Conversations

The mornings are of purple skies streaked with crimson. They smell of cinnamon and coffee. And of course, of love. One wants likes to think that being whimsical is what one does best. It is when one is happiest.

Complicating Conversation

All of humankind's efforts, everything that we do, is directly or indirectly to escape death--to somehow live beyond the time given for us to occupy this physical space. I understand that this idea is neither original, nor very revolutionary, neither particularly enlightening, but here it is.

We want to be remembered-by someone, for something, after we cease to be. So we raise children, so that someone will carry our names, and our genes, and some broken part of us even when we are dead. We make friends, we marry, and we shun a solitary life, because we want somebody to be our witness-someone to see, and remember that we once were like so. We revere our dead, insist that we show them respect, and in some spaces, even pray to them, their death being qualifier enough for this reverence.

All media is there today because of this one primitive need of humankind-everything- TV, newspapers, radio, cinema, blogs- are in someway or the other ensuring that humankind is not forgotten. They all work to enforce this myth of immortality that we seemingly have achieved.

So we build elaborate discourses on how much we have progressed, how much distance we have covered since human memory stabilized. We are less concerned with where this distance covered leads us to, but we are hoping that it wouldn't be something as banal as extinction. The problem is, that we can only hope.

Minutes of Madness

If I write a message in a tired parchment,
and leave it in a bottle,
will you ever find it, and then,
take me back through the road that leads to today?

If I whisper into the storm,
will you leave a lantern out,
and keep the fire shining
with conversations half-finished?

And if I never say a thing,
will you still assume,
that I still don't care?

And if I scream,
will you ever hear,
the silence that is all around me?

And if you read this,
will you think,
that I'm drunk again?

Life' s a Neurotic Bitch With OCD Issues

Okay. Here's the deal. I'm tired of whining. I'm tired of complaining that nothing is going right. Well, it isn't but heck, life's gotta be a bitch once in a while to feel nice about itself. Sure things are bad, sure people are idiots, sure things could be better, but things will be the way they will be, and people will come around, and see sense, sooner or later.

I have three assignments to submit beginning of next week, each of which require me to read up at least some 500 pages of stuff, and I have not even started. So what am I doing about it? Reading comics online, and blogging. Man, I can't complain now, can I?

This campus can get to your nerves real bad, but I figured I'm stuck here for another six months, so might as well accept the bloody place and move on with my happiness. So I'm taking Lash's advice [I'll probably live to regret admitting this, but well!]

Even if that light at the end of the tunnel is a train, it means end of the darkness, one way or the other. So.

I'm back to sarcasm and permanent poke-fun-at-others-so-that-you-can-feel-nice-about-self bitchiness.

Just so that you know. Cheers!

I'm Not Back From the Dead. Yet...

I'm writing after some 4 odd months. That's the longest I have not written since I got this blog going. Sheesh. This feels so weird...not getting back to writing, that's the only thing that has ever been normal for me, but this whole can't write-won't write thing.

It has been one of the weirdest four months of my life. I was at home for three months between May and July. Came back to campus beginning of August, and it has been one thing after the other.

I'm not sure I have ever felt this...I don't even know what to call this feeling...disturbed? unhappy? I wouldn't really call it sad, because there is no sorrow to speak of...only this perpetual lack of joy. And since I always considered myself an essential optimist, these past few weeks, were I guess particularly difficult. I often complained of being stuck in a kind of limbo where nothing much happens...the past few weeks has been just the opposite. There has been LOTS that's happening, everyday there is something new.

So I should be happy right? Then why am I so deeply not? Maybe because even with all this happening, there hardly has been anything to look forward to...the there-is-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-but-it's-a-train kind of situation. Only it doesn't sound so funny, when it actually happens to you.

Try as I might, I cannot like this place, with pseudo-liberal, pseudo-modern atmosphere. As an academic space, this is perhaps the most double-faced environment that I can imagine. But then, maybe all academic spaces are like that? But it still does not cease to amaze me how people can say one thing, while meaning something completely different. Guess what I miss is a certain purity of purpose.

I know what my more "academically inclined" friends would tell me now. That there is nothing called purity of purpose. That it is just a romantic construct, that is at best wishful and at worst delusional. Somehow, I still cannot quite agree. Maybe it is that optimist-at-heart thing again.

The long and short of it has been that I cannot imagine the last time I was truly happy, or the last time I laughed a wholehearted, carefree laugh, or the last time I felt honest, or true.

It's murky. It all murky. And I'm stuck right at the center of it.

O Woebegoneness

Apprarently it is standard practice (is that ce or se?) that something that looks like the real thing has to follow once you send teasers out. Why is that no one ever tells me all this stuff? Makes me wonder if I bunked the "standard practices in life at large" class in school to go off and catch some a-rated movie on the sly. Considering that I was one of those sad kids who never bunked a class in school *[nope, not to watch an a-rated movie, not even to watch a {insert your favourite letter here}-rated movie], this makes me wonder if I ever suffered from a brief case of MPD in my childhood. Be the case as it may, thanks to my most recent ex-roomie, I now stand with full knowledge of the teaser-related-standard-proceedures of life.

Now that I have finished my catchy, hook-the-reader-so-that-sHe-thinks-the-post-might-be-interesting kind of introduction, let move on. So, about this post. This is about, surprise, surprise, the little un-appreciated joys of life. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, ever tried returning to sqaure one? No, not finding yourself in it accidently as you go about your merry ways, but being half-pushed, half walking-in yourself into that 2/2 inch space, where your thoughts freeze and your brain, which was till now buzzing like the ladies compartment of a crowded Mumbai local train, suddenly goes into this weird like of white vaccum where the only perceptible sound is that of the dust covered fan turning? If you ever have, then you, my friend, will be nodding your head in sympathy for me, as I say that this is where I'm - in sqare one. For the sake of prudence on wire, I shall leave the glorious details for later.

Anyway [I know I started my last para with the exact same word, but indulge me for a bit here, will you?], when you're starved for some entertainment to feed that voraciously hungry mind, imagine how grateful you feel towards God for giving you politicians, and of course, 24/7 media channels.

Here's what has been sustanence, for the last few days:

The whole deal with judges holidaying in exhotic locales, with wife and kid to tow, all on tax-payers money, is suddenly the latest breaking news. So when CNN-IBN asked Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj to give his valuable comment on this, the good Minister, who of course saw nothing wrong with the practice, says, [And I qouth CNN-IBN, who quoth the Minister]

"How can you deprive the wife? You are a woman. You should understand"

Can you beat that for an argurment? In front of such restounding display for sparkling logic, I feel humbled.

And Then...
The New Indian Express, Cochin, ran this "Worst Minsiter" contest to give some very valuable feedback to the champions in the Kerala State Assembly [and of course, to provide the tax evading junta to have a free go at the very same people whom they elected]. Not very surprisingly, the Education Minister, M.A.Baby won. But the real scoop came from elsewhere--from Mr. G. Sudhakaran, the Corporation Minister, who did not take it kindly that he came only third in the contest. So this venerable gentleman retorted, that when George Bush, with his inspired brilliance and might could not scare him, Goenka's paper with its measly bunch of "coolie writers" stands no chance. And since our minister is all of 5 years old, he's also added that the Consumerfed website [which is under his department] would publish a list of worst performing journalists in the state. Oh boy! I'll sure be holding my breath for THAT one!

And finally...

IPL seems to be turning into the mother of all gossip churners. The lastest is the accusations of racism, as two Kings XI cheerleeders were sent back for their skin colour. They were apparently told that the Indian public "do not like dark-skinned girls". Naturally, everyone is outraged. "Racist? Us??? We, the campions of equality, who invented tolerance, racist? How could you? Wasn't it our Gandhi who fought agaist apartheid in South Africa? Didn't our Shilpa Shetty forgive the bad bad people of Big Brother's House, who said nasty nasty thing to her? How can you ever call us racist? We can't even spell rasist!"

People, accept it. We are racist. Yes, we are. We SO are. Of course we are racist. We are castist, sexist too. Look at the number of serials that go on about the dark-skinned sister who can never get married, or the advertisment budgets of Fair and Lovely, and Fair and Handsome, or the matrimonial columns which still have people looking for "fair-skinned, convent educated, homley girls". So please, don't you tell me that we are not sexist, castist, or racist. I use Fair and Lovely too.



*I've decided that I do not really like the normal brackets, and shall be using square and curly henceforth. In case I forget that I don't like normal brackets, you my readers, yes, all 4 for you, are to remind me.

And then suddenly...

cough!phat!splutter!splutter!

a blogger comes up for air. takes in a huge gulp, fills her lungs, and then...

goes down under (back)water(s) again.

watch this space. carefully. very carefully.

If I Traded It All...

Him: Didn't see you at the bday party
me: was wrestling with an assignment
=/
still am
Him: won or lost?
me: the battle's stil on...
the tragedy of my life is that i cannot work unless it is the 11th hour
and what's worse, i even wait for 11.55 to start
Him: Join the bandwagon!
=D
me: seems like i'm joining too many of them
yesterday it was the league of failure psychotherapy patients
today, it is the cronic last minute maniacs
i think i need to stop, introspect, and then decide that its all a play of maya, and go to himalayas to meditate
Him: Well, you have to take the most favourite thing along and abandon it there!
=D
Ready for the deal? That is how they do it
me: hmmmm
for that i'll have to make up my mind about what my favourite thing is
Him: true true
what is it, if I may ask?
me: i cant even decide if my fav colour is, earthy brown, olive green or the grey of rain clouds, u expect me to know what my fav thing is???!

When one is bowed down by assignments, and a sneaking suspicion that one has a suppressed masochistic alter that is threatening to come out, straining at the tight chords of self importance fueled by years of inane education and an insipid life, these conversations at 3.30 in the morning make perfect sense. In fact, they are sustenance.

But when one reflected on the question at a saner hour in the day, and with an insaner state of existence, one realized the depth of that seemingly innocent question.

"Well, you have to take the most favourite thing along and abandon it there! Ready for the deal?"

Is one ready to give up one's favourite thing as a price of calm in a cold wilderness? But then, what IS one's favourite thing? The first picture that comes is one's parents...but one already compromised their love and their dreams for one, so that one could pursue a career that one loved, and they mistrusted. So that career then? But then, one suddenly realises that one has compromised one's career so that one could do what one's parents wanted...no, that is putting it harshly...one decided to walk on the bridge's edge...choosing to risk a hurtle down to that colourless abyss, at a single mis-step than take the safe path to compromised life. So then, what is one's favourite thing?

When one was a kid, someone one asked, what is the one thing that you'd take if you were to go to a different planet to live. Without much hesitation, one answered one's diary. But then came the rain that flooded the memories and washed away all the episodes of one's recorded life and one wondered if that was a sign. So one "set the Polaroids afire, and burnt half one's brain". So what now?

Sigh. The funny thing about life is, the most difficult questions are the most simplest ones. Your favourite thing...one is asked that question all the time, one answers that question all the time...but does one really, truly ever know for sure? What is one's favourite thing...that thing that one would die for, maybe even kill for. What is the one thing that one won't trade?

Then one realised...

If one had that kind of self-realisation, one wouldn't have to go to himalayas then. If one had all the answers, one wouldn't be alive. There would be nothing to live for

So is one ready for the deal...no, not yet. One still has to chose between rain clouds and soap bubbles...

Shadows on the River

Words, spoken, and never taken back
Half finished sentences
Unkept promises
Tears, stuck in the throat
Eyes, looking, searching, understanding
Seeing...and then really seeing...
Shadows
Figures, in the dark side of light.
Clouds, rain clouds
Water, splashing on unsure toes
Soap bubbles, laughter
Hands, palms wide open
Wind between my fingers
Freedom...

Is That A Bad Thing?

What is about the vaccume that gets to us? Why are we so scrared of voids? Of silences? Why is there such a premium of living a full life? What if your life is half empty? What if it is all empty, except for one glorious momment of sheer exhilaration? Is that one momment enough to redeem a half lived life? Will it make it full, complete?

I've been harping about this sneaking emptyness in my life for a while. I can't point to what is missing, but I know that somewhere, something is. The day I think I have that figured, I'm sure I'll find that there is something else that is missing. It's like this endless puzzle, this maze, that changes every other minute.

So I bury myself in work. I read till I can't keep my eyes open anymore, so that I don't have to face those nagging fears that always surface while I wait for sleep to take over. Then I have weird, broken dreams, that leave me with this strange sense of dissatisfaction when I wake up.

Happiness, said a friend once, is the easiest thing in the world. And I believed him then. I still do. But contentment? I'm not sure. They say you should have a purpose. I have one. And a good one. I have no big dreams of changing the world, I don't agonise over matters much larger than me, over which I have no control. I don't make very unreasonable demands. But I refuse to compromise. I HATE that word. If there is something that can be better, I think it should be. And so, contentment is something that does not last for me.

It's very simple, when you look at it like that. I live in a constant "what next" mode. Somehow I think I've alway lived in the furture. So much so, that the present never seems good enough. Is that a bad thing? I wish I could be sure.

What did I mean to say? What did I end up saying? There seems to be this void between those two points. Is that a bad thing?

Why this cluttered post? Because something told me to react to this.