Lessons.

I am writing this because I am clever and diabolical and no one will ever know. I am Sauron. I am an unknown evil genius mobster's bald pate sticking out from behind a chair. I am a devil. I am a dimer debhil. I will now sit at a trestle table and wear fancy headgear with blonde braids and look all beery fierce and applecheeked and clink tankards around. Nothing matters, I am now so beyond cool it's scary. And no one shall ever know. So there. Muahahahaha.

This is most definitely a Cryptic Post. Not to mention a First Of Its Kind. Go figure.

Stupid.

In exactly three hours I will start wishing I had bothered to read the text when I had the time. This always happens. Right now I'm supposed to be reading about the text instead of the text itself but no, look, it's Beowulf! It's almost like Tolkien! It has words like gumption in it! It has fighting! It's just a poem. Right up there with all the other idiocies I exhibit lies the fact that I'm good at coming up with the wrong kind of excuses. I'm also fabulous at being happy that soon, soon, soon the exam will be over. I'm not a bad literature student, I'm not really a bad anything. I don't think anyone is. It's just very likely that I'm the lemming PB warned the class about. I'm twitching my nose already, look, and very soon I'll start running.

Oh man. I hate Regina Spektor's new album so much it hurts. Mainly because I loved her earlier work so much it hurt. I hate it that the simplicity's gone and everything's now arranged and synthesized and very obviously melodic (melodious?), and there are no fun parts and no fun lyrics and she doesn't suddenly slam her fingers down on the piano in the middle of a song anymore. I used to like that discordant feel. And now there's nothing quirky, nothing startling. I'm not really a pop music hater but it's sad when everything starts becoming popsical. Music heartbreaks always hurt that way.

Second cold this season. What is this. My physiognomy's a farce. Or do I mean system? I mean system if system includes inner mechanisms, they're also working dubiously. In a bid to clear the head and improve concentration (no, really, that's just an excuse) I turned to the Rubaiyyat. Goes to show exactly how guilty I am of faulty judgment, but even that isn't half as disturbing as the laughing-and-sneezing-at-regular-intervals routine that's been on since eight AM today.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

Must. Stop. Finding. Innuendos. Everywhere.

I'm definitely still stuck at the anal stage.

Mostly I miss school lunch breaks. I miss Debhuti's muri and Bapi chanachur and I miss Sil's chilli chicken and I miss Sonali's pink gobi (now that was a work of art) and I miss Soeta's aloo stuff with the mayo stuff. Mostly I miss how everyone just came alive for those thirty minutes. Then we went back to class as figures in uniform, inanity and empty lunch boxes chuck into bag please thank you. Outside of that half an hour we were all so different I think we wouldn't have been friends at all without the prospect of having that lunch period to fool around in. Mostly I miss that, it's the only thing I miss about school.

Lessons learnt at the KFF this time were like The Shawshank Redemption, which is to say, after crawling through a lot of shit short films are free air, which is to say I didn't just say that.

बचपन

सामने जो एक नाला है ना, गिर नहीं जाना उसमें, ठीक?

गिरने से क्या होगा?

अरे! गिरने से क्या होगा? एक हज़ार नौ सौ छिपकलियाँ एक के बाद एक नाले के कीचड़ से निकलेंगी, फिर पानी में तैरकर तुम्हारे ऊपर चढ़कर आस्ते आस्ते तुम्हारे मुंह तक पहुंचकर अपने तेज़ नुकीले दाँतों से ... चीखो मत!

मुझे घर जाना है।

क्या? क्यूँ?

मुझे घर जाना है!

पर घर तो नाले के उस पार है।






From ever so long ago. Horrible kid I must've been.

Winter's here! Apples! There are apples everywhere. I ate five yesterday and paid dearly this morning but no matter. Apples today also, also oranges, soon. And grapes and papayas and aaaaaaaaaa I love winter fruit.

List, tentative:
KK.
Socks.
Confed?
Wok.
Beowulf?
Plum.

Ok. First three nada, no money. Wok arbitrary, really, what's the need? Beowulf should've been top on the list, now that I think of it. Ok. I'm going to die of bad decision-making ability.

Replied to pending emails, deactivated Facebook account, started waking up early to take walks, I am Changing my Life! Clap clap. It's getting a little boring being this perfect, though, which is why I haven't cleaned my room yet. I refuse to. But since I've been Changing my Life there must be rewards, hence am working my way through unwatched movies.

Been cooking random stuff all week. Frittata and sausage rolls and coffee pudding, will be cooking some more. Cake possibly, but more likely spaghetti. Since all I'm doing at home is reading irrelevant stuff - reread Adrift on the Nile and a Dick Francis, not to mention a highly entertaining morning with an anniversary-special Femina, that magazine's hysterical - I think it's highly productive and head-clearing at the same time to cook, I don't have to think about the food while I'm making it. What I object to, however, is the folks thinking that this qualifies me to cook omelettes everyday. Everyday omelettes are not a joke. Omelettes are works of art and unless they're treated that way they'll be mean to you. Fact.

On second thought, this is a very pointless post. Wahoo.

THEY'RE PLAYING VENGABOYS AT FULL BLAST. THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE.

Once upon a time there was an open field in what was supposed to be a quiet residential area. And in that open field there was a youth club that held musical extravaganzas of an undefinable nature. They had a hired singer in a hired blazer. They had a band that used electrodrums or octopads or whatever they're called. They had loudspeakers. Most importantly, they had Enthusiasm. The police didn't care and everyone swore under their breath (sometimes they were infinitely more vocal), but no one ever did anything. And so the world lived through its share of headaches and brain damage. But one fine day they conducted their programme on a Sunday afternoon, following their earlier successes with keeping the neighbourhood up till two thirty AM on saturday nights.

It was then that Mr. Civic Sense made his appearance.
He was bold.
He was righteous.
He was indignant.



Not that it helped. He got beaten up by a vision with blond streaks and an Undertaker Tshirt.

The family doesn't like passion. Everything is sniggered over, everything is loved. Declarations and confessions are made after much throat clearing, but catch anyone letting go of the source of discomfort. The family has no attachments but is loath to let go of things it obsesses about. It's weird. Take the father, for instance, the things he loves to do are pursued in the most covert ways possible. He plans silently for ages and then announces and takes off, like on his yearly trek. Now the mother in her own way loves to take off (all kinds of baggage in tow) but chooses to be a sport. It doesn't matter much to me, but then there's no escaping the passion. It's always silent, so there are offhand light remarks about us not having had a family vacation since Kerala early last year, which didn't really count as a vacation because it's home, isn't it, even though we're hard put to not feel like aliens when on Mallu soil. There are these foamy frothy statements about men having to do what they have to do. There is laughter even. And then, all of a sudden, there's a phone call to meet at Elgin, oh so dispassionate, nothing much, just lunch.

And then she buys me a jacket. Like it's all part of a plan. Like we're planning to take off too, pretty soon. Like it's women having to do what they have to do. The family's this tight, well-organised hangar and everyone runs out of fuel sooner or later, but what will really do me good, I think, is to stomach the jacket without saying a word (thanking people is an English concept, we merely accept what elders drop onto our heads) and wait for a really cold night when the runway's all dark and then fly off like there's a plague. The family doesn't ask for love, it assumes it, which is all very good, but then I hadn't counted on PPR being such an epic failure. We learn everyday. Tomorrow I abandon hope and start studying.

Moments later, the White Witch rolls up and, confused, tries to tempt the probe with a firmware upgrade.

Dear Mr. Munroe, if by any chance you ever do an E. Nesbit strip, I will personally kidnap you.

I've realised that much of my mood throughout the day depends on the kind of tea I brew in the morning plus the strength of the song my shuffle chooses to play first. It's my daily dose of humility, the way something inside my computer seems to know what to do. Today I chucked some ginger in my tea and mulled over some Plans and had almost decided to take a bath but then I heard an opening I know well. Paint a Vulgar Picture. Haha. Haha. Bully for you, Morrissey. And for you, Higher Power hiding in my software.

Operation PPR starts NOW. Nalayak, vardi utaarke phenk de. Bas. Updates to follow.

Klimt :)

Soon there shall be a noir film telling people it's ok to wise up and deal with things. One snarl and a gunshot and we're back to a world where a bloodstain's actually blood. Half the world I know right now needs to figure out that symbols are just symbols and jhaal muri's just jhaal muri, but then you could say that's just me being impatient. Truth is, I'm a lot more intolerant these days but it's not out of reason, it strikes me as just very dumb if you think things are beautiful just because they're pretty. I'm just sick of a lot of things right now.

On most days Cubik can balance just right, it's only like playing complicated hopscotch. On other days the rearranging of the squares becomes a bit of a headache if groggy and a bit of a pain if grumpy. There are also days when the cube rolls along as it rearranges and the rapidity of it is too much to take, if Cubik isn't very careful minicubes will collide with limbs and there'll be bits and pieces flying around. Today Cubik has decided that the cube can go to hell, it's a nice day to do nothing. Yay for Cubik.

It rained so it had better be cooler tomorrow. I'd give anything for a plate of greasy chowmein and chilli chicken right now. But no money to order. And only baingan ka bharta at home, the world's a depressing place tonight and drippy to boot. This sucks. I don't mind baingan ka bharta but it doesn't make rainy evenings feel special and I want rainy day food. I'm too lazy to walk out and get any and now that the motherboard's away there isn't any fried egg Maggi or khichri or besan pakoras, this sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks. I'm going to die tonight of unfulfilled rainy day food cravings.

Owing to my attention span and the relationship I share with any kind of visual narrative (eh?), films don't like me. On a normal day I am very fussy about watching a film and on certain days I would do it only under duress and I feel so, so lost right now. It's like I've morphed into an aching frame with two eyes and an ID card and no prospect of food except for the Monginis stall in between breaks. And all the people onscreen and all the people offscreen, and the people offscreen talking about the people onscreen till it begins to go both ways. And how, how is it possible, how does one endure it, how does one assimilate so much in one day? Four films aren't four films, they never are. They're four worlds and it's nothing but time-travel in between, so put together twelve parallel universes and possibly eight more to go, and where are we? In Philip bloody Pullman, that's where, and I will not allow the world to tell me otherwise. If this week hasn't been the most exhausting in a long time, it has definitely been the most exacting. I feel like a piece of fluff. Just that and nothing more.

Itinerary

Oh look I'm watching films.

Oh look I'm watching four a day.

Oh look I'm not understanding much.

Oh look my head's buzzing.

Oh look a pillow.

Snooore.

I walked an insane amount today, stupidly and impractically and along this strange route that, now I think of it, makes it look like I was trying to shake someone off my back, but then that isn't it at all. What is it is my nose. Walking on a road, any road, is assuming stranger proportions all the time but nothing, nothing I tell you, nothing beats today. I looked down suddenly and my nose was in the way and then I was fascinated by how it pre-empted every step I was taking, and before I knew it I was at 8B and then home, and home was smelling of baby vomit, which I then found out was Horlicks spilled over the kitchen floor and mopped up inexpertly, and, basically, there is nothing much to write about today.

There's always a place in the sun but sometimes you're under the flyover and there's a kid trying to sell you agarbattis again, you know? These city metaphors will be the death of me.

I am drawing again but hoarding them up in the old drawing books because they look a little strange, as if someone else has drawn them. Perhaps I shall come upon them again in ten years' time and not be able to tell the year I drew them in, that's the kind of coverup I'm talking here.

Somewhere in the middle of lunch today I went back to every fancy Tamil wedding or reception or puja or ceremony that I've ever attended, because of the aloo chips. So I'm sitting on the floor in the midst of all the food, which is beyond good inspite of my constant snivelling about how it's all vegetarian, and someone comes along and dumps a handful of aloo chips on your leaf. I never questioned it because it always happened, there were chips and pappadums to go with every fancy Tamil meal, just like every Mallu meal brought with it the banana versions (Ok, ha ha). I even vaguely remember this once at Sankara Hall or some place where I came upon an entire steel dabba about half my size, and twice my girth, filled with aloo chips. And Balaji, who was such a constant childhood fixture that he's now a blur, was sitting behind it dipping his hand in and stuffing his face every half a minute, and we sat there unattended and ate quite a bit before someone from the kitchen shooed us away.

They were translucent, and red chilli powdered, and shaped in perfect ovals, but all these are details it's easy to forget. I've had other people wondering at the aloo chips tradition too, the weirdness of it transcends a lot of other weirdnesses because if you grow up eating chips with main meals and then see them at movies, things you just pass time with, well. And ever since Chitti and Chittapa moved to Trichy the Tamil side's been cowed and wrapped up and stored away and there are no more functions to attend and no more banana leaves to eat off, but today at lunch, which wasn't really a Tamil meal but who cares, out came a packet of chips.

Lake Market? I ask. Eat, my mum says. And so it is. I crush one chip into the rice and feel strangely fuzzy, I guess it's the inexplicableness of it that stays, and permeates, and creates this glow. And so it is, I realise I can almost forgive the vegetarianism.

The more I get into High Fidelity, the more convinced I am that the House MD soundtrack's using it as its Bible. I mean, Solomon Burke? Al Green? Sly and the Family Stone, Otis Redding, Rolling Stones? All together? And look, look, Wikipedia has all the lists nicely written down so I don't have to go back and flip through and hunt, which in retrospect is somewhat pitiful. But no matter. Love and Happiness, you bet.

I see you baby (Shakinyerass).

I can't remember when and where I read this, or why I'd forgotten it till today, but, fact is, someday I shall have a Gorey shoulder. Mark my words.

So yesterday I'm told I scared the Grandmater when she woke me up from my post-college sick sleep by talking gibberish in a guttural voice, so much so that she called up the Motherboard convinced I was dying. Motherboard chilled, came back home and then freaked out and said I looked dead already, then tried to call the doctor to find out what I should take.

And since I hate taking any kind of medicine and was horribly snubbed when I reminded the Motherboard of it, I waited for her to get on the phone with the doctor and then kept screaming hoarsely in the background, Aar na! Aami aar drugs nebo naa! No draags!

So I'm still in zombie-mode and sound like something out of a death metal band (Instant Migraine, first album out soon) and can feel the inside of my nose throbbing, but the Motherboard's face made my day, so I'm carrying on in a similar vein today. Resolution, ekdum.

Sometimes it's not as much about finding Jerusalem in the midst of dark Satanic mills as it is about looking for a corner where what is dark is comforting and what is Satanic seems agreeable. It isn't an admirable thing to do, it never has been, but for sheer adaptability you have my respect. It's too easy to open your mouth and let the world know of your intention to bring about a Change, it's far too easy. What I especially like is that you make mildness look like fun, but it's not like the visions don't exist, ergo your madness pips a lot of the other kinds of mad I know.

Tum toh thehre pardeseeeeeeeeeeee
Saath kya nibhaogayyyy

I love it that my room has a large window, but it's supremely annoying that there are large windows all over the house, and what is infinitely worse is if you've parents who are morning people. If I crawl out of bed feeling like the world's just been born, everything cool and dim and dewy, I only have to walk out of my room to be assailed by brightness, you've no idea what degrees of brightness. It's like some paparazzi attack, every curtain in the house drawn back and all the world woken up and staring in. Here comes the Sun. I'll follow the Sun. Good day sunshine. Bumboils, all of it. Not one song helps. I hate mid-mornings with a hate reserved for very few things in my life, more so because I wake up to them nowadays.

I've spent the entire day feeling crabby and violated because Neighbour's Daughter waved at me and went all Hii and Wassup at nine in the morning when I was still half-asleep and muttering to myself. Bloody annoying kid, everyday she's at the table eating breakfast and waving her spoon at me when I'm trying to breathe in the aroma of tea. I'm gently willing myself to wake up, trying to ignore the light, moving towards zen, and then she says Wassup. Bumboils. I've no idea what she's seen me doing every morning, by the time I've woken up after two gulps of tea I generally have no recollection of whether I was yawning or making faces or scratching my bum in the kitchen, and all the while she's been staring. Pest. And she has such strange friends too, turned up in college one day and went all Hii and Wassup again and I nearly died. I was on the ledge but it was like I was back in my kitchen pajamaed and crusty-eyed all over again, surrounded by steel and morning breath, last night's anti-acne cream still on day-before-yesterday's zit. And I'm chewing absent-mindedly on a strand of hair while the water boils, oh god, and just at the wrong moment I get the Hii didiiii thing, and it's too far off to fling anything, besides you don't do it to your neighbours. And definitely not at uni, so I recovered and Wassupped her back, but bumboils all the same.

Lack of incentive is going to be the death of me. I'd like to carefully observe her and wait for the time when she's doing something personal and rip her privacy by yelling through a loudspeaker or something, but no. It's sad all right, but I usually tend to let go of hard feelings in the loo right after the tea, so nothing much remains. What a sentence.