fish for no reason at all. And all the hilarity of it. Making them smile. And making myself smile. After a difficult day and a long, painful night, we come out into the light, and laugh ourselves sick over mindless deceit - we nearly fall off the ledge, and then retreat to the jheelpar. Late for class - Arijit, of all people, reminds us of CCB. How ironic! Even more laughter. Running up the steps. Togetherness. Joy. And our seasons in the winter sun, have only just begun.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Classes, ledges, Moni da's coffee, Dolly's tea, upcoming birthdays and anticipated treats, and feasts, and may be a cake on an open verandah.. who knows what tomorrow will bring? Presents, and dresses and large heavy tomes - and a few comic books thrown in. Once, we did slip, but now we wont fall, because we're there, each and everyone, and we all know how ridiculous we were when we talked of something in the air.. that's the time of our common avian month.. happiness! After a laughably horrible test. But there's music all around. And the sole gentleman in the gaggle of ladies - how much better can friendship get?

You failed, you know - you failed. Because we're all here, everyone, and here we will be. Without a tear for what's just gone by.

A few sketches

2009-01-26T04:39:00.000-08:00

You are busy with your pastels; you are busy flipping through the shades. Your fingers are brisk, your eye is careful, your taste is subtle. Every shade of every shade, every pointed, chosen hue that you flick out of the line and over your shoulder. Why do you? Why do you constantly roam among people, searching for what can be bought but will never belong? Why do you go home to look yourself guiltily in the eye?

How can the mound you’ve built of cloth and metal change you?

*****

The first time I draped that saree round my waist; drew it past my neck and flung it over my shoulder. The first time I pleated that blue silk and pressed it against my stomach. That first time was beautiful.

Not quite the woman with long tresses; just a bit of a girl and a bit of a woman mingled.

Just a few locks of frizzy hair entwined. I told my story softly, in hushed tones. We smiled, we laughed, over college tales, and then we entered the hall of garlands and people, the congregation that met once a year. We tripped up the spiraling staircase, holding up the pleats, heels knocking against old wood. I sang the song that I didn’t believe, but I sang it for the peace it brought.

Later, I pulled off the crushed silk. Still so bright, so beautifully blue. The turquoise is still at my ears.

*****

In that room full of dusty books, of mounds of dusty files, of papers piled up year by year – may be a hundred years. In that small office space, the elders seated around, the tea warm cooling in old glass tumblers, you look across the old wooden table, with the elders sitting around, and, you see me. Blue silk.

And I look across and I see you, too. White kurta.

And you know, nothing’s ever going to come of this. So silently we go.

*****

Resham, do these make sense to you?

This evening,

2009-01-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

P called up, after what must be months. Or may be a couple of months. Don't remember. We talk once in a blue moon nowadays, and that too for a three minute hi-hello-what'sup-anyone-new exchange.

Today he calls, and I pick up. Hey, he says. I need to ask you some questions. Please answer them honestly. Even if you think the answers will hurt me. I said okay.

1. Did you think, at any point of time, that I was weak?

No. Not weak. But kind of insecure. And you tried desperately to hide that. From everyone, but mostly from you.

2. Did you ever feel close to me?

Err...no.

I'm not talking about romantically or anything.. just.. did you feel close to me at any point, in anyway?

Well, you were my confidante, and I would tell you stuff and when I was feeling bad I'd call and you did that too.. but yeah, that was it. Not really close, as such.

3. When we stopped talking, on a regular basis, were you hurt?

No. Why should I be?

Okay.

He gave me the reasons for that short interrogation. Logical enough, but strange.

He's difficult to understand. One of the most difficult I've ever known.

Something I wrote the other day

2009-01-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

A morning in a life.

A loner like you, what would you know of the ways of the world? The spectra of thought that have guided you through life lack the substance of which survival is made. If only the world was contained in that little living room of yours, and the bedroom beyond it. In that little kitchen where you stir your tea and feel the sugar melt in against the metal of your spoon. Quietness is all you know, but society is what you hunger for. A voice to speak to your ears; words on a telephone receiver. But when you step beyond that little ken of yours, all you see is blinding daylight, and the faces shining in them, which you cannot bear to see. How can people be such different beings within and without your room? Their voices are kind and human, but their faces are divine. Divine to hellishness.

All the friends you make, they acquaintanceships you forge – they all fall away. And you, left with two strands of humanity that love and wrench you apart by turn, cry yourself to sleep. They mean no harm, you sincerely believe; humanity must have a touch of humanity somewhere. Somehow. How different they seem from you. And when the shock of realization hits you, a sound wave reverberates through. Your soul, you see, is just a trembling leaf, now to be torn to shreds of green that died too early on that sacred branch.

So you pull your hair up even more tightly, clasp it in those plastic claws, and move on with life. You pull a housecoat around your naked self and wish fervently that it won’t part when the milkman comes; when the world outside must be deceived. No, let your breasts not be revealed.

When the milkman’s gone and the coffee’s ready, sitting alongside a cup of cold raw tea, you spread the newspaper over your knees and your breakfast space, hoping, but not quite caring, if the yolk on your plate drenches the newsprint through. Translucent papery crumbling and sticky, the words of two pages melt into one soggyness – as if they weren’t flimsy enough. The egg yolk! What you love the most. What you eat when the albumen masks your hair. Then it goes, stiff, rigid, harder than a blob of shampoo on the palm can coax away.

Breakfast is over, and your cold knee shivers, rising out of the cloth sea of your printed housecoat. Goosebumps and prickly hair – goosebumps! you say. What an undignified way to put fear and cold. It’s time, you know, to go to work. Whatever that work may be.

So you pull your pants and your shirt on, and you let down the tangled hair. You slip the hooks through the holes in your earlobes, and let the beads dangle free. Hidden by the hair, but not always. Peak, and they will be seen. You smile to yourself. Beads hang from your earlobes like hives hang from a tree. You never could get over laughing at your own stupid similes. Your dry lips are cracking, you run them over with perfumed gel, and of course, those eyes must be lined! The kohl borders the thick eyelashes, and you smile as you remember the question that follows you everywhere you go. Do you use mascara? Or, that’s a lot of mascara! So you smile and say, I don’t. There’s just a bit of kohl lining the upper lid. Not the eyelashes. Never the eyelashes.

You step out of that safe little den, and you’re out in the world once more. The dog will follow you wherever you go. And then you remember. You’ve forgotten his dose of medicine. It’s Thursday, you check your cellphone. A friend you must meet in an hour, half way across the city. And poor wormy creature that you hug and would kiss, if your parents weren’t looking out the door. Your darling, who never turned his furry back on you. Ten years and more, and puppy romps his way up to old ragged dog. Just as you romped your way up from pretty child to whatever it is you are now. You crumble the biscuits; you deceive him; the pill goes down. You breathe a sigh of relief. The bougainvillea hangs down from the porch as usual. You give it a last look, and walk on.

The friend is waiting.

2009-01-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Gah, I suddenly have this strong desire to destroy this blog. It's just such a bunch of rotting sentimental superficial - rot. Weddings and little cousins indeed. I think I'll stick to my other blog, and let this decay in peace. But again - I don't have the will power to destroy a carefully built completely unsteady and absolutely baseless sand castle that'll be swept away soon enough, if it hasn't already.

I won't write in this bloody thing until I have something worthwhile to write about. I won't even swear that solemnly. Shifty thoughts. Fuck it.

Wedding!

2009-01-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday she was so beautiful, in her peach lehenga, peach veil flowing from gold clasps in her gold-brown coiffure. Her confusion with the garlands. Posing by his side, framed by two huge bouquets. Drifting among dozens of women in rich silk, men in suits and sherwanis. Her grey eyes shining as I shake her hand and congratulate her.

And today, I hear the conch shells blowing, the women rolling their tongues in their mouths, and look out of my window; watching as she steps into the plate of alta; stands still as the petals shower down over her, and a diya and garlands welcome her to the home in which she's spent so many summers over the last few years.

Excuse the sentimental soppy account, but a wedding after months; possibly years, is nothing short of bliss. :)

Oh and yes. The food was absolutely brilliant. :D

Dropping a line

2009-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever been so madly in love with life before.

Again

2009-01-15T06:19:00.000-08:00

Re-discovered the Cranberries. Downloaded everything wiped out. Heady clouds dispersing. Back come happiness and harmony. She cleared my mind, she really did.
However stupid this may be, smile at me, because I'm smiling at you - again.

Chhotobela

2009-01-13T20:04:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of days, one line from one of Tagore's songs has been playing and replaying itself in my mind.

"Chaander hashir baandh bhengechhe, uchhle pore alo"

And yesterday, as my pretty little curly-haired toddler of a cousin sat on my lap, lisping commands as I fed her a luchi dipped in payesh, her young nurse began to sing. She sang, and she sang, one after the other, every Rabindra sangeet that a Bengali child grows up listening to. And then she sang that line.

I pushed another morsel into the little one's mouth. Sometimes, a line from your childhood is all that you need to smile.

Awareness

2009-01-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Saptarshi posted this video on Facebook, and it really touched me. So I thought I would put the link up on my blog.

The comments that are written below the video seem rather fatuous to me, and I think the depth of the message would have been better preserved if there were no such remarks following it.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=7sn40JvmglE

Mortified Narcissism

2009-01-10T23:02:00.001-08:00

Okay, so right now, I am hell-bent on writing an extremely inane and completely useless post.

Firstly, weddings. After ages of (what I will pass off as) patient waiting, weddings grace my flagging social life. Two coming up next week. And big sis gets engaged in March. Ah, bliss.

Time to dig out the sarees and jewellery and shit from the depths of messy almirah. Dresses would also have been good fun, if it wasn't for the repulsive cast which has, by now, accumulated a large amount of dirt and graffiti from thoughtful friends, who have not forgotten to include smileys which were meant to - but have failed to - make it slightly more aesthetically pleasing. Because, at the end of the day, it's just an ugly piece of plaster trying to pass off as art. But thank you, obliging friends. At least it's made a valiant attempt to look pretty, guided by your loving permanent-marker strokes. :)

So anyway, birth day coming up next month and if the goddamn plaster isn't off by then, I shall probably attempt to tear it off in a frenzy of pent-up frustration and rage - and fail. All them pretty shoes lying sadly neglected. While a pair of old Oshos, modified.. err... mutilated to accomodate the cast, adorn my broken foot. Yech.

Okay, I can't think of anything else to write of. I shall sign out and grumble myself to sleep.

Parzania

2009-01-09T20:52:00.001-08:00

Watched Parzania last night. Couldn't sleep all night.

Felt like saying:

motherfucking policemen and modi coming,
we're as always on our own

Fuck the Establishment.

2009-01-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

I watched this movie, Next Station Wonderland.

I looked around, and realised,

you can see art in a silent moment.

Ecstasy

2009-01-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

You know sometimes you feel your head spinning and reeling in a thousand different directions and your head says you should be crying but you're actually just so freaking happy you want to scream, you want to yell, you want to wake up the whole world. It's like so intoxicating and suddenly you see a thousand new paths open before you and you desperately want to follow each and every one of them; live each and every fucking life when all you get is one. You know, those times when you can't sleep and you're tossing in your bed and the shadows are dancing on the moonlit wall and you're just so euphoric inside, you're almost orgasmic and it feels so bloody wonderful. Then you get up, and it's two o'clock at night and you're dancing frantically like your life depends on it and you feel all the blood and chemicals and shit pour into your head into your mind and oh, oh, it feels so good.

Ah, my god, I don't even believe in you, so how can I trust you? This high, this high; where did it come from? Ah, my God, my Lord, you aren't even there, but My world is utopia, My life is ecstasy, but not because of you; no, not because of you.

Sleep. This bliss will kill you.

2008-12-30T23:01:00.000-08:00

Counting purple fingernails. Waiting for them to grow.

I see streaks in the sky.

Exam-end.

2008-12-17T04:10:00.000-08:00

Living a screechy kind of life right now. Don't have a specific definition for it, but I maintain it's screechy. A bit like nails on slate or chalk on a blackboard.

Life's been shoving a bunch of pictures under my nose lately, that I haven't seen before. Relief from monotony; jogging in the same mud puddle perpetually gets tiresome after a point.
Exams are over. Joy. Now I can not feel guilty about wasting time without feeling guilty about not feeling guilty about wasting time.

Been hearing stuff around the place that made me go dumb, numb, and generally frozen, seeing that I can't do a fucking thing about it. Heard about someone close whose marriage is on the rocks. Three years, and barely, or no consummation of said marriage; emotional and physical abuse and more from a frigid signor. Wish she'd sue for divorce. Don't want to see her spend her entire life up to her knees in this filth, when she's barely thirty and wanting the child signor does not care to father.

Disgusting stuff. But anyway. Looking forward to the rest of the winter vacation. Have stuff to do which I probably will not do, and other stuff to do which I probably will. Introspection's getting amazingly boring and unenlightening. Feel like a hamster running around in its wheel. Want to take a nap now, so, the end.

Shock

2008-12-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have an exam tomorrow, for which I've barely studied, but I can't concentrate. I can't concentrate at all.

There was a guy I'd composed poems with online - story poems - he one line, and then I another, then he again, and so on. I've never had a hand in writing anything more beautiful. I remember there was one about a woman and a stranger who meet in a cottage, in darkness and rain.

He was crazy. Addicted to weed and booze. In love with maths, and a brilliant writer.
When he asked me out on a coffee date, I got irritated. Thereafter, we had a nasty exchange of words and I snapped all ties. We never talked again.

That was years ago.

He's dead. He's just hanged himself.

I'm silent in disbelief.

Rethink

2008-11-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

You know, over the last few days, I've felt old pain reawaken, but I've also learned a great many lessons. And may be that is the sole consolation one can draw from such tragedy - the opportunity to calm down, rethink one's thoughts on the issue, mitigate the rage and the prejudiced thinking, and look at the situation more objectively.

Yesterday, I had a major disagreement with my classmate. I, on one hand, was all sentiment and indignation and fury, while she, on the other hand, was disgusted, disillusioned, and beyond caring.
And what came of the situation was, a great deal of bitterness and misunderstanding.

I was having trouble sleeping later that night, so I called someone up. It was afternoon in his part of the world, so he was pretty much free to talk. We spent fifty minutes on the phone in the middle of the night, with him explaining the fairest way of looking at the situation, from the standpoints of all concerned - mine, that of other civilians like me, the authorities and the perpetrators of the act themselves. By the end of it, my agitation was gone, and I was able to sleep once more.

So now, thinking with a clear head, I realise exactly how conformist and unfair my thinking had been. We have been wronged, it is true. And nothing can justify the taking of innocent lives. But then we should listen to their side of the story too, should we not? There must be a reason why these people are doing what they are. And if we retrace our steps to the source of their rage, we find that these people do often have a legitimate reason for their anger and indignation. Some have been deprived of their land, and made refugees in their own country. Some others, being a minority in society, have been wronged - or at least feel they have been wronged - in some way.

They feel persecuted and helpless. They know there is very little they can do in such situations, because of the superior power of their opponents. They know that constitutional methods cannot - and indeed, have not - been able to give them justice - the odds against them are just too strong. Perhaps this is why their vengefulness is translated into a thirst for the blood of those whom they consider the enemies of their people - the blood of your people for the blood of mine. Should we not, then, consider the grievances and the suffering of their people too, while considering our own?

Perhaps then, peace can be restored again. Which we deserve, as do they.

But then I really don't know what to think. I'm confused, and I make a mess out of it. I hope this is as close as I can get to impartiality/lack of hypocrisy/lack of self-righteousness/not working yourself into moral messes.

This Day

2008-11-27T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to make this post a long one. It doesn't need to be long to say what I have to say.

This is a thought that is always hidden somewhere deep down in my mind, but surfaces when such things happen.

I salute those who died in Mumbai, and are, perhaps, still dying, trapped in hotel rooms, blasted to smithereens, or perforated by bullets.

I salute the jawans, the commandos, the police, the RAF, the navy, and all the other national security forces that are fighting and dying now to save the lives of citizens and foreigners.

But most of all, I salute the people of this great nation. I am proud and honoured to be an Indian.

I know we will get through this, as we have got through such situations before, and will continue to do so as long as this country exists. Violence and hate are not strong enough to defeat democracy and peace.

Amen.

A thought

2008-11-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

and that poetry they will have you read what's
the need because essentially poetry is not
for you to break down and analyze
synthesize crystals look for impurities no
that's not crystal its poetry to be read to be
read and to be read into the mind.

Groan

2008-11-15T07:45:00.000-08:00

Why is it that some people spend their entire academic lives swearing to themselves that they'll start studying a month ahead of exams, and never end up doing so before the last week/two days?

And most probably spend the rest of their lives putting off work till the last minute before the deadline?

~I hereby declare myself the Queen of Procrastination~

On what one thinks of while sleeping

2008-11-09T01:18:00.000-08:00

I had the weirdest dream the other day. I was adopting, for some peculiar reason, six bear cubs.

Six bear cubs.

What was I thinking?

I then asked the owner of the (presumably) pet shop, whether the bear cubs were going to grow into full-sized bears?
Brilliant question, with great potential for provoking an extremely informative and enlightening answer.
On receiving the answer, I observed sadly that I would not be able to keep them forever, but would have to send them off to Guwahati Zoo when they reached that stage of life (Guwahati Zoo?).

I then proceeded to buy seven kittens. The kittens were a series of translucent plastic files in a bunch, from which the shopkeeper counted and pulled out seven ( I think there were ten in all). These translucent plastic files then turned into kittens. This being a perfectly normal and natural thing to happen, I was quite pleased at having got my money's worth.

Now I, apparently, had a brother. This brother, apparently, was the villain in my little zoological tale. He bought a snake.

So we return home. By now we had quite a menagerie of the most unlikely animals ever to be thrown together. I put each bear cub in a separate cage, and let the kittens roam free. There was a little gutter that lined the room, running against the wall. The snake spent all his days and nights swimming in the gutter, round and round the room.

I was apprehensive of the snake biting one of my little darlings, so I charged the vile little beast of a sibling to keep his snake away from them, on pain of death. He said, with the trademark Evil Laugh, that that, specifically, was his point.

So I spend day and night chasing the snake away, whenever he approaches my cubs and kittens.

One day, there is a flood, and the snake slithers up a telegraph pole. My brother goes after him, and so do I (!). We climb up and up, and reach the very top, where a higgledy-piggledy bunch of wires converge. My brother rescues his snake, and is then electrocuted.

But he does not die. No.

We both slide down the pole, and into the water. My brother's hair is on fire, so his head is pushed underwater by bystanders - the water being waist-high and very dirty. Suddenly, the scene changes, and I find myself and my brother, sans animals, hurrying down a cobblestone path on a dark rainy night, myself in very high stilettos.

I think I woke up at that point.

Wonder what Freud would make of it.

The Brainiest Way to Begin a Day

2008-11-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

Today I acted like a total genius. I got down from the bus outside gate no. 4, turned left, deliberating the shortest and easiest route to dept, and perceived a bicycle coming in my direction, head on. So I stand there, and deliberate the easiest way of getting my person out of the bicycle's path. I think, and I think, and I think, trying to decide whether hopping right would be a more intelligent choice than hopping left. When it is a few inches from my nose, my nervous system comes to life with a mighty jolt.

It is too late to move either way, so I make a posthumous attempt to get on the right side of the bicycle,(in the gutter, yes). Obviously that makes no difference to anything and the guy swerves right; we collide anyway; I knock him off and his bike almost flat on the ground. I extricate my self from the mess of bike, biker and pedestrian. I turn to him, and mutter a sorry. His eyes glare at me, bulging from their sockets. We hold the gaze for a couple of seconds, and then I move away. The only thing that kept that man from throwing a dictionary of verbal abuse at me is the gender.

I walk away sheepishly and banish the episode to some obscure part of my memory.

Eight hours on, I begin to feel the bicycle ram into my hip all over again.

I could do with a bit of Volini.

2008-11-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's one of those moments, where everything comes to a climax, where all things melt into one another and become one sublime whole. One of those moments, where you know all that is, is perfection. When two plus two suddenly make four and nothing but four.

That moment is now.

Music, Madness

2008-10-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Statutory Warning: This post might come across as sentimental bosh or a cynical rant in parts, because it might verily be sentimental bosh or a cynical rant in parts. Consider carefully before reading.

There are some kinds of music that aren't a fraction of as popular as the dominant genres are here, now, today. Stuff like various categories of rock, or pop, obsess masses of people. You have those concerts with thousands head-banging and waving their arms in the air and generally going berserk in a huge auditorium the size of a football stadium, or bigger.

And then you have music like western classical, which, in India, has such a pathetically small following, that finding CDs in most music stores is like searching for oysters in a swimming pool. If I'm not very much mistaken, in Kolkata, the only places where you can hope to get even a mildly satisfying selection are Park Street's Music World, and the South City Mall Starmark. And much of the music they sell is under titles like "Mozart for Relaxation". Shucks. That sounds like something you play while doing yoga.

If you're one of the tiny majority who attend concerts on a more or less regular basis, you'll probably know every face in the hall for sheer lack of variety in the audience. I know, because the concerts that I attend in CSM's Sandre Hall unfailingly have 75% known faces each time. There are a few dedicated regulars, mostly members of the anglicized cultural elite who stink of the Raj, Anglo-Indians, and white foreigners. At the larger concerts held in halls like G D Birla Sabhaghar, if you're very lucky, there might be a gathering of a couple hundred.

There are, fortunately, a certain number of younger enthusiasts who can be trusted to carry on the otherwise dying western classical tradition in this country - the students of the instruments. Most students of western classical music play the piano - which they later put to use in a rock band or something through a synthesizer. Others stick to the classical piano, thank god. There are a selection playing the violin, some others playing wind instruments, and so on.

It's really very sad. Through out the monsoon and winter concert seasons, a number of respected musicians from overseas perform at various halls, mostly through the machinations of the Schools of Music or the European and American embassies. What they get is a pathetic response to their music. On the other hand - imagine a popular American or British band coming to India - ooh, that's a sight now!

It's unbelievable how fast-beat remixes are taking over the musical world. They're even trying it on the good old stuff. And guess what? Abroad, they're trying their hand at making classical popular through that shit.

This is the real stuff. And that is an attempt at popularization of the same piece.

Such is life.

For Juin

2008-10-26T20:44:00.001-07:00

I have a little sister, who's in the seventh standard.
Everyday, she emails me, and sends a little card or pretty picture.
The days I don't reply, she mails me again, saying, Why didn't you reply? I know you're busy, but please just send a line.
When I reply, she mails again, thanking me.

Who else has ever given me unconditional love like that? No one.

You get it only from a child.

Thank you, baby. You are my light.

The mountains and the sea

2008-10-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

1. castle in the mountains, palace in the sea-
who exactly are you, and why do you call me?

2. come with me to the mountains
follow me to the sea;
see that light ahead there?
this world is not for me.

The Bird Has Flown

2008-10-25T01:46:00.000-07:00

You know, of all those annoying adages that people fill your ears with, and your school fills your exercise book with from a tender age, there's just one that ever made real sense to me.

That little maxim goes, If you love a bird, let it go. If it comes back, you know it loves you too. And if it doesn't, you know that it was never yours.

I've loved a great many people through my eighteen-and-a-half years on this goddamned planet; shared different relationships with different people. There have been blood ties, and heart ties, and mind ties and what-not ties. Some of them were clearly defined relationships - they fit into the mould of one that society accepted and proclaimed was real. And then there were those that were hazy, indistinct; the greyness between the black and the white. Of all these relationships, many have survived through social compulsion, and some through will. But many have not.

I've been thinking for a while. And I've come to a conclusion - or possibly just the beginning of a conclusion. I realise now that there were birds I held onto; trapped in a cage. When all they wanted to do was fly... away, or only for a while. I clung to them, my dear cherished birds, and that's what I did wrong. I should have known that if they were mine, they would come back.

New birds come and go, as new relationships take shape - new friendships are built and new love is born.

I will let my birds go. And I will wait to see if they fly far away, or come back to my outstretched hand.

Words

2008-10-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's time to write another pointless post.

I probably started writing - I mean seriously writing - around the age of 12 or 13. I remember going up to the rooftop terrace late in the afternoon one day. It was one of those days when the weather is so indecisive - one moment, it rains buckets, and the next, shines as brightly as ever the sun can shine. One of those days when you get a broken rainbow peeping through drifting clouds that aren't quite clouds - but similar.

I remember lying on the terrace that day, looking up at the rainbow. I remember feeling something cold touch my face. A little pinprick, that's all. Then I felt another. And another. And then suddenly, there were pinpricks all over my skin.

The pinpricks gave way to cold heavy splashes. Then they began to come down fast and thick. Then they came down in a diagonal sheet of glassy water. That was when I got up and went into the shade. I sat down on the sheltered ground beneath the ledge above the door, and wrote.

I remember writing on a file sheet. I remember the blue and red stains where the drops had soaked the paper, and the colours had run into each other in little inky veins and arteries. I remember writing that I had begun writing - I remember a reference to a chemistry lesson I had received a few days before.

That sheet is still there somewhere, hidden among piles of old diaries and notebooks filled with writing in my slanting hand - the tortuous hand of those first pen-wielding years.

It's been years since then, and somewhere down that path , as I travelled it, my writing stopped. One day, the words refused to come. And I stopped. If that's a writers' block, I've been suffering from one for years. Every skeleton of an idea that I've come up with, has been blotted out of existence with a click of the mouse within a week of its creation. There have been occasional attempts at poetry, which have become ridiculous in their mediocrity after a few days.

All I can hope, is that someday, the words will flow again.

Achmed, the Dead Terrorist

2008-10-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every man or woman's life, when they are laid low by the Achmed fever. That's right. The Achmed fever. An epidemic that spares none.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist has claimed another victim. (That's me, dumbass.) He claimed this victim for the first time a month or so ago, but I recovered from that bout of fever. But it's got me again. Sort of like malaria; it recurs.

For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

Okay, so now you're infected too.

You want more? Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wskT6YfVB6E

Jeff Dunham's Achmed the Dead Terrorist is possibly the most politically incorrect stand up comedy act you'll ever come across. But it is also incredibly funny. You'll be rolling on the floor clutching your stomach 15 seconds into the show.

So enjoy the show, laugh your lungs out, and cuss away at the racism; in the meantime, I'll go get myself some coffee.

Oh and yeah. Silence. I keel you!

Chocolate Ice Cream and Love

2008-10-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Been a bit blue of late. When that happens, I do the usual blue-phase things. I sit in my dark room and mope, shed a few tears now and then, feel sorry for myself in particular and the world in general.

When this blue-phase came along, I followed the usual routine for a while. Then I decided to experiment a bit and see if I could find some solutions. Here are the results:

1. Half a kg of chocolate ice cream a day, divided into 3-4 servings, can dispel gloom.

2. Forced social courtesy-visits, especially to homes which contain small/youngish cousins, can kick the blue ass real good, even if you desperately want to preserve the bad mood.

Talking about young cousins. It's quite amazing how precocious - no wait - paka is the only term that can justly define it - kids are today. My yet-to-be-thirteen cousin today narrated to me her love story. She has a boyfriend. At barely thirteen. Sheesh. He's even presented her with a little love note - pink hearts and all - a treasure which she keeps hidden from the prying eyes of my uncle and aunt - and which she was kind enough to produce for my perusal. What is the world coming to!

There. I shall now go and fetch myself some chocolate ice cream.

Hangover Urges

2008-10-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

Been meeting up with old friends over the last few days. Running around town and the like. Went to Orko's for a drink yesterday with one of 'em. We downed a beer. We downed a rum. Then we downed a brandy. Then we were about to down vodka but noticed that we were running low on cash. We were both really surprised at how stone cold sober we were. So we pay up and confidently get up on our feet, only to find that everything's kinda dancing around.

I went home and slept like a log.

Today I have a bit of a headache, but oh well. I wanna write.

This morning I woke up and suddenly had this strong urge to have a wild fling. An absolutely completely totally sensual affair without any romantic attachments to tie me down and wreck me when it ends. I've had a couple of those (romantic attachments et al) in the past and no, they weren't pleasant. This one should be wholly physical. This was Strong Urge Number One. It wore off in half an hour.

I was lying on my bed, with the curtains drawn to shut out the light that is so painful sometimes, from my room, when I had Strong Urge Number Two. I wanted to get a big bottle of booze, a dozen cigarettes, and sit down to write. And write a big fat book. After writing this big fat book, I would go find the highest building in Kolkata city. Climb to the top, and jump. Swish through space and then - thump. The end of this glorious mess. Yay!

That's when I came back to my senses.

Blah

2008-10-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Today I went out and boarded a bus to Minto Park and got down and hunted around and finally came to Vidyamandir. Then I waited for the start of the show and smoked 5 cigarettes in a row and finally my friends came along and I sat down for the umpteenth time. It was raining cats and dogs outside and the cigarettes were damp but my clothes were dry for which i thank a maroon umbrella. Then some girls in shiny clothes danced and flung their limbs about, squiggled and wriggled like eels or trout and finally left the stage, thank god. Then some rather strange bands came and played strange bad music that totally frayed my nerves. And finally, the guest band played, for whom I'd gone there anyway and then the din was over thank god and I walked out of the hall. Oh and besides I was very cold inside. I'm writing rot so I'll end here.

Fantasies

2008-10-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

I have a number of wild, wild fantasies, and I'm sure everyone has a bunch of similar things stowed away somewhere in the recesses of their brain. These things can be so shocking, that if you came up with them in public or shared them with anyone, you'd probably fall from god-knows-where to god-knows-where in everyone's esteem, or at least come across as mad, bad and hopelessly debauched.

But the thing is, everyone has 'em. Dangerous things, they.

Okay, so of course, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, many of these are sexual. I now draw a blank here and leave that space a space.. no more talk on these.

There are also those fantasies where you'd like to walk up to certain persons you pretend to like/love in real life, are possibly great friends with, or are on good terms with(at the very least) - and either give them a tight slap across the face, or kick their butt, or may be just wring their neck. Also, you would like to call them a m*****f****** b**** or b******. (Face it. Such assholes exist in abundance.)

And sometimes, you might fancy running away and living a nicely debauched and/or secluded life somewhere far away - breaking all the ties that hold you down here, where you are now. Just be - totally - different.

Oh, well. Fantasies are just that - fantasies. Bloody hell.

Snippet

2008-09-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

I think I'm slightly high. Slightly.

Anyway, what am I supposed to write about? The world is a sad place. As you may have noticed.

Here's something Trina di told me recently that's stuck in my mind:

"The reason we're trying to make other lives better, is that we know that our own are beyond repair."

Of red monitors

2008-09-28T04:03:00.000-07:00

And I will blog away, for no apparent reason. My computer monitor is giving me no end of trouble. About a month ago, the bloody thing decided to turn yellow-green, for reasons best known to its obnoxious little self. Sometimes, it would be magnanimous enough to look normal for brief moments, before returning to it gloriously jaundiced self.

Since my return from Delhi, the thing has turned red. Obstinately red. The little devil appears to have a mind of its own. If it were alive, I would like to stab it many times over and trample the remains underfoot. I'm reaching the point where I'd like to put my fist through the screen.

When the computer is started up, it's either hale and hearty, or slightly jaundiced. It goes from slightly jaundiced to severely afflicted. Finally, at the precise point where I'm about to give up hope and brace myself for the worst, the worst comes along. My monitor turns tomato red. Joy.

The bloody technician whom I've been ringing up for a week keeps postponing his visit. Meanwhile, this thing goes from red to redder and I do not know when reddest will make its presence felt. It's quite an eyesore. Besides being an impossible strain on those parts of my anatomy.

Looking at it from a more calm and philosophical viewpoint, it's quite astonishing how much stress and frustration little technological glitches can cause.

Not like that helps.

This night

2008-09-27T10:50:00.001-07:00

I am in a bloggery mood today. Quite, quite.

But I must think about something to write about. Hmm.

It is raining outside. All tinkly and spluttering, splattering. It is a nice night. Very conducive to clear-headed thinking. One can sit quietly (not in silence, but quietly), and think things out at length. One can think a great many things out at length. One can resolve issues in one's head, and around it. There are a great many issues that take pleasure in floating around one's head.

For example. Society is a big question mark. Trying to fit in is a bigger question mark. Sometimes, I feel strongly inclined to retreat into the woods (hilly woods, mind you), and meditate there in peace. Without anything.

But that's when all the little appendages begin to make their need felt. Just some cash. Just a little wooden cottage. Just a computer. Just a violin. Just a shelf of books. Oh yes. And just a dog.

That's when the little ascetic fantasy comes to nought.

So there.

And talking of woods (hilly or otherwise), I am reminded of something a senior told me today. A movie where a woman gets raped by a forest.

A forest! Take that. The world works in strange ways. As in - people's minds work in strange ways. What imagination and creativity gone awry cannot produce! I say, let me take the perversion a step further. Fancy a forest seducing a woman. Consensual sex with a bunch of trees. Yechh.

Right at this moment, I feel a strong desire to consume several large slices of gooey muddy chocolatey pastry. Though what that has to do with anything else is beyond my power of comprehension. I would also like to sleep in peace without a million very queer and very disturbing dreams.

The rain has stopped, and it is pleasantly cool. The fan gives me goosebumps when the atmosphere is in a state like this, so it has been switched off. Someone somewhere is listening to Rabindrasangeet. What a pleasant monsoon night. It makes up for all those little intricate delicate complicated impossible troubles that vex one so.

Life is so worth living, just for a night like this one. Amen.

Now

2008-09-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

When the sea breeze calls
it is you I hear.

And I will shed a tear for you.

Fairytale, as composed in 2006

2008-09-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Something I wrote a couple of years back, which I suddenly thought of posting. Very pointless, though.

The book lay passively, open at the page where the prince first met the princess. Theirs was a fairytale romance alright, literally and figuratively. It just began, and it ran its course, and it ended with the usual

“And they lived happily ever after.”

Unfortunately, the people who leafed through the book, skipping lines and pages in search of those phrases and paragraphs that stood out from the stark barrenness of useless details, glowing black on white, blacker than the surrounding black; the ones who thought they could find what they were looking for in scraps, in half-finished sentences, in little corners of obscure pages – they knew as little as the ones who read the book cover to cover, chewing over the words, regurgitating what they already knew; juggling the words, weighing them, balancing them on the tips of their tongues, trying to, but not succeeding in, finding out what they really meant.

The prince waltzed around the room with the princess, and all the time, he was wondering whether all this was worth his time. The princess wondered whether things were going too fast, whether they should slow down, whether their feet were moving out of time with the beats pounding through the ballroom, making the walls reverberate with false energy; the floor thud with feet that didn’t want to fly. The air was full of reluctance, full of pretended emotion, full of a sense of having to do, to dance, to know life, without really wanting to. So may be the whole fairytale was a farce, and the romance wasn’t supposed to happen at all. And in that case, the prince and princess weren’t supposed to happen either, because they existed for the story, for the romance, for the dancing, for the losing and finding, the separation and the reunion – they had no existence beyond that; beyond that, they were non-entities, ideas floating in air, empty shells of what could have been, but was not, and never would be. May be the fear of this fragile being, this volatile existence, makes the writer of the fairytale cling to his story, cling with all his might, because without his story, without his prince and princess, he doesn’t exist either. Without his fantasy, he is nothing.

How random!

Food. Sleep.

2008-09-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

So much for Delhi Diaries. Now that I'm away from the place, interest left in writing little documentary sketches on it is nil. I will, however, mention, that it's not a nice place to be in when there are little blasts going off all over town.

So we came home yesterday. And I was thinking, yes, it might be a good idea to write something or the other again.

I don't have anything in particular to write about. Just thought it would be nice to type something out again, tickety-tack, tickety-tack.

Just a few random observations for the benefit of none:

1. It's phenomenal, how much I can sleep. I can sleep for days with little periods of waking thrown in here and there.

2. It's phenomenal, how little I can eat. I can eat less in a week than I do in two days of substantial feeding and get by with minimal fuss from the body.

3. It's phenomenal, how happy/unhappy/numb sleep and food can make me, in the correct and incorrect combinational quantities. I should do a study on my food and sleep habits and subsequent mood changes. It would fill a book. My figured-out quotient of all this shit is 0, currently.

Which reminds me: I haven't thought about the basic bodily processes a fraction of as much as I ought. It might answer a lot of mood-related questions. Hmm.

On Bus No. 604

2008-09-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is veering considerably off the 'make-belief world' path, but yeah.
I was thinking of a small series of Delhi Diary thingamajigs, and this happens to be the first one I write.

The other day, we poked about a bit at the Laal Killa. Snapping photos and the like, while I blissfully immersed myself in fantasies of Mughal princess-hood in the ruddy place, which I had harboured in more primitive times.
On the way back, we decided to avail of buses, instead of autos - buses being both easier on the pocket, and a very good way to acquaint oneself with a city. So yes, at the end of the adventure, which ended rather late in the evening, we had learnt to travel about in bits without sitting passive and helpless in some ogling idiot's autorickshaw.
We were rather proud of our collective self. Or at least, I was.

Anyway, the main part of the story is enacted during the bus journey from Old Delhi railway station to Vasant Kunj. The bus in question being a 604, a number I shall for evermore remember, god knows why though.

A man and a woman board the bus. Donee, Dibyo da and I are seated near the rear entrance. Insiya and Amrita di are further ahead. So the man and the woman board the bus. The woman is in a black burqa, with all but her face and her salwar-clad shins partly uncovered. The man sits down across the aisle from us, while the woman sits down on the seat before.

Next to the man is a man, and next to the woman is another. Our man speaks to his neighbour, asking him to change seats with our woman so that the two can sit together. Fair enough. The neighbour thinks for a bit, and then, rather reluctantly methinks, gets up to make the necessary change. Our lady, too, rises. The two move towards the other's seat. They meet in the narrow dirty aisle. As a matter of fact, they almost bump into each other. And then, for a split second - a fraction of one, no more - our lady looks up into the face of the stranger. And then it's over, they have crossed each other and the process of changing seats is complete.

But our man has noticed.
And our man is a paranoid pig.
He berates her. " Pagalpan kyun kar rahi ho?" he says irritably, and imitates her looking up into the stranger's face. "Aisa kyun kiye?"
And continues in this vein for a long time, mimicking the look upwards. Anger and insecurity pervade every feature of that plain, unremarkable face.

The woman is quiet. There is nothing she can do, or say. She is inferior in this alliance, and she must bear her master's wrath in silence. A quiet little object that can look into one man's face, and one man's face alone. Any other is a crime. I wondered if she'd get a beating at home.

Shortly afterwards, our man fell asleep. The woman sat quietly on her side of the seat, looking straight ahead of her, hands clasped in lap. I saw her face, or rather, one half of it. But I knew what she felt like.

She remained that way through out the rest of the journey. The man had forgotten, did not care, was fast asleep - how did it matter to him after all? His ego was satisfied. But the woman? She had not forgotten. She would not forget. She brooded and brooded and brooded, while he slept.

He had sought to wound her, and she was wounded.

That's the way society has moulded her. And him.

Of dancing and rain

2008-08-24T02:46:00.000-07:00

As an introduction to this newly-started blog, I will explain the circumstances of its birth. I once had a blog. Of the same name. But an unpleasant situation arose which forced me to abandon it. This new little baby will do the good work I never gave the old hag a chance to do. That is to say, I will actually write in the bloody thing.

Why the name, one may ask. Well, you see. Dancing is an excellent cure for afflictions of the heart and soul. I bear testimony to its efficacy. Dancing on the window sill is a thing one can rarely do - for the sake of social convention and neighbourly harmony, if nothing else. A fantasy that is hardly ever realised. So let my blog be a little world of make-belief.

Oh, and yes. Dancing on the window sill while it rains outside, is especially beneficial for the soul. Come to think of it, rain is a queer thing. Queer in its duplicity. Sometimes, it can be the perfect ointment if you're raw and aching, and at others, it can be salt to that very rawness.

I could ramble on and on. Enough.