Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Righto.

1) Firstly, I'm really sorry if you have me on Google Reader (why, why would you do that when this header and bloggy design are so pretty?) and I've 'published' about 131 posts today and you missed out on the important news-bloggy stories out there.

Anyway, calm down. I, even I, am not that prolific. They're re-posts (as you already know).

2) Secondly, I know I went away, but I couldn't write on my new secret blog on wordpress. It was a short-lived affair but I am back to my current and usual true love - blogspot bloggy.
(Also, I like tinkering around here better). Also, I heard you missed me. I missed me. So I had to come back by popular demand. Sigh - fandom.


3) Thirdly, like, have you been reading the news? What an AWFUL world we seem to live in. There's been way too much abuse and grief and sadness on the news for my liking. Only the Higgsteria made up for it. And Aung San Suu Kyi. And Santorum withdrawing (horrid man obssessed with vaginas and foetuses and uteruses). America - don't become the Knife of Never Letting Go.
(shudder)

4) Fourthly, I have been reading a lot. Feed by MT Anderson was brutal and honest in a way that little else I've read recently. Except Charles Stross's science fiction which I liked and then immediately unliked and you'll see why.

5) Fifthly, I have had a lot of time to think. Serious think. Like, I read Saturn's Children and I was like wtf is it with female sex robots and why tf do sci-fi writers write semi-porno-sadistic-abuse crap about them? (See below). I mean, is it because you won't be respectable if you write about semi-porno-sadistic abuse crap of male sex robots?  Why dude, why? And The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Why talk about their perfect breasts and mango smooth skin and perpetuate body imagery that is patently illogical. WTF is mango smooth skin? And these books are insanely famous. Promethues, Hugo, Locus, Nebula - you name it they've been nominated.
This is not fiction. This is Cosmo + Fifty Shades of Grey.

And lets not even get into gaming and quizzing.

From Wiki, a little intro:

"Emiko is a Japanese-designed windup girl (a humanoid GM organism, used as a slave, and programmed to seek a master and obey him; windups call themselves "New People") abandoned by her Japanese master. As such, she is illegal in Thailand. Raleigh, a sex club owner, gives her some measure of safety by bribing the police to let her live, but at the price of forcing her to work in his club, where she is routinely abused and sexually humiliated." - The Windup Girl


 6) Sixthly, the internet is a wonderful place because there are so many important ways to say what you can about the issues that anger you. Like, you can ready about the Bechdel Test and then say: I will legally only own copies of stuff that passes the Bechdel Test. And you can tell people about it on-the-line :). How wonderful a place is the internet. Also I am now a wiki editor. And a news junkie; seriously, I've read SO much news in the past few months. I've also completely STOPPED buying hard copy books. Ok, if I go on in this rein, this blogpost will not end.

7) Seventhly, I have not been shoe-shopping at all. I have disavowed the excessive materialism which characterised my life for the past couple of years. I like my simple (non shoe-shopping life now). I thought I should tell you this, in case you thought I was buying every pair of flat happy open-toed shoes I could find here

8) Eightly, I am in Singapore - did you already know this? I can never go back to living in a non-sun non-swimming pool place anymore. There is also less Asian vegetarian food in Singapore than in London (also less cupcakes - sigh) so I have been cooking more and I am an excellent chef. Really truly. I am on a new crazy eating and exercise plan though so I haven't eaten a cupcake in about four months. I didn't even eat one when I found out about my new job - though I skipped the gym for 8 days in celebration.

9) Ninthly, I am going to need to make new friends because I will be moving to Delhi.
(Sad face * 453867)

10) Tenthly, hey, hello, gentle reader!!!! Are you well?

Distance, love and 437 emails

Sometimes that's all you need.

Who me? Busy?

Soul balm for Monday morning: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/

Note especially when he says:
“More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.”

And then he says what I believed all along, instead of the lies that this world fed me:

““The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.” This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write “Childhood’s End” and think up communications satellites. My old colleague Ted Rall recently wrote a column proposing that we divorce income from work and give each citizen a guaranteed paycheck, which sounds like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century, like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays. The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment.”

*BEAMS*

There's been a lot of criticism and analysis of this post, but its a definite goodread.

Girls rule the world so shut up already

Maybe it’s the spate of dystopicky novels I’ve been reading, or the validly sci-fi ones which tend towards dystopic otherworld, or maybe it’s just Rick Santorum, I don’t know which – but everyone has an opinion about what women can or can’t do. I wouldn’t care much for talk like this, you know, the whole, you can’t kill people, you can’t nuke Palestine, you can’t move the Jews to Mexico (as Sheldon suggested) or the whole, yes you can, can, can can, side of things. Mostly I am plodding along in my own shell.

Very hypocritical, I know, but that’s what I do. I make mental adjustments to my ‘how to rule the world manual’ and then move along (and since I don’t even blog regularly anymore, I can’t even rage about it on bloggy!)

Except. Except. This week. This week. Its making me reiterate heavily, and splutter more than I have in months. And it made me angry. Yeah, that’s a big deal. I’ve been on this whole nothing, not even you Rush Limbaugh, can make me angry phase.

It’s been a beautiful few months – stop spoiling it by telling the world what you think women can and can’t do. Go fix your own life.

Be kind to him

I  saw something really bizzare yesterday as I stepped into the elevator in my apartment: Every single note pinned to an orphan-type in a milk basket came rushing to mind. I wonder why anyone would abandon him though. Such a cruel cruel world.

Whatever happens to old toys? Does anyone give them away, throw them away?

Is there somewhere that the souls of not-anymore loved toys go to retire in peace and sit on rocking chairs while they sip mint juleps?  Some kind of post-retirement bliss with sunshiny brochures and antisepticky walls? Something called the Quiet home for Olden Toys?

He looks tres adorable, and if he’s still around when I get home today, I am going to adopt him.

When one is mildly sick

(note to self)
Do NOT attempt to make microwave cookies. Such a thing does not exist.
(what a waste of a perfectly good Saturday Night.)

Many things have happened

Many things have happened:

For one, there isn’t a general one size fits all truth out there. So to those of whom I said, I’ll see you in the real world (because you know, the truth, you know is, like, out there, you know, like) – uhm, I didn’t find it, and I didn’t meet you in the real world.  Talk about spectacular let-downs.

Weirdly enough,  though I didn’t go looking for a specific truth, but a more well-defined, all rounded,  all encompassing- why am I on this planet-how do I save my soul and do I believe in rock and roll- type truth, I only learned a few important specific life truths. I did not learn any general truths.  I tend to reiterate a lot these days.

Truths from a half-year of travelling, city-hopping and non-blogging:

1) There will always be creepy crawly stuff in the water.  Swim/snorkel anyway.  If possible, do not read Matterhorn, it will make you forever incapable of training yourself to face leech ridden environments.

2) Smile at immigration officials.

3)  Ask and you will receive. 

***

Many things have happened:

Mostly good, very few not good. It has generally been an excellent of times.  Given such general all-round pleased-with-life-ness, I have made yet ANOTHER big decision.

And it is this: I guess I wanted something more fun.

This, this now and here, it doesn’t feel right. There’s always this sense of deprivation, no?

I want to roam streets if I feel like it at 3 pm. I want to be non-corporate. I don’t want to do timesheets. I want to read with the luxury of a lot of time. I want to make and drink a lot of tea. I want to wear orange clothes to work, shut down my computer at 6:00 pm and go out and learn a language or swim or bake or read a judgment or write!  If it rains, I want to go out and splash. I want to be wrapped up completely in my thoughts. 
I want to think.
I want to not sit at a computer all day. I want to be a veryusefulperson. I want to create and contribute.  I’d really like to set a goal and achieve it on my own. A big huge difficult goal. Not atention to detail – that is NOT my goal. NO NO NO NO NO.

I want to wake up and feel like there is a very definite reason why I am doing what I do. If I don’ t have that reason, I want to stop doing it – just like that – poof.  

***
Many things have happened:

Making the decision to quit is surprisingly easy. Making a decision to walk away from some parts of your life, a windy city, a few impossibly good and close friends, a darling flatmate, cupcakes, artisanal coffee, possibilities of grey winter coats with a just-right neck flap, boots, very short clothes and yellow fluffy cardigans, the freedom that comes with a tube pass, a life of unexpected discovery and minor adultifying inconveniences; walking away from all of this is not easy, but it is not impossible either.  So I have decided to walk away.

Walking away from someone else is also not impossible but nearly not as pleasant and bittersweet or fluffy. So I have not. I have walked back in.

The next few months, I will upheave myself all over again. (Again, dammit, again). I will move cities and phone numbers and archive parts of my wardrobe and fill it with transient fabrics once again. Before that, I will have to travel some more, shop in abandon, jump continents, embrace jet-lag, say good-byes, plan and attend a wedding, say hello to agents and landlords, and start all over. I don’t wear a watch anymore. I wear hats and dance with myself in my apartment. I have a new laptop (Macky). I’ve decided I love swimming. I’m in doubtful love. My life is organised to within an inch and I have perfected the smile of mild condescension. I want to scream with happiness. I listen to Caro Emerald and Mogwai and Groove Armada. Othertimes, I’m probably SNSD’s biggest Indian fan.

Some afternoons, I begin to write cover letters and update a resume and this song comes on and I purr.

The truth is out there

So, I'll see you in the real world, yes?  :)

Yes. 

Socks shall be holy, Souls shall be healed

Somedays Poemhunter really outdoes itself.

The Place Where Socks Go

There's a place where socks go
when the washing is done
and the driers have dried
and the spinners have spun
and it's past eight o'clock
and there's no one about
and the launderette's locked—
then the odd socks come out.
There is hosiery here
of each pattern and hue—
some plain, striped or spotted,
some black, red or blue—
some wom only once,
some so old they have formed
to exactly the shape
of the foot they once warmed—
some were brought back from Sock Shops
in airports in France,
some were hideous presents
from matronly aunts—
but in all their variety
one thing is shared:
to the place where socks go
they will not go pre-paired.
Then the odd socks remaining
are placed in the chest
(They must turn up sometime
now where was that vest...?)
and new socks come at Christmas
and birthdays bring more
and the old lie, alone,
at the back of the drawer.
And maybe, one evening
when memory is low,
they too slip away
to the place where socks go
and in silent reunion,
each one with its pair,
they join in the dance
with the other things there—
the letters unanswered,
the calls not returned,
the promises broken,
the lessons not learned,
the lost afternoons,
the appointments unmade,
the best of intentions,
the debts never paid,
and the friends not kept up
and the others let down—
in the ragbag of conscience
they waltz sadly round,
beyond the respite
of the washing machine,
no amount of detergent
can now get them clean
till that day when all laundry
is washed white as snow,
and everyone's tumbled
and soft soap must go,
when nothing is hidden
but all is revealed
and socks shall be holy
and souls shall be healed.

Godfrey Rust

Directions

Its been a long time since I've read a witty, thoughtful quote that did not originate on Twitter. Thanks Shruthi  - for pointing this one out.

***

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Rumi.

***
I want to add, "Bring cookies."

Roses?

A transactional lawyer's ode:

Markups are red
Outlook is blue
I am busy
So are you.

Moustache tales.

Appa is growing his moustache again!

I'd like to believe that my father is the most good-looking, charming person in our family (until I), and the moustache (which I've never seen him without) only added to his charm and general sense of wholesomeness. I could never imagine appa without a moustache, and I didn't know how attached he was to it, till he sat my cousin down, when he started to grow facial hair, to advise him on the merits of having a moustache. :)

And then October 2009 happened and Appa had to shave his moustache. Later, every few weeks I would say to him, "So, are you going to re-grow the moustache?"
It takes the attention off of the bald-head I reasoned, it makes you look evil if you don't have one, I insisted and your face looks angrier, I told him, without the moustache.

He refused stubbornly, every single time. And I let it go after about eight months or so. We have moved to griping about weightier issues.

Today, I saw him on skype after two weeks, and he'd re-grown his moustache. There really isn't a story to spin here, an elegant recorded moment of bereavement humour or even a note of poignant shock for three seconds when I opened that video call window.

I'm just very very happy.

As hard as it has been for me to [.] my mother, it has been infinitely more difficult for my dad to have [.] her. Our struggles in dealing with the events of Oct 2009 are similar, but our contexts are vastly different. I cry when an email from her email id shows up in gmail search results, but he finds old love letters from when they were engaged while spring cleaning. My cupboard in London is thankfully memory-free, but he shares his cupboard space with a set of shelves that used to hold blouses and matching saree petticoats, but now hold bed linen and spare towels. I carry around in my jewellery box a ring that my mother bought for me once, but its well hidden and mostly obscured by crap from Oasis and Topshop. My dad though, glances at the dressing table at home everyday, which still holds a half-empty bottle of perfume (the maid sweetly picking it up, cleaning the table, and placing it in the same place as she has been instructed to do). The mirror has a bindi she stuck on it the last time she was able to walk to the bathroom and shower by herself, but in London, I have no sticker bindis in the shape she used to favour.

And so we struggle, in everyday bits and pieces and we have been getting better, but there are days when I have felt that only I was getting better and my dad, in that house, in that city, in that bedroom and that kitchen, was never able to move on as I have.

Today I am just happy.

Coin flip

In a few months I shall perhaps be seconded from London to another city. However, I shall not be alone, for the office usually has around eight of us go to 'aforementioned another city'. There are detailed information guides for the secondment made available, which dictate all manner of suitable office practice, provide cultural information, urge insurance advice, send us examples of filled-in immigration forms and collate frequently asked questions, and even unvoiced but definitely prevalent thoughts. Generally speaking, I feel like we are in capable hands.

In the matter of apartment choosing however, we are left to our own devices.

Residential accommodation includes the following: 1) A two-bed apartment; 2) A three bed apartment (Apt A); and 3) A three bed apartment (Apt B).

Amongst  the eight of us, we have exchanged 53 pleasant emails , decided who will be flatmates with whom, drawn up two tables (don't you love outlook?), and exchanged polite preferences. While the choice of the flatmates was not contentious (being split along gender lines:  to avoid a girl having to put up with the smell of testosterone, red meat and questionable personal hygiene), and neither was the occupancy of the two bed flat, the remaining two sets of three voiced a preference for Apt A over Apt B.

After further discussion, I was pleased to receive this email from a future flatmate, where she exhibited prodigious drafting skills by stating: From what I can see on Google Maps– both flats seem to be relatively near to each other and the office, but in the interests of fairness (so both groups won't have any regrets) and the avoidance of any possible future conflict (though this is probably very unlikely), I think we should flip a coin and see who fate favours.

Sadly, we did not flip a coin to decide who will flip THE coin, but  the careful solving of social problems through a randomly generated win-loss paradigm makes me very happy.

***

On the train from a Buddhist temple to Angel, I learnt about the origins of Bose-Einstein statistics, from Sroyon also in the context of coin-flipping, though his explanation (precisely stated) and the little paragraph on Wikipedia left me slightly more puzzled than it should have.  I shall aim to understand it better someday.

***

I always thought coins had the exact same 'phrase of major importance' inscribed on them and even on their edges), but it appears they do not, atleast, not in the United Kingdom. I made this discovery in the previous six month seat, where the whole group would enthusiastically contribute two pounds to the lottery pool for the Euromillions lottery draw. Evidently, we did not win (for there may have been a hint of this news on bloggy here).  We were not even mildly successful. In fact, we were not successful at all. Still, every two weeks we persevered. (And occasionally we wondered what we would each do if we won 50 million (split between thirty or so people, after taxes, it was a paltry sum of (approximately) 1.2 million and some change per person).

Anyway, the Wikipedia page about the one pound coin occupied me for a rather pleasant half-hour that day and it suddenly came to mind today as I have been thinking about coins.

I shall go home and see if I have a one-pound coin that resembles the description below (so I can hold on to it as my own personal measure of inflation):

2010: Coat of Arms of Belfast

Obverse: Rank-Broadley head, inscription ELIZABETH II D G REG F D 2010, starting below, IRB directly under the bust.

Reverse: Circular Coat of Arms of Belfast, BELFAST above at top, ONE and POUND around each side of the Shield. Small Coats of Arms of the other 3 capital cities of the UK in the intended set along bottom (left to right; Edinburgh, London, Cardiff)

Edge inscription: PRO TANTO QUID RETRIBUAMUS ("For so much, what shall we give in return?" – the Latin motto of Belfast). 

***

As on 22 December 2011 : a pack containing 14 pieces of sugar-free chewing gum. Or a half-pint of milk and some peanut candy. Or, 158 pieces of the (fighter of flatulence and director of digestion), Hajmola Chulbuli Imli candy (from India).

Uçuş puan kazanmanın en kolay yolunu keşfedin

I have no idea what the title of the post means. I could google translate, but I'd rather not. You see, early this year, I went on an amazing trip through Turkey, which involved making bookings on budget (?) domestic Turkish airlines, like THY and Pegasus. Both were a pleasure to fly, and I have wonderful memories of the trip, the airports, the train stations, the newspapers, the TV channels, the food, the colours, the food, the food, the sea, the sea, the sea, the sea, and the sheer kick one can get from travelling in a country where most people dont speak English as a matter of course.

Anyway.

In making these bookings, I used my primary email address to create an account, and I must have inadvertently clicked on the 'Send me a newsletter in a strange language with vivid yellow pictures' checkbox, because every other day, Pegasus emails me in Turkish enticing me to oh, I dont know, fly from Antalya to Bodrum maybe, or announces rapid fire sale tickets on flights from Selcuk to Ankara, (I think) or strongly urges me to sign up to a Pegasus Plus membership.

Usually, I delete the emails, but sometimes I read them carefully, particularly on days when I need a little cheering up.  I imagine the Pegasus email telling me I'm getting too cushy in life and I should use artillery and wage war (punlar ve artilar var...), or that I should really go back to learning magic (I used to know some pretty good tricks as a child) (Uçuş puan kazanmanın en kolay yolunu) or that I should feel free to sin, lie and since its winter, go ice-skating and glide (Sizinle ilgileniyoruz...) or that the world is a wonderful place so I should stop sulking (Dünyanın En Güzel Hediyesi).

Sometimes, I'd like to believe, like so many people I know, it too has taken its responsibilities in the world seriously, considers me to be the definitive girl whom people send poetry to, and regularly sends me yearning love poetry.

(Kart yok, vergi yok, karmaşık mil hesapları ve kontenjan sınırı yok ...)

Maybe its not yearning love poetry though, that one has the potential to be a koan. One can always hope.

***

I started reading the Player of Games yesterday, and at about 1:08 am (Yes, I checked the clock), I became so unsettled by the book that I had to take a walk around the room, then that walk being unsatisfactory, I walked into the living room and then into the kitchen, drank a glass of water and tried to calm myself down. The Culture seems to be everything I thought it would be. Everything.

The book is much better than Consider Phlebas, and I can't wait to read the third one (chronologically only, as apparently the reading order isn't particularly relevant).

The best writing for 2011

The FT has come up with its list for 2011's best writing, and I mostly agree, though there are some fantastic surprises here. You must take a look.

There's a recco for an Eric Brown SF book (The Kings of Eternity), but given Engineman (fairly revered) felt quite ordinary, I'm not sure if I should take the plunge.  Suggestions, comments?

And that is the longing, and this is the book

I'm reading some wonderful poetry at the moment.

If you could write a poem to hum to yourself should you walk down La Ramblas, towards the docks, then this is what it would be:
(You'd have to make allowance for many of the brilliant bars that dot the place, especially one such as this: Obama, and Obama) though what the reviewers dont mention is the life-size statue of Obama sitting on a bench about 2 feet from our table.

***

You'd sing too

You'd sing too
if you found yourself
in a place like this
You wouldn't worry about
whether you were as good
as Ray Charles or Edith Piaf
You'd sing
You'd sing
not for yourself
but to make a self
out of the old food
rotting in the astral bowel
and the loveless thud
of your own breathing
You'd become a singer
faster than it takes
to hate a rival's charm
and you'd sing, darling
you'd sing too

At the end of a week-long series of events to celebrate a milestone, of sorts, (the milestone, not the events), a great many things have happened. One, is that the blog and its existence has repeatedly come into question, its ability to put me in touch with strangers, (though, gentle readers they may be) has also come into question. The purpose of existence, as it were, has come into question, albeit gently and casually and in a much more nuanced manner than one could have hoped for (nuances being ever so tricky to negotiate). Publicly admitting to trials and tribulations, (the kinds involving staplers, smoothie bottles and fingers, workdays that sap you of the will to be social and active, thick nib fountain pens, exquisite headaches from glasses of fine champagne at very many kinds of christmas parties and approaching nri-in-christmas- dejection, the days when more bots or clients email you than real people, or the days you reason with yourself if milk can really _not_ be used beyond the expiry date on the bottle, trays 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on the printer, the unignorable red blinking light on the blackberry, the dreaded cough-y cold-y, sneezy voice of a parent many miles away, the stray full weekend of time slipping away gently in unordained and nonpremeditated morsels of virtual connection, the misery inducing time difference, dirty dishes, lack of cute men, ripped buttons, eyeholes and eyelets of  disappointment, the unavoidable scraping away of grand dreams, replaced instead by regular sized bites of achievable goals and grand (in name only) no sugar, double shot, cappucinos) has come into question, and mostly, the I-blog-because-I-need-to-write-in-one-way-or-another approach has come into question.  As you may perhaps know, one is generally more sensitive to these questions around a birthday. One has spent a lot of time over fourth glasses of martinis looking for answers to these questions in the faraway sparkle of xmas decorations and the closer up tart in the shiny sequinned dress.

Was there a list? (An 'everything I will have achieved by 25' list.)
Yes, yes of course there was, and it was (in retrospect only) a highly unrealistic, overly simplistic, list compiled in the most confident and cocky of moments.

Fall in love, Be famous, Travel, etc.

Looking ahead, I have decided I am not going to make a five year plan. I know what I need to do, and I am going to go do it, and if I fail, I shall have done it, and I shall do it no more. And I will find something else to do. And its as simple as that.

The crucial life lesson learnt, I think (and I did think about this deeply) is that there is time. And it will work out. It has to.

***
I'm continuously tweaking the template because I am looking for some measure of personable identity here, and it is rather elusive in its design.

***
Over this happy happy birthday week past, one of the best memories I have (not withstanding the stunning walks down the docks of Barcelona, the dazzling cocktail bars in succession, the food and the food and the cake and the books) is the BFF directing me downstairs in the midst of a busy Thursday afternoon at work for a belated present of angel cake cupcakes with creamcheese frosting and a vivd green birthday message. Definitely a bookmarkable moment for life.

***
I went to the opera! They sing when they speak! All very magical! 

Another one bites the dust

Meter pizza and a sumptuous, dazzling cocktail place and a few dozen missed calls. Repeat performance on weekend for the lawyer friends and massive cakes in the refrigerator (who will eat them? WHO?).

Under 25

So:

X event offers concessionary £14 tickets to under 25's. This is of course excellent news. However, though I am 24 now - at the time of booking, when the event itself occurs, I shall be 25.

Discuss.

***

There _has_ to be definitive case law, I am SURE of this.

Hoe Hoe Hoe

Excuse my terrible pun. I had a point, and it was a deep philosophical one about bland-ery and whether emotion is over emphasised and really why the Savage would claim the right to be lousy, and thoughts about self-preservation, moral superiority and the unflappable power of self-rationalisation and I was going to write a furious deeply incoherent essay post.
Instead, gentle reader, I remembered this (and the new bloggy has thus far not had a Huxley quote - for shame!):

"But the tears are necessary. Don't you remember what Othello said? 'If after every tempest came such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death.' There's a story one of the old Indians used to tell us, about the Girl of Mátaski. The young men who wanted to marry her had to do a morning's hoeing in her garden. It seemed easy; but there were flies and mosquitoes, magic ones. Most of the young men simply couldn't stand the biting and stinging. But the one that could–he got the girl."

"Charming! But in civilized countries," said the Controller, "you can have girls without hoeing for them, and there aren't any flies or mosquitoes to sting you. We got rid of them all centuries ago."

***

You gotta love the first world  :)

And some more

As if it weren't enough that the miles and the oceans and continents between us keep us apart, as if it weren't enough that reason more than emotion, (or is it the other way around?) keeps us apart, and as if it weren't enough that there is this vast chasm of irregular human connections (191 at last count), a hundred-odd ways for you and I to keep tabs on each other, to consume this desperate need to peek into lives on quiet sunday mornings, when the newspaper simply won't cut it and you stare (or I stare) hungrily at the phone, willing it simultaneously to ring and not ring, to simulaneously want to call and not call you, when the subscribed datafeeds throw up an array of things, to cherry-pick the crucial data packages I know you and I will find more amusing and to share and not want to share these with you, to want you to laugh or not laugh at a common comment of a common connection that means little to those not in the know and then wishing that either you or I were not either or or in the know so that the the commoness of the comment was to us, either or or, nothing more than a comment of commonness,  to wonder how much more music is yet to be discovered or not, and upon chancing to find something individually, not pointed to by the feed gods that control the data flood, to wonder if or if not, I would have unlike how unaided I am now, found it otherwise, to tell myself, soothe myself, occasionally, by affirming to myself that I like more than not like not having, more than having, a virtual together space, that I want, more than I not want to go out there and create more such virtual spaces and populate them as chance and otherness will will it and not feel a deep longing at the loss of a regular, much-loved arm, maybe, or spoke in the web that we each draw, creating such virtually mutual datapools that perhaps, though less than perhaps not, I find that each day the irreplaceability waxes and wanes in sync as much with the eurozone woes as of tremulous phone messages from the eastcoast to londontown to back home and from back home to london town to the eastcoast and all the other variables in between, tracked closely.

As if it weren't enough.

But Harry doesn't mind

"But Harry doesn't mind, if he doesn't make the scene, he's got a daytime job, he's doin alright..."


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

"I tell myself this was a day job, tell people this is a day job, that I have projects I am working on, myserious things to do with my time, until ten years pass, and you realise, this isnt a day job anymore, it is your job, and it is all you'll ever do." - loosely transcribed from memory, how to live safely in a sci-fi universe.


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

***

I think I will restore semblance of calmnness by getting a haircut now so I have something substantial to complain about.

A bowl of something sweet

Do you remember what it feels like to plonk yourself on a soft surface, squish your chest against a large purple cushion and simply eat a bowl of something sweet? I have felt that way all evening.

(mainly because it is exactly what I have been doing, still... I shall hazard a prediction and say that perhaps this feeling will continue)

***

I have been reading an incredible book, something that makes me laugh out loud on the tube, the silent, stiffly formal, jubilee of grey suits and crimson blusher and chanel.

Not only is it great writing, funny, poignant, memorable, but its also smart writing, its intelligent, its new and quirky. Most importantly, it fits in perfectly with the ex-read and the now-read.

I could not have asked for, and found a more perfect in-between to Neuromance/Engineman and The Stuff of Thought. It already feels exhilarating, breathless, as I am 48 pages in and I have to put it away, force myself to stop. You can't have too much of a good thing, but you can have it all too soon.

I came home, studiously put the book away and made myself some gajar ka halwa. And I eat it now, and feel like the world is bursting with wonderfulness.

***
I discovered a word today, and I don't know what it really means, but maybe it isnt a real word, or maybe it is a portmanteau. Either way, I love this word - monomyth. I have my own meaning for it.

And later, as I was thinking about monomyths, I came up with another word-phrase. Unilateral love. Isn't that so much better than unrequited love? And doesn't it feel right, somehow, just, right, to say, I will unilaterally love you.
(yes, I thought about the commas, deeply).

If I loved a lawyer, this is what I would say to him. I would say, let us not talk of conditions, precedent or subsequent, or signings, or commitments. Let us forget about security (and you know I must love him so, to forget about _security_). I just love you, unilaterally.

(much drafting at work. Much security documentation being read.)
***

Someone I know of, from someone I know, sent me a poem recommendation, but I shall say, she sent me a poem. (and how wonderful it is, when people just send you poetry, is it not?). I should like very much to be the girl-they-send-poetry-to.

It deserves a post, all of its own, but today, because it is a day of such sweetness, and because this poem is like clove honey (with a taste of butterscotch):

***

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Wislawa Szymborska

These are the best of times.

So much of my reactions are not truly mine, so many are studied, affected, provoked, and imitations. Templates-like. Gleaned, hoarded, displayed.

Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever wake up and ask yourself, if you are able to _retain_ any information, or if all you do is feed in, feed out? If all you do, is like, share, comment, scan, summarise, and forget. Knowing that the archive exists, do you sleep easy? Do you dream original thought anymore? Do you?

Think about it, when was the last time you had an _original_ thought? Really, think about it.  

***

Everyday, as I struggle to read my newspaper, I find it harder and harder to quell a growing sense of satisfaction (yes, you read that right) with the world. Does it suddenly seem like _so_ much is happening? That people are _doing_ things, taking decisions, making policy, effecting change. Right?

Or is it just me?

Doesn't matter either way, I feel wildly optimistic and excited about the future, as nervous and gleeful as going to watch a Chris Nolan movie (see, intelligent movie references and all). There is so much, SO much changing around the world today.

We are to have seven billion humans on the planet soon, new market standards for uncertainty are being set, the eurozone is stumbling (and boy, what a Jessup compromis they'll have to draft this year !!), Palestine is to address the U.N. as too Netanyahu, and the U.S. will hopefully use the veto (they'll be writing articles about this for years to come now), lending subtle effect to international law theories on its use and misuse, and oh oh oh on hegemony (gotta love the word) . More and more commenters call for an orderly exit for Greece, and the crumble of the free-market capitalist model  (in parts, atleast) has been nothing but exhilarating in a think really really hard kind of way. Its all very cusp-like, very edge of the world, peering across to new horizons like.

It feels like the times-they- are-a-changing. Can't you feel it too?

Neruda-ness

For a few days now, it feels like the moment is right there, a few inches away and I am forever just out of reach. The saturation, the wonderful jolt of ...thought, before I begin to type.

I wrote something a long time ago, a letter of lost love and much too many tears, and today, like all the other days, just out of reach of the moment, as I re-read an old Neruda favourite, I decided that this
needs to be said here. And now. Because if you haven't read Neruda and felt like your soul was bruised and wandered the corridors in search of a hug, well then you havent really loved and lost. 


I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.


I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume 
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm


In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 

pablo neruda


Also, see the entire two (beautiful) paragraphs on the Poem of the Week Page. 

Late in the night, I think of mountains and ATVs

When you are the only person left in the office and its around 1 am, when try as you might, you cannot motivate yourself to do a little bit of extra work until the taxi can come pick you up, your mind may wander to mundane matters of  no importance. Not me.

Nope.

I am thinking of Lagarde, and her appointment at the IMF even though she has no background in economics, about how she was a chair at B&M, and wondering how Greece got itself into such a mess.

I read reports about protests at Syntagma and blockades at Piraeus and felt curiously affected by the anger and frustration of the people. Is that what the IMF did with the SAP (?) plans a decade or so ago?

I was at Piraeus, and its unordinary and well, normal. I remembered distinctly telling DF that if you added a river to the right side of Mount Road (yes, the side with the LIC and the Cosmopolitan Club) and removed all the buildings on the right side, then it would like exactly like Piraeus.

We undertook an Epic journey from Piraeus to Monastiraki, getting very lost and then finding a Greek bus-stop with 30 kilo backpacks on our backs, taking a Greek bus, with Greek signs and getting off when we were told we couldnt buy tickets on the bus, and walking back to the port (roughly a kilometre) to buy a ticket from the same Greek Lady who gave us directions to the bus-stop earlier (utterly terrible directions) but didnt tell us we couldnt get a ticket on board. .

We had a phrase for the trip, conjured when we were stuck in a loop downtown in Mykonos and couldnt find our way to the hotel. The centre of the city, the main village is usually called hora.

Yes, you're right, we are that lame.


My taxi is here, so the rest of the story shall be told someother time, but I miss driving through Naxos in between giant scary deadly quiet mountains on tiny winded paths to visit a tiny village and eat in someone's living room cum cafe. Especially because the ATV was a bright red in Naxos.

It was bright orange in Santorini, and bright yellow in Mykonos.

Good times, gentle reader, good times.

Diary Entries

1) When wearing chic-ly long cardigans, do not wear short skirts to work.  The effect is worrying.

2) Sleep takes precedence over everything. Including blogging.

3) Do not shower with lenses on, your eyes get cloudy and misty and you effectively reduce your proof-reading capacity by 80%.

4) I am always on the lookout for gym songs to match my cardio routine.   I hate the ones I'm currently listening to, so all my endorphins are used up in trying to not get angry at STUPID ITUNES AND ITS STUPID SYNCING SYSTEM. 

5) I want to commence yoga classes, but Aks thinks that its a sure sign I'm becoming white. (or kinder-egg like, as DF said). She says salsa is preferable, while I politely snort at her. But then, I think to myself, why NOT make a fool of myself in front of some perfect strangers and learn salsa? We shall see.

6) Lisboa holidays are coming up.

7) Do not launder muchly-loved shiny sequinned top from Splash in laundry machine. It will die a painfully unshiny death, and leave you endlessly depressed. You may have cried.

8) I haven't read a book in a week and a half.

9) The Harrods sale did not send me into raptures. I did get to touch a Dior bag though, one which costs as much as rent for 2 months.  It was an interesting experience.

10) I hate my life today.

begin PAINFUL REALISATION

11) I have a FULL TIME JOB. This means I cannot also be a writer at the same time. I simply cannot put myself though the torture of wanting to write, while also working and reading and relaxing on the weekend, and travelling. And laundry. I CANT be a writer and a lawyer here.  I am working myself into a nervous wreck.

end PAINFUL REALISATION

12) NJ is 5 hours behind London is 5 hours behind India. Ish.

I know that's not enough

but I'm back with promises of posts and travelogues.

If however, there is one thing you youtube today - let it be this.

My-i-miss-you-i-hate-you-i-cry-to-you-i-make-love-to-you-i-pray-to-you-i-loop-you-i-want-you-i-want-the-world-life-is-amazing-i-am-drunk-weepy-and-happy-and-moody-and-grumpy-and-smiley-song.

Hugs. I missed you.

Cast your VOTE

Look left. Well, my left. Oh wait, also yours.

If you, like me, are struggling with the idea of  remodelling bloggy and are also feeling rather disenfranchised because you could not vote in the TN/Kerala State Assembly elections, then feel free to substitute aforementioned feelings of unused adult franchise-ness by answering the simple question set out. VOTE here especially if you are female, and you realise that the UN needs to guarantee this right for you. Because it is something that didnt always and doesnt always readily exist. Shame, really.

Of course, I think everything is anonymous, but I'm not really very sure, however, I shall keep all responses secret.


P.s. I am still in the office, but random office cleaning person just paid me a compliment because I smiled at him very widely. I was actually laughing silently at a joke I just cracked to myself. (It says somewhere here that I think I am the funniest person I know, doesn't it?) Anyway.
:) Yay. State of mind improves dramatically.

Keep the old

Apparently you should make new friends, but keep the old, cos one is silver, and the other, gold.

Cheesy wisdom apart, its been the strange story of my life that some of my oldest, and some of my closest friends fall away from the radar. And out of the blue, they come back. I go back? We start.

And its like we never stopped.

Pastry boy is turning the oldest age one can turn :), atleast conceivably, and he is now my sometimes we fondly mail each other friend. I cant write him the way I once would have, being happily married (him) and happily single (me).

But every April, though I do so strongly hate the first few days of the month, I think back to some (many) years ago, to msn messenger, and to barcelona and to the world according to garp.

And I smile and I smile and I smile. And everytime aks has yet another sarcastic comment about skype and relationships, all I can do is tell her shes wrong.

Happy Birthday oldie! Spain calls.

Why I dont miss my iphone anymore

1) I can throw my nokia against the wall.
2) I charge it once in 5 days
3) I dont panic when I think I've lost it ( 4 times a week)
5) Its fallen down and cracked to 3 pieces around twice a week thus far, and I've always managed to put it back
6) It fell into water, and survived (me, nokias and water have a strange history)
7) I am always pleasantly surprised when I check my mail after 6 hour intervals these days. It never feels like I never get any new mail because I always read my mail as soon as I received it.
8) Same for FB.
9) It has a flashlight - for all those who are scared of the dark, this is invaluable!
10) I can name profiles again - something I always loved doing!!

Welcome to my world, spirit and spunk!

one loss, two loss, big loss, small loss

I am in the middle of some (sigh) drafting, but I had to stop to ask:

Does a big loss make the loss of a smaller loss more bearable such that nothing that is a small loss can ever compare to the loss of a big loss and hence all small losses are little reminders of how lucky you are, or does the big loss associated with the er, big loss, always taint the losses of the small loss, such that all the small losses are nothing but little extensions and supplements of the big loss and all big losses are just uppped versions?
It is dark and there is snow swirling around outside the window. And I have reams to read before I sleep.
If theres anyone here, do you have an answer?

(Except you P, go away, I hate you if you're on hibernation)

A rainy day

means Mozart and violin concertos.
and listening to the fan slicing the air as the music rises and falls.
and the lamp throwing delicate shadows across the bed

My wall is truly beautiful, I realise. Its very... representative, and I am suddenly overcome by the urge to hug all of it. Ugly Mural and all.

All you need is love and RAM

Usually, before I begin to write, I stop. My hand freezes over the shift key, my left index finger poised over the left hand side of the keyboard. itching towards an 'I'. I smile. In the split second before my finger hits whatever key it does, a muddle of thoughts and sights and smells regarding my latest offering whiz through my head. Its like a stream of technicolour.

Will the gods truly punish me for writing? Am I really eight, stuck and tired and weepy and not really wanting to push monsters away anymore? Do I want a wicked sword? Do vegetables really grow beaks and become fearsome crane like creatures?

*dreams dreams dreams*

Why can't I be normal and dream of boys, and other such? Or maybe even cars? Or creation? Or paint...ooh! paintball. Now that would be a nice dream. Why doesn't inspiration visit me through dreams? Why is it weird stuff?

*vegetable cranes - seriously, i need help right?*

I re-read rick riordan today. (p.s. let me tell you, in the last two years, I have done a who-o-ole lot of reading. ) If you ever get to the part about river styx, you'll understand.

So whats up.

Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine

Amidst the flowers a jug of wine,
I pour alone lacking companionship.
So raising the cup I invite the Moon,
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.
Because the Moon does not know how to drink,
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while,
The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring.
I start a song and the moon begins to reel,
I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.
While I'm still conscious let's rejoice with one another,
After I'm drunk let each one go his way.
Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings.
Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.

Li Po

Universe, are you listening?

Clearly the answer is more shoes. Or retail therapy of some kind.

I am not this jaded awfully gloom person. (except when i contemplate pigeon droppings - but thats a different story, a poochi story) I shall change forthwith and live my life surrounded by sunshine, lots of food, the maxing of cards, the collecting of mugs and double negatives.

Ah, the life.

I am now grown-up

Today I wanted to snap back rudely at a person. At many people actually.


But I didn't, not to the one to whom I could have said the most hurtful things.At some others, a little. But I held my tongue when it mattered.

Sow is proud of herself.
Have been awarded gold stars.

Pink- October.

October is breast cancer awareness month.

If you read this, tell everyone you know.

I knew it too, I knew what BC was, and how older women were at a higher risk. I knew what symptoms it caused, and I knew that a lump was a definite sign.

I knew.

A part of me will never forgive myself for letting the person I love most in this world, ignore my advice. I could have pushed harder, fought and cried and demanded that she get it checked out. But I didn't.

I forgot. I didn't make it an issue. I breezed through my own life and occasionally asked her to get an appointment, when i found the time to check on her.



What makes it worse is that I only ever wanted her to be happy.


Please don't do what I did.

I'm sure you, just like me, are all aware of BC. That you will probably wiki it in a moment, and will know everything that there is to know. You will file it away for later use.

Don't stop there.

Tell your friends. Tell your sister. Your mum, especially. Aunts and grandmums and cousins.

And push them to do take tests and have breast-self-examinations, every month.
It could save their live, one day.


Support Pink.

one fork or two?

I was never good
at waiting for
spilled compliments and answers
lapping them up instead
stealthily, silently.
When you were not looking
prying them from you
tugging at your upturned corners;
looking for the scraps of a smile
rummaging
for some shallow love.
for all that
deep breathing and closed eyes
i was never good at waiting for
measured assurances and weighed concerns
may they explode
and blow me away
the early bird.
my wary worm is too slow
too quiet
too calm
(and i like to go with a bang.)
I shall huddle in anticipation
I will wait for the morsels that you dropped
and devour them greedily
dressed as i am in silks
i will not succumb
to your lights
to your peace
you will turn
to ask
politely as a prince
(or it is punctuality?)
if it is one lump or two
( the irony, the irony)
but the tongs are holding me hostage.
now more then ever.
will you pass
me the
sugar, please?

A pocket full of stars

Small and insignificant things have reminded me many many times these past few weeks, of just how much things have changed.

I have been, all this while, trudging to class unwillingly, shifting, unpacking, cleaning, swabbing, wiping away messy doing laundry (ah, but you knew that already. Laundry is, after all a favourite recurring theme on this blog here.)

Goodbye 202

As I write this, I am surrounded by piles and piles ( and_piles_) of stuff. Clothes and papers and shoes and plastic bags and other bags and books and books and books. And stuff and more stuff.


It seems impossible that I am the same girl who walked into college, with all her belongings stuffed into two bags. Now I need eighteen, and thats a rough estimate before I have even unpacked.


I'm going to blog, as I unpack, as I sort through longforgotten drawers and treasures in the lofts and unseen notes and pages and secretly stashed away candy.

time - 8:02 pm

sigh at all the stuff on various areas of room. Start by putting all clothes away.
change mind decide to pack all thingys which are un-slottable.


8-24 pm

Managed to fit in some thingys into all the available suitcases and bags. decided not to look through it too much, not enough time and way too many average memories.
Get drink of water. not lose too much heart at the sight of all the books.

Its, like, the end of an era

I miss those walls. Sunkissed, yelled at, painted on and scribbled on, and beaten with and splattered with and used as leverage and scribble pads and poster frames and pictures of

How can I tell you what it is like to say goodbye to a room of sunshine and spills?

202 welcomed me (us) with open arms.

We have left with so much more love from the world, so much less uncertainity and a whole lot of very very good things.

202 has seen many happy people crammed in it for b'day parties and lonely sobs at 3 am phone call times. It has allowed us to spread a mattress on the floor for a troubled someone more and equally been efficient with newspaper on the floor during dhaba food parties.

We've spilt, at various times, ink and blood and tears and ketchup and juice and paneer and soup and gin and vodka and beer and water and we've just as carefully and knowingly mopped them up and moved on with life.

For over four years, we have run to its walls, its safe spots,its stuffed cupboards and its food stashes. ( and more importantly, its phone charging points)

We have lost keys and lost locks and broken down doors and bolts.

Beds have been shifted around. So have loyalties.

Much bad watery maggi has been cooked. much food-from-home has been gratefully eaten.

We have, in these four years, lived a life, which though not without its rather painful moments and times of distress, been a sort of experience we can only characterise as home.

202 was a godly room. Love and melodrama and learning and success. Lucky as hell for us we moved in where we did then.


I miss those walls. I miss the ugly mural and the eerie yellow lamp light and the window which let in only bugs, not air.

It _is_ the end of an era.
dont you know?

The last stand.

It has been too long, this negected and starved blog has been forgotten and maybe even unloved.

Many new things have been bought. Shiny shoes. A Watch. ( one with no numbers, on which I definitely cannot tell time, but it looks cool)

Henceforth please do not ask me what the time is. But please glance at my shinily shod feet.

Also notice that I have now known :

1) what it is like to have focus
2) what it is like to have determination
3) what it is like to have inspiration (all in someone else, of course. I just gape at them in awe, and then proceed to day dream)
4) what roadside chai in madras tastes like ( not so great, actually)
5) what it feels like to be paid. I dont think anyone has ever paid me before. With a cheque that too. In my own name. ( i find cheques very mysterious, and confusing. They scare me. As do demand drafts. And remittance slips. And banks, as a whole) ( i like money, though)


There have been storms and showers and horrible crazy days.
I realise that I havent written the end of sem posts, as is obligatory.


Meta-post-of-VIII-Sem.

Last sem was terrible academically, except for tax. I liked its uselessness though. I liked its quiet. And i liked its time. Vast and unending. Good sem, also bad sem.


Now that thats been taken care of, I must tell you that I have huge plans of CRESTING this semester. Through various ways. For one, I am going to do nothing. Then Im going to write lots. And get out of campus all the time. And be funner and nicer and laugh-ier.

With that promise, I now leave you. Stay in peace and come see me, in about three days.

the rest of the world.

I heard a joke today. It wasn't a joke, technically, more a witty riposte (that followed some conversation, that in other-times would have had the company in splits), along the lines of how you should never date female lawyers. Because, of course, they lose all their femininity. And are probably bitches.

Speaking of which, a friend of mine confidently assures me that he doesn't like tall women. "They're not feminine or graceful, you know?", he says. most of them are so... assertive.


Of course.

Note, I'm not complaining about any of the people above. They're good friends, nice guys, keep me company, call me at 3 am, open doors for people, are polite and nice smelling, you know? the works.

(I was however, miffed about the guy in the motorbike who zoomed in front of me today and appraisingly stated that I was a "lovely beauty" before zooming off. As if he stood a chance...)


In my cosy little room at good ol' Nalsar, gender bias is easier to fight. Of course it exists, and its also perfectly annoying, but it isn't nearly as bad as _the rest of the world._


The rest of the world judges women more harshly than it does men.
and not at their work ( atleast not that I've seen), but I think at their play. in their jokes and stories and dreams and wishes and lives.
I sometimes hate the rest of the world.

Great Idea # 7865

"Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination."
~Robert Fulghum

The - I don't have a dream - speech

All my life has been about stumbling along and finding things. I don't have a dream.
Here is my speech.


The last few days have been filled with inane symbols. last sundays. last mondays. last hours of class. last hour of banking. last hour of tax. last missed attendance.

In some days and some more, ( with a generous dollop of good luck with my drafting paper) I shall have reached the almost end of my college days.
My formal education, the times of missing attendance and losing erasers and pre-exam cramming are drawing to a close.

In a year, a year of quiet, a year of nothingness, I will be leaving.
Suddenly I feel tainted with mortality. Like someone pulled out the carpet from below my feet and prepared to push me into the world.

My world here, is slowly fading. There is the dilution of the arrogance of youth, the promise of always more time is fainter with each passing day.
my newness is forced. adventure is mellowing and one seeks out quiet corners more than ever.

I need new dreams.

The time has come to redeem those 3 am promises and angry mutterings behind the backs of (often unwise) authority. To prepare.

Yet, I am bereft. Lost and floundering in my ability to face the unknown, without terms, and ideals.

I need new dreams.




p.s. for all those who enquired, thank you, I am back. enormous quantities of soul searching awaits.

Being and Nothingness

My long absence is not without reason
Tuesday is without
a hinge and naked his soul,
his circuitry resting awkwardly on his limb
forlorn and shaky his screen
he remains somberly grim.

Note 1: S hates expensive laptop maintenance when she is living in penury.

I've had a rather lazy four day break and ambitious plans of work and gym and run and violin and projects and progress have been gleefully shattered. All I perceive is a needlessly vicious attitude towards minions of the law school. (owing to watching lots and lots of Just Shoot Me)

Law school is being more and more of a misnomer. what law? This semester is officially the worst ever in terms of academic interaction and growth. The only subject I am finding marginally interesting is taxation.

On the more personal front, I am happy and loving my life. Also my new haircut. Also belated presents. I have realised that the lack of personal conflicts and emotional avalanches doesnt provide much to write about. In this current state, in this now, theres hardly any time to observe ( false), any time to question and grow indignant(false) and anything that requires an absolute outpouring (true). People have replaced blog.


Sad.

On the other hand though, the lack of the necessity to be absolutely productive except to assuage ones guilt means that theres a lot more I could be thinking about. :) Honestly, await more posts. (But just to break it you gently, dear reader, I am off travelling for a while, mostly by myself and I am so excited and nervous and jumpy and happy.) I'll be back with pictures and trinkets and a whole lot more perspective. Also much more love for the sun. I'll post from there, for sure, so watch this space.

Yours
---S.

Ring in the good times

To change, happiness , freedom from bad haircuts and love despite.

In hope,

--S.

The problem

The problem with telling yourself you can and you should take care of everything yourself, is that when you need to ask for help, there are only so many people you will allow yourself to turn to.

And specific people for specific things. I dont want to worry about the loss of power equations anymore. Not with everyone and everything.

Yes, I am ok and fine and I can handle everything splendidly.


there is no one to ask, sometimes.


Good days abound, minor transgressions into nothingness and ennui and halfhearted attempts. Nothing to write about. I even stuck my head into the grass for over twenty minutes today, and I didn't hear it grow. But the wind and the leaves sounded like the sea, when you closed your eyes.

pretty day. pretty boring day too.

It has been a week since college started and all I've done is eat and eat and eat. And generally had a blast, just going out and spending time with many friends and whiled away all my time in a state of mirth and inertia.

Not to say though that interesting, rather interesting things havent occured, or that there hasn't been anything to blog about. Lifechangingtype events have occured in fact. nicely.

The reason this three line post is up, though, is because I have bunked a Yacoob lecture on Labour Rights to prepare for enviro class, which I forgot to do last night. Last night I just slept. ( Also I have been sleeping a lot)

Regular blogging resumes from evening.

musings

Was this how it always was? I dont seem to recall so many memories sandwiched between layers. Nothing has changed as much as the way I look at these things, these people, these events.There has been hi-hello ing and unpacking and sharing of news and talk of those new haircuts and the latest round of -over- the -holidays- gossip.

not to mention some intense late night mess conversations with Mu and V and a very interesting junior. Apathy, disillusionment, hostel justice?!, diversity, bias -- such everyday law school worries, these.



hello.

Its a happy peaceful feeling. hours, routines, timings, bells, work.

the people are there. there are things to do. news will follow, i suppose.

nightmare # 56798

I wish that title were sarcastic, witty, perhaps a snide reference to a conversation or simply a morbid outlook on my life when I have everything and more to do and the deadline is tomorrow.
Unfortunately, it isn't. There are a few times in life when one wishes for exams and deadlines and piles of laundry. Anything, but having to wake up from a private hell of emotions and fears.


Its now 23: 27 as I write this and I have just woken up from a nightmare and will probably spend the rest of the night too scared to sleep and too worried to rest.


I think this should stop. These random horrific scenarios which involve unspeakables are very tiring. ( and I would tell you, I would, only a blog can take only so much objectionable ontent, and I've already made so many typos, that I qualify for that)


For now, in the dark, having woken up my parents and feeling like I'm a three year old, I decided that orkut and blogger might help some. I am scared.

I do not wish to fall asleep to that again. I'd rather wake up to things I can deal with, like selvam sir's organic chemistry q, papers, and idlis, and terrible weather, and lots of laundry and nothing nice to wear.

i feel such a child sometimes.

( if this post sounds disjointed or non coherent, it is because I have been unsettled these waking minutes, and also I am sleepy)

Changes

It has been a fair amount of time since I have started this blog and now it seems that it is as much dependent on me, as I am on it.

When I did start writing, it was with a lot of enthusiasm. And confusion.
With the wisdom of some time and many more vignettes - I have decided to change two details in the 'about me', that you'll find above the page.

Not that I don't anymore, its just, now there are margins of doubt which creep in. And also, not believing doesn't alter my life in any ridiculously large manner.

The joy of unrealised beliefs. The joy of disregarding them.

wring hands in despair

About the changed format of the blog, I dont know what I did and I think I might have accidentally rearranged things.

sigh.

And i dont feel upto changing it back, so all of my many many avid readers and adorers will have to just put up with it.

a frog called amelie.

Have I ever told you about the frog that rests on my table?

Back in 202, fondly remembered as home, on my table there are four things which always remain, after every session of cleaning and spur of the moment rearranging.

1) my pencil/pen stand. also holds a sharpner, a five rupee coin for emergencies and a pair of tweezers.
2) a table lamp, which has now ceased to be finctional as i have not yet replaced the fused bulbs.
3) a rubber model of an airplane, with a cavity in the middle, where the imaginary rubber people whould be, which allows enough space for
4) a green water squirter in the shape of a frog with wide wide eyes. very wide eyes, and small pupils.

froggy remained unchristened, partly because he wasnt mine, he was just sdopted until his owner claimed him again, and partly because i wanted to name him something meaningful.

( not to say that my other possessions have non meaningful names, but you see, there is something very very holy about a frog that gives you a wide eyed stare everytime you think you are the greatest thing since hot water and the wheel. Rather like, cutting one down to size, all innocent like.)

So, in honour of Amelie Poulain, beautiful and wide eyed and very very lovely.

he is christened amelie.

( clink)

( also amelie is now mine, his former owner having reliquished his claim. post amelie having been granted his freedom and allowed to travel the world, he chose to instead faithfully remain by my tableside, lives and breathes the very spirit of 202 and engages in deep philosophical conversations with the ugly mural)

of things

I have been doing:

eating
sleeping
growing round
taking driving lessons ( future tense)
recovering from sneezy colds
having brief flashes of wisdom which gently spiral away into nothingness
sleeping
some more
reading terry prachett. I like 'equal rites' very very much.
Reading gaiman and robert jordan. Wheel of time makes my head spin.
being glassy eyed when my mother expresses her opinions on things.
watching Kumkum on Tv.
taking to orkut much more than I should.
staring critically at myself in mirrors
trying on newly made clothes ( haute couture ma, i giggle. she just stares)
sleeping.


i have also watched 2 movies.

Sixth Semester - Gains and Losses

This post is long overdue, and my apologies for that, but home turns one slothful and there is no imperative- you must go to the mess or you will starve- voice in the head; pushing one to constantly ….do.

If this semester were to have a title, you know? Something fancy…. I’d call it something from a song that someone recommended I listen to, towards the end when I wanted to perform random acts of senseless violence.

“…It was worth all the while.”

This semester has really been one of constant pushing. Of constant running, Of constant doing. Strangely, fatigue has come and gone, flitting almost, a part of the deal. This semester has been a glimpse of the outside world, of work and life and everyday gains and losses.

I think I lost a lot this semester – but the loss as always has been a learning experience as well as have the gains.

I have lost the ability to laugh, talk, meet and be. With random numerous lots of people.
(but I think I am trying to get it all together again)

I have lost respect for myself. For the kind of idea of worth I carried around in my head, and this has hit more than most. I have had to pull myself together and remind myself of the reasons I had. Some were more flimsy than the others, but I'd like to believe that the worth is still there. And that the respect hasn’t unravelled to the extent that I thought it had.

I have lost and found so many things. Including confidence in myself. And the ability to spin yarns and write a tall tale.

I have lost companionship. Of a deep and enriching kind. One I am most sorry to have lost and whose absence hurts.


I have lost, and this is because of all the other things above, the complete and unerring faith in myself. The absolute sense of trust I once had in my actions and beliefs and motives. If I question myself more, I know it is because of doubt not reassurance. As a standard by which I would like to carry on, this is not a welcome sign, but as I realised, the knowledge of this is sufficient to propel me to work towards it.

That and my ego coupled should have me back on track in no time, I think.


( now the good part )

I have gained substantially more than I have lost. In terms of emotions, sights, perspective and fun.

I know now how I can survive. I know now how much I can take and I know now how to pull oneself together and present a brave face to the world.

My definitions of fairness, of deserving-ness have become even more grey. I can handle reality better, I think.

I can pack. I pose well for pictures and I smile brilliantly at the camera.

I had my coffee on Times square and looked up and realised that there are still things one is delighted by. I am not as jaded as I had believed.

I saw Starry Night, stood next to it and touched the air around it. I was transfixed and I love it. I even have a picture of me grinning uncontrollably next to it. I saw Van Goghs. I ate croissants and omelettes for breakfast. And I lived an experience that was as enriching as it was fun. And I have some truly memorable photographs that I look at every 7 minutes.

I have gained some sense of achievement, some sense of pride.

I bought flowers for someone, for the first time. I ran, actually ran, across crowded roads, hand in hand with V, giggling all through, bags in one hand and hair in complete disarray. smiles.

My first snow. And a few other firsts. One is tucked into bed every night, with bedtime conversations and observations which make one smile.

My first intense hurt too.

One survives, there are Lindo truffles in mint for dessert. And experiences and love and newness and niceness and happiness.

This semester was discovery, it was realisation and giggles. I think I have cried the most this semester, but I am also very happy. Just happy. Happy because anything that will happen now is something I can control. There is anticipation, excitement and life again. I dont know why I feel this way, because I particularly didn’t feel its absence earlier, but what the hell, I am enjoying this - this ability to be, do and look and feel- just.

If it weren’t for the dreaded end semester exams, this would have been close to a perfect melange.

On the whole – a D.

My good friend Bombados

Strangely enough, the past three months have been a whirlwind of places, people and emotions.
And happy chocolates.

Through the mist of impending exams and the future slipping into sight and beckoning with questions, and the lack of any appreciable definiteness, I am at the brink of finishing three years at law school. I have been a bad correspondent, an even worse blogger and a terrible author.
Still.

One shall draw a veil over all that and the pieces of wrapping paper and the rest and begin again. Though I do not enjoy being reminded about how many hours I spent in reading nonsense fan fiction and playing cryptoquote and drafting and re- drafting emails, I shall put a more cheerful face on this, my apology post.

An apology for the times I should have responded, should have done something more, should have let myself be.

Bombados is my priest. My confession man. My Keeper of Shameful Secrets and Other Evil. My good friend, he is. My patient listener. My critic. My giver of advice.

He may be a literary rip- off. Still. He may technically, not exist. Still. He may be a disembodied voice which writes adult harrypotter fic in his spare time. Still.

I hate this writing of posts and pretending I write only to myself. Bombados here solves my problem.

Welcome Bo.

29/2/07 - fairmont

I write here just as a reminder of things that are. I am not doing good, but I think I will do well enough to survive and come back - room sweet 202 and write more.

Therapy like.