Tantrums of a Troglodyte

2011-06-10T00:28:00.003+05:30

I think,

I think I will leave you the day you think me a fool.

Or when I catch myself thinking that you are one.

It's not really about love or lust or affection or loneliness.

(Perhaps a little bit about loneliness, but that's understandable, isn't it?)

It's about knowing that you don't feel the contempt for me that you feel for everyone else. That Idon't feel the urge to roll my eyes every time you speak. Not because we are better than anyone else, of course. It's about having that little bit of compassion, giving that little bit of space before pouncing on each other, that love so beautifully affords, something we do not have for everyone else.

It's actually about having someone to look at and think, yes, I am that bad, but so are you, so that makes it alright. It's pathetic, but we knew that all along, it's just reassuring to see it in someone else.

But mostly, it's about growing. Using each other to get out of that terrible circle of looking for external reinforcement and reaffirmation, because such things are sought only when we continue to suffer from the useless, debilitating disease of inferiority, forgetting that comparing oneself to another is the most useless, baseless deed, a deed the merits of which we have been fed relentlessly since the day we were born.

It's about having that space for ourselves where we do not need to prove to each other how pure and well intentioned we are, scrambling to cover our hypocrisies from each other, trying to be better, not better than what we are, but better than each other.

It's about knowing that while the whole world might think ill of me, you don't. I should not need even that, I should be capable of standing up to my own actions and values without at all looking for reinforcement, but I think knowing that I am incapable of doing that as of now is a big step in itself. And knowing that I can tentatively hope for a future where you will be there, giving me that modicum of space wherein I can sort myself out, wherein I can look inside myself and try and dredge out something honest, is comforting.

If we ever get into that race, that race of holding scores and waiting for the other to make a wrong move, I think we are better off without each other. Now, I don't believe we will ever get there, because we are good at looking at ourselves and being forgiving, at being alone and knowing the value of finding someone like each other.

I think love, for whatever it's worth, takes a lot of courage.

2011-04-13T23:12:00.002+05:30

My mother, is an amazing, amazing woman.

So many untapped thoughts just waiting to be drawn out. So much fun and energy and tragedy and pathos all rolled into one complex, incredibly fascinating person.

Its such a tragedy that I have only realised this when I'm 22, and when she is 60.

Tissue of Silver

2011-01-23T00:20:00.013+05:30

I have tried to avoid this for a long, long, long time, but this is simply too lovely to not share.

This is a story that I read 2 years ago, written by Fearless Diva, and I keep coming back to it.
Tissue of Silver

It is,
1) Fan fiction.
2) Harry Potter fan fiction.
3) Slash fiction - GAY Harry Potter fan fiction, where, (and don't run away now) Harry and Draco are the pair.
4) Long, exhaustively detailed and quite incredibly lovely and quaint.
5) Hot as hell.
6) One of the most beautifully characterized and poignant stories I've read, and I've read a LOT of fan fiction.

Draco here is simply there to fall in love with. Its his story, through and through. The interaction between him and Severus is wry and touching, the interaction between him and Harry is hilarious and hot.

I know, there are a lot of homophobes out there, and yes, you don't need to subject yourselves to this.

For those who are even mildly interested, read! I ughed and ahhed through my first Harry\Draco slash but my friend (thanks Pooja!) forced me to read this and this converted me. For good.

My Manic and I

2011-01-22T23:51:00.001+05:30

2011-01-12T11:55:00.000+05:30

The world is a drought when out of love
Please come back to us
You're all of the above

"I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be," He said, He said, He said,

"Leave me here in my stark raving sick sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving sick sad little world!"

Sick Sad Little World
Incubus

Threads

2011-01-10T22:49:00.004+05:30

And the distances slowly wear us down, chipping away all the warm layers of forced happiness and smiles until what we are lies bare.

We were never beautiful.

I see you seeing me see you silently, gazing into the distance, staring at the walls, clutching at conversational straws and fucking up anyway.

It was never meant to be like this.

But what was? We were never meant to be, two lost, lost souls colliding like blind moths in the stifling ether of the universe. We bartered words for love, secrets for trust, staying up and staring at screens, inducing perversity and openness with oh so much to drink and no sleep at all.

It was never meant to happen, that little click in the universe, that little shift of reality that were explosions in our heads, that brought me east to you, where you came to me with glassy eyes and no defenses at all.

And now we are lost, in our own grimy lives, having nothing but bitterness to give. Lost and angry and more than a little scared, waiting for the first shoe to fall, resigned for the second.

Lost, lost souls, drifting again, but connected by a little glowing thread, tenuous and undying, braver than the both of us.

And that,
that makes all the difference.

2011-01-07T01:00:00.003+05:30

Messy nights when we transmit our frustrations through useless bandwidths, huddle in the cold, trembling and laughing, missing what we need the most, try and satisfy our cravings with paper rolls and dried herbs, move restlessly and look for something, anything, to distract us. We were never meant for this, this life full of purpose and determination. We make do with rush jobs and smothered consciences, wearing a new mask of readiness every morning, not even bothering to get up on the days which are too difficult.

We made the deal with the devil, sacrificing, unknowingly, any future constancy for just this one moment of happiness, just this one smile and just the prospect of one warm body next to us, to take the chillness away. We do so many things to hold on to this, this little spark of happiness, pretending to care, pretending, more often, not to, pretending to not mind and pretending to get on with our lives. We try and send out garbled messages with garbled meanings across channels of communications that were never meant to bear the burden of our love. We hang on, grimly, to people, to things and to ideas, refusing to believe that they are now obsolete, refusing to admit to ourselves that we could have made mistakes.

We do not want to start anew, become better, right our wrongs, because we convince ourselves that we are perfectly fine just where we are, in our own mess and hypocrisy, in our own dirt and stink, which now hold the familiar smell of home.

Fertility is overrated.

2011-01-04T01:07:00.001+05:30

Really.
Fertility is overrated.

Listen!

2011-01-04T00:52:00.002+05:30

Pins and Needles
Mutemath

Paper-thin conviction
Turning another page
Plotting how to build myself to be
Everything that I am not at all

Sometimes I get tired of pins and needles
Facades are a fire on the skin
And I'm growing fond of broken people
As I see that I am one of them

I'm one of them, I'm one of them, oh

Oh, why must I work so hard
Just so I can feel like the noble ones?
Obligations to my heart are gone
Superficial lines explain it all
Sometimes I get tired of pins and needles
Facades are a fire on the skin
Oh, I'm growing fond of broken people
As I see that I am one of them

Sometimes I get tired of pins and needles
Facades are a fire on the skin
Oh, and I'm growing fond of broken people
As I see that I am one of them

I'm one of them, I'm one of them
I'm one of them, I'm one of them

Lab Rats and Pink Alarms

2011-01-02T00:49:00.005+05:30

Nonchalance and elaborately crafted indifference laced with dark humour. So cynical at such a tender age. A semi-sadistic streak of voyeurism as a sardonic being in your head watches others milling about and running around trying to gather all the stimuli you give them, reinforcing whatever belief they already hold of you, they become dogs and bitches to your Pavlovian instinct. Lab rats they all are.

Falling in love with a lab rat. How does that feel? Do you relish the challenge? Do you resent it? Will the rat ever transcend its function? Will it invade that smoldering and ashen wall that surrounds whatever you've so painstakingly hidden? Rats are known for their deceit and strength, maybe you are setting yourself up for something that might overwhelm you. Or maybe you'll squash it dead. With you, no one can tell. The sadism and the gentleness go hand in hand, one never knows just which brand of you will manifest itself.

Oh the fascination of the broken. It sings and calls and tells you, tells you that you can fix it, that it has only been waiting for you to fix it. The excitement of the ride into a broken mind, with the jagged edges and sudden, gravity-free falls. It will make you gasp and bleed and laugh and scream. It calls to you, to prod it, to twist it this way and that, prick a needle here, tie up that little loose end there. It tempts you, telling you that you can fix your own broken pieces as you go along. Now that could be a fabrication. Nevertheless, it won't be boring. No it won't.

So many little thoughts in your head come with so many little alarm bells, each with a history, each with a baggage of its own, trying to fit comfortably within a limited space. So many risks you run each day, waiting for one of these alarms to go off, waiting to see red. Because there are so many of them! All red, pink and white dots milling around, making interesting patterns and tainting everything they encounter, every new memory. And you, you actively go about activating these alarms, until there's nothing in your head but the insistent clamour of too many bruises, too many scabs picked. You can't hear yourself think in all that noise, and you're free.

Freedom comes at such a cost, doesn't it? But as someone very wise said, the ultimate freedom is the freedom to face the consequences. And you, you do that so beautifully. Even with your world falling apart, you do that so beautifully.

Need

2010-12-08T22:11:00.005+05:30

So what was I thinking about? Need.

Need is a dangerous, dangerous thing. All these people who keep talking about non-materialism and detachment and things on a similar vein really do have a point. Need turns into dependence faster than you could say the damned word and dependence, unless carefully negotiated, will spawn emotions that are usually up to no good at all - bitterness, resentment, paranoia, and, in the end, loneliness, merrily accompanied by all the former emotions.

Where do you draw the line between dependence and avoidance? Figuring that out seems to be objective, if you want your lifetime to reasonably happy, that is. A little bit of self respect really does help in this quest. Plus loads of distractions and an acceptance that being alone can actually be fun. Most of the times. Well, sometimes at least.

Do people negotiate all this in some subconscious realms of their mind or do they painstakingly think things out like I do?

2010-12-01T02:07:00.002+05:30

Old people are sad and adorable and terribly frustrating and I feel like taking their terrible fragility and vulnerability and locking it away somewhere. Old people should be cuddled and be happy and be pampered and should not be scared and cower and feel alone and starve and be in pain. Old people can break your heart if you are not careful. Watch out.

2010-11-25T23:38:00.002+05:30

I constantly need others to know that I like being alone. It's tragic, it is. I'm uncomfortably straddling the line between being unable to deal with company and being unable to be alone. I have to keep proving to others that I don't need them. The inherent contradiction in the very sentence is like a toothache in my brain.

I really hope its an age thing.

2010-11-17T13:06:00.004+05:30

1) My roommate is a sweetheart, really. Ultra conservative meet damned sweet meet whiz programmer meet tolerant of my psychotic behaviour meet bubbly as hell. I sit there hunched up in a corner spreading encouraging waves of doom and she bubbles all over it.

2) I smell dog everywhere. The dogs in the hostel reek of pee and that amazing smell of wet, matted fur that NEVER leaves you. Never. The one that sits outside my room looking imploringly at me every time I open the door is especially fragrant.

3) Helplessness sucks. I would suffer everything for everybody rather than watch them suffer helplessly. Of course, I would immediately be wishing the opposite if I was indeed suffering. Hypocrisy, unlike helplessness, does not suck. Covering for both sides of an argument is so fool proof!

4) My hair smells of cigarette smoke all the time, causing roommate to wrinkle nose in a not-almost-disgusted-but-benignly-tolerant-as-always way.

5) I really do wish people would think before judging when they are not in possession of all the facts. I really do wish I do that too.

6) Men are wonderful creatures. Un-understandable as hell, but wonderful. I feel like taking a few apart and trying to see how they work, but I think I'll end up finding rusted wheels and a few broken springs that still twang around.

The Scold's Bridle

2010-09-19T10:31:00.007+05:30

Disturbing, to say the least. Its been a while since I have read about so much rape and molestation in a single book. But the characters! They are so beautifully and exquisitely crafted that its difficult not to fall a little in love with them. The murder mystery eventually comes to its own dreary conclusion but that becomes absolutely secondary to the way the people are portrayed in the book.

Excerpt:
"Then you obviously require lessons on the male of the species" Jack said. "There are only three things to remember. One: most men need to be told what to do by women. Even sex improves when women take the trouble to point the man in the right direction. Two: compared with women, most men are inadequate. They are less perceptive, have little or no intuition, are poorer judges of character and, therefore, more vulnerable to criticism. They find aggression extremely intimidating because they're not supposed to and, in short, they are by far the more sensitive of the two sexes. Three: any man who does not conform to this pattern should be avoided. He will be a swaggering, uneducated brute whose intellect will be so small that the only way he can give himself a modicum of authority is by demeaning anyone who's foolish enough to put up with him, and, finally, he will lack the one thing that all decent men have in abundance, namely a deep and abiding admiration for women."
____________________________________________

Update - Look Here :D

I gotta new Pratchett I gotta new Pratchett!

2010-09-19T01:05:00.004+05:30

*jig*

Of course its going to be good. Its going to be the most amazing-est book ever written!

Just like every other Pratchett :)

2010-09-18T21:52:00.005+05:30

Yeah okay, so even I got sick of seeing the incessantly morbid and, it has to be said, pitiful entries in here. Not to mention lots of people asking me sympathetically if I'm doing better, apparently recovering from whatever mental illness that caused such bitter outpourings.

Full recovery seems unlikely, but the prognosis is not that bleak :D Its nice to be sad and angsty and petulant sometimes. After all, this is Tantrums of a troglodyte. I must live up to the complaining bit of it as well as the cave dwelling bit, which I do without making the least of effort.

So here it is! The new bright blog! The blog which, instead of causing you to strain your eyes in the low contrast environment, will now cause you to blink warily in apprehension of my apparently unending supply of happiness and love for all things that live. You know? That very sentiment that makes you want to strangle the bemused grin off whichever idiot is wearing it.

Here's to being manic!!
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Of course, if moods go by colour, the black moods and the manic glee will ultimately colour the blog a dirty brown. Life has no narrative beauty sometimes, really.

2010-09-14T23:17:00.001+05:30

2010-09-10T14:22:00.006+05:30

My existential angst has been pacified for a while :)

2010-09-04T22:55:00.001+05:30

h e a r t b r o k e n

2010-09-04T13:59:00.001+05:30

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

stop being such a girl

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

get a life

2010-08-05T19:22:00.004+05:30

A day of auto-bus rides, detective novels and questionable realities.

Saw Inception today, which, apart from totally kicking ass, raised the same questions we were talking about during the ride to the theater. We being me and brother. After snuffling, biting and nosing around the same point, which is the most common way of approaching the entire idea of reality (i.e, in a roundabout way), the general consensus was that no one can ever know. Ever. Not only is that because of the extreme subjectiveness of the entire experience, but also because there IS no single definition of what is real, just as no one knows what is right, what is true, what is good, blah blah. I know, I can wax lyrical about the lack of a center to our existence and about how everything exists in a relative mesh of interdependent and intermingling meanings, about how nothing is concrete and therefore about how everything, at the end of the day, is just a value judgement you end up making (from numerous external cues such as family, society, religion, the books you read, your friends, and, of course, the media.)

But the point is, whats the point? Okay so I realised that there IS no point, there IS nothing really to live for, there is no transcendental goal that will make my entire life meaningful. Not only will I ever know if what I think is right, but even if it is, what can I do? Jump off a building because I've just discovered that the entire process of living is meaningless? That will simply not do. Not only because I'm a terrible coward (which I am), but also because this life is all I've got and I'll grimly hang on to it, like it or hate it.

Another aspect that came up was, can I now consider myself self aware? Now that I can see through all the social constructions, now that I realise that "reality" must be taken with a pinch of salt, and that "truth" or "good and evil" shouldn't be taken at all. How will I ever know? What yardstick do I have to rate how aware I am? For all I know pretty much everything I believe in might be wrong. But you gotta believe in something (in order to avoid the entire jumping off scenario), so you might as well pick one principle and stick with it. Or if thats too hard, pick one and stick with it till you get tired of it, then pick another. Only, if you intend to do that, make sure you pick a place far away from where you stuck with a first principle, because you'll be branded a hypocrite before you can utter that word.

At the end, the middle path seems the best. Awareness that what you do with your life isn't worth goat shit, but understanding that you have to do something with your life anyway. Hopefully some sort of nirvana can be reached at some point. Some sort of peace. But the prospects look pretty bleak.

2010-06-29T00:48:00.003+05:30

Excerpt From - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

"Leontyne Bennett skillfully dissected in 'The Commonwealth of Lost Vanities'(1969) Virgil's renowned quotation Love conquers all.

For centuries upon centuries we have been misinterpreting this famed trio of words. The uninformed masses breathlessly hold up this dwarfish phrase as a justification for snogging in public squares, abandoning wives, cuckolding husbands, for the escalating divorce rate, for swards of bastard children begging for handouts in the Whitechapel and Aldgate tube stations - when in fact, there is nothing remotely encouraging or cheerful about this oft-quoted phrase. The Latin poet wrote 'Amor vincit omnia' or 'Love conquers all'. He did not write, 'Love frees all' or 'liberates' all, and therein lies the first degree of our flagrant misunderstanding. Conquer: to defeat, subjugate, massacre, cream, make mincemeat out of. Surely this cannot be a positive thing. And then he wrote, 'conquers all' - not exclusively the unpleasant things, destitution, assassination, burglary, but all, including pleasure, peace, common sense, liberty and self-determination. And thus we may appreciate that Virgil's words are not encouragement, but rather a caveat, a cue to evade, shirk, elude the feeling at all costs, else we risk the massacre of the things we hold most dear, including ones sense of self"

2010-06-26T10:47:00.003+05:30

You HAVE to fuck it up, no?

I mean, finally, finally, things are going somewhat in the direction you think you want them to go in, but oh no, you can not leave it at that. You have to go ruin something there so that all the happiness it could offer you gets smothered beneath the fucked-up-ness. Its like a part of your head craves for all the stress you create in you and all the others who scramble around, last minute, to clean up your mess.

Well, kill that part dead. Because one day, you will not be this lucky. In fact, you might have already run out of it by now.

2010-06-17T07:03:00.004+05:30

7:03 AM
And I can't sleep.

So log on to Facebook, and observe others, others I know, others I thought I knew, others I used to know, and a few I have never seen, live their (productive) lives. Because mine, believe me mine, is not productive.

Who goes on to Facebook as soon as he or she gets up anyway?

Facebook is evil.
It can not be banished and it asks you thousands of reasons as to why you hate it and it justifies its importance to you.
Much like everyone else actually.
Except those who got out when they could. Those who simply retreated into their shells and got lost in some crevice within their heads.

Facebook rule #237
Never put up a display pic in which the other dude is prettier than you.
Really now, isn't it elementary? You want to attract people to you, have them stalk you, have them look at your pictures and your updates.
And then you want to complain about how terrible and cheap Facebook has become, about how random men keep poking you, keep writing on your wall.
But you will be smug about it. You will complain about it with an indulgent, entitled air. After all, when you place your life on display, you expect some returns, yes?

Mockery is good.
You have to be able to be mean, witty and creatively cruel in order to mock someone.
Self mockery, then, is a masochist's dream come true.
Sit back and take a look at the meaninglessness around you. Your life, with its elaborately constructed relationships, the alliances and betrayals, your hopes and dreams (oh how terribly clichéd these words are), your sense of self, which, in all probability, you have internalised from a completely external source, but still cling on to the notion that it is self generated and pure. That call you got yesterday, from someone you once loved, you once thought you loved, calling you up in a flurry of monotony and asking you if you knew any drug peddlers.
Maybe that someone just beat you to the inevitable end.
Or maybe there's a meaning to it all, a meaning that will shine through, as you lie dying.

I feel like a disjointed song sometimes. Everything desperately trying to come together, but never quite managing.
The resulting sound is slightly discordant and heavily annoying.

And finally, ladies and gentlemen, a conversation between Death and his grand daughter.
YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

'So we can believe the big ones?'

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

'They're not the same at all!'

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

'Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point-'

MY POINT EXACTLY.

She tried to assemble her thoughts.

THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.

'Yes, but people don't think about that,' said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed...

CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A...A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.

'Talent?'

OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.

'You make us sound mad,' said Susan. A nice warm bed...

NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

2010-05-25T15:03:00.005+05:30

HOW DO THEY RISE UP

"They did the job they didn't have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who'd been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It'd just inspire new fools to believe they're going to be heroes. They wouldn't want that. Just let them be. Forever."

The Glorious Revolution of 25th of May
Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg

2010-05-21T20:28:00.001+05:30

Weep not for me, mother.

I am alive in my grave.

Excerpt from
Requiem, by Anna Akhmatova

Song of the Day

2010-05-19T22:53:00.003+05:30

Slave Called Shiver
(Stupid Dream, Porcupine Tree)

I need you more than you can know
And if I hurt myself it's just for show

I found a better way to curb the pain
You put a trigger here inside my brain

Mother I need her
I'm falling apart

Mother I need her
And it's only the start

2010-05-18T22:32:00.006+05:30

Do you know what it is to want you?

It's not happy.

It's slightly pathetic and very nearly out of control. It's a testimony to the monstrous things we put ourselves through in the name of something that is supposed to be sweet and pure. Supposed is the operative word here. What I feel for you is barely sweet, and contaminated with so much hatred and anger and a lack of any sense of self. It's raw and it hurts like fuck because when you're there in front of me, your very presence rubs like sandpaper against that wound which is waiting to bleed at the prospect of your absence.

Big words, aren't they? They're nearly not enough.

I told you. Its pathetic. Just infatuation, you might say, but it's as healthy as snorting white powder up my nose. And sometimes, just sometimes, I resent the hold you have over me, a hold that will keep me coming back. All the more so because you have no.fucking.idea.

There is something so dirty/beautiful about all this, that I just have to sit back and look at myself from that little remaining sane corner of my head and wonder at the things we do, knowingly. The inordinate amount of attraction we have for putting ourselves under the cleaver repeatedly. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy this. All the craving I have for you eventually gets translated into pleasure at some point of time. A part of me takes perverse delight in watching that rigid, control-needing part of me drowning in you.

I never had a hope.

With you. I never did.

And I'm so glad.

The importance of being emo.

2010-05-05T12:09:00.004+05:30

I just realised, as I was going through my blog (an exercise in masochism if there ever was one), that all my recent posts are emo.

:(

I used to be funny at one point of time, you know. I was at least able to drag out a few reluctant smiles out of me. Now I look at the black background as I write and all the pent up emo-ness seems to pour out. (Well okay that was a blatant lie. The dashboard isn't black. But the imagery was to good to pass up. Heh.)

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with emo. A little emo once in a while is good for health. Its either that or drown in self pity and become thin and start smoking and get fashionable dark circles and talk in a snobby, bitchy but (for some reason) attractive way. Don't ask. It's one of my favourite rants. I've always wanted to be one of those women (only for a day, of course. I might be an idiot but I'n not an idiot.) You know, the ones who have a perpetual look of disdain on their faces, look malnutritioned to the point of destitution, have long trembly fingers and are instinctively rude and nasty. But people accept this rude and nasty, because they expect women who look like that to be rude and nasty. It's so unfair, really. I can't get away with rude and nasty because I look happy and healthy and bubbly. Bah. I've always felt like there's a rude nasty thin smoking dark circled woman fighting to get out of me. I keep strangling her once in a while. I mean, who wants to be an insufferable brat?

What I was saying is, yes, emo is good. Wallowing in and splashing around in self pity once in a while beats drowning in at all at once. But not at the cost of funny. I miss funny :( Here's hoping it'll decide to wander back into my life soon.

To my future.

2010-05-02T16:11:00.002+05:30

It's so easy, isn't it, to forget the kind of people we were, to forget the reasons why we did a few things, said a few things, acted on our desires and willingly paid the prices. Memory has a way of retaining only the stark, painful images of the punishments we suffered and the consequences we bore, cruelly stripped of the accompanying images of all those moments of desperation and vulnerabilities that made us act the way we did, that brought us where we are today, in this ugly mess we can't think a way out of.

But we will remember, won't we? Tell me we will.

We will remember the courage with which we took a stand, fully knowing what we'd face later on.

Lay.Ter

We will remember the brilliant irony of the circumstances which surrounded us, the seeds of bitterness, guilt and agony that we constantly carried within us, the pain we saw in each other, the pleasure took in each other. We will remember, the day it all falls apart, the conversations we had about the fragility of love, about the constancy of change. We will, because if we don't, then none of this matters. None at all. Because if we don't, we will just be two tired empty shells dragging each other through mud because we can't bear to be alone again. But by then, we wouldn't be together. We wouldn't be what we were.

You understand me, don't you?

It scares me, how fast people change. How quickly things disappear, even those things we were sure would stay forever. But we knew that, didn't we?

42, you'd say. I'd shrug, you'd smile, and we'd move on. We will remember that, won't we? So that these memories remain pure, so that we can look upon them and not remember all the ugliness, all the blame and guilt that would accompany us. We owe it, if not to us, then to the people we were. Because it was beautiful once. Beautiful and happy and full of sadness, even then.

Self destructive, remember?

My Brother

2010-03-31T00:16:00.003+05:30

Sometimes, I just feel like dropping everything in my life and come hold your hand. Hold your hand and say that its OK, say that its all over now, the pain will come to an end. And in the darkest little corner of my heart, I'm a mess of hope and dread, not knowing whom to pray for, you or me. At other times I feel like shaking you, rattling your bones, screaming at you, asking how you could do this to me, how you could do this to yourself, how, in the morbid, bloody mess of a world, you have managed to carve out a niche of pain and agony, just meant for you. And me, sometimes.

The only time I knew what love was, in all its glory, in all its ugly splendour, was when it came to you. Only you, more than anyone else, better than anyone else, have had the key to breaking my heart, and only you, with no effort at all, could glue it back together in haphazard pieces, with a single smile. The ragged edges still pierce me today. My entire life can be mapped out by your presence in it, like a tumour in my brain, always keeping me company. Didn't you once say, that we needn't have been born separately, that we were the same person, split by time? My darling brother, you got all the pain, I got all the happiness.

I remember what it felt to hero worship you. My throat used to well up whenever you left the house, my eyes used to shine with the expectation of your return. I don't worship you now, I live for you. I desperately live every second for you, hoping to convince you to live for yourself a little too.

You know, better than anyone else, what you mean to me. Only you know the conversations we can have, the mind reading we can manage over everyone else's heads. You know, that some of the best times of my life I've had, I've had with you. You know that I love you. So do a lot many people. You don't need to bother, you don't need to care. All you need to do, is live on for me, for just one more year, so that I can wish you the same again.

Happy Birthday my brother.
You are my life.

2010-03-27T18:35:00.002+05:30

And I sit there to look out at the dirt filled road and think and regret everything that has passed. Every little nuance of love that went unsaid, every miserable evening spent together, not wanting to stay away, not wanting to compromise. Every stupid, selfish mistake, every unkind word, and the so many unkind thoughts that I've had.

Love, you see, has been the dominating colour of these years. Love tempered with haunting lack of communication and angry silences. Now it has been drowned in memories and histories, where a single, unsullied image can no longer be separated from the memory that is attached to it. It has been tainted by us, by all of us. Now love can no longer be distinguished from the mistakes and the stupidity.

The people I've met and the person I've become are an unending mobius loop, and to break out of it will take more strength than I believe I have. The way forward is good, will always be good, but a dark part of me wishes for all those times with those who have seen my worst, who have seen me break myself only to stand and hold me and whisper that they loved me. I love you. I love all of you.

Perhaps I will never have the chance to say these things. Perhaps things are a little too messed up now, people a little too different. But it needs to be said. Lots and lots of things need to be said. They will die in their nascent potentiality. So here's giving them a chance.

Our little secret

2010-03-25T21:15:00.002+05:30

Nothing matters, right? Nothing at all. So we can look at each other across a crowded room and exchange grim smiles, perversely thrilled with our little secret. You can see me bleed and caress my cheek, I can watch you drown and ruffle your hair. Our self made destructive paths interminably tangled, because, lets face it, who else will take us? Our little secret. Of holding hands in forbidden spaces, of mingled souls and mingled minds, and mingled bodies too. Our little secret, of wearing our sorrows on our sleeves, for all to see and none to understand, except the both of us. Our little secret.

2010-02-20T22:15:00.004+05:30

I saw a fish die today. There is only one fish left in the bowl. It forlornly tries to move the dead one. Pushes it and shoves it, with no success. It then tries to jump out of the water. Or maybe its just playing. Anthropomorphic personification, its called. Ascribing human emotions to non human entities, the ultimate example of our colossal arrogance. Or ignorance. Or perhaps its just being human. Who knows? Maybe we were made to be arrogant, so that we can survive in our heads without ripping our eyes out.

If a fish can break my heart, how will I survive?

Pearls Before Swine

2010-02-12T00:07:00.001+05:30

Cyanide and Happiness

2010-02-07T13:38:00.003+05:30

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Nightmare

2010-02-04T02:50:00.004+05:30

I take a stab at a cautious smile. After all, the sun has bothered to come up. I don't really appreciate it, but I might as well acknowledge it. An insane little ditty for dotty looping inside my head, tinny, treble high, scampering down my neural pathways. Did you know what that annoying, irritating high pitched buzz that you constantly hear in your ears is called? Tinnitus. Its the happening sound of the times, man. Its your constant companion, because lets face it, you can't be alone anymore. We can't be alone anymore.

That's it. Game over.
The motherboard crashed, and you're out, motherfucker. You stop pretending and you're out. We don't tolerate genuine stock. We want you to be like us, see? Plugged in, updated on the latest lingo, prepared to face the world. You're not going to last here, friend. Might as well give up now. Or give in. That'll work. We hold losers in high esteem here.

I take a stab at a cautious smile. But I'd rather take a stab at you instead. Really. What's one life less? It all balances out in the end. You lose one of yours, we pretend to care. We lose one of ours, hey, no problem. We bury our anguish right next to the dead. It has no place in this world. Fill in the void with dirt, and believe me, dirt is available aplenty here. The thing is, we don't want you to THINK. Thinking gets in the way, it really hinders your progress here. Good news is, there's so many ways to stop it. Oral, syringe, even anal, of you're not squeamish. Oh you're a health freak? That's fine. You can always pour your heart out into some anonymous portal in the middle of the night and wait for made up bits of people to read it. It's as good a way of not thinking as any. Create so many identities that you're entire life is spent in grouping and regrouping them, and not one single constructive thought blossoms. Mission accomplished.

We're the dudes man. We're the ones who have what it takes to survive. If it means obliterating pretty much everything genuine in us, hey, we're up for it. We always are. We're the lean, mean fighting machines you keep hearing about. We're the machines and we're running scared. We're fucking terrified. But that's cool. That's hep. Running away from yourself is the in thing. The world is building more and more ways to help you do just that, Just come and grab the opportunity.

I take a stab at a cautious smile. That's 'cos I'm looking at you, and I know what makes you tick. I know how to destroy you. Welcome to the real world.

2010-01-20T01:42:00.003+05:30

Jamais ja vu - feeling alienated in the most familiar surroundings.

I look around, and realise that nothing matters to me. The person I'd wanted to shake and shake, to make him understand what I meant, what i was. The helplessness I felt at seeing him suffer, the anger at being unable to express what I wanted to, the sorrow at seeing someone so beautiful reduced to something so pathetic... none of these matter. I'm lying in the darkness, absolute darkness. I can't see anything, feel anything. For all purposes, I'm just floating around, a random speck in an alternate universe, free at last for a while, free from all the bodily burdens of emotions and guilt and denial and love, free to just stop thinking. Free to forget that I am a conscious being, just lose whatever is left of me in mind numbing, blessed oblivion. I'm wallowing in emotional Jamais ja vu. I don't feel connected to anything, anyone. And I think about the odds, the astronomical odds that made it possible for me to be here, the number of permutations and combinations that had to have clicked for my life, my world, my entire universe to exist, and I feel that for being the product of such great chance, I take everything too seriously. For what does it all come to in the end? And yet, I know how life has such a hold on me. I know how I feel when I look at someone I love, how my heart clenches around their images. I know how I feel when I listen to something beautiful, see something beautiful, the awe I feel, the little bubble of helplessness of falling in love with the beauty. I know these are what give me meaning, make me want to feel them again and again.

It's amazing isn't it, how so much beauty can leave you desolate, helpless, and how all the ugliness can bring you down from the isolation you've carefully built around yourself, make you face yourself and come to terms with your strength, however little it is. It's amazing how much ugliness I need to feel human. We are ugly by nature. Messy, selfish, cruel, fanatic, capable of so many messy, volatile emotions, capable of so much love, so much generosity, so much beauty. Its amazing how ugly people like us can produce so much beauty. We mix it up and blend into it, spend our whole lives trying to painstakingly carve out our own little corners, try to make a small mark in them, proudly claim them to be ours. I take all this ugliness stoically, but I break down at the prospect of beauty. I'm not strong enough for beauty's power. It is immense, it is cruel. For beauty, I need Jamais ja vu. I need to be disconnected, I need to float freely. I need to escape.

2010-01-20T01:16:00.002+05:30

I like the Internet. Really. It's just so easy to don a nice comforting persona and play the role out to my heart's content and feel secure in the fact that no one will be wiser. As a part of my research for a much maligned project, I came across this statement which said that the Internet has made it so much easier for us to split ourselves into how many ever pieces we like. They never need to interact, no one ever needs to know about their existence except me, I don't need to know anything about the person I'm talking to except that minuscule facet he or she is presenting to me, and it's all so... simple. In such a wonderfully complex way.

Of course, this has gone and completely fucked up my face to face conversational skills, which weren't so hot to begin with. Even my phone speaking skills have gone for a toss. Oh those awkward silences! Those fumbling simultaneous beginnings and overlapping words and phrases and desperate untangling of words in your head before you say something terribly gauche and lose your face completely.. I'm off phones for good. Except for messaging of course. That gives you so much more control. Complete new-age child I've turned out to be. I spend more time looking at a screen than at people. And I'm grateful for it. The screen is all I have between me and a world where no one is all that kind. The screen helps me become bold and witty and funny and interesting for a while, lets me revel in my moment of social bliss, and then generously lets me subside into my own bumbling self again, protecting me. I mean, look at this blog. I write so much shit here, I try to be funny, profound, deep, sarcastic, intelligent, and a host of other things, but I can't find a single genuine piece of writing in here. Because I'm writing for the screen. I'm not sure I want to know what I'll be without it, if I had to let everyone know who I really am the minute they see me. I mean, come on, even I don't know who I really am. I sometimes think I've constructed a mental version of this screen in my head, and I play small little roles for myself all day long, constantly running from the truth. I keep myself so entertained that I don't even think about the truth anymore. But as darling Derrida said, there's no truth anymore. Maybe that's why I'm running. Everything goes in circles, everything comes back to itself, nothing matters. Maybe role playing is all I've got left.

I just hope I can face myself when the time comes.

Hate

2010-01-11T00:33:00.005+05:30

And I don't wanna feel this

Overwhelming hostility..

Towards so many things, towards so many people.

I feel sometimes that I am most defined by the things I hate. The things I'm contemptuous of. Things I feel, are beneath me, not worthy of my attention, my empathy, my pity. People who, for no fault of theirs, put me off, make my hands itch, make my head pound. Until all I want to do is escape into a world where I can vent every single frustration without compunction.

To do this for real is, to me, unthinkable. I am bound by a very strong sense of justice and conscience. I do not believe in them, and I frequently feel that they are beneath me, and this is the very reason I make sure I am bound by them. As much as it is possible, I try to live within them, conscious of every move I make. No one should live without boundaries, without rules. Least of all me. My list of the things and people I can stand is infinitesimal.

There are times when I feel at peace with everything around me. With myself. This experience is immeasurably soured by the profound detachment I always live with otherwise. It is because I know that I don't care that I make myself care. Ruthlessly. What's the point otherwise? Does this make me dishonest? A liar? A hypocrite? I don't know. Because I sincerely don't know how others function. Personally, I can not imagine how people can live on everyday without being bothered without respite by so many things around them. Without being bothered by the things they know exist within themselves. I must allow for it though. Maybe there ARE people out there who can be happy with anything, anyone. Themselves, even.

To feel this and function normally is taxing. Sometimes the loneliness is liberating. Sometimes it is heartbreaking. It depends, you see, on which part of the curve I'm in. Sometimes I feel that I'm above all this, all these inconsequential, trivial, petty problems, disappointments, incidents. I'm content then, happy with myself. The low comes when I realise that these very problems, disappointments and incidents are terribly important to me. I might not admit this to myself, I might not be ABLE to admit it, but the knowledge cripples me.

I sometimes feel that my back is breaking under all the hate and guilt I'm carrying. Under all the pretense and hiding. At other times, I feel that it's the others who are breaking my back, asking me to make sense of so many things, make so many difficult choices, face so much suffering stupidity and mindless cruelty. I don't know who the culprit is. I don't think I ever will. Most of all, I look at others and wonder how they can be so happy. I wonder if they've found the solution, or if they've never faced what I'm facing at all. I don't know which prospect terrifies me more.

The only way out is the cowardly one. Escape.

Give me one more medicated peaceful moment

Isn't that a good solution? Distract yourself from this. Distance yourself. If it means pretending, lying to others, lying even to yourself that you care, that you give a damn, then by all means, do it. The only other path available is a slow rot into loneliness and self hatred. If its the illusion of togetherness that keeps you sane, do everything to maintain it. That core of detachment and hate within you will never leave, will never lose its potency. But try your damnedest to cover it, distract it, anything to prevent it from driving you insane.

Gotta cut away, clear away
Snip away and sever this
Umbilical residue,
Keeping me from killing you

I feel that about others, I feel that about me. Every day is a conquest for me, fighting my hate, fighting my need for acceptance, fighting my incomparable loneliness. Every night, I feel accomplished, victorious. I hate getting up. I get up and wish I could go back to sleep for ever. I get up thinking, what's the point? I get up with an acute knowledge of every bit of suffering I have seen, and I feel defeated. Only I know how much force I use to make myself move then.

Maybe this is what life is. Maybe I've stumbled on to the dismal truth a lot before others have. Maybe I'm terribly mistaken and there IS a bright shining point to life which will enable me to live on in the attempt to reach it. I sincerely hope so.

Otherwise, I'll just have to keep on pretending.

Tomorrow's just one more day.

Song - Orestes, A Perfect Circle

2009-12-16T20:10:00.003+05:30

Excerpt from Requiem, written by Anna Akhmatova

For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.

Reminded me of you, mom.

Sorry.

2009-12-01T16:19:00.002+05:30

It's SUCH a great feeling to talk to someone who is as flawed as you are and has absolutely no hesitation in admitting it :) This particular someone is, of course, my ever-patient will-pick-up-the-phone-whenever-I-call will-laugh-dutifully-even-if-I'm-not-being-funny friend, Ashi. The one who thinks I don't eat. Remember? Just one of her bigger flaws.

What struck me when I was talking to her yesterday (I only call her when I'm feeling worthless/unloved/angsty/tantrum-my(?), and she still likes me. Can you beat that?) was that I wasn't watching any of my words. And that's a big rarity for me. Because every time I open my mouth I automatically scan whatever is coming out for potential inconsistencies with whatever I've unthinkingly said in the past. This takes quite a bit of time, because lets face it, I talk a lot of shit. I can genuinely feel contradictory things about the same issue within a time span of 30 seconds, change my mind as soon as my mood changes, and, to add to my woes, I'm terrible at defending myself. This is probably why I don't talk that much. Listening is so much more easier.

Thing is, with Ashi, I instantly stop being ashamed of this. She is not only so openly in-your-face all that I've listed above, but she's comfortable with it. Of course, she's probably that comfortable only with me. As I'm so much worse than her. I'm guessing she's as tormented as I am in other company. And by god its such a RELIEF to be able to contradict yourself all over the place and be stupid and superficial and whiny and politically incorrect and irritating and laugh your ass of for no reason! You have to let it all out of your system once in a while you know, I'm sure its very dangerous if accumulation takes place. You'll probably burst. Or something.

So this post is for Ashi, my partner-in-idiocy.

If she EVER finally manages to work up the necessary evergy to read this blog, (I've given up on the prospect of that happening) she'll feel very important and happy and thank me for all the PR I'm giving her.

Until then, there's still the phone :)

2009-12-01T16:18:00.002+05:30

I'm addicted! I'm addicted! Again :D (When one has no life, one tends to get addicted frequently to lots of inconsequential things.)

So, as an efficient news reporter would go about it (or so my textbook says) I shall describe the What How Where Who When and Which.

What - I'm addicted to fan fiction. Which, not surprisingly, is fiction written by fans. Fiction based on any character of any book, movie or television show. Fiction centered on favourite characters, favourite pairings, favourite worlds, whatever.

How - All credit for this goes to Pooja, ex-in front of my room classate and now in front of my building classmate and friend for all things that go giggly in the night. Okay not giggly. stomach splitting insane try-not-to-make-too-much-noise-before-warden-comes-and-kills laughter would cover it better. We sneak in bits of philosopical and sentimental conversatons between all the rolling on the floor too. So yes, back to what I was saying. Pooja gave me a Harry Potter fanfic, which, after much whining, I read. The rest, as they say, is history. THANK YOU POOJA!! Of course, now she's getting rewarded by all the amazing fics I find and send her, so thats okay :D

Where and When- Now when this happened, about 6 months ago, I was in my room, and I nearly fell off the bed with the joy of discovering something new and great and the joy of knowing that the supply is nearly inexhaustable. As to where we can find them, fanfics can be found everywhere. Just google and you shall be rewarded appropriately. In fact, the concept of fan fiction is fascinating, and the possibilities that arise from it are endless. You hated Rowling for killing Sirius? No worries. There's thousands of fics waiting for you where Sirius is hale and healthy. SICK of sitting through 9 seasons of X-files and not have Mulder and Scully get together? Thousands of those available too. And these are novel length fics written by fans for absolutely no profit. Apart from other fans drooling all over their stories of course :)

So go and check it out! Pick something you really like and there's good odds someone has written something about it. You will be awed (and a bit discouraged, I must admit) at the amount of talent running amok out there.

The Chronicles of Rat

2009-11-03T21:37:00.009+05:30

--------------------This post is dedicated to Thomas. K. Thomas and Dhilish Fernandez
(I strongly advise you to check out that link in order to understand what I went through. Also, it's bloody funny :D)

So. There I was, all happy because I was getting back home, AC train and all. Happier because I got a side-upper berth, which is the best option (even though I have to sleep with my knees crunched up in order to fit) if the train you are in is fancy and has curtains. Sleeping in the main berth area with the curtains closed when you know that everyone around you is a stranger (more importantly, a man) can be really, um, weird. This time the people in the main berths were all octogenarians. I swear. Two men and two women. I assumed either sex was married to either of the other sex. Sweet people though. At least I didn't have to worry about them making away with my luggage in the middle of the night. None of them had the ability to see more than a few feet, max, in front of them.

So, there I was, knees all happily crunched up, listening to Porcupine Tree, feeling comfy and at peace with myself and the universe in general, and SUDDENLY I see this GARGANTUAN tail, preceded by an even BIGGER rat, scurry right past me on the curtain railing! (Did I mention that the side berths had curtains too?) I sat up in horror, and looked desperately around to see if anyone else had noticed this. I mean, even hallucinations are rarely this cruel. You're supposed to get nice hallucinations when you're happy and at peace and all that anyway.

So I sat up, looked around, fought the urge to let out a bloodcurdling scream (the rat was still quite near me) and squeaked gently. (I squeaked, not the rat.) The nice old people looked up, peered at me. I pointed a quivering finger.They peered a little more, and finally one of them said mildly, "Oh, a rat". I stopped looking at the rat in horror and looked at THEM in horror instead. The old man smiled at me and said "You won't be sleeping tonight, will you, child." I shook my head, dumbstruck. I could not BELIEVE they were taking it so easily. Maybe they were all senile. Yeah. That made sense. They all nodded understandingly and went back to their dinners. I sighed despairingly. I was in SO MUCH shit. Because the old man was right. However tired I was, I would not be able to sleep this night.

I called mum. She made all the appropriate commiserating noises. She asked me to eat. As if. Eating was the last activity in my mind at this point of time. Pushing myself into the smallest corner of the berth and covering myself with the blanket was foremost. But a side upper berth is, in fact, the smallest corner in a train. So I didn't have to do much to achieve what I wanted. I whimpered to my mum again. She asked me to complain. Which I eventually did, to the TC, who again made all the appropriate commiserating noises. So much for that.

I called Ashi. She sniggered. I said I will kill her I see her next. She sniggered more. I said I can't eat because of the rat. She stopped sniggering and started yelling at me.

"Don't starve yourself Apurva. Eat. You're not going to lose weight by starving yourself. I'm a medical student. I know these things."

To which I moaned, "I'm not starving myself you complete nut, I'm saying I can't eat because of the goddam RAT running around above me. Did you hear me?"

To which she yelled, "Its okay baby, there's rats in my room too.. but I eat! I'm not scared of putting on weight! So you eat too OK? Don't starve yourself!"

To which I, very patiently replied, "Ashi, you have nice, clean white mice in your room, which you have NAMED, which, in fact, are your PETS. I, on the other hand, have a great dirty monstrosity of a creature waltzing around above me. It can bite my nose off while I'm sleeping for all you know. Do you get the difference?"

Of course she didn't. She's Ashi. Her main aim in life is to make me stuff my face with food. She has some sort of fixation. She also labours under the misapprehension that I deliberately starve myself. I have NO idea where that came from. Really. I swear.

I messaged Tyrone.

"Dude. There's a huge fucking RAT running around above my head here. :("

To this he replied, "Look at it this way. Maybe its from Hyderabad and it has family there, and its got holiday for some time so its visitin its family :) think how happy its kids will be to see their back :P Besides, don't worry, its gonna find a nice dark corner and stay there cos its as scared of you as you are of it."

To which I messaged back, "Its not that easy to imagine all that when I'm scared that it'll go to sleep over my face :("

To which he replied, "Apu,your face is the complete opposite of a dark corner. Its white and not cornerish. :) And unless you're a big biscuit, you have nothin to worry about."

To which I had nothing to say. There was NO way I would stop worrying about it, so I settled myself to worry about it comfortably, propping myself up on the pillow, all set to jump safely to the ground at the very hint of rodent. Knowing me, such a jump would result in the dislocation of both my shoulders, breaking of all my limbs and breaking of my nose, but hey, that's better than a rat sleeping on your face right?

So I sat up the whole night, quivering in my own dark corner, jumping (as much as the space allowed) with every small movement. At about 2:20, I was stuck with a brainwave. I bunched up the curtain in one tight ball and stuffed it in the space between the railing and the roof, and lay down thriumpantly. No way the rat could get through THAT! HA! Apu thwarts the plans of the wily rat to sleep on her face!
At 2:26, a dreadful thought struck me. What if the rat was on THIS side of the barrier?? It would try to go back, and its way would be blocked right in front of my face! Shit. There went my brilliant plan.

So I sat up the whole night. The rat came and jiggled around in front of me twice more during the night, (at 3:47 and 5:16), and I tried to shrink more into my corner and tried not to pop an important vein in my heart. Thankfully, it did nothing more than jiggle around, for which I will forever be grateful.

By morning, all my muscles were locked and I was exhausted. I stumbled off the berth and collapsed onto the lower seat. The old man peered at me good-naturedly and said, "You didn't sleep yesterday night, did you, child." I managed a watery smile and said, "No uncle. But it's okay. Better than the rat sleeping on my face no?"

He didn't understand a word I said, but he still smiled good-naturedly, patted me vaguely on the back, and nearly fell over as the train jerked to a stop at Kacheguda. I gave him back his glasses, which had fallen down with the jerk, which, somehow, he didn't notice. I tried not to break down into disconsolate, exhausted tears and made my shaky way out of the train, into what I fervently hoped was a kind-hearted, rat-free Hyderabad.

Cough

2009-08-27T17:25:00.004+05:30

I am back people!
After not writing in god knows how many months I have finally decided to honour blogspot by writing again. :) For those of you who have been following this blog so avidly (did I hear sniggers there?) my justifications are these:

1. I have been busy (really!) with college. Compared to the first 2 years, 3rd year offers less of a chance to bitch about how jobless one is. I haven't wasted 3 hours randomly lolling around and looking for unfortunate people to message/ taken some paints out, attempt to paint and clear up the ensuing disastrous mess for longer than it took to paint in the first place/ thought about getting up and actually getting a life for a change for many months now. If I didn't have time to do those, I definitely didn't have the time to blog.

2. Why do I have time now? Because I've just washed dishes which have lain in the sink for more than 15 days (thus, I'm sure, hosting civilizations that have evolved up to the point of discovering fire, or even the wheel) and I feel the urgent need to proclaim this achievement far and wide. Of course, the discerning might say that a blog that almost no one reads would be an inappropriate setting for proclamations of this kind, but the discerning wouldn't read this in the first place. So.

APURVA HAS FINALLY WASHED THE DISHES! (After FIFTEEN days of them congealing in the sink!) (After five days of bitching about them lying dirty in the sink and then realising that no one was going to offer to do it for her.)

3. I haven't felt like writing in the recent past. Perhaps it was because of a month of never ending bad moods, or (more probably) because I'm just very, very lazy. But now the good moods are back (!!), bringing along with them my blundering attempt to put all my vague thoughts into words, (most of which are appallingly different from those thoughts in their final form). But who cares? If no one else, at least I end up smiling by the time I reach the end of whatever I'm writing. So here's to more writing!

Overwhelmed

2009-06-19T21:03:00.003+05:30

You know that feeling you get when you feel so much that your heart aches? When it's difficult to take a proper breath because you can feel your heart trembling, cringing away from such overwhelming emotion. When you can feel your pulse in your neck, get goosebumps and have to close your eyes hold yourself tight?

I feel that now.

And I'm thinking, we all fuck up, right? We all do stupid things, we are, at times, petty, selfish, or even cruel. Life, as someone said, is not an exam we have to pass. We do what we can, bumbling along the way, hurting, getting hurt, dealing with all those insecurities and weaknesses that we seem to be so abundantly supplied with, trying to smile through the day, through the hour, and, on some bad days, through the minute. And in the end, that is all you can do...try to smile through it.

I wish I didn't have to see so many people suffer. But suffering is commonplace. In fact, suffering is a matter of course. Everyone suffers, everyone takes shit, everyone learns. I wish I could hold and comfort everyone who is locked in the agonizing traps of their own minds, I wish I could wipe away all their insecurities, all their guilt, all the memories of their mistakes and their losses, but I have my hands full with my own guilt, my self criticism, my insecurities. And at the end of the day, we all have to live with our demons. And I think, in the end, this is what makes us human beings right? We deal with each others cruelties every day, but we still manage to love. We can hate someone with a passion one day, but all we feel later is overwhelming love, and all we feel like doing is opening our arms wide and saying, come back, its okay now, just come back and everything will be fine. Of course, we know that it won't. But so what? We can do this again and again. If not this, what else will we do? What else is there but to forgive, and forget?

I still can't breathe properly. We live in such incredibly fragile constructions of reality, I'm forever wondering how people can be so blind to its transparency. One mistake, one catastrophe, and everything will come crashing down out naive heads. But then, what else can we do? We will rebuild, remake, redefine, and we will continue to exist in our small made up lives. What else is there to do? All we can do is hope that we have the strength enough to move on, and try to smile. And try, however hard it might be, to love. Without that, there is nothing else. Survival for procreation might have held meaning a while ago, but today we are too self aware to fall for that. We need more meaning. And we can only get that if we manage to forgive, to forget, and most of all, to still love in spite of all the scars and mistakes.

And now I'm thinking, yes, things are bad, things are probably going to get worse, but so what? I'm alive right? That must count for something. I'll worry about holding grudges when I'm comfortably dead. Till then, I have this one path to follow - I'll go awry, I'll take a lot of U-turns, I'll do the same stupid mistakes again and again, I'll complain and whine, I'll fall quite a lot, and, knowing me, I'll severely embarrass myself every inch of the way. But that's all I have, so I'll try to do it with some zest. I might not succeed all the time, but I'll give it my best.

I hold no grudges. Not many regrets. Quite a few weaknesses, but I still smile.

:)

The Great Engagement

2009-06-15T23:12:00.003+05:30

*Warning: If you are from my family and if you are susceptible to taking undue offense, please don't read this!

So yes, the great day came. R. got happily engaged. At least, it became happy once he got good at those fake genuine smiles (or were they genuine fake smiles?) that he kept on practicing at my insistence. And before anyone takes any undue offense (please read the warning!), all the fake genuineness and genuine fakeness was not because he was unhappy about the engagement as such (because, lets face it, V. is as lovely as they come,) but only because all the smiling probably got to him after awhile. Cheek muscles do ache, you know.

So yes, my day went like this. Got up at seven, ran into bathroom, took bath, waited patiently until more patient people could come and drape the sari around me, remembered that I forgot to brush, waited patiently again as even more patient people draped the sari around me after it unraveled, brushed, sat in car, listened to Radiohead.

Function Hall: Got out of car, thanked all the gods that sari didn't unravel on the spot, staggered up into the hall, had first cup of much needed coffee. Had amazing breakfast, met relatives. told them M. couldn't come because of a slip in her disk, which is causing her to subject her bedroom ceiling to intense scrutiny. Has second cup of coffee. Ran into changing room for people to take notice of me and drape my sari again, which finally gave up on me after an astonishing 1 hour of good behaviour.

Actually, the rest of the day was a blur of sari draping, coffee drinking and meeting people and explaining why M. couldn't make it. But since at least 3 people were trying to call M. and one person was succeeding at it at any given point of time, M. was almost there, although only in an exclusively auditory capacity.

In between all this, R. did get engaged, and (shame on everyone else!) I was the only one who clapped enthusiastically. I didn't get a bit embarrassed when others stared at me. All the red in my face was from the exertion of clapping. I swear. V. was alternating between knee trembling nervousness and dismal resignation as people continued to stuff her hair with a veritable garden of flowers, despite the fact that she could barely hold her head up. After all, flowers in the hair is a Done thing. Ceremony=Flowers in Hair, and there's no two ways about it.

Apart from setting a record in the fastest pattu-sari draping-jewelery changing-hair combing-flower stuffing-make up putting-fake smile arranging category (all practised on poor V.), I also set a record in remembering a number of faces and (hopefully) the names attached to them and (less hopefully) what they said, so that I could repeat them to M. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that she had talked to all of them through phone already. I bore it with dignity and repeated everything anyway. Serve her right.

And now I will leave before more memories come rushing back, because if I go any further no one will be as nice to me as they were in the function.

Oh, oh, and before I go, CONGRATULATIONS RORY AND VIDYA!!!

And Ma, get well soon :)

2009-05-30T02:10:00.003+05:30

The glorious 25th of May. Were you there?

"They did the job they didn't have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who'd been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It'd just inspire new fools to believe they're going to be heroes. They wouldn't want that. Just let them be. Forever."

I know its late...5 days late. But Terry Pratchett...you have changed my world. This is just to say a very heartfelt thank you.

Important Terms To Know (Along with easy-to-remember abbreviations- some of them almost make a word!)

2009-05-06T00:25:00.007+05:30

GABI: Grin And Bear It (Careful about the DSTM. Cheek muscles can be quite tender.)

DTAT: Don't Think About Tomorrow (In fact, don't think about today either. No thinking at all is a definite advantage.)

DITS: Denial Is The Saviour!

STTA: Sleep Through The Anxiety (20 hours a day is good work!)

CT,DB: Clench Teeth, Deep Breath (Bonus: Can be used individually also!)

PSOF: Plaster Smile On Face (Again, careful about DSTM.)

DSTM: Don't Strain Too Much (A muscle pull can be quite painful you know, especially when you've pulled a muscle you didn't know you had in the first place.)

DYD: Distract Yourself Desperately (See MWSY and BWT.)

NGT!: No Guilt Trips! (Tempting, I know, but you can do it! Use DYD, STTA, and DITS for best results)

MWSY: Music Will Save You (It will.)

BWT: Books Will Too (See above.)

DSODH: (I know, I know, it gets complicated. But this is important! Pay attention!) Develop Streak Of Dark Humour

NMP: Not My Problem (Think that, and it'll stop being your problem. Its as simple as that. Really.)

L: Laugh

And finally,

WIYBAPATSDYCST: (Quite obvious isn't it.) Write In Your Blog And Ponder About The Sad Depths You Can Sink To.

Heat.

2009-04-22T00:40:00.003+05:30

So yes. Hyderabad is HOT. And by that I mean scorching, vaporizing, extreme-discomfort-making (?) hot. Not only is it hot, it is humid, and hot, and windless, and..and..gah! Words fail me. The sun is sucking all the energy out of me. (This being inspired by the quite graphic depiction of the very act in some ad. An ad for glucose I think.)

Summer in Hyderabad always guarantees a few things.
1. Lyra panting like her tail's on fire. The goddam noise keeps me awake for hours. I really prefer the snores.
2. Dad panting.
3. Dad throwing tantrums (because he can't take the heat and he has to make sure that everyone within a 20 km radius knows that fact.) They do. Believe me. He even calls up random people in his phone book and yells at them, just to vent.
4. Dad throwing more tantrums because the coolers refuse to work.
5. Dad sitting for hours on end tinkering with the coolers and fiddling with their pumps. Finally he ends up all grimy and happy so I guess thats okay.
6. Mum building up wrist muscles by chopping up innumerable cucumbers and carrots in order to make bucketfuls of salad.
7. Me sitting in one corner trying hard not to melt. That requires serious effort and concentration, which is why I haven't written till now. This is also the reason I haven't moved at all the last 15 days. In any case, I don't want to melt all over my keyboard. I'm really attached to it. Come to think of it, I'm really attached to me too, so yeah, moving is not an option.

I'm only writing right now because I got mum to put the cooler, which (thanks to dad) is in perfect condition, about an inch from my nose and put my laptop in my lap. I'm barely moving my fingers, thus escaping the melting. I will go back to my comatose state soon. Its just the cooler that prompted me to do this. It has jiggled a few brain cells loose from their anti-melt-defensive-shutdown.

Well. I'm all done here. Any more exertion and I'll never be able to write again. (Think of that!) So, to spare you the joy and me the agony,
au revoir.

State of love and trust

2009-03-16T03:05:00.003+05:30

"and I listen, yeah,
for the voice inside my head
nothin', I'll do this one myself
and the barrel waits,
trigger shakes
aimed right at my head
won't you help me
help me from myself"

She knew what she was doing. She knew it was unforgivable. But hell, she was almost there. Why stop now? The ceiling fascinated her. She was sure that the pattern of cracks on it would, if deciphered correctly, signify something mind shattering. She was nearly at the brink of deciphering it too. Just a minute more, and she would have it. The answer danced tantalizingly in front of her, just out of reach. She raised her hand weakly, trying to grab it, and her fingers curled over his, similarly raised in supplication. Tightening her grip, she turned to her side and looked at him. There was pain. Oh yes. A lot of pain. Pain that had etched lines around his eyes. Pain that had found permanent residence in him. But his eyes held her like a spell. They were aglow, filled with a furious joy blazing in defiance of everything life threw at him. A little happiness, wasn't that worth everything? Exhilaration spread through her, her lips curved in a lazy smile. With him, she knew, it would be alright. Everything would be alright. Everything.

----------------
Now playing: Pearl Jam - State of love and trust
via FoxyTunes

2009-02-23T23:58:00.002+05:30

Go Rahman! Go Rahman! Go Rahman!

*Does little happy jig around the room*
*Bangs into open cupboard door*
*Continues little happy wobbly jig around the room*

Here in my room

2009-02-18T00:18:00.008+05:30

He gazed out into the night, his mind a careful blank-it had become an instinctive defense mechanism. There was a party going on downstairs. He could hear it, a dull throbbing headache at the back of his head. It had been going on for a while now. Absently, he flicked the end of the curtain that was tickling his ear. He hadn't wanted a party. But his acquaintances seemed to be enjoying his birthday more than he was. His departure had been unobtrusive, it didn't seem to affect the mood of the gathering. Maybe it even lightened the atmosphere a little.

Let it go, he told himself for the umpteenth time. Let it go. What does it matter? Look at the stars and let it go. He forced himself to look up at the sky.

Without any control, his mind zeroed into the image of her eyes. How could he let it go? One look into them and he felt like he'd been punched. He'd felt his knees go weak. How could he think straight? They had been brimming over with uncontrollable, insupressable life. He couldn't think of any other way of describing them. They belonged to a person who felt everything with so much intensity that every little emotion would be a debilitating blow. He feared those eyes. He feared her. He feared her because he knew the power she would have over him. She had aroused every primal instinct he thought he'd buried deep inside him long before. The sparkle of electricity that ran between them across the hall had jolted him out of his senses. He had escaped before he lost complete control. He didn't know who she was, what she was doing in his hall. He only knew that the minute she walked in, he felt his life change in a way he wouldn't have believed was possible. This girl could wind him around her finger like thread and he was terrified of that power. She embodied everything he'd lost, everything he'd sacrificed, everything that had died in him in the last 24 years. She was the victorious result of every battle he had ever lost, every hope that ended in disappointment. Her presence at such close proximity was unbearable.

He closed his eyes and prayed that she would go away. Who ever she was, where ever she came from, he fervently wished she'd go back. He couldn't deal with her in a rational way. Just looking at her caused his control to teeter this dangerously. The thought of her in his room, near enough to touch, made his mouth go dry.

Desperately, he looked around his room. It was his haven, his one secure hideout from the world. Her presence in the room...he realized with a sickening jolt, would make it complete. He knew, deep within him, that if she came into his room, she would not leave without knowing him inside out. Every scar he had, everything he was ashamed of in himself, everything he'd shut out, would be laid bare. She would not leave before revealing just as much of herself to him. He stood still, locked in a conundrum of contradictory wishes. He wished she would leave his life as abruptly as she came into it, freeing him. He wished she would walk into his room, right now, taking the one step he didn't have the courage to take. He wished she would walk in and take him.

After a while, he realised that the headache was gone. The party was done, everyone gone back to their sordid lives after this brief time out. He felt a disappointment so crushing he thought his heart would actually break. He wondered briefly if the girl was a dream, a vivid figment of his delusional imagination. But the feelings were too real. No figment of imagination could ever make all his muscles stand out like that, straining to get beyond himself, to get to her. Through the grey haze of heartbreak, he saw the door open. She walked in.

She looked him for a long time, eyes neither kind nor cruel. "Did you really think I'd leave?", she said. "You made stars explode inside my head from across a room. Did you think I'd give that up? I don't know who you are, and I don't care. But the things I've felt after seeing you, I know I can't return to a life where I can't feel them. I see colours like I've never seen them before. I can't get back. There's only one way ahead." She gently shut the door behind her and walked to him.

Inspired by Here in my Room, by Incubus.

The curse of the mediocre

2009-02-17T03:17:00.000+05:30

She knew the world around her. She knew the people-her unreservedly loving family, her loyal, always up for a good time friends, her friendly as well as the unfriendly neighbours, the shop keepers on the street, the beggars around the shops, the usual bunch of kids who saw the right movies, read the right books and wore the right clothes, the other usual bunch of kids who rebelled against every norm worth rebelling against, the self-destructive people who were in just for a high in life and nothing else, the weirdoes, the perverts, the hypocrites-the usual mass of humanity striving to lead a life to the best of their abilities. And she knew how rare it was to find someone who could stand out in a hackneyed, mundane crowd like this. But she had found him. He was the kind of a person you could never completely own. He was the most self-controlled person she had ever seen. Nothing and nobody had a hold over him. Not even her. But she didn't mind. She was content just watching him from the sidelines, watching him live his life in a way that amazed her moment after moment. She knew people like him. And she knew their eventual fate. He was the kind of a person who had the power to change the world, but who would be trampled down before getting access to it. She could see the power resting dormant in him. But the world wouldn't allow him to survive. The world ran too much on too many rules, and was very unkind to those who tried to circumvent them. The world was too big a system for him to match up against. She knew she was incapable of stopping the world's brutality. She knew she was incapable of helping him fight. All she could do was watch, and suffer. They would tear him down and burn the remains, and she knew that a part of her would burn too. But she was willing to burn. That was the fate of her kind. She would continue to live her mundane life with all the mundane people around her, with bitter-sweet memories of the glory she found, and the glory she was inevitably doomed to lose.

2009-02-17T02:30:00.007+05:30

"What did Apu say after reading Harry Potter?

She really found Will Parry Hotter!"

:D :D
Makes me smile at the most random times.
Thanks Arjun.

Why?

2009-02-03T02:41:00.002+05:30

All this sudden zest for writing originates from the desperate need to study for the psychology exam tomorrow. But its 2:42 A.M and the best thing to do is to write in my blog. Right?

Of course, studying doesn't even come into the scenario because its a fundamental impossibility to study when the exam is looming so threateningly at you. The more threateningly it looms, the more you try to hide from it by doing the most abysmally inappropriate things. I mean, yesterday, I spent 45 minutes painting used up chocobar sticks with a bunch of sketch pens. (The quaint little idea behind this activity was to ultimately use them as bookmarks for my textbook).

Right now, sleeping is a better idea; at least I will be able to get up early tomorrow and resume the studying. But that would just be too easy wouldn't it?

So here's to mid morning bouts of random writing.

The complex science of gossiping and bitching

2009-02-03T02:18:00.005+05:30

It's been a busy couple of weeks. P. moved into the room opposite mine thus causing an exponential increase in the amount of time spent on gossiping and bitching. This is based on scientific equation (Q: Can there be any other kind of equation?) given below:

T = (N * A)^N-(A*L)

T, of course, stands for the amount of time spent (in seconds) on gossiping and bitching.
N stands for the number of girls present in a reasonably small room fulfilling these parameters: Everyone should be able to hear everyone else, facial expressions must be seen clearly.
A stands for the number of girls absent from the group. (Entire group-present group)
L is a complex variable that extends from the value -1 to +1.
If all the girls unanimously hate the absent girls, L takes on the value of -1. If everyone is neutral, L=0, and if everyone unanimously likes the absent girls, L=1, in which case bitching is eliminated and only gossiping occurs. The decimal values for L can be based on the fraction of the girls liking/hating the absent girls.

I'll even work out a simple example for you guys to make understanding the equation simpler.

Q: If there are 4 girls in a room out of an original group of 6, and all the 4 girls hate the 2 missing girls, then what is the time they spend on gossiping and bitching about the other two in a day? (The room fulfills the required parameters).

A: Since there are 4 girls out of a group of 6, N=4, A=2 and, based on the info given in the question, L=-1.
Substituting these values, we get N=262144 seconds, which translates into approximately 72 minutes.
So the answer is: T=One hour 12 minutes.
If you don't trust my math then go do it yourself. I advise you to use a calculator though.

*Disclaimer - Neither the equation not the example question refer to actual girls, living or dead. This is a generalised theory based on hypothetical subjects.

YESSS!

2009-01-12T21:02:00.002+05:30

This is IT man! Rahman finally went and did it! Its not like he hasn't done it a million times before but this time...this time he went and got a Golden Globe! And apparently Rahman has sold more albums than Elvis and even the Beatles! Isn't that kickass?

Point being..I just saw his acceptance speech on TV and I had to put this in in the middle of jumping up and down. I'll go and jump up and down a little more now.

I WORSHIP RAHMAN

Life!!

2009-01-03T00:20:00.003+05:30

My god! How could I have forgotten about THAT?? Trapdoor was absolutely the best episode in the second season...best written, best acted, best revelations, Lewis/Crews at his hottest...I can go on and on and on. And I can't BELIEVE the next episode is a month away! How will I survive??? Waaaah! :( :(

I forgot.

2009-01-02T23:32:00.004+05:30

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Back home! And so...

2009-01-02T22:39:00.013+05:30

BOOKS! My primary source of sustenance in Hyd. And Sunday Market didn't let me down. Man oh man! 34 books for 500 bucks. That's paradise. So anyway...read this book called Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.. adolescent vampire love never got worse. The only good thing that came out of it was that I got on to Anne Rice. I'm juggling two of her books at the same time, which, in retrospect, doesn't seem like the best of ideas because I keep on swapping the characters and getting confused as hell. And Coorg was very disappointingly hot. But the two cats that were there in the room made up for the weather totally. I just hope they're still up and licking after all the curses my not-so-animal-friendly mum put on them.

Home is very empty without grandpa...but it's not as bad as I dreaded...it's amazing how quickly you can get used to these things. Apart from eating like a depraved boar, I've been sleeping, and sitting around without doing anything constructive. Of course, that's what one is supposed to do during the hard earned holidays after a tough, draining semester, but since I spent the last semester sleeping and sitting around without doing anything constructive, the novelty of it all kind of wore off. At least I didn't eat so much there.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about books. Lets see...apart from the vampires, I've been entertained by Inspector Morse, who is this incredible quirky-drunkard-loner-brilliant-detective type created by Colin Dexter. Liberally sprinkled with a lot of quotes, (some of which I actually recognized! Go lit. course!) the book, The Way Through the Woods has one of the more convoluted plots I've encountered. Then came Travis McGee, the 6 foot 4-complex-sensitive-introspective-principled-odd job type created by John MacDonald. The book, Free Fall in Crimson, was kick ass, with these sudden nuggets of extremely perceptive observations made by the author through the protagonist. Also, it was in first person, which immediately got my mouth watering and fingers itching. Now it's Inspector Jack Frost, another quirky-loner-brilliant-but bumbling-forgetful-and really really funny type created by R.D. Wingfield. The books happens to be called Frost at Christmas. And it really funny. And clever. And funny. Nothing like British humour.

Britishers apart, I read this Ridley Pearson book called No Witness. Awesome. I think I've developed a great appetite for crime fiction. Hopefully it'll remove some appetite for all the food. I've always wondered about these people who think that only philosophical novels teach the reader abut life and all that bosh, and that every other novel is just for entertainment. Almost all the crime novels I've read are filled with so many beautiful perceptive passages that are as moving and enlightening as the next non fiction philosophy book. I have nothing against ANY book, of course, but I'd prefer entertainment and enlightenment in a single package. Books like The Legion, Gone Baby Gone, any Michael Connoly or Jeffery Deaver book...they all give me pretty much everything I need.

And also I finally read Angel of Darkness...the almost sequel to The Alienist, both written by Caleb Carr. It's exactly like The Alienist, but in a nice way. Same Gaslit Era setting (Copyright Apoorv :D), that is, late 1800's to early 1900's in the USA, same characters, similar plot...but still gripping and intense. I couldn't put it down. Both the books were so easy to read!

Apart from that...I watched Ghajini! Most unfortunately, I was sitting amongst a bunch of giggling goggling gaggle of girls who went from giggling to outright nudging and laughing, at me, that is, when I started crying when Asin died. Kalpana, that is. Oh. spoiler alert. (I've seen a lot of bloggers considerately warn their unwary readers about spoilers, but then the great immense following I have will hardly care. Right?) So anyway, I was crying and they were doing the whole point and nudge thing, which was kind of rude because I was like, right there, in the middle. They didn't even be bother to be surreptitious. And did I mention the music? Of course I did, and I'll do it again here. Its AWESOME.

Then...Christmas was completely forgettable. New year was forgettable for a very different reason- a lot of really good quality wine brought all the way from Coorg.

Oh. And that Bournville dark chocolate Cadbury released? Its SO disappointing! I expected some serious bitter chocolate for the amount I doled out-75 bucks!-but it tasted like every other chocolate. Damn it. Lindt rules.

Rhaman is back!

2008-12-06T21:47:00.004+05:30

Okay...so Yuvvraaj was slightly disappointing....but man...did he make up for it in Ghajini! As usual, it took me time to get to my usual fever pitch of obsession - about 48 hours. Now I can't stop listening to it. Aargh. B. was SO right! Every song is generously littered with what we call "Rahman moments". A Rahman moment that moment in the song is when you get goosebumps and that feeling in your stomach when going down a really steep slide. So you just close your eyes and savour.

Guzarish - typical Rahman with some amazing background chord shifts and awesome baseline. And Javed Ali, damn, his voice is mesmerising. And Rahman is probably the only music director for whom Sonu Nigam will agree to sing for like 5 seconds of a song. It reminds me of how Hariharan sang only the first two lines of Yuhin Chala. Again, he would do that only for Rahman. Also, the ending ten seconds of the song where the background music goes mad...totally amazing.

Aye Bachchoo - My introduction to Suzanne D'Mello. And what a song she got to sing. Again, as B. pointed out, it reminded me of Rozaana Zamaana from Lakeer. And just how Rahman came up with the idea of linking the two very different rifs (is that what they're called? I'm just applying rock terms here) beats me. A complex song that got me hooked after the third time. Now I can't stop listening to it. And he singer did an amazing job.

Kaise Mujhe - Slow and beautiful. Lovely chords. And lovelier singing. Benny did a great job, and I don't really need to say anything about Shreya.

Behka - Now this is the song that got me jumping out of bed. It reeks of Rahman's out of control brilliance. It might be too complex to appreciate for the first time, but believe me, it hits you like a ton of bricks once you get the hang of it. The jazz elements are sexy, the tune - you have to hear it to believe it. The beat is catchy and unpredictable - foot tapping to sudden shifts into the realm of berserk. Karthik did such an incredible job, SUCH an incredible job, I can't even begin to talk about it. And the ending...man...it all comes together so well. This is why I worship Rahman.

Latoo - The only song that has not yet got to me. But then I've had songs that suddenly killed me like a month after I heard them.

Kaise Mujhe inst. - Beautiful.

All in all, Rahman is back with a bang. And I can't be happier.

2008-11-17T17:46:00.006+05:30

Goodbye grandpa.

I remember how you used to lift me up to the parapet when I helped you put out rice for the crows every morning.

I remember listening, spell bound, to all those stories you used to tell me, about each day of your life as a doctor, about each patient who changed you and made you a better person, about how you met your wife, about how you fell in love with her.

I remember how you persuaded me to eat lunch every day while my parents were away at work, how you used to whistle in tune with grandma as she sang, following me around the room with food in your hand.

I remember how you let me sleep beside you when I was scared, how you consoled me when I cried.

I remember the week when I got typhoid, I was so terrified of injections; you gave yourself an injection every day before giving it to me to remove my fear. From that day onwards I was never scared grandpa. Never.

I remember how you taught me English as you wrote books, I remember your excitement at seeing your book for the first time fresh from the printing press.

I remember your happiness at seeing a flower bloom in your precious garden, how you used to tend to every plant with so much love and care.

I remember how you used to walk all over the city because it gave you pleasure to see new places.I remember how stubborn you were when your legs refused to hold you up; how you used two walking sticks instead of a wheel chair.

I remember the day we bought you a wheel chair, how you sat and scrubbed out the "For Invalids" sign printed at its side before using it.

I remember how you slowly became deaf, and how bad you felt that people had to shout to make themselves heard, but no one ever minded grandpa, everyone loved talking to you.

I remember how you used to get up at four in the morning so that you could slowly cook breakfast till six in order to help my mother, how you refused to stop doing it even after you got the wheel chair - you said it was a way of paying us back for all we had done for you.

I remember how you started losing your sight, but didn't give up; I will never ever forget the constant sound of the type writer as you laboriously typed out your new book, letter by letter.

I remember how you used to get all worked up when you misheard a dialogue in the serials you used to see, I remember the all time I spent with you as I slowly repeated the actual story.

I remember the day they told you that you had cancer. They gave you two months to live, and you laughed at them, saying you won't go before hitting a century.

I remember how you used to call me and tell me to secretly get some pickle for you when grandma wasn't looking.

I remember how I used to get ice creams for you- holding the softy right in front of the AC in the car and handing it to you as you waited at the doorstep of the house.

I remember how you cried when all your children and grand children came to you on your 90th birth day and told you how important you were to them.

I remember seeing your face when I left for Bangalore, I remember you used to tell me that I had the gift of making you smile through your saddest thoughts.

I remember how you dedicated your book to me, the book you spent 6 years writing, never giving in to the fact that you could barely see.

Most of all grandpa, I remember your smile. You smiled when they told you you couldn't walk, you smiled as you lost your hearing, your vision. You smiled when they put a best before sticker on your life. You smiled and you continued to fight. You smiled through what must have been agonizing pain after you broke your hip and shoulder when you fell off your wheel chair.

The day my heart broke was the day when I came home after months and you failed to recognize me; you were gazing blankly into space, you were not making any sense. They said it was expected, after all, a 91 year old becoming senile is nothing special.

I remember how you sometimes became lucid and started crying, saying you were a burden on your family. I remember the night when started screaming and crying, I remember how you trembled as I held you in the darkness, crying about how scared you were, how you didn't want to die, how you wanted to be OK, but no longer had the strength to fight.

I remember feeding you, bathing you, giving you urinals and bed pans, because you couldn't move anymore. But I never forgot your smile. You smiled when I played with your hair, and I felt like dancing with joy, because you recognized me, because you remembered how you loved it when I played with your hair.

My life came apart when my brother called me day before, telling me that you just stopped breathing. I remember crying throughout the bus ride back home, and when I saw you lying there in the ice box, I felt numb. You looked so peaceful, after all your suffering, after all your fighting, you looked so peaceful, like a sleeping child. I wanted you to open your eyes and smile at me once, just once.

Now, an urn full of ash represents the man you were. Now your room looks so empty, with just grandma there, and the house is so quiet without your laugh, without the creak of your wheel chair. That sound haunts me in the night.

I loved you grandpa, I loved you so much. I know I can fight anything today, because I saw you fighting with the best of them and winning. Everything around me reminds me of you, of your smile, your infectious laugh.

I'd sell my soul grandpa, just to see you smile at me once.

Just once.

A Small Fable for Mr./Ms. Bigot Anonymous

2008-11-08T00:25:00.009+05:30

Once upon a time, there was a town. In this town all the girls were called X, and all the boys were called Y. Now, this town was very moral, very righteous, (or so the townspeople thought), and, very strict. In this town, a girl called X secretly liked another girl called X. Secretly, because it was utter blasphemy in that town for an X to like another X. Every girl had to like a boy. All the X's were destined to meet, like, fall in love with, marry and have children with any of the Y's. Only XY's were allowed in the town. XX's or YY's who were discovered were stoned to death and hanged on the largest tree in the town, to serve as a warning. So, the girl X guarded her secret very carefully. X and the girl she liked, X, decided to run away and live in another, not-so-strict town. But somehow, all the other X's and Y's and XY's found out about them, and so the XX's were stoned to death and hanged on the largest tree in the town, to serve as a warning.

Now, this incident worried the town council (which was made up of the wealthiest Y's) because it was the fourth incident of its kind in the last month. The Y's of the town were very small people, without much wisdom. these Y's put their heads together and came up with an idea: in order to put an end to such incidents, they would kill all the X's in the town. This idea was put to vote and unanimously agreed upon. So, the Y's set out of the council hall and started killing all the X's. All the X's accepted this fate meekly because they were ingrained with the town's values and accepted that this was the only solution. Soon, no X was left alive, and the Y's were all satisfied. But the Y's had made a terrible mistake, for they soon discovered that they could no longer make any more X's and Y's without the help of X's, and they didn't think the YY method would work. In any case, that was utter blasphemy.

This sad little town's story comes to an end with all the Y's dying their sad little deaths. No one lived happily ever after. In fact, no one lived at all.

There are two important morals of this story:

A. Women are important. Very important. Kill girl children and all you're doing is denying (if nothing else) the continuation of your own lineage. Your son is not going to bear your grand kids. Your son is not going to be able to do anything.

B. The sex life of others is none of your business. You may not be homosexual, but if you are against homosexuals, you are a bigot. If you think that homosexuality is a disease, is criminal, or evil, you're not only a bigot, you're also an asshole.

Dude where's my book?

2008-11-07T02:52:00.002+05:30

There HAS to be a conspiracy lurking around somewhere here. This is not funny anymore, whoever you are. GIVE ME MY BOOKS BACK! I tell you, they disappear into pure nothingness. This sordid saga started out innocently enough with Hollywood Station (Joseph Wambaugh, {because I can't resist giving the author's name in the hope that someone will read the book}), which I remember clearly leaving on the bed before going down to have dinner, and when I get back, poof! It's gone. I search everywhere, everywhere, but I don't find the damn thing. It was a brand new book too. Then went Feet of Clay (Terry Pratchett), the loss of which nearly killed me and left me in a coma for 2 months. Then went All Creatures Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot), which I started reading just this morning. I spent over an hour searching for it, but it's just not there. GAH!

So my theories are:

1. My brother took it and hid it somewhere to bug the hell out of me.
But he didn't. He's as pissed off as I am. And my brother is moral when it comes to books.

2. Lyra ate it.
Could be. She was the prime suspect during the disappearing cell phone case too. But witnesses testified that she was nowhere to be seen near the scene of bed. Where the book was. She was busy eating up the new doormat my mom bought. So that's out.

3. It disappeared into a freak eddie in the space-time continuum.
But that happens only in Hitchhikers Universe. Also there was no mysterious hovering presence of a Chesterfield sofa.

4. It got lost in L-space.
But that happens only in Discworld. And anyway, Oook would have returned it to me by now. I left some bananas out, just in case.

5. My grand dad told me a story of this small pale man with colourless hair who creeps into people's houses through the terrace and then steals random books. It used to scare the living shit out of me. I swear.
So, after careful consideration of all the above mentioned theories, it seems pretty obvious that the fifth one's it.

So, small-pale-man-with-colourless-hair, please creep back into my house and give me my books back. At least the last one, because I haven't even finished it yet. Please? I'll leave the terrace door open for you.

It arrives!!

2008-11-07T02:31:00.005+05:30

FINALLY! Its November sixth! Well, 7th, technically, considering the time. But the point is, Life hath come! It in fact goteth uploaded in the grand kingdom of Mininova and then it goteth downloaded by loyal citizen Apurva and then every second of it was savoured. Charlie Crews, you take my breath away. And Damian, you look hotter than ever. I even like Tidwell now. Dani, as always, is hot. The plot was good, the development was better, can't wait to see what happens next. And next will happen on November 12th. Sigh. So far away.

So, to cheer myself up:

Works like a charm! :D

Alistair MacLean

2008-11-01T22:04:00.013+05:30

So I was going through all my Alistair MacLeans again, (one of the greatest advantages of getting back home) and I realized all over again how awesome he is. His books are the epitome of sarcastic, deadpan, wry and very very British humor. I especially like his first person narratives, which are invariably funnier than the third person ones. All his heroes are these 30 something seemingly ordinary men who become cynical, unstoppable, unkillable (no matter how badly they are wounded), super-brainy and incredibly witty heroes to tackle with the horrifyingly dangerous but suave and classy villans, and end up proving to everyone around that they are a lot cooler than everyone thought they were.
Oh, and the heroines are either the I-didn't-believe-in-you-first-so-I-laughed-at-you-like-the-idiot-that-I-am-but-now-I-stand-corrected type or the I-totally-love-you-and-believe-in-you-even-if-everyone-else-thinks-you-are-a-loser type.

Don't get me wrong...amidst all this, there's some really classy writing going on- MacLean's prowess in the nitty-gritties of the English language is something to be experienced. I used to approach each of his books armed with a dictionary, and all the good English I know is completely because of him. The lack of sex and sleaze (unlike Fleming's books) also has some (read as against Bond) appeal.

I've hear a lot of people say that MacLean borrowed a lot from Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout, but really now, who didn't? To me, MacLean defines the awesomeness of detctive fiction.

This is probably his most well known book. Keith Mallory, Andrea Stavros and Dusty Miller. The immortal trio. The only book with a sequel- Force 10 from Navarone. The movie was pretty nice too, though I HATED some changes they made.

Narrated by the mysterious Mr. Carpenter, this was the last of MacLean's first person narratives. And one of the best. Set in the arctic, it'll leave you begging for more.

One of my personal favorites. Phillip Calvert represents MacLean's humor at its best. Also, the plot is totally kickass. So's the heroine. But the jokes are the best. Seriously.

His only book about the Grand Prix. The expressionless Johnny Harlow is the hero. If that white haired monstrosity on the cover is him, the artist deserves to be sued. The girl, Mary McAlpine, is pretty nice though.

An awesome cold war book. Michael Reynolds being the unstoppable killing machine with feelings, and who can forget Jansci?

My favorite. John Talbot is the funniest character ever made. Also the most likeable. Also the most dry (not the moisturizer needing type).
The bad guys also the classiest and the creepiest. (The two usually go hand in hand)

Awesome, awesome book. The exploits of the indomitable Peter Petersen taught me more about World War 2 than any history book. Also, unlike any other history book, this one is tremendously funny. The interaction between Petersen and the heroine is back-breakingly funny.

Ah. The black sheep of the family. Featuring love interest of protagonist John Bentall as well as many characteristics of a tragedy, the book begins and ands with the sentence "A small dusty man in a small dusty room".

A first person narrative by Pierre Cavell, the unkillable, wisecracking and brilliant hero who continues to be sprightly even after getting thoroughly beaten up and breaking most of his ribs. Another fun fest with a killer plot.

A lot more books are worth reading, but since my patience has completely run out (coincidentally with my lappy's battery), I shall desist for now and get back to it later.

Cheers!

pTerry...don't go!!

2008-10-31T00:07:00.009+05:30

Anyone who knows me at all, will know Terry Pratchett. That's because I can't stop talking about the man. As this post shows.

Hmm. So. Where do I start? Terry Pratchett is this totally brilliant British dude who writes about...everything. What makes him so special is that he writes about everything in an awesomely funny way. His stories are set in a city called Ankh-Morpork, in Discworld, which is a disc that's on four great big elephants' backs, and these elephants are on this mega-gigantic turtle's back. His characters are ordinary people like watchmen, kings, witches, wizards, DEATH (who only speaks in capitals), gods, random turtles etc. etc. (ordinary for Discworld, not round world, which, as you may have guessed, is ours).

His books are divided into different sub-series, such as the Watchmen series, the Wizard series, the Witches series and so on...and DEATH is there in all of his books, which just goes to show that Pratchett is immensely clever.

DEATH is a skeleton with a lot of existential angst. He is prone to sudden bouts of depression, during which he stops doing his job and mopes around in his castle. Unfortunately, it being that his job is terribly important, people start to stop dying and all these bewildered supposed-to-be-dead people tend to accumulate everywhere. He is also a follower of quantum physics, at least, up to the extent to which anyone can be a follower of quantum physics . DEATH has oodles and oodles of ATTITUDE.

Then, there are the wizards, who run the Unseen University of Ankh-Morpork. "Run" is perhaps an exaggeration here- they eat all the time and try their best to ignore the presence of students. The wizards can do magic, which everyone believes in, though not many people believe in science.

Then there's Samuel Vimes. One of the greatest fictional characters ever made. A bitter, cynical watchman who is a recovering alcoholic, and who understands human nature better than any person I've come accross. He's been there and done that, seen the worst humanity can offer, and sometimes, the best. He eventually becomes the head of the Ankh-Morpork Watch, and is completely incorruptable and honest. He also should be played by Damian Lewis if any of Pratchett's books are ever televised. A scruffy Damian Lewis, because he's too hot to portray the character otherwise.

The brilliance of Pratchett's writing lies in the fact that you KNOW everything he's saying, but you've never been able to put down those thoughts in words. When you read his books, you'll feel like you've found your best friend, who thinks exactly like you do, and who says it like you've always wanted to but never could have said. Also, he's bloody funny.

It's incredible, the way in which he mirrors everything we do in our lives, every stupid, petty, cruel, illogical, selfish act, and he makes us laugh about them. Makes us laugh at ourselves, at humanity. I'll tell you this, he's kept me off more bouts of depression of the "what's all this about anyway" and "what's the point of all this"kind than anyone or anything else. Isn't that totally awesome?

It was a loust day for me when I heard that pTerry had alzhimers. I'm praying to every god I don't believe in to keep him okay. You listening to me OM?? It's turtle soup otherwise.

Here are some of his sayings:

First, she had to find out his name. The old peel-the-apple trick should do that. You just peeled an apple, getting one length of peel, and threw the peel behind you; it'd land in the shape of his name. Millions of girls had tried it and had inevitably been disappointed, unless the loved one was called Scscs. (Wyrd Sisters)

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. (Schrödinger's Moggy explained) (Wyrd Sisters)

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people. (Maskerade)

"What're quantum mechanics?"- "I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose." (Eric)

No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. (Reaper Man)

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! (The Truth)

The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to. (Small Gods)

Charlie Crews - I love you!

2008-10-30T20:24:00.014+05:30

This is it. The one I've been waiting for. The one thing I'm so obsessed about, so obsessed about, that all the other obsessions I've had fade into complete insignificance. Compared to what I feel now, they were all mild interests.

And the winner is:

Damian Lewis.

Look at him. Just look at him. Damn.

More accurately, its Charlie Crews, the character Lewis plays in the show Life. Apart from being one of the most well written shows I've seen, the character of Charlie Crews is...mind blowing. Crews is a cop who was in maximum security federal prison for 12 years for a crime he didn't commit, and the show starts as he gets out after his innocence is proved. He comes out equipped with zen ideology, a passion for fresh fruits, a complete lack of knowledge about technology (after all, it's been 12 years) and a stunning array of layers in his personality that range from quirky, funny and heartrendingly innocent to sudden streaks of brutal violence that surface with the least provocation.

Damian Lewis is perfect for Charlie Crews. His phenomenal acting skills are...well, phenomenal. His interaction with the other characters (especially his partner, Dani Reese, played by Sarah Shahi), his repertoire of Zen quotes, and his obsession with the people who set him up, they all make for an incredibly entertaining viewing experience.

Also, he's mouth-wateringly hot. Really really REALLY hot. A 6 foot 1 inch British man with orange hair, a sexy smile and awesome talent. It can't get better than this. Really.
Oh man. I'm SO obsessed.

And to celebrate that:

Sigh...

Orange hair! and that's Ted by the way, an ex-con who lives in Crews's house.

Sigh...Charlie and Dani.

Blue eyes! :D

Dorky smile!

Sigh.

Okay, before I'm branded as completely mad (especially by the B.F) I shall desist. Or maybe it's too late.

In any case..here's to Charlie Crews!!

Couldn't help myself :P

The festival of plights

2008-10-29T01:26:00.005+05:30

My poor dog. She hasn't had the courage to go out and piss for the last two days. I can practically hear her trembling under my cot, jumping at every blast. (Those really huge Nazi bombs bring out the worst in her...she's going to have a concussion soon, poor thing). This is nothing new. Lyra deals with every Diwali this way.

Today involved getting up at 11 AM and running to cousin's house an hour away to burst crackers only to fall asleep there because I hardly slept yesterday night because my darling B thought it prudent to have me watch Apocalypto till the crack of dawn (for which I am eternally grateful).

Getting back at 7 and spilling oil all over myself, and not to mention the floor (which is going to piss M off no end) while trying to light some diyas set the beginning for an evening of joyous lights. The wind didn't help much either.

We also somehow managed to send a rocket that was pointing straight upwards into a house across the street, (again, the wind?) and tried to look very nonchalant and inconspicuous when they came running out to douse a tree that caught fire.

Then came the ceremonial lighting of the LED lights. The ceremony was delayed because no one could find them, and D turned down half the house before they turned up. When lit, for some reason, only the red and blue bulbs worked, glowing alternately, bringing to mind (as my very sick grandfather acutely observed), an ambulance.

Since we didn't buy too many crackers this time, we spent an enjoyable half hour cursing all those irresponsible/spendthrift/wasteful idiots out there who threw away/burnt/wasted their hard earned money on whistles and bangs, and thus felt very righteous and responsible and good about ourselves.

Tommorow will dawn to a major cleaning up (of some unexplained oil on the floor) which I will fortunately miss as I get up only at 11 AM.

I hope to god Lyra doesn't piss in my room.

2008-10-26T10:16:00.004+05:30

Book shopping in Hyderabad is so much cooler than it can ever be in Bangalore!

One trip to Abids and Thilak road and we end up getting about 30 books for like 400 bucks. Thats so AWESOME! The sight of a Joseph Wambaugh book under the "only 10 rupees" section....not to mention John Le'Carre, even Stephen King or James Patterson or Scott Turow if you're lucky....ah. Bliss.

Point being- an addition of 30 odd books every sunday to the house is causing slight space issues. We can make furniture out of books now. Every nook and cranny of the house is filled with them.

But hey. Who's complaining?

Appu's epiphany

2008-10-18T16:24:00.002+05:30

My latest philosophy of how I should live my life. Denial. Have any problems? Simple! Don't acknowledge it. It'll go away. I'm serious. It'll never come back. If it does come back, it would have morphed into such a fuckoff huge mess that you'll end up dealing with it somehow. So, no worries. (Go Rincewind!)

2008-10-18T16:21:00.002+05:30

There you go Chromey...I got you your donuts. Eat 'em up. Good boy!

o o o o o o o o o o o

2008-05-13T21:07:00.011+05:30

(From It, written by Stephen King)

You leave and you leave quick when the sun starts to go down, he thinks in this dream. That's what you do. And if you spare a last thought, maybe it's ghosts you wonder about . . .the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough . . . tough enough, anyway, to give birth to the people they will become, tough enough to understand, maybe, that the people they will become must necessarily birth the people they were before they can get on with trying to understand simple mortality. The circle closes, the wheel rolls, and that's all there is.

You don't have to look back to see those children; part of your mind will see them forever, live with them forever, love them forever. They are not necessarily the best part of you, but they were once the repository of all you could become.

Children I love you. I love you so much.

So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away, drive away from Derry, from memory . . . but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night. Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.

All the rest is darkness.

Vishal the Great

2007-12-28T03:01:00.004+05:30

I'm listening to Vishal Bharadwaj. And i'm stunned. Absolutely.

The man defies belief. Not only did he single handedly write and direct a movie like Omkara, but he also composed music which I still get goosebumps listening to.

I'm listening to "Naina" right now, sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. What a stunning piece of work. I dropped everything I was doing the first time I heard that song. The beautiful acoustic guitar backing gives the song a delicious exotic touch. The sudden change in chords reach in and wring your heart out. The backings are exquisite. And Rahat outdoes himself (as usual).

That was just one song. The next gem is "Laakad". Sung by his wife, its goes like a lullaby. But it can never be one. Its too beautiful to sleep off to. You just have to listen to it. Rekha Bharadwaj's voice is made for the song. I couldn't stop listening to it for a week.

"Oh saathi re". A more well known song. Shreya and Hariharan make it a piece of poetry. In fact all the songs in the movie are works of a poet. This song is still painful to me. I can't listen to it without tears springing to my eyes in a testimony to the music.

"Jag ja". Its a treat to listen to the rich melting voice of Suresh Wadkar. The quintessential lullaby, it still brings a smile to my face. And it has piano backings. I'm sold.

I dont think I even need to mention "Beedi" or "Omkara" or "Namak".

There's not one song in the whole album that's not uniquely brilliant in one way or the other.

I'm still tripping on them. They satisfy every craving for melody in me.

Sing along

2007-12-24T23:50:00.002+05:30

If I sing a song, will you sing along?

Or should I just keep singing right here by myself?

If I tell you I'm strong, will you play along?

Or will you see I'm as insecure as anybody else?

If I follow along, does it mean I belong?

will I keep on feeling different from everybody else?

Dave Matthews and the Blue Man Group

2007-11-10T00:09:00.001+05:30

Its like happiness is directly proportional to emptiness. The happier you are the emptier you feel, because you cant share your emotions with the person you so desperately want to share them with. What I figured was, trust is not blind belief that the other person won't betray you or let you down. Trust is the sweet beautiful certainty that you can be whatever you want to be, say whatever you want to say, and IT WON'T MATTER. Trust is what you get when you have irritated a person to a near death level and it didn't matter after a while. Trust is what you get when you have whispered the things you're most ashamed of, in complete mortification, to a person and you are sure that you will receive not condemnation, but comfort. Trust is what makes you act before you think, be spontaneous without watching yourself. Trust gets the true being inside you, the good and the bad, into sharp relief. And the most beautiful thing about trust is, whether you are good or bad, selfish or self-sacrificing, attention seeking or ridden with inferiority, you will still be accepted. Perhaps not loved, not loved as much as you love, but you will be accepted whole heartedly. That is a reason enough for living life to the fullest, the fact that you can share it with someone who understands enough, and what he or she doesn't understand, accepts without question.

Boredom

2007-11-08T22:50:00.001+05:30

Things to do during holidays when you are terribly jobless:

1.Sleep

2.Eat

3.Download Stumble and spend hours browsing random websites which might or might not be interesting and/or informative.

4.Irritate your dog.

5.Read the new entries in bash.org and snort occasionally.

6.Read the old entries in bash.org and laugh hysterically.

7.Close the door, open all the windows and try not to feel cold.

8.Try to flex muscles of extremities when numb.

9.Read up on really long and totally useless words.

10.Irritate your dog again and be nipped casually.

11.Throw your phone memory card in a random direction and then spend the whole day searching for it and cursing at yourself.

12.Disable spell check and check spellings manually.

13.Reopen orkut account.

14.Spend a lot of time in making yourself come across as a total nincompoop with negative quantities of IQ on your orkut profile.

15.Deny friend requests of real nincompoops with negative quantities of IQ who are attracted towards your profile.

16.Hold your breath till you feel like passing out.

17.Pass out.

18.Think of things that upset you and then spend a lot of time trying to make yourself feel better.

19.Smell and then re-categorise your collection of books by their odour.

20.Compare your symptoms to those of highly disfiguring/fatal/highly disfiguring and fatal diseases, decide on the one you seem to have and feel really bad about it.

21.Write nonsensical things on your obsolete blog.

Over and out

2007-05-04T10:07:00.001+05:30

I did it! I did it!
I deleted my orkut account, and didn't feel a single pang of sadness.
Goodbye everyone. You praised me for all sortsa things just cos of the stupid pic I put up, and I actually started liking it. (ugh). So. so I'm done with all that shit.
Theres some hope for yew yet ma' girl.

2007-04-07T20:20:00.001+05:30

..........

2007-03-26T21:42:00.001+05:30

India lost!

*snigger*

can I say I told you so? can I can I can I??

Pray for me brother.

2007-03-11T19:13:00.001+05:30

Pray for me brother.
The beginning two minutes of this song reached out and wrung my soul, and maybe thats why caused the tears to flow out in such a hurry (or maybe the tears were waiting to get out anyway and used this as a handy reason). It doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter that the next two minutes aren't all that awesome, you'll still be reeling under the effect of the FIRST half. Its not the lyrics, its not the message, its not the moral. Its just plain RAHMAN. The exquisite brilliance of his chords and backings left me breathless. The atmosphere of the song is highly addictive..beware.

A.R.Rahman..you are my God.
No words can describe what I feel for your music, so i won't attempt. :)
Though I do this every night, I just wanted to say, Thank you.

IT -Stephen King.

2007-02-25T20:24:00.002+05:30

IT
Brilliant book. Don't get daunted by its monstrous size, (1000+ pages). When you finish it, you'll understand..when it comes to Stephen King, its always a case of the bigger, the better. Its not an easy read...it has the feel of an epic, and an epic it undeniably is.
Unlike your true King, IT doesn't have his characteristic goose bump inducing scary stuff nor the gorge inducing gory descriptions (OK maybe he does get gory in some places ..its King after all, and its a sadistic clown who partially eats up children after all), but my god...his character sketches are stunning. As usual, the setting is in Derry, Maine, and the book traces the lives of seven children..their lives, their loves, their miseries,their thoughts,their FEARS,and their lifelong fight with the child-eating clown that haunts their town. This book will tell you everything you want (and don't want) to know about kids..and it also skillfully shows how these kids change as they slowly become adults. Maybe you won't like it the first time, but stick to it. You'll come back to it if only for some brilliant paragraphs which will leave you spellbound. The final pages are most intricately written, where King skillfully weaves the childhood and adult experiences of the seven.

The story is good, but its the WAY he writes that will get you hooked. In the end, you'll wish you had the childhood of one of those kids and friends like them . And most of all, in IT, King shows the importance of friendship, the importance of sacrifice, and the unmeasurable depth of love people have for their friends, the power of hero worship.Its also one of the most moving books of his..leaves you with an aching heart about the unfairness of life, about the burdens of responsibility, and about the strength of childhood commitments.
So those of you who say(or think) that blood is thicker than water, go stuff yourselves (or better..read this book, and THEN go stuff yourselves.)

Five useless facts about myself...

2007-01-30T19:22:00.001+05:30

Well...i was tagged by Apoorv to try to come up with five facts about myself that not many others know....so here goes!

Misplaced sense of timing
This..is something im immensly proud of. I was born with a lot of potential to embarrass myself, but as the years went by, i've honed those potent tendencies into something approaching impossible perfection. I know exactly what to say at the shockingly inappropriate times and places, I keep on laughing at odd intervals at some internal jokes no one ever seems to get (hell I don't get it either), I turn red for no real reasons. You can write a book on ''What Not To Do'' with me as the basis.

Flirtophobia
Contrary to popular beliefs (most of which are utter bosh anyway), the one thing that manages to turn me off is flirting. Not even bad flirting, cos all flirting is bad anyway. If a guy is actually clever and witty, he doesn't NEED to flirt. The last thing i need is some guy trying to hit on me with really pathetic lines. Get it out straight man, don't beat around the bush and in the process beat your already sad image into a painful death.

Anger and tears
I get irritated lots of times but actually losing it completely happens pretty rarely. I become very quiet when im angry, I gently walk off to a secluded place and then do something pretty violent. And tears..as far as i know, only three things can make me cry regularly- Movies, Books, and One guy.

Cynicism
Being cynical comes naturally to me..I expect the worst out of people all the time, and usually they still end up shocking me by their behaviour. hmm...so maybe i need to upgrade a little. I have a jaded view about everything. I might PROJECT an image of being ''goody goody'' but in my heart, im laughing at everyone :D

Pretending
Something else that comes naturally to me..I never actually show myself to anyone. I love putting up a false persona and watch how people react to it. Its my terminal fascination to observe how easily people are fooled by some flimsy facade I put up. Its like pavlovs dogs almost (though im too tired to explain WHY its so)

There! and oh yeah! *cue elaborate sarcasm* apparently i LISP. Can't say i've noticed this myself, but a bunch of people making fun of me for this very fact can't be wrong can they? (or as one of my firends kindly put it..your s's are ..weird man...). Sho the nexsht time I shpeak to you, if you noticshe shome shmall anomalies, point them out will you?

The sexiest of 'em all!

2007-01-21T17:14:00.003+05:30

I was just rerererereading His Dark Materials (by Phillip Pullman) yesterday, after some six months (an interval of time usually unimaginable for me, i used to read those books on a daily basis) and sigh...WILL PARRY! I fell in love with him all over again. He's one of the most attractive fictional characters..my first ever love (fictional and otherwise ;p) and ever continuing obsession. My top priority for day dreaming :D. Pullman took care describing him, he picked just the right words "Savage, courteous, and unhappy". Everything from his palpable power to the way he carries himself is brilliant. The way he views his responsibilities, the savage power that he has, his deadly quiet anger, his implacable ferocity, his gentleness with the things he loves...damn! He's hot! And he's Lyra's opposite in every way-she's a born liar, he only tells the truth-she's impulsive, he's calculating-she's quick to love and quick to hate, he takes time to trust people, to open up with them-she's immature and childish,(in the beginning atleast) he's SO mature! He ranks at the top in my Most Attractive list.

WIll Parry (I'll die for the guy!)
Bill Denborough (next only to Will...a most charismatic character, the red hair is too sexy! And yeah, so what if he stutters?? Doesn't make him any less sexier!)
Howard Roark (who won't fall for HIM?)
Aragorn (very admirable in the book, but after the movie, he's just plain sexy . oh yeah..legolas's pretty good too ;p)
Harry Potter (alright alright I admit it! ;p He did get sexy in books 5 and 6, his anger is something to see) (Why do I always fall for the serious angry types??)
Perry Mason (he's the quintessential suave man, I fall for him regularly whenever I read another of Gardners books )

A lot of other characters are awesome, but not exactly "fall for" material, either because they're too old or because they're too...not my type ;p

Samuel Vimes (is he incredible or WHAT!)
Havelock Vetinari (an absolutely amazing character)
Holden Caulfield (not especially attractive, but someone you can sympathise with at one point in your life or the other. I can see him more as my loving screwed up brother.)
Dumbledore (pure starry eyed hero worship material)
Lan Mandragoran(The only admirable character I found in The Wheel of Time)
DEATH (he's just too sweet! You have to love him!)
Marvin (you just have to think of him when you're depressed, gets your mood RIGHT up :D)

Books rock! I'm always happier in a fictional world than the real one, I always understand and get touched by fictional characters than real ones, and I ALWAYS fall for fictional people ! :D
Is that sad? I don't know, i'm happy that I can atleast be comforted by story book characters if not by most of the real people I know, they're the non-existent people I run to whenever in need of support that's not forthcoming from real life. I dream about them, learn from them, and even talk to some of them (yes, I realise i'm destroying the fragile reputation of my sanity here). But I don't feel bad about it, because having the power to appreciate a well written piece of work is not something to be snorted at.

aaargh im digressing! where was I? oh yeah..
I LOVE WILL PARRY!

Learnings.

2007-01-16T00:12:00.001+05:30

No matter how many friends you have, no matter how many people you love, no matter how many people love you,remember one thing, in the end, you are all alone.
Don't depend on others for your happiness, because in the end, everyone has to live for themselves.
Don't give the key to your happiness and peace to anyone, no matter how tempting the prospect is,because in the end, the person may not be there when you need him the most.
Don't give yourself to anyone completely, because in the end ,you might never get yourself back whole again.
Don't show your deepest weaknesses to anyone, because thats the one thing if exploited,can kill you.
Always keep a part of yourself unreachable, the central core that can never be touched or damaged.
Learn to live alone, learn to be lonely.
Learn to be comfortable with yourself, at peace with yourslf,because in the end, YOU are all you can depend on.

pterry-his magic.

2007-01-14T22:07:00.001+05:30

One of my most favourite lines from "Guards Guards"..book 8 of Discworld series, the book where the Night Watch and Sam Vimes are introduced for the first time. its a scene where the invading dragon tries to understand human behaviour by looking into the mind of the human it captures.
**He felt the sensation of the dragon rummaging around in his mind, trying to find a clue to understanding. He half saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and-and here he felt the dragon's genuine astonishment of some of the less commendable areas of human history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they
had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.
You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape-the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of its eyes-we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and
called it morality.**

I love Terry Pratchett.

lyra.

2007-01-13T01:11:00.002+05:30

i'm looking at lyra as she sleeps by my side...all curled up like a baby. god..she's so beautiful! she has very melancholic eyes, to me they signify the sadness that comes after living with our family...probably resigned to the fact that we'll forever revel in our roles of making life harder for ourselves and others. but when she's asleep,she looks so peaceful..she sleeps without a care in the world,sniffing and moving her paws occasionally,probably dreaming of chasing cats over rooftops and empty roads...something she'll never get to do in her waking hours.she sleeps like a queen,all spread out and regal,like the owner of the house.and in a way, she does own us..we took pride in the fact that we domesticated her and made her depend on us ..but we ended up getting more attached to her.who won't get attached to a being that listens to them without any complaints and gives unconditional love and support?who won't start depending emotionally on an animal that they know will never leave them no matter how badly they treat it?no human could ever fill those roles, so lyra became a very important family member.
ah...she just woke up with a snort,looked around,briefly licked my foot and fell asleep on it again..i love you lyra,you're my baby.
i often wonder what she thinks of us,looking at us from the vantage point of an animal whose basic goals in life are its next meal and its next mate.our whole life will probably look like an elaborate lie to her,when she sees the way we try to convince ourselves that we know what we're doing by building rigid routines,by making stupid laws,by keeping pointless superstitions,by keeping ourselves so busy in order to get a good life that we forget to LIVE it. she'll also think that humans are slightly insane, considering the incredible lengths we go to to make an already tough life even more complicated.
ah well,all humans are mad anyway..and it looks like the dogs just have to live with it :)

maddox rules.

2007-01-12T16:07:00.001+05:30

what? maddox rules!

anybody there?

2007-01-10T21:50:00.001+05:30

hello...hello...hello....
is there anybody in there..
just nod if you can hear me..
is there anyone home?

sigh..why is no one around just when i need them the most? im sick of studying..my head hurts..and just when i could do with some company everyone is suddenly very busy with their lives. bah.
being alone sucks.
actually no, beling lonely sucks.
missing too many people also sucks.
the fact that no body is gonna read this or give a rats shit about it even if they do sucks the most.
fine..ill go back to my trusty floyd..they never go away hah.

when i was a child..i had a fleeting glimpse..
around the corner of my eye..
i turned to look, but it was gone,
i cannot put my finger on it now,
the child is grown,
the dream is gone...
i , have become
comfortably numb.