And so to paraphrase, the heart of the matter is that amar dil ki doya hoy na. Geddit? Geddit?

To carry forward a conversation, no make that two welded into this one thought, for all the poke-fun-snigger-laugh exterior I usually exhibit at situations like this, there's a secret bit inside that really wants to watch an alien invasion. Look up at the sky suddenly and there's this ring of blue light. Wrestling with tentacular uglies. Whoa. Or Godzilla, choosing the right car in a split second, crawling underneath and watching the van next to you get trampled. Or something along the Nessie-yeti territory, these tendencies have been responsible for so much, watching a meteor shower on the terrace, that fox skull, all this paranoia, even this scifi course: it'll kill me eventually, I know it. But maybe I'll survive, eh? No actual knowledge, just this thing, wanting to witness and surviving to tell the tale, much the same way I'd give anything to survive Gozilla. An all that makes us human instance. No zombies though, that's just weird in the way all undead-related episodes are. Trust me, I know.

Man, On Chesil Beach is really pissing me off. It was too rainy again to do classes (yeah, I use that all the time) so I thought I'd read instead, one plate of apple-cinnamon pancakes and three hours later I can safely say this is the last McEwan I'm reading. Amsterdam was ok and Atonement good for most of the first half, but this one's proof enough, I can't read poignant meaningful books anymore. I appreciate the writing, I appreciate the gravity of a generation without contraceptives, blah blah, I just don't like the book. Maybe I'm dumbing down, maybe I like wars better, maybe, hello, maybe it's just that love wasn't meant for me (cue heartrending sob) but whatever, perhaps when I'm fifty I'll see it otherwise. I should have read this at fifteen. Seriously, a couple who can't have sex, what a tragedy.

Next, I read American Psycho.

Stapler. Scissors. Alibi.

My two favourite cassettes to play all day when I was a kid were Teesri Manzil and Caravan; I knew the lyrics to every song and had watched the movies at least twice, and Caravan in particular was the kind of world I always wanted to live in. Happy bubble orange yellow sequinned clothes, you know, and feathers in your hair and general mayhem rounded off with campfires and dancing, that kind of world.

So I had this starved visual wackiness mood going all evening and YouTubed all my favourite seventies Bollywood songs. I can tell some things are wrong (and even depraved, sirs) because I've been exposed to feminism and colour palettes and shit, but so much more is awesome.

- Like Rajesh Khanna growling. Growling.

- Or people dancing with featherdusters. Also this song with the line sunta hai re babua, tu hi mera nahua.

- Or harem pants plus roller skates. How farsighted is that.

- Helennn. (Again Caravan, but seriously, this movie's the shit.)

- (Inexplicable)

- And spiky disco balls.

- Plus two from the sixties. Giant paintbrushes and flamenco dancers versus that thing in Asha Parekh's hair.


These are the ones I remember. Of course bethlovesbollywood has a much crazier archive, I just wanted these at hand for later, later as in hah, you'll never know when I've been watching these later.

Back when my grandfather was young enough to have black hair and women carried long-handled handbags as staples instead of fashion necessities, there was an afternoon when the sky looked like the underside of a mattress due to strangely shaped grey clouds hanging off it, and then a fish jumped out of the pond in the village at much the same time as another one dropped out of nowhere onto the front porch. People remember this. Then everyone gathered around a radio and switched it on and realised the import of things in general; free soil was ten years old.

There are four articles on Kashmir on the same page today and maaa-aaa-aaaa-aaaataram on loudspeakers outside, it's a day after Hungover Saturday and there's no breakfast because the folks have gone to watch the children's fancy dress competition. Much running around. FM's playing des mera now that it's part of Peepli Live. Stop train pull chain notwithstanding, hello hello, if you're thinking what I'm thinking throw your cap to the ground and kneel. The sun's out now, thassall folks. Got the atmosphere right at seven am, though.

thus spake

Just for the record, dearchildrens, I have a Superman tee and a Superhuman tee. Never forget that.

I wasn't born to be contrary but
for a part two to happen things cannot cave in

they must not, because, well, look at ants
what we do (which isn't much, mind) either
lives on or sinks
into the soil

soil is porous
so is a sponge
and blotting paper and the atmosphere
and, I'd like to believe, the universe, although I don't
know enough physics
to verify that

=)

I don't know why this blog still exists, I have nothing to write about. Or to put it more honestly, I can no longer write about the things I want to write about here because I cannot write about them the way I do here. That makes no sense. I should go watch a movie and think about this later.

Parayumbol kelkanam. Tharumbol thinnanam. Whattodo. Things deeply ingrained are so often ridiculous, not in the exclamatory sense but in the (incredulous pause) then hahahahahahahha sense.

Spent the entire evening reading a food blog through to the first post. Smitten kitchen. So pretty, and exactly the kind of food I like, lots of grilled meat and salads and vegetables and fruits. Oh, and dessert. Sometimes I think I can't possibly love other things in the world as much as fruit; I've bought fruit at short notice while my friends are trying to catch a bus or get on with their lives in general, I think apples make good midnight snacks, I feel genuinely happy when I wake up in the morning and look into the fridge and there's a bowl of bright orange papaya smiling back at me. Fuck, I love fruit.

I almost let my bag fall out of the auto today.

I really want someone to buy me the complete George Orwell. It's only one one nine nine INR. Only. Way cheaper than collected Poe.

Oh to be disgustingly, aggravatingly rich.

Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully

sweet,

With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow

hollow hollow ground:

The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

- Hopkins.





This will be a good semester overall, much of what I'm studying is beautiful and comforting in a way that seems worth it. Much of it is stuff I already love or linked to things I love in a way that negates effort. I'm doing classes. I'm reading criticism. I'm liking it. Looks like it isn't too late to die with a halo over my head.

Sick as a brick. The reason most people think I'm smart is my good timing, whenever a brainwave comes (and mind you they do, they're real and they're spectacular, no kidding) the key is publicity. I'm usually bloody good at it, so monumentally stupid moments must be as excusable as general stupidity. It is only natural. You'll never notice, but stupidity vibes! Brain damage! Deal is, though, I'm too sick as a brick to even begin speculating. I can't believe I missed the Freshers' and I can't believe I didn't go watch Khatta Meetha.

Saw a beggar kid at 8b crap all over the pavement while stuck in a jam. Then he got up and ran around with a turd still hanging off his bottom like a yellow plasticine tail. I kept hoping his mother would grab him and sit him down on her lap but it didn't happen. Life disappoints.

I'm half-afraid of reading Villette again. I read it when I didn't understand most of it but even then it seemed so overwhelmingly mad in its despair. Also disjointed. Also whimsical. Wuthering Heights is mad in itself but it's the obvious kind of mad, it's dramatic and passionate and tempestous, yeah, but it could push itself into becoming cumbersome, or maybe that's just me. The quieter kind of mad is scarier, Villette scores there.

Earthsea will not get read. I'm not a good reader when it comes to long sea voyage descriptions and all this sailing's reminding me of Old Man and the Sea. I badly want to read something funny and decadent and utterly brainless. Auugh.

Must list:

The Pilo Family Circus
Toystories
Mango slaw! (Yes! Yes! Mango! Slaw!)
Bookshelf
Ghost

In spite of what I sound like, things are not what I sound like. Drift. Get. No? Double auugh.