Facade

Déjà Vu

He walks faster,feeling much fit to walk at an age pushing 60, reaches a few feet ahead and turns around to look at the woman he chose to spend his life with.. walking slowly. Her every step in the gait that makes him feel like he is blessed to have walked his life through with her. Its as if her composure, calm and confidence come as a part of her existance, an earth sign herself. so graceful.
He feels his heart beat faster, flushin a sense of immense attraction, still feeling vulnerable to. She notices his glance kiss her aura.She does the same gesture of running her fingers in her tresses. He feels his heart skip a beat.
There.
That was the Moment.
After six years and a lifetime of eager.
This was the Exact moment he fell in Love. with her presence.HER.
The first time he saw her..

Jus the way he had taken those few steps ahead. to look at her a hearts fill. jus the way she ran her fingers in her tresses. moments turned to time and time passed by. Lived.

Jus as he was thinkin ..déjà vu.
She walks closer to him extends her arm. her fingers still slide into his, jus as the time they held hands first. the same smile, promising love, curves her lips.
feels like a lifetime lived.
All those moments of happiness that they waited for after every fight have been lived. every bad memory, argued about, won, lost and forgotten.
All that remained was the warmth of pullin her closer. No malice impending. No patience survived. No bad memory remembered. Love. thats all that was.
He chuckles . she Understands his mockery was abt the stupidity they shared more than their Love. She remembers their Love anthem. it was jus one line.
"We'll never have a last day together" he'd said.
and then,
She kisses his cheek.

now THAT. didnt happen wen he First saw her. He smiles ..:)

Update!

For all those readers who have been wondering what disaster had struck the writer of this blog...well...I have just moved from Chennai to the US for studies...and things had been hectic...and hence the blog has not been updated. Now that I am more or less settling down, I shall try to be more consistent!

Betty on the other hand has just become lazy and mentally promiscuous :P!!!

Cheers!!!

The TATA ridley!

They are perhaps the cutest things that keep coming to India year after year, and we do all we can to harm them... destroy their nests, steal their eggs, kill them for meat and shell... steal the young ones for exotic pet sales.

Read about some issues here.

And now there is a new port that is being planned at the locations these turtle keep coming to lay their eggs! Gahirmatha's seas are one of the world's largest breeding areas for the Olive Ridley Turtle. The Dhamra port could signal the end of this habitat forever.

Greenpeace has been pursuing the TATAs to change the location of the port since a while, and has taken out quite a few campaigns for this. This seems to be going on the right way as finally the TATAs seem to have taken notice and are hiring PR agents to look into the harm these campaigns are doing to their public image, and what can be done to save it! Wouldn't it be easier just to change the location of the port? Or is it that the souls have been sold already?

These turtles are going to need all the help and support from us that they can get. Read about the GreenPeace efforts here.I have been supporting this since a while. I would hope you would be concerned and sign it as well and spread the word.

PS: I realize I have started sounding like one of those guys who are ready to march out for anything and everything....but I think I am concerned about the environment. After all, we have but one earth, and in the end of the day, it is left to us to decide what we want to make of it....we could turn it to a land of wonders, or a valley of shame. Let's make the right choice.

It's hard to get by just upon a smile...

Once in a while, things happen and they touch you in a way you never thought they could. Currently there has been this controversy about abortion laws in India, and the decision was out yesterday, and nothing has been changed.

I am confused as to what I really think of the decision. On one hand, it is indeed true that the kid, in all probability, would be born with a congenital heart disease, and that is never a good thing. And while it's cruel and not right to say so, that kid will never really have a chance to lead a normal life. Its parents, their life will be messed up as well! Treating congenital heart diseases are expensive, and add to that the hopelessness of the situation, and the frustration of the whole system working against it. I feel for the parents. I really do.

Then again, this whole episode is simply another controversy over mercy killing, stated, or otherwise. Who are we to decide if or not that kid would develop the disease? Miracles happen! And in the end of the day, how can we decide for someone else, if or not he deserves a chance at life; however difficult it might be?

Personally, my opinion tilts towards aborting the foetus; it tilts very slightly, but very definitely. Here is a case of a couple, who are trying to save their unborn child from a life of innumerable discomfort and disadvantages, and trying to save themselves from pain. They had the boldness to question the system, and thank heavens for that!

Now that the decision is made, this will fade form the headlines to the second pages, and from there to invisibility. I wonder the legislature would take note, and maybe think what might be done. Life is not just being able to breathe in and out. It's also about the experience you have in this world. I would hope this kid has a decent life at the least. I would hope its parents have the courage to face life as it comes. I would hope that in between the pain, they at least have moments of sublime happiness to aid them forward.

I guess we Indians are an emotional lot. But we tend to forget that a man and a woman, together or independent, have a life beyond kids. They are people, and not just moms and dads. Maybe they should have a better chance at it!

In any case, this is just another headline, till the next cricket match. Media focus moves on.

Of dilemmas and dialectics

Coincidence. Or not. But while Abhi here (take a bow Abhi... make yourself decorative) has been turning steadily extrospective (it is a word now, so shut up), I've been doing quite the reverse... in the worst way possible... I've been thinking about writing lately. I always did - off and on. It's just more consistent now... maybe it's all the nothing-to-do I have in my life lately. It's a little like the a-rhythmic whipping of the fan, the staccato barks of the clock, the delirious rippling of the curtains... sounds invisible till 3 in the night, when acting with pre-determined concert, they stage Le Danse Macabre. Offkey.

What gets to me though is this: what do I write about? They say everyone has at least one story to tell. Either they are all CIA field operatives or I lead a singularly dull life (refrain from comments please... you just might hit a nerve... and my nerves hit back... hard). So what is it to be then: two guys, a girl and a dog? A girl, a dream and a recorder? Or an old man, a piece of tatting and the Louvre?

Then again: slapstick or poignant? It isn't easier to make people laugh than cry these days anyway... most don't care either ways... I mean the last time I cried was when I read Catina. And the last time I laughed was a minute back when my ex-roommate jigged energetically to a ballad of tragedies in a towel. I figure it's easiest to confuse people - there has to be a reason Hitchhiker's and Famished Road made it to the bestsellers' rosters and took all those awards home for breakfast.

The thing with mood-writing is holding the mood for a prolonged stretch temporally. Alternatively, finishing the novel/work/magnum opus/general trash while the mood lasts... in my case then half-an-hour... at best. Nothing is impossible... but this does creep mighty close. But really. Did Maurier surround herself with goth lava lamps, wind chimes and Irish hollyhocks while in the throes of literary composition? Did she look up from her manuscript and pronounce in a death-knelled, mystical voice resonant with the sands of yesterday "chicken soup" when her housekeeper asked her what she'd have for lunch? Did Wodehouse hide rubber lizards in his aunts' slippers? Or were they not-rubber? Was there no firewood when Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights?

Woolf committed suicide. I think I would too in all probability. Seeing as how I'm already profoundly schizophrenic, deciding which part of me kills the other would be tantamount to playing favourites.

In the interests of fair play therefore, I hereby take up the ukulele. Neighbours be damned.

Reading habits

Of late I have started reading books again. Not that I had really stopped, but the pace had become so slow, that well....you could call it a dormant state. However, since my online interests have suddenly gone down significantly, I have picked up my pace, and done myself proud.

I completed 5 books in the past 4 days, and that is something. Now on to my latest...its called Magic City, by a black woman writer called Jewell Parker Rhodes and so far, it's been enchanting, to say the least. Somehow, reading books about white men and women, and watching movies that deal with only white men and women alienates us from having a real perspective of things. This book sort of shook me back to reality. Just the difference in style was all it took.

And suddenly the world is a bigger place than it had seemed a few days back.

Reading is sexy!

Of sleepy nations and stupid notions!

We live in a strange country.

We live in a country that has decided to neglect its majority in favour of the minority. We live in a country where we actually support people who come to power with our votes and then steal our rights to give it to those who do not deserve them. We live in a country that has decided to neglect merit and favour the accidents of birth.

What is ironic is that the majority of the people inhabiting this country even support this. Could any other country match the spirit of sacrifice shown by the majority of the population of India? I cannot find any indeed. And I am glad so. Glad for if it were so, I’ll have to modify my first statement and say that I live in a strange world.

We are a 50 year old country behaving like a mentally retarded kid. What else can I say about a country that has people who favour mediocrity over ability in the name of homogeneity of society? India is overpopulated and over-educated. I find it strange to understand that there are graduates working at levels where a class X education shall more than suffice. And we have a society that respects teachers and does nothing much else further. Have any of us ever deigned to ponder over the amount of money a teacher in a public school earns? I doubt. And of course the teacher is lucky if he gets the salary in time and does not have to fight the state govt. or go for hunger strikes and various other conundrums for his arrears. Of course a teacher should be a teacher in the true sense of the word….he should be interested in the nobleness of his work—and he should feel good about his good luck that he’s got a chance to serve the society.

Bat shit!

I recently read in the newspapers that the state seats in different NITs have been discarded. So any NIT henceforth, shall have 50% of its seat filled by students from that state, and the rest, from students from the rest of the country…whoever can get the requisite marks of course. I have rather mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it is a step in the right direction, if that right direction be only equality in opportunities.

However, the issue is not just skin deep, or even merit deep for that matter. The issue is, well, being a student of one of the NITs myself, I’ve come to think of my alma mater not just as one of the best educational institutes in the country, but also a place where young men from all over the country meet, and learn to respect other cultures, learn to face difficulties of unknown language and customs. It’s a place where I grew up from being a sheltered kid to a man, ready to face the world.

Things should not change by this decision of the government. Only that, they would. The education system in India lacks uniformity. There are way too many educational boards, and way too many different systems. While this decision could have been a step towards bringing in a semblance of equality, it would not help as equality, in this case, should start from a more granular level. What I find surprising, and a tad disturbing, is that the government does not seem to be bothered about the pathetic situation of primary education and the lack of public interest towards this disparity.

I am not a political person. I steer clear of any political discussion simply because mostly I don’t care enough, and more often than not, I’d not really know what’s going on. But this is different. This is scary, and disappointing.

Everybody cribs and carps about how the brilliant minds of India are being lured away to different countries. Well, the way things are going, I don’t really see why any talented guy should stay here to face the political harassment and bureaucratic red tape, stupid socio-political measures, and social apathy. We have become a race that adores the mediocre, simply because we are scared of the exceptional.

It’s time to wake up.

Workaholics anonymous

This does put a perspective on things, does it not?

Betty....welcome home!

Come to Daddy!

:P

Finis

It is exceedingly difficult to definitively determine where one thing begins and another ends. Which is why knowing that a chapter ends today at 1.55 pm makes today a very special day. I don't know if this conclusion makes me hearteningly jubilant or unutterably depressed. But I do know that I shall always remember.

I wish I didn't though... nothing is sadder than the gradual fading of colours off a memory.

A mouthful of sky

This was the name of a series I used to watch long long time back. I used to watch the hindi version of course, and that was named "Thoda Sa Aasmaan", I think. I even remember the title song, and I remember it being very calm and soothing somehow. Deepti Naval, Nadira and one more actress, very pretty.

The story of three women and their relationships with their men, and life in general.

The series did not have the dazzling saturated colour schemes that we all seem to love these days, nor did it have the sonorous melodrama without which television wouldn't quite be, or the designer jewellery and overdone makeup; it was a subtle, well defined, deftly created image of reality.

Lamenting over the good old past is a pastime I don't indulge in. I'm not old enough for that. But what definitely strikes me as rather tragic is that even at the age when I was hardly old enough to understand the complications in human relationships, I had exposure to books and TV that not only entartained, but also enhanced the ability to look at things from different perspectives. And today the soaps and series are all about melodrama, gorgeous females and goodlooking hunks, impeccable make up and heavy jewellery. But somewhere in the midst of all these, we have lost the innocence of the older days, matured actors, and good scripts.

I remember the last two or three episodes of that series. Nadira, playing an elderly lady married happily to Sriraam Lagoo since forever discovers that he had had a mistress all this while, and she came to know of this only as a telegram informing of the death of the mistress sent to her husband was delivered to her. Deepti Naval played a jolly mother of a toddler named Kshitij (Well, i remember the name coz I used to think that kid will grow up to hate his parents for such a difficult name, and then I heard of two sisters named Silky and Milky :P) married to a guy who does not have time enough for a romance in the marriage. The third lady played the role of a young woman, in love with a guy, but determined to have a career rather than settle down in marriage. I remember the last episode showed they all walking out of their marriage and relationships, and taking control of their lives. Nadira getting a divorce, Deepti walking out of the marriage, and the third out of the relationship in favour of a job.

Perhaps a few re-runs would put some thought into the minds of the mass-producers of popular soaps these days. Make your regular staple soap; but at least make it well!

Freedom doesn't start with catchy dialogs and bold dresses, it starts in the mind. The same thing works for quality, and taste, or the lack of it!

Roots

I firmly believe that the most difficult thing for anyone to accomplish to is to try and overcome their upbringing. Especially when they are not even thoroughly convinced that it needs to be overcome in the first place.

That and cross-stitches.

"When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were".

William Butler Yeats' wife wrote this to him soon after their marriage when he was hit by remorse for marrying someone so young as she. (He was 51, she 23).

A 3.07AM Thought

Why does Richard Branson call his enterprise Virgin Atlantic when it is fairly obvious his interests lie elsewhere entirely?

Actually... forget I asked.

Jalebi!

Remember that Dhara ad that had that cute kid running away from home and being lured back with jalebi by the postman Ramukaka?

Haven't seen an ad like that in ages!

Just-shoot-me

Today’s Fortune: Serious trouble will bypass you.

So far today I’ve:

• been late for the one class for which the tutor is a clock-worshipper (what are the odds of that really… I’m never late… most of my tutors don’t bother when people walk in… and here I am… late for this one class… sheesh!)
• been beaten on my own turf by a prospective accountant (for chrissake!)
• missed a high distinction in a paper by 0.3 of a mark
• been given a re on bathroom fatigues which I spent an hour on last night (what is she… blind?)
• been having a bad hair day… a really bad hair day… all the static from all the electrical appliances within a mile radius seems to be nestled in my dreads… I kid you not… think a really prickly hedgehog
• run entirely out of comfort food… even the emergency chocolate stock… how could I have forgotten to re-stock? Damn.

And it’s just 1.57 in the afternoon… I shudder to think of the serious trouble that bypassed me… what if it hadn’t? Would I now be dead? Sobering thought that.
Maybe it’s past time I took matters into my own hands… and maybe I can begin by calling up Accommodation and asking them to justify that entirely unprovoked, uncalled for, and thoroughly undeserved housekeeping notice. It isn’t that I’m a fatigue-shirker… anything but, in fact… I can mop and scrub with the best, and then some. It’s the principle of the thing. Anyway… it’s not like I have anything to lose… what more could possibly go wrong… I mean I can die, but other than that.

Update: Housekeeping retracted notice on re-inspection as demanded in stentorian accents by a justifiably incensed me. Up with anti-establishmentarianism… (I can’t believe I’m finally using a word with so many syllables contextually).

Cycle Rickshaw

I got on a cycle rickshaw after a long time, in Kolkata. Its a surprising city...old and new mixed up in strange proportions. Shaken, not stirred.

And thank God the women still wear those gorgeous cotton sarees, and the College street book market is still alive. Some things should not change, and that excludes the condition of the roads and the garbage bins :P

Sniffing Flowers by the Wayside

You haven't lived till you've had a Columbian-by-birth serenade you with "Jimmy Jimmy" and "I'm a Disco Dancer". Trust me on this.

And to think I thought I was open to cross-cultural influences. Hoist on my own petard doesn't even begin to cover it. Oh well.

Why Cyndi Lauper Had It Right

I got my first chocolates-and-flowers deal today. Delivered to the Law School desk because the person who sent it didn't know precisely where to reach me. And if there is anything more embarrassing than walking down the university hallway clutching a bouquet and a box of chocolates in one hand and Gibson's Introduction to Business Law in the other, then I have yet to experience it.

Be that as it may. I have been suitably oohed and aahed over by fellow flatmates and assorted of gender affiliations startlingly similar to mine. And I have discovered that I absolutely spiffingly wholeheartedly love being a woman. I like high heels and short skirts and girl talk and mushy movies and stuff toys and shopping and hot guys. And I love getting surprise gifts in the mail. Especially if it is flowers and chocolate. This last bit is a recent discovery.

So thank you God... this here is a job well done... let me know if you ever need references.

One of my aunts is unwell.

Most of us having gorged on Wodehouse and leading a fairly independent life somehow have learnt to pooh pooh the whole extended Indian family tradition, well...at least I have. I absolutely have no fascinations for it.

But a few days back Baba called up, and said Kuttipishi had been admitted to the hospital, and she's in a really really bad shape.

Aloka...Abha...my Kuttipishi.

She used to stay with us, us as in my nuclear family of my dad, mom, elder bro and myself, and of course she. I was her pet.

She was the one who taught me the alphabet, and the numbers, taught me to draw and paint, bought me books and played carrom with me.

I remember her teaching me the bengali numerals. she taught me to write the digits, from 1 till 9, and then showed me how the numbers proceeded thence....10,11,12...and then she asked me to carry on as far as I could. I was perplexed, and confused, and she was busy cooking. And suddenly I saw the pattern. I could visualize how the digits fell in place to create the numbers, and since then, while I haven't been a genius at mathematics, I can always visualize how the digits arranged themselves around a problem. I guess it doesn't make any sense...it isn't meant to.

She used to buy these beautiful books for us, me and my elder bro, russian tales translated into bengali. Funny thing, being a bengali; and I pride myself in my general knowledge on that language, I learnt bengali from those translated russian tales...ones in the books she bought. Petenka, Vasilisa, Ivan, Andrei, Baba Yaga, Anoushka...all fairy children brought to life.

And there were those dolls, exquisite, perfect dolls she made out of cloth and cotton. Beautiful damsels dancing in different Indian classical dance postures, Shakuntala, Krshna and Radha, a Japanese lady with her parasol and since I'd perpetually hover around to see what she was doing, she'd let me fill in cotton in the dismembered torso and the legs of the dolls, and she'd let me glue the glitters in their dresses; and once, she even let me glue the hair to one bald skull.

Then one fine day, she got married to a guy I had vowed to myself I'd never like. The 6 year old me never know how charming that guy would be...so charming, that the vow held good only for a month till after the wedding Kuttipishi and Kuttipishu came to visit. They always came down during our summer vacations, and he'd make me do a hundred problems from my mathematics textbook in exchange for stamps, or books.

Perfect moments don't last too long, or maybe we just get too busy to notice as they fly past.

Today I am in chennai, doing fairly well in life; and I don't even remember the last time I saw either him, or her. And then three days back Baba calls up to tell me Kuttipishi is not well.

I am here in Chennai, and she's in the ICU of some hospital in Kolkata, under ventilation, moving in and out of a coma like state, her lungs and her chest invaded by some bacteria the doctors are unable to identify...none of her organs responding to the medicines.

She'll get well, I tell myself, because I do not have the courage to she her across a glass pane, smelling of the hospital instead of cloves and cardamom as she usually did.

She'll get well, coz if she doesn't, I'll never be able to tell her that because of that old sepia afternoon when she taught me to see digits create numbers, I can still visualize matrices and trigonometric equations.

She'll get well, coz if she doesn't I'll never be able to read those russian fairy tales where everything fell in place, and the good lived happily ever after.

She must get well....coz if she doesn't no one will ever call me Gutu...and that just cannot be.

I am petty enough to hate people who are consistently better than I am at everything. And this is not just hate... this is single-minded flaming white hot hate fuelled by such cold anger that I begin to be thankful for the Indian Penal Code as a restraining factor on homicidal impulses.

I'm going through a strange phase...and i am somehow not happy about it.

So i am watching Batman movies :D

nothing more refreshing than michelle pfieffer playing catwoman, and that 'miaow' she says when she sees batman and penguin!

Batman forever, definitely the best of the lot; if only because it has catwoman and michelle pfieffer!!!

Miaow!!!

Insomnia

What I really like about my flat in Griffith is that one can hear people whistling to their flatmates to let them inside the building at 3.47 in the night. And that though my room is commodious in the extreme, yet all I have to do is sit up on the bed in order to draw back the curtains and peer out the window to see cars driving by at 5.17 in the morning.


I haven’t slept the whole night. And yet I feel more alive than I have for a long time. The last time I felt like this was when I was up the entire night reading Atlas Shrugged.

Fashionably contemptuous as I am of everything, occasionally a belief in magic sneaks up on me before I have had the time to retrieve my stock of chocolates. Pity.

Whimsy

"Rosemary - that's for remembrance"

You shall be missed dear friend. You leave a gap in our lives and in our hearts that no one can fill. And in this moment of deep grief, we can only hope that you find peace in your final resting place - away from the arclights trained on you - unsought, as if they too could not resist your erudite charm. Gone, my friend, but not forgotten.

This post is dedicated to "London and Back", which shall by virtue of this very post be consigned to realms far and beyond the main blog page of inst.

of cats and koala bears

One of my closest friends...one who i shall not name :P has fallen in love with something extremely short, dirty, hopelessly hairy, with long dirty nails. Apparently its called David, and she had the nerve to tell me that fat cats were vulgar to look at.

Have you ever heard of anything more abhorrent?

Spring Cleaning

No. I am not a control-freak. I just like having things in their little dockets. And I like to christen these dockets. Which was why I was tidying up my mail account – unclogging the inbox, creating folders called Nefertiri and Nefertiti for all the class notes ever mailed and seriously contemplating creating another called Bubba. When I came across a mail I had sent to me (I tend to do that a lot) in 1999.

And thus it was today, almost a decade later, that I sat reading through the largest profusion of morbidity that has ever come my way… and I have read Dickens, by the way. I was 13… and I wrote of dying people and handicapped children and jilted lovers. In poetry and prose. And watched Tom and Jerry in my spare time… which at 13, was half the bloody day. And laughed… I genuinely giggled each time Jerry hit Tom over the head with a saucepan.

Three autumns later, I looked all my attempts at rhyming “cupid” with “dup’d” in the eye and said up yours. And I stopped writing.

So thank your stars that I do not write of the Grim who “scurried nigh with stealthy steps” or of the little brook that “bled with the riches of mankind” anymore. Or of the “nowhere man”. I am conveniently shallow now and laugh indulgently at the priggish child I must have been.

A small part of me however, wants to hunt till the ends of the earth for the thin, red spiral-book with which I sat by the window just after it had rained and looked as far out into the distance as I could before writing of "the puppy that drowned" in rounded, cursive writing. The thin, red spiral-book without which I never went anywhere, not even to school – the Muse is the Muse, even in the middle of a boring Geography lesson on Rabi crops. The thin, red spiral-book which I pretended was a secret but was only too glad to show-off to anyone who asked. The thin, red spiral-book which I christened with a little gangajal snuck out of the puja cupboard, and whose name I have now forgotten.

And a small part of me wishes I believed in second chances.

The English Patient

The English Patient...the book by Machael Ondaajte.

I just finished reading this book, and it is a beautiful, beautiful book. Of course I had seen the movie before and was very impressed, and yet again, i feel the pathos of a fantastic book being converted into a rather obscure shadow of itself in a movie...

The book is all about Hana, Caravaggio, Kip and Almasy. Catherine, and the husband play such a small part in that. And in the movie, its all changed; and not for the better. What pains me most is that a brilliant story about human beings has been turned into a story of doomed lovers.

Must we all always think in cliches?

That good books are seldom great movies is well known, and yet, this movie in particular being as fantastic as it were, I had expected it to be more loyal to the book. The book could perhaps have been more easily transformed into a movie if the story line and the importance of the characters had not been played with.

Where does it go then?

Do we never get to see a movie so honest to the book that it surpasses itself? Afetr all, a movie should be able to add on to the value of a book, and not limit it to banalities.

Bitter Butter

Do you what this is? You'd never guess. This is the Forth Bridge, from the Fife side, straddling the Firth of Forth.

Who'd have thought the Scots had it in them.

Ad astra per alia porci

I’ve finally mastered the Zen art of cooking… close your eyes, reach into your shelf of the fridge (the “your” bit is optional), take as much of what-not as you can, put all of the said what-not in a microwaveable dish, take things to their logical conclusion and microwave everything thus transferred into the microwaveable dish. Voila… el sumfing-meaning-yummy-co!

Now all I need to do is figure out the Zen rules of eating the stuff cooked in accordance with the Zen rules of cooking... sigh... life is hard. But then, what are the options.

Becoming Roman

In continuation of living with Mallus in Hyderabad and learning Malayalam, I am now living with Colombians and Germans and Slovenians and Japanese and learning Korean… I personally view this progression as highly typical of my life thus far.

Also the ATM barred my card today... I think I'll just pretend today didn't exist... since I intend to travel extensively in the years to come I think I can adjust this one day in between the time zones... I'll just have to remember to travel east to west... or is it the other way about?

Lesson for prospective academicians: Never have classes before lunch if you want students to remember what they learn for years to come. Or after lunch. Or around breakfast or snack-time. I know it's a little hard... but being such sterling people I'm sure you'll manage. Think of the little red engine who thought it could... and did... I forget what exactly... but that too goes to prove my point. I had horrid teachers mostly who either never believed me... or always did... and both types insisted on tutoring (I think this is the most onomatopoeic word there is) around meal times... considering everything therefore, I think I've turned out pretty well... snide comments on the next counter please... this is a cash-only line.

London and Back

London is lovely... as atrociously alliterative as it sounds. It's a little like "When I'm 64" and The Beatles... sumfings are meant to be. And whoopee for London... we are meant to be. Which is because I love the street-musicians and the statue-men and the book sales and Westminster and the West Bank... and I don't think the Gherkin is an eyesore... it's actually a lot more like a dill pickle... but that's the English for you. And I'm sure once I put my mind to it I could learn to get used to, if not downright fond of, Tate's and eating fattening breakfast with knife and fork and shops closing at 4.30 in the evening. After all, there are people who keep newts as pets.
If only the wind wasn't so blustery and the women weren't so sexy and the men were. So it takes me around Rs.45,000/- and two very uncomfortable BA flights to discover only mom is purr-fect.


Next week: Join us for an account of soppy movies watched and mushy songs heard on Valentine's... not of dinners and dates because I haven't a life... nor of books read because one must draw a line somewhere... I've drawn mine and I call it Tethalal.

...just like that.

Ever imagined that in this entire planet, there's always more than half of the population that's awake and working at any single point of time. I wonder if with all that effort, the world is in such a mess...should we just stop?

or is the world in such a mess because we never seem to stop.

Rajbir said something once...in any transaction, there is always a party that profits, and a party that makes a loss. So when the entire world seems to be developing without anyone making any losses, it's the earth who's the loser.

Even though all management gurus (suppresses a sneer at the terminology :P) would "beg to" differ, it is true.

Well, I suppose truth was never meant to be the plastic beauty a la Miss Indias and Miss Universes we all have started admiring these days.

The Blind Seedling..

Dancing on him the fire burns fast...
leaving him alone wid jus one thought
Chanting, like a heartbeat it goes on..
"what have i done ..oh god..
what have i done "

this is a story of a seedling there was once
who wanted to grow tall, who wanted no fence
what he was,.. he cudnt just hide..
about his anger or his penance

taller he grew wid caress of the sun..
much he could reach.. soaking in rain
enjoying his bloom every mornin and season
he grew beyond patience,grew beyond pain
he swayed in da occasional breeze..
boasted his pride,that he was not fer seize

time passed by..an he was basking in expanse
little did he remember about his love.his romance..
which made him who he was,nurturing love an care
he was blinded to what was always there

loving him fer eternity,wid no reason no cause..
wid each simple love filled GRANULE that she was

he cudnt realise how firm she held him..
by his roots. with forgiveness an Love
he cudnt realise how far he grew away,
from her bosom so warm..
where she treasured every moment they shared

why cudnt he see the future
where even fallen fruits wud grow
in his shade so grey..but in her womb of love

every dead leaf.. a memory so bad they had
that he'd let go..
but She wud sink them in herelf an treasure.

why cudnt he see his life
always grew inside her,a new root..
that she wud source life..
into every dying branch in his vast..

Much to his expanse an pride,
she still held on to support an Giving..
Blinded,.. to stand on her he tried..
clouded by want,attention an living..

A day came wen he felt suns Heat..
Parched for rain, He looked Beat..
Still he cudnt realise, On her LOVE he stood..
when he felt the Sharp edge of an Axe
For someone else.. he was jus firewood.

Severed off from her he lay..
no height seemed tall.broken,he starts to pray
stripped off his pride.. cuts wudnt bleed,wont pain..
hope he sprouts a humble self..on her bosom again :(
not another day that he sees..
without realising.. she means.. wut he is..


Dancing on him the fire burns fast..
leaving him alone wid jus one thought
Chanting, like a heartbeat it goes on..
"what have i done ..oh god..
what have i done "

Of street urchins and stray mongrels

Corporate shopping can be such a bitch. So here I was, in the middle of nowhere, where time stood still - and so did traffic. Not still as in still you know. More like an inching-forward-slower-than-snails-having-afternoon-naps-and-hence-as-good-as-still still. And then I see a street urchin skittering across the road, holding a tattered shawl in place with one hand and a steaming cup of something in the other. He reached the traffic island in the middle of the road where a street dog had been standing for ages. The kid then started to cross the rest of the street, took a few steps forward, stopped, turned around and called to the dog: "aaja aaja... jaldi se aa". The dog was still too scared so the hero-of-our-tale leaned forward and made it sniff the cup. Holding the cup under the dog's nose he started to cross the road and the dog followed. The light changed but I presume they reached the other side safely, with shawl, cup and tail intact.

"Stray" is such a wrong word. And the world isn't all bad.

Homecoming

I and my flatmate met after a long while..well...a gap of four days, which is a considerable gap when you both are actually living in the same flat. In case you are wondering what the issue is then, well, we have different work schedules. I work morning till evening/night, and he works evening till morning. Hence we just say hello when I am leaving in the morning, ie, under normal circumstances. But lately I've been working a tad too much and too long...hence the gap.

It was nice, we chatted a bit, cribbed about work, and well...he cooked Iromba (it's a fabulous Manipuri dish cooked with boiled veggies and fermented fish. I am hoping I got the spelling correct!) which I absolutely love. But then, the office cab honked it's horn and I had to leave. So the Iromba goes to the refrigerator for my supper. But it suddenly felt good after a long while.

Today when most of the urban youth in India are staying away from their family and hometown, it's funny how we create our own suppport systems wherever we go. For some, it's the internet and virtual friends, for some its phone calls home, and for some, it's 30 minutes of just casual talking with the flatmate you've known only for the past 5 months.

Hence, next time I start feeling lonely and lost, I'll know that I am lucky; at least I have a real person to talk to and see when I get back home.

Yes, finally, home is not just back in Silchar.

In the beginning...

...there was the internet, and empty templates to be filled in. Or perhaps just ink and brush, or even pen and paper. I don't seem to remember the last time I had written and not typed something I wanted to write.

Lamentations will not take me anywhere...but blogs might...so here I am, with yet another blog for my self and my friends to create and share.

Let's see if at least this journey continues sans a destination.

Bismillah!