cityfreeze

2011-09-27T21:45:00.003+05:30

Most of the Delhi stuff will be on the photoblog. Writing not happening. Walking happening. Et cetera. So follow there if you feel like.

2011-07-23T22:13:00.003+05:30

I think it's best that I stop. A farewell post thing would be way out of order. I mean, what. Happy Birthday et cetera.

2011-07-07T00:26:00.001+05:30

Not much to write. Hopefully this too will witness a turnabout. Think in image sometime, think in words sometime, that's how it all plays out. Differing attitudes to movement. Run till you drop through the ground. Run till your head bursts. Run until you're the blur. I don't think I've run since class eight so this is merely metaphor but run nevertheless, 'til the sunlight burns a happy hole in your heart. The world moves faster nowadays. Or is it merely aaai?

2011-07-01T12:46:00.001+05:30

The best part of any evening.

2011-06-30T23:35:00.001+05:30

Trumps watching an entire movie by a mile. Or, yet another excuse.

http://www.hbirddesigns.com/~launch/inspiration/movie-title-sequences-by-saul-bass/

2011-06-26T02:26:00.005+05:30

People always fit into moulds, we wouldn't have typecasting otherwise, but I saw a man today who looked exactly like a rat. Which is to say he looked ratty. And rodent-like. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice man and definitely more human than rodent but he definitely scurried across the road. I wish I could be more descriptive about this, witty even, but that's all there is to it. He looked exactly like a rat.

I've found out I look like a Staffordshire bull terrier. Not that this proves a point or is accurate in any way as far as comparison goes. Just mentioning it to keep with the spirit, gather?

2011-06-18T22:38:00.002+05:30

OWACK THOO.
OWACK THOO.
OWACK THOO.

2011-06-18T11:57:00.001+05:30

My knee's been hurting again, on and off for a while, and now I've been told not to walk so much. Before this I was told not to do yoga but to run on a treadmill. Before that I was told not to do squats but to do asanas. Before that I was told to wear an iron shoe and do leglifts but I think I ran out on that doc. The formula being care for it but don't overdo it, the success rate being next to nil, I still have a weak knee and muscle and fat accumulating right above it and nowhere else, man, how do these things happen. I've never been a sick kid but these strange persistent ailments really put me in a funk sometimes. I can bend five different ways thanks to all the stretching and yoga but nothing will fix this knee short of surgery and it will always hurt in rainy weather. All I need is a shotgun and a flearidden cap and I could beat your arthritic neighbourhood colonel at being cranky. But I don't have a dog. And now I'm forbidden to walk. Amar jibon ekta tragicomedy. Ab bas Everest Expedition then heroic death, nothing to be done. I think I'll go wade in some dirty water now.

2011-06-14T07:54:00.001+05:30

a
pop
leck
tick
fit

a-class.

fastfolks

2011-06-12T16:31:00.003+05:30

Looking at things so that I can get started. All images from here. Crazy crazy good.

2011-06-11T23:44:00.008+05:30

I have a ginormous wishlist right now that I cannot begin to prioritise. No matter. No matter is my answer to everything nowadays. I can't help it, that's how it is. No matter this, no matter that, no matter death delay destruction deadlines. Occasional instances where I wish everything wasn't no matter, naturally, but too late to turn back now. I feel nothing for where I am currently and it's a quiet sort of ecstasy, a controlled indifference, another of the many cityfreezes. Only I hope this won't turn out like the others. Returning has never sucked this much but I know I'll always return so it's all a matter of conserving energy and killing time and watching people whirl. I don't think I've ever been cool enough for the city. All I want to do is dig around in the dirt and sleep when I feel like. No matter, take a swipe, go on, no matter. Keep your cool, man. God knows I don't have any use for it.

Also, I'm done with this tag. It scores far beyond the other side of redundant, especially on this blog.

2011-06-10T22:23:00.000+05:30

Day Eleven: A book you hated:

I'm not saying I was a tough unprincessy kid, it's just that Sara Crewe has always struck me as exactly the sort of girl who gets a raw deal because she's such an annoying little martyr. To cut it short, this book bored me senseless. Of course, there's always the possibility that I might learn new things about how and why it was written if I choose to pick it up now, and view it differently and all that jazz, but that's not bound to happen ~~anytime soon~~ ever. I hated it thrice as much as I hated Noddy, and that's saying something.

2011-06-02T00:54:00.001+05:30

Favourite classic book, but of course - To Kill a Mockingbird.

9

2011-06-01T03:48:00.002+05:30

Day 9: A Book You Thought You Thought You Wouldn’t Like But Ended Up Loving

I've two stellar examples here because Vernon God Little's another story altogether. Anyway, if you have a choice between swatting books away nervously because you know they'll drive you into darkness for a while, and reading them in spite of, uhm, abovementioned knowledge, it helps to not be a cretin. Always remember that darkness is a small price to pay for beauty.

(If that wasn't a loaded sentence I'm a baboon.)

7 + 8

2011-05-31T19:01:00.009+05:30

Most Underrated Book:

I think calling The Beetle underrated is a little off, a better word would be neglected. I have these pulp phases where I read purely to feel the satisfaction of being fed a ludicrous story, so imagine my wide, wide smile of happiness after I finished reading this for our secondyear course on Popular and Genre Fiction in the 19th Century. I'm prone to thinking that most pulp authors are underrated purely because they're pulp (and because I am unwaveringly supportive of flagrant drama) so this shouldn't come as a surprise, more so because all of this book is sheer stupendousness. I realise this tag's become a reiteration of things I've already written about when it comes to books I like, which is why I should've saved myself from agonising over this and done the one on movies instead.

Most overrated book:

Agh, I don't know. I'm more often disappointed with the inability of a writer to sustain one brilliant book after another (what, and you're not?) than the reading of something unsatisfactory, so while the standard answers - Love Story, A Passage to India, and English, August - all stand, may I please take a minute to point out the sheer ghastliness of everything Zadie Smith has written after White Teeth? I couldn't get through either The Autograph Man or On Beauty so I doubt this applies as an answer. Doesn't mean my heart remains unbroken when this happens, though, I love the way she writes.

TDBC VI

2011-05-30T23:22:00.002+05:30

Day Six: A book that makes you sad.

As a companion piece to the last, also the last really sad book I read so no point trying to think of other sad books. Or attempt to describe exactly how it broke my heart. So devastatingly perfect. And vice versa.

Day Five, Belated.

2011-05-27T23:36:00.002+05:30

Day Five: A book that makes you happy, Or, Sohini already took Durrell.

From such a long time ago. The first Wodehouse I ever read. A friend of my mother's gifted it to me on my thirteenth or fourteenth birthday, and it's still my favourite book by him for purely sentimental reasons. I know every story in it by heart but I never talk about it and I never bring it up because I love what it's about so much - twelve vintage cases, as the cover says, of good eggs and decent chaps entangled in snares of young love. I still think Wodehouse does the best job, without hamming it, of making gawky love feel happy, no that's not the word, quietly joyous, and I can't help but appreciate that because it adds much to the moment whenever I pick it up. But this book isn't even completely about love; I keep getting the feeling it's more about those much-required instances, those I Feel Just Like a Child moments. So there, defeat awkwardness with maximum ridiculosity. This is where it all started.

2011-05-24T14:01:00.000+05:30

And again.

Yeh tamanna hai ki azaad-e-tamanna hi rahoon.

30 Day Book Challenge, Day Two

2011-05-23T23:53:00.008+05:30

Day Two: A book you've read more than thrice:

First-choice standard replies:

Because, as has already been established, pithy twisted wisdom is one of my things. I'd throw in Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Little Prince and To Kill a Mockingbird as other standards, but since this is a, uh, challenge, I wanted to think of a book I've reread these past five years. Which is futile because there's nothing I've reread fairly these past five years from start till end. True story. I've only picked up already-read books to reread favourite chapters or scenes, but Bradbury I return to because it's something I puzzle over and like puzzling over. Not because dystopian premises are another one of my things (who're we kidding, of course they are) but because of the deceptively terse sentences and the way it progresses and the way it ends - I don't think this book will ever cease to fascinate me, so my cheat answer would be Fahrenheit 451.

I'm skipping Day Four and Five. There aren't many series I've completed reading (another thing, kill me kill me carnage carnage aaaa) so no point. Plus I'm a Discworld noob, here's outcast material for you. Off the top of my head I loved His Dark Materials and the first two Bartimaeus books and Artemis Fowl till he went sappy and I stopped reading Colfer, which I should probably rectify because I could very much do with a Fowl book now. But I diverge. Favourite book of favourite series, why the hell, please, don't test my patience. Everyone knows I have a thin with the middle books of trilogies, and I have my reasons for obsessing over this, witness The Golem's Eye and The Subtle Knife - optimum length due to excellently estimated imaginative reign leading to restrained maudlinness leading to the right twist ending paving way for the last book (which is always so grandiose it trips over itself) - they always have just the right amount of everything. But not The Two Towers. Ride and rest. Ride and rest. Ride and rest. Eat elf bread. Ride and Rest. Ok I'll stop now.

30 Day Book Challenge, Day One

2011-05-22T20:54:00.009+05:30

Day One: The Best Book You Read Last Year:

I can't explain why exactly I loved this so much, maybe because it's about old people. I love old people. And little children. I love the fact that they're unafraid to be brutally honest about the world, it's like they're one step closer to absolute wisdom when compared to the rest of us. Goes to prove we're born with it and die with it, only hindered somewhat in the middle by a compulsion to act like first-rate morons. This book has an exceedingly smart old lady in it and there are strange animals and buildings and lots of craziness and an inexplicable nuclear winter, but then Carrington wasn't exactly your standard Surrealist. What I love most about it is that it came to me at the right time, just when I needed to read something short and unconstrained. I haven't read as much as I'd wanted to since college started, I've become crabbier and intolerant and impatient and abandoned more books than I care to admit, but this one got me started on a reading spree all of last December and I'm grateful for that. My best read of last year is therefore a choice based purely on serendipity, but the best part is there's nothing you can do about it. So there, watch me grin.

*grins*

2011-05-19T01:25:00.000+05:30

Dogs baffle me. I suspect they always will. No matter, it's never been detrimental to the lovin'. I want to be a dog in my next life and not have to give a fuck. Not a superfast pedigree dog or a mongrel, just a normal pup will do.

de profundis

2011-05-15T22:51:00.002+05:30

love like a sunset

sink into the sea

turn into a shipwreck nibbled by the little fishies

wait for deep sea divers

to find a bottle heart

they'll put it in a museum smelling like a perfumed fart

mouldy as you're parked now

pickled deep in blue

a squid will come by sometimes (squid sightings are few)

and it's worth it in this funny place

to see him spray ink too -

you're sticky, but he's found himself a mottled sunset loo.

Five things

2011-05-13T23:20:00.003+05:30

the hearts of sunflowers

being caught fishfaced at a moment like this

what would ordinarily be a creepy pigeon, but I can't hear it over the falling rain

banana oatmeal pancakes with honey and watermelon

drama outside my window

2011-05-13T22:32:00.002+05:30

WHERE THE HELL IS THE LAST POST I WROTE SUCH A LONG POST TOO AAAAAAAGH

2011-05-12T00:42:00.000+05:30

I try not to write You posts because there's always the possibility of my not having a concrete You in mind when I'm writing them. I might be addressing many Yous, or I might not mean a You at all but a We and that just complicates things so why bother. It's not romantic or schizophrenic, you gather, just claustrophobic. Such a tussle, this indecision about writing to a You or about a You. There's always a time to decide to throw everything in and put one's anonymity to test but this is isn't it so I'm going to have to talk about other things. So many things. It's time the watermelon clock came back, I think. It's time many things came back. Black and grey too. I'm spending all my time on 8tracks and discovering songs to dedicate to a lot of people but it's all being held forth till I can sit down and breathe. Till then, this. Till then, thoughts of August. Sweat on upper lip dirty toes a chilled beer craving, it could be anything really. Signs everywhere, just that misreading might be a slight problem because I'm not here, this isn't happening, that's right, I told you this wasn't a You post. Now do the math.

I still haven't written my paper. I should be having mixed feelings about this but I don't, I'd happily take all my exams tomorrow just to be done with this so that I can walk back in through 4nombor and walk easy.

On an unrelated note, I think a largeish chunk of my life would've been different if I could've just thought up a cool nickname for myself at the right time. Like at sixteen. The people I truly love and who truly know me know that just Priyanka will do, it's the best that can be done because it's not a malleable name and Pinka's just retarded. It truly is, no street cred potential whatsoever. It's endearing at times but it doesn't always come from the right people. I can't remember who came up with it but I remember it being in school and having something to do with my aversion to pink (which has over time mellowed down to an aversion of pastel pink), I suppose I could've tried to live it down but that's just not my deal. Some people call me Kumar and some call me nicer things but there will always be someone calling me Pinka and it's not their fault and it's not like I mind but there it is, just an oversight. Besides, it's not too bad. Much better than the squeals that went with "Peekay class mein aayi hai, dekho."

2011-05-06T20:56:00.001+05:30

So here's the lowdown on sudden bursts of feeling kicked: Wikipedia helps. I have this tee that I love so much I never wear it. I remember buying it in front of the Indian Museum one random walkaround day in second year with Senjuti, it was ill fitting and a little tattered but it didn't matter because it had the Mothership illustration on it. And here's a champion for cheapness, it was thirty bucks. And since I knew Mothership was a compilation album I never really bothered checking it out (what fan buys compilation albums anyway and all that) but the artwork just looked so very good. And now its termpaper time and I'm all over the internet and I just found out it's by Shepard Fairey, so excuse me while I go feel like an accidental art collector. Over and out.

2011-05-04T04:58:00.003+05:30

It's been a while since I sat up for dawn. Feels good. This hollow socketed feeling is worth it for the chilliness, ditto birdcalls, not to mention the overall pinkness of things. In an ideal world I'd be heading out for breakfast now. In this world I'm making myself maggi. I'm supposed to be writing something else somewhere else but fuck that, it's dawn.

2011-05-01T14:23:00.003+05:30

I am always oddly touched by enthusiasm at plainly wrong moments, by eagerness in the midst of desultory conversation, by that absorbed look in some eyes, absolute unwavering concentration, things like that. Maybe it's because I'm a vacillator; my love for the world is almost always a selfish two-way affair where I love everything intensely in short bursts and then put it aside and move on to something else. Which is why these few people I know, they constantly astonish me with their ability to love and commit and sustain and rekindle, and they're doing such a damn fine job it breaks my heart. I know it's far too uncool to care hereabouts and I know we're all nonchalants looking for new ways to prove we're freaks but you guys, you know who you are, you guys will always make my heart light up because of these little blinding beams of intensity, for returning smiles and whoops and for breaking all the walls I put up around me. You're all A-class lovers and you know it, there's no need for me to write this except to slowly wrap my head around the idea that I too might in little shaky motions be able to zoom in and focus and stay, always stay.

2011-04-27T00:45:00.004+05:30

Streptococcus diplococcus staphylococcus. Which one to?

2011-04-18T00:36:00.002+05:30

It might look like a recent tendency but you can always depend upon me to tell the truth. The only reason I wouldn't is if I were feeling like Mario, running under a blazing blue sky with angry owls everywhere and nothing but red brick to run into and jump off. It needs some postponement of priorities because not having to take this shit is obviously more important than standing and wondering what the hell is going on. And with that moustache too. Insaane. Like setting yourself down in the midst of unknown people just so you can take a stock of things in general. So if I'm running and running and running and running and running and running and running and running till I beat my own tiredness away and suddenly I'm not anymore, you know how it is. Like Mario. I'm exactly the kind of person who wants to do a Thoreau but can't, I'll hover on the edge of the wild because I'm too greedy to give up on hearing human voices, so much easier to just maintain a passing from one to another because it's all permeable isn't it, everything is. Look at the universe. There and back again, to and fro and on and on. Not really an inconvenient thing, now that I think about it, just a type of constancy. Which is why my tall tales are also consistent ones. I mean them, no kidding.

Twenty Ways to Insult a Nose

2011-04-12T11:37:00.001+05:30

DE GUICHE: Will no one put him down?
THE VISCOUNT: No one? But wait!
  I'll treat him to ... one of my quips! See here!

(He goes up to Cyrano, who is watching him. With a conceited air):
  Sir, your nose is - hmm - it is... very big!

CYRANO (gravely): Very!

THE VISCOUNT (laughing): Ha!

CYRANO (imperturbably): Is that all?

THE VISCOUNT: What do you mean?

CYRANO: Ah no, young blade!  That was a trifle short!
 You might have said at least a hundred things
 By varying the tone... like this, suppose,


 Aggressive:  'Sir, if I had such a nose
 I'd amputate it!'

 Friendly:  'When you sup
 It must annoy you, dipping in your cup;
 You need a drinking-bowl of special shape!'

 Descriptive:  ''Tis a rock! a peak! a cape!
 --A cape, forsooth!  'Tis a peninsular!'

 Curious:  'How serves that oblong capsular?
 For scissor-sheath?  Or pot to hold your ink?'

 Gracious:  'You love the little birds, I think?
 I see you've managed with a fond research
 To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!'

 Truculent:  'When you smoke your pipe ... suppose
 That the tobacco-smoke spouts from your nose--
 Do not the neighbors, as the fumes rise higher,
 Cry terror-struck:  "The chimney is afire"?'

 Considerate:  'Take care, your head bowed low
 By such a weight, lest head o'er heels you go!'

 Tender:  'Pray get a small umbrella made,
 Lest its bright color in the sun should fade!'

 Pedantic:  'That beast Aristophanes
 Names Hippocamelelephantoles
 Must have possessed just such a solid lump
 Of flesh and bone, beneath his forehead's bump!'

 Cavalier:  'The last fashion, friend, that hook?
 To hang your hat on?  'Tis a useful crook!'

 Emphatic:  'No wind, O majestic nose,
 Can give THEE cold!--save when the mistral blows!'

 Dramatic:  'When it bleeds, what a Red Sea!'

 Admiring:  'Sign for a perfumery!'

 Lyric:  'Is this a conch? a Triton you?'

 Simple:  'When is the monument on view?'

 Rustic:  'That thing a nose?  Marry-come-up!
 'Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnip!'

 Military:  'Point against cavalry!'

 Practical:  'Put it in a lottery!
 Assuredly 'twould be the biggest prize!'
 Or ... parodying Pyramus' sighs ...
 'Behold the nose that mars the harmony
 Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!'
 --Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said,

-Edmond Rostand, from Cyrano de Bergerac

Big noses FTW. Mine especially =)

2011-04-09T12:48:00.004+05:30

I went a long time hoping no one in my part of this world would ever, ever discover this cover because it's so perfect but we'll have no more of that, thank you. Before this my favourite version used to be the Fran Healy cover on Storytellers, I remember watching it on TV and it turned me inside out right in the middle of the living room sofa, but that's nothing compared to the meltdown of this song. I unfailingly wake up once a month to these PMS Saturday mornings where I want to scream and scream like a baboon on stimulants but I turn one song on repeat instead, and this is it today.

2011-04-05T19:30:00.006+05:30

Here's some bizarre/beautiful. Looking at this photograph (from The Sartorialist) reminded me of Anna Kavan's Ice. It's a strange brutal claustrophobic book, the kind that makes you realise what a convenient word strange is when you're trying to find something that fits. Which brings me to the girl in it. Take this picture here, subtract the accessories and gold shoes and runway makeup and it's the same girl. Which is why it's strange that it should jump out right in the midst of all this inspiration Googling, but then everything always leads to something else from long ago, which is, in a spiralling sort of way, the book all over again.

Decluttering requires a certain amount of sanctity, I think, which explains why I clean up only around once a month. Till then, dirt is my friend :)

2011-04-04T23:41:00.007+05:30

This blog's really jumped the shark, eh? Now for some inexplicable hamming.

A
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ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Hooha, I maked perpendiculars.

2011-04-03T23:11:00.004+05:30

I've realised that things at Prantik (and thereabouts) look prettiest by night. It helps if one can get on a rickshaw. A twenty minute passing through by low ceilinged homes with yellow light spilling out onto the road. Carrom clubs with heads and hands in focus and the rest nothing but dark smudges. Tea stalls with Hurricanes shining through steam from boiling milk. That landscape-in-the-mist place filled to bursting with fireflies at seven. Bicycle bulbs in the blackness, riders silhouetted against headlights further down the road. There's much to be said about the absence of tubelights in general. I never miss it till I feel like reading, and even then I have my phone so as far as comfort goes, light that cocoons is-just-something-else. And no one has a photo of it. Even better.

2011-04-02T10:47:00.001+05:30

It was not because I wanted to shift that I came by your place last week, it was because I wanted to grab you by the neck and fling you out the window and onto a branch of nodding flowers outside. Orange flowers. Round pale leaves. I don't know what they're called but you'd have been at home there, crawling down the bark with your tail in the air. I can't stand the way you blink at me nowadays and I can't stand the way you sneak your tongue out and steal food when no one is looking but what I mostly can't stand is how your scales are shinier than mine.

2011-03-29T23:49:00.002+05:30

Which Famous Homosexual Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

2011-03-29T23:49:00.001+05:30

Which Genocidal Maniac Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

2011-03-29T23:47:00.002+05:30

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?

From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

2011-03-24T21:50:00.001+05:30

Electronically thappor mere debo kintu bole dilam.

2011-03-23T20:16:00.002+05:30

Ab bas sanyaas. Thubbity thubbity thwub. It's a sickening sound but pull harder, buy new clothes, seek new friends, sift through possibilities, the works. Deal is, however, that it's always at the reddest hour of dawn that the swiftest stamp of realisation comes, bang on target and vicious vicious, twice vicious, a wet thwub on the forehead with nothing to answer for and nothing to retrieve from. Wipeout. It's a legitimate issue, at least to me, but the good part is distraction. For the first time in my life I have lots of incentive, which is a novelty considering it's Wednesday and all. A weekend of being non-communicative, perhaps without camera, and I should be sorted. Cooker cake tomorrow.

2011-03-19T13:01:00.006+05:30

Playlist:

Bjork: Hyperballad

The Middle East: Blood

Beirut: Prenzlauerberg

Gnarls Barkley: The Boogie Man

Nouvelle Vague: Heart of Glass

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Hiding All Away

Blind Melon: No Rain

Reading list:

Defoe: Robinson Crusoe

Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited

Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow

China Mieville: Perdido Street Station

To-do list:

Clean room (to playlist)

Clean pink off face

Waste

Sleep

2011-03-17T22:48:00.010+05:30

I mostly go about my day thinking of it as a here's-what-happened, Monk style. I'm really a very shady person, I'd die if I had to spend all my life with someone waking up going to sleep beside brushing teeth with cooking eggs next to me, unimaginable. Or, cue motherly voice, you just haven't met that - Bollocks. I didn't want to write very much about this last semester because I'm bloody tired of college and bloody tired of home and I just want to drift for a bit but that's not really an option if there's no distance involved. This is why I hate keeping in touch. You call me at eight this morning from halfway across the world, what are the chances I'll want to talk at all? I think I've accumulated a fair share of haters for never picking up my phone but I'm just not a phone person. I spelt accumulate with two ems before Blogger corrected me. Anyway, I was talking about this semester. Everyone's getting old and this is typical. It's also therefore typical that I should want to stay at home and ruminate or whine in solitude because I can't be arsed to do it on worldview or on the ledge, people just seem so far away, all solid fuzzy blocks of heads and limbs and coloured clothes. I don't think it's the love that's disappeared, just the wavelengths. I forget birthdays but I feel myself wanting to make all the gifts I ever thought of for all the people I ever wanted to give things to, it's like a sombre funeral all over the place.

I also can't be arsed to gripe to myself so I'll probably rant here and be relieved at the zero comment trend, works for me. The faster I write the less time I have to chuck things into the save-as-draft cycle. No fear of that now, I'm pretty sure I'll be reminiscing anyway for the next three months, writing things down before I forget them, doesn't matter if they end up as drafts. Mellow gold, world. You can smile now.

Afterthoughtwise, I just read the most beautiful story.

2011-03-16T20:49:00.004+05:30

I gnaw and gnaw on bones the way I pick and pick at scabs and scratch and scratch my head. As if something will, must, has to eventually give way and lead me forth into another frame. If I lived in a cave I'd be hitting my head against the stone repeatedly. If I lived on a tree I'd be clawing at its bark. On a boat I'd be mostly drowsy or staring soulfully at something or the other, boats make me act that way. Living as I do in my room, the only thing I have is walls and must therefore make do with propping my legs up against them, head on floor, eyes on window, mind on other things, and listen to whatever. At this moment and in this temper I am willing to bet more than my life on the conviction that going out into the world is overrated. Tomorrow, though. We'll get to that when we get to that.

2011-03-14T09:26:00.000+05:30

When 4nombor ejected a mass of lurching human effluent out onto Jadavpur at eleven last night I was thinking of Jhini. I was wondering why they didn't play it. Doesn't matter. Right through the noise and the smoke from the last two stairs of the OAT, I heard you clear and true except where I couldn't. That, in retrospect, matters some more. No matter, a little late is never too late.

2011-03-10T23:50:00.004+05:30

It's March already? Arnab's paper yesterday was accompanied by a cartoon which I thought was nothing short of inspired. Fancy that, I'm a bug. Hm. I miss my Kafka days. I feel exactly like a bug right now, clack clack. Goddamn, how I wish I knew.

2011-02-26T11:27:00.004+05:30

Been listening to Scott Joplin all morning, the cumulative result of a posted link on my wall and a sudden desire to not hear a human voice till noon maybe. I remember this set of picture books I had as a kid about four bears who lived together, one of them was called Ragtime and had a banjo and patchwork trousers. It was a prettily drawn bear in a prettily drawn book, one of those things you keep opening to look at long after you know the story by heart, like Half Magic. Only I can't remember what the books were called now. There was also a tiny square one about a red overalled child befriending a panda with these Chinese-style illustrations, lots of bamboo, and one of folk tales from Rajasthan with ornate looking people and another one of Ukrainian folktales, where did all of these go? I should really go out for a bit. Take a bath take a bus go to Adam's and eat six plates of kebab maybe.

Kustodiev

2011-02-23T00:36:00.005+05:30

Living as I do and where I do, I don't think I'll ever get over mourning the end of winter.

2011-02-21T00:37:00.010+05:30

I'd like to respond to things people say through Mercury Rev songs and albums. Wah, you're a strange attractor. How are you today? All is dream. Please go away. Yerself is steam. See you on the other side. Things like that.

So I got my nose pierced yesterday right before it started raining. It hurt, but not as much as I'd worried myself into thinking. And this afternoon I generally had nothing to do and managed to claw at my nose absentmindedly and it stung in that owstupidstupidstupidfuck kind of way, bloody diabolic inevitability what else. And then for half an hour afterwards I was subject to this bloody diabolic throbbing. So I made myself a drink, and then another, I hate whisky but that's all there was. It wasn't the pain really, just the weather. And then I watched The Royal Tenenbaums for the kathousandth time and felt sublime. It wasn't the movie really. Ok maybe it was, but then it's also been a good Sunday - I had the house to myself and lounged around all day and then got good dinner. Now that it's officially Monday I should get to work.

2011-02-16T01:03:00.000+05:30

Kafka on the Shore lovers, some beauty lies here.

Japanesque

2011-02-11T09:21:00.004+05:30

OH, where the white quince blossom swings
I love to take my Japan ease!
I love the maid Anise who clings
So lightly on my Japan knees;
I love the little song she sings,
The little love-song Japanese.
I almost love the lute's tink-tunkle
Played by that charming Jap Anise—
For am I not her old Jap uncle?
And is she not my Japan niece? - Oliver Herford

2011-02-10T10:51:00.001+05:30

I need a new toothbrush, a new stomach and a new place to go away to, in no particular order. It goes without saying that I only really want the last. This weekend, possibly. Then hibernation till end February. Goodplans. Clap clap.

2011-02-09T21:24:00.002+05:30

Solo Goya. Yeh Solo Zindagi. Ahahaha. Delirium. I should make that a label.

Edit: I did. *facepalm*

post type post.

2011-02-07T21:33:00.005+05:30

I'm feeling this chatty foodtalk vibe right now and managed to find pictures and everything so you've been warned, here goes. Statistically, I think I've cooked eggs more than any other food but apart from breakfast eggs I almost always cook dinner if I'm trying something new. I like to testrun the food by people who will both eat it stoically and tell me if it could've been better, plus I can't eat a lot of anything I've made so it helps to have stoic eaters around. The real truth is, however, that I'm a baker at heart and would much rather give folks cake than meat, which annoys my folks a little because they'd much rather eat an egg as an egg.

I also almost always never have photos of food because it's a pain in the ass trying to get food to photograph well. These are the only two dishes I have photos of right now, there were some life-altering shots of pancakes with nutella but I can't find them so I'm putting up the two that really made me happy, an improvised shakshouka and coastal mango-chicken curry, both from last year.

I thought I'd make spaghetti and meatballs the next time I felt like cooking, they're ridiculously easy, but I had this brilliant thing at Casa Toscana the other day that I'm going to figure out if it kills me - spinach ravioli with mushroom sauce. I've also been thinking of making brunch on a Sunday just to see if I can because I WILL SELL MY SOUL FOR BREAKFAST, that is how much I love it.

Of course the fact that I found the recipe for baked french toast has nothing to do with this.

Such a long post. Verbose, but long. I call that improvement.

2011-02-03T10:55:00.010+05:30

I used to write such a lot of poetry at one time. I wrote about the wind and the sea and the sun and the moon and your moon and my sun and our winds and their seas and whatnot. I read my old notebooks. They're a scream. What is especially startling is that the things in them kept reminding me of a lot of people I know now. Interesting, I can preempt and everything. Now I have the shivers everytime I have to write something that isn't the everyday sameold and things like the sea and the sun when stripped of floridity are infinitely more beautiful but this is a now-thing and will probably be a scream three years later, that is how we live I suppose. I wish I were more histrionic, if I had the ability to throw myself before a bus and flail my arms and declaim about life in general I'd probably be consistently poetic or consistently maudlin, emotional nonetheless. Not that I'm not declaiming about life here, but this is more on the level than, say, writing from an in-front-of-the-bus pov. It might not ever happen but if someday you see me running amok on the road singing a song in dead earnest, take a moment to pause and congratulate me, all right?

2011-02-02T23:11:00.004+05:30

Unearthed among markeddowns at bookfair:

2011-01-31T09:03:00.002+05:30

'How like,' says Lister, 'the death wish is the life-urge! How urgently does an overwhelming obsession with life lead to suicide! Really, it's best to be half-awake and half-aware. That is the happiest stage.'

Half-awake and half-aware. When applied to me I don't suppose it's very flattering but it's certainly very accurate.

2011-01-25T00:55:00.003+05:30

It's past midnight so this will be dated incorrectly but this evening I was privy to two intriguing pieces of information. First, that the egg chow I get outside college is rendered possible due to a steady supply from Jesus Egg Hatcheries. Secondly, the auto guy on the Garia-Golpark route who always wears a Tshirt that says Enter The Dragon in archaic yellow letters on the back really likes the 3 Idiots soundtrack because that's all that plays on his stereo. A lady told him to shut it today and he went almost tearful with indignation or sorrow, I know not which.

2011-01-24T11:28:00.005+05:30

Placing everything in the midst of a risingsun. A real risingsun! A cherry-topped drink, a paanbox, a suitcase, a monkeytupi. Accessories for the subject. Then rays of light emerging from one's head in wide yellow and blue bars. It's de-lovely. Coming next, clutching what is to be clutched, wearing what is to be worn, taking a delicate sip and bounding across a dusty plain, then right off the edge of a waterfall in a whipstitched canoe. All that will remain is a chappal suspended in mid-air, accumulating dew in the cold, startling vivid overfeathered birds. Tinkly chimey music. What a nice SFX expert I'd make if I had the skills.

2011-01-14T07:52:00.004+05:30

What what what is happening to my city? At seven today there was the thickest blanket of white outside my window, so much whiteness you couldn't see three feet from where I was. And I like a fool went back to sleep, assuming it was bad vision or addled brain or both. Eight AM now and I'm awake and kicking and it still won't go away, this feeling that my building's floating in mid-air. It is the winter of my smiles.

"Have you stepped outside?"

"Outside, or the lack thereof?"

Hahahaha. Delirium. I have half an hour to get ready and step into the white.

2011-01-12T22:36:00.002+05:30

For my last meal I want a lump of red rice with mango-shrimp curry and appam with Malabari chicken and parotta with green mutton curry. Before this I want a Bloody Mary. Finally elayada, then shorbhaja and kachagolla. Then death. Probably as an aftermath, but if I can sit through this I'll be more than happy with death. Death over indigestion, folks.

2011-01-09T23:48:00.003+05:30

If I weren't this lazy I'd give this a try. Maybe I will anyway. Also, What?

Google I love you. I'm trampling all over you but I still love you.

2011-01-08T23:58:00.006+05:30

If it isn't tiring enough when people are being paternal, consider the world being paternal. The nutters I have for relatives, I recently discovered, told their adopted kid that since she was bestowed on them them by a higher power, Lord Krishna's effectively her brother. And whaddya know, she believes it. The chubby blue boy on the wall, that's him. Bhagyam.

I was late to dinner with la celeste
and that shunts me back to why
it was a mela and I watched Paban Das Baul
and had a little heartbreak at the calmness of it
Then things got funnier.

This year's turning out funny in ways I didn't think funny touched. I'm a jester at an ancient court? And I have three f-l-fs in my throat? It's a good thing because if it weren't this funny I'd be YouTubing things all the bloody time and that could never be anything but both damaging and detrimental. Speaking of YouTube, I have to retrieve password.

2011-01-06T00:11:00.001+05:30

Flat U Lens.

(having a huge problem around about the other end)

2010-12-31T10:20:00.006+05:30

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
Been an extra for a movie, bathed an elephant, baked them brownies, pulled a blog through for seventeen months (and counting).

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No, to both.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What places did you visit?
Chilika, Gokharkuda-Rishikulya.
Sankarpur.
Trichy, Gunaseelam, Thanjavur, Tiruvanakaaval, Tiruvannamalai, Gingee.
Santiniketan.
Bangalore.
Coorg.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A new city to call home.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Memory's malfunctioning, can't pick a winner.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping up.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Keeping back.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Flu, flu, always the cursed flu.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Biciclette! That stuffed lizard from the haat at Santiniketan, but it was technically bought by Sambit.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I don't know. I don't go in for monitoring.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?
Mothers fathers sisters brothers lovers babies whatever.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Travel, books, cycle, furniture, clothes. I had money of my own this year and I spent it all over the place.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
All the travel. I also learnt to cook some fancy shit this year, so that got me excited.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Paradise Circus - Massive Attack
My Roots - Shaa'ir + Func
Tighten Up - The Black Keys
How Can I Get Your Groove - TAAQ
Banshee Beat - Animal Collective (this was on the 2007 list too, I think)
Telephone - Pomplamoose

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
About the same.

18. Thinner or fatter?
Same only.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Studying.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being lazy.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas eve, went to Denzong's with Sujaan, then to college where I met Senjuti, then Shweta's. Everything was all Just Baked types. There was a bonfire that turned noxious occasionally. Then we watched The Powerpuff Girls and some horrible movie called The Punisher till everyone passed out. On Christmas day I slept through the afternoon and had dinner with momma and poppa.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
30 Rock.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. All is full of love.

26. What was the best book you read?
All the NaM stuff: Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Lampedusa's The Leopard. Apart from that, le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. But my absolute favourite was The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Black Keys, Little Joy, Vashti Bunyan.

28. What did you want and get?
Job, monies.

29. What did you want and not get?
LOVE! ABSOLUTION! SELF-ACTUALISATION! MORE TIME!

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Ishqiya sans the last twenty minutes. Most of the films I watched this year weren't really from 2010. But to stay true to the question, I last watched Scott Pilgrim Vs The World and The Kids Are All Right and loved both, so those.

Edit: I forgot Robot. Deserves top place, hands down.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Two-One. Was woken up at midnight and handed cheesecake. Walked around in the rain all morning. Can't recall what I did afterwards. Eat-drink-read something.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More excitement on a day-to-day basis.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Indifferent.
(Ha, that's actually an answer.)

34. What kept you sane?
Lots of things. 2010's been the sanest year of college so far.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
My attention span (or lack thereof) and TV-watching habits (or lack thereof) make answers to questions like this painful.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The only one I can recall everyone following uniformly is Ayodhya. The Commonwealth Games phase was overkill without being overkill, if you get my drift.

37. Who did you miss?
One needs distance to facilitate missing.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Dunno.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
The best is yet to come.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
There isn't one that I can think of right now.

2010-12-29T20:39:00.004+05:30

Traditions, I've been thinking. Once every year these guys make me go clubbing. They get me into a dress and high heels and I put a sock in my claustrophobia and jump through it all. I enjoy it because it's one night and it's just my girls around me. We've been eating the same things at each others' places for ages and we've been drinking the same things at Fillers since we started going there. Yesterday I baked some hash brownies and we sat and ate them and just sat around some more. There's always this pattern. Go sit at each other's places, smoke eat talk eat eat eat watch TV eat. It's incredible that I'm in a place where I can do this, three long years after school, and have conversations that don't go the remember-when-we way. The reason it's a downright miracle is because it goes against my expectations circa 2008, I thought I was leaving school behind forever and to hell with it but this, I've realised, is as good a remnant as any. In many ways it's better. I have a lot of difficulty placing events within a larger timeframe sometimes - I'm shockingly bad at figuring out whether a year's been good or bad, or if I was happy when I was fourteen, things like that. I don't remember fourteen and it doesn't bother me much, I was probably going through my creature phase. But this, as the most beautiful chunk from a larger mass that has now faded, this is good. We've all been creatures together, I think that pushes our street cred through the ceiling. This might be the last winter we spend in the city talking about making ads and manufacturing "brain drugs" and opening an eatery and becoming assassins and going everywhere and doing everything so you know where this is coming from.

Right, so that's done, I'll go sit in my corner and look stolid now.

2010-12-22T11:08:00.005+05:30

The end-of-year tag should soon be doing the rounds but until it does, timeliine! I love timelines, this one makes me feel like I'm living a picaresque. Which, in retrospect, is a little worrisome.

2010-12-19T13:57:00.007+05:30

Our revelry will one day be a rule. I've realised that old people know this best, followed by children. My grandfather was once fed alligator meat when he was a kid and therefore knows this bothways. Only we in our innocence with our graffiti and our piercings desire the periphery. The wackiness of this is pure gold: tomato soup will be institutionalised and so will yo mama, oh wait. See what I mean?

This is not a rant. I have resolved to eat no more than ten peanuts today. This resolution concerns peanuts solely.

2010-12-18T23:09:00.000+05:30

Raquel Aparicio:

Jillian Tamaki:

From Ape on the Moon.

2010-12-17T21:37:00.003+05:30

Hop a fence, leave the street and wet my feet I'll find a swimming pool
Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a swimming pooooooooooooool
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find

The Raja of Chhokrapur would've giggled and said, "What does he mean?" Everything is more than a little funny in fractions, which is why it's also really simple. Whatte philosophical momunt.

2010-12-15T11:08:00.003+05:30

Why so much phlegm? I could start an industry and get rich. Sell oil off my face and phlegm off my throat, I seem to produce both in excess.

2010-12-14T12:17:00.012+05:30

I don't think I'm that hot on getting away any more, you know why because you know what I'm going to say next. Everyone that I have ever loved, everyone is getting old. You go go, and you don't come back. You go go, and you don't come back. Can't get this out of my head now.

Winamp's on rabid shuffle. I've had a holiday without music, my music I mean. Apart from humming absently while doing stupid things like brushing my teeth (a habit I've picked up from my mother, I've realised) the only other song I heard that I can remember is an anthem going Jaya Karnataka Maate that a group of kids at a school in Kakkabe were singing. They'd probably think otherwise, or not think about it at all, but it made me feel cheated anyway, I'd like to be going to school on a mountain. Blame it on the Chalet School, which I loved only because of where it was, and Ranikhet and Rishap and this little building under Tadiyendamol, the things I could do with my life if I had a schooling under the sky.

On the train back from Bangalore I heard a kid declaim about the pubs there - clean ladies loos, smoking sections, ittis really awesome da. I could only concur. This kid, incidentally, was part of an entire panoply of college students who decided to spend most of the 29 hours hogging every charger outlet to either watch movies or transfer them. Walking from berth to loo I catch on glowing laptop screens glimpses of The Lion King, Big Bang Theory, Serendipity, Karthik Calling Karthik, and, inexplicably, Crossroads. Inception jaisa koi action film hai kya? Arre Se7en dekh. Mast hai. Magar woh waisa toh nahin hoga na, matlab gripping types chahiye. Arre Se7en dekh. Bahhhuut dangerous hai.

This is a mostly desultory post because I'm writing desultorily. My keyboard's grown stiffer. What I mean is I need to hit every key forcefully and sometimes vengefully and it's not conducive to gushing. Going elsewhere always does me good if it's not too many people and I can walk around a lot, Coorg's ideal for that if you consider lines like the woodland spring has put the darkness from your thinking, something that just came up now. It's a pretty effective analogy but I really should stop trying to write with music playing, I inevitably end up thinking via lyrics.

Most of the time I'm a quieter person when I'm travelling. I don't speak unless spoken to and I'd much rather not hobnob with other people at the dining room, chewing and watching is pretty much my game. I was rude to this gentleman during teatime because he was annoying the fuck out of me by describing the trek he'd undertaken that morning. I could tell my father was secretly pleased, but then he holds that Bloody Proselytizers deserve all the discomfort that comes their way. That is, by the way, a category. My father does not like missionaries. That is, of course, not why I was rude to him. Another thing that made my trip, reading alone. Having people come up and declare that they've just finished reading x by y then look around hoping to find someone else who's read it and will discuss it, it's taking a toll on my wellbeing. I could attribute it to a lot of other things too but being a literature student, I've realised, has come close to screwing with my happiness most of the time. That's not to say I won't survive it :)

Now for the sea.

2010-11-29T23:53:00.008+05:30

Best versions ever, one and two. I could pinpoint the exact moment when the goosebumps start, both cases. The original somewhere in the middle of 9 felt pretty good too but there's a good chance I was just very baked then and taken by surprise, I'm always floored by animated things in general at times like these. I lie, I'm floored by animated things in general all the bloody time.

auto

2010-11-26T20:06:00.004+05:30

Baahon ki darmiyaaaaan
Do pyaar mil rahaaay hain

Oh god red signal make it stop make it stop

Jaane kya bole mann
dole sunke badann

Oh god oh god I do not need to listen to

Dhadkan bani zubaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

2010-11-25T00:04:00.008+05:30

Giacomo says, be the flame not the moth. Things always crackle when they burn, wings for instance, also a cigarette, but I'm all right here on my own by my bag on a stair. The dog everyone calls Jeans, which is ridiculous because it's a shortened nickname but still recalls a denimlike texture and this is a dog we're talking about, this dog sniffs at my toes and gives up and goes off to sleep. It's the third time I've seen it go to sleep in that particular spot, huddled up in that particular way. We all pick sides and seats and we are unable to be alone by ourselves without reaching for our cellphones, how true. I almost call but I don't, how does it matter. Ultimately I'm going to walk all the way to 8b and sit at the bus stand, a thing I rarely do nowadays, and just sit there for some time staring into nothing, it's a nice place to be in. This is what I'm mostly good at, loving things from a distance in a vague bovine way, everything is interesting and everything is amusing so why fly closer. This is my thing, both my craft and my sullen art, stupid as that sounds, and till it changes, look, an almost-accident. People gather, time to go home.

2010-11-23T23:31:00.004+05:30

Technically speaking, it's a long time till Macbeth. Sujaan just pinged me saying ' "how goes the night, boy?" (locate and reply)'. I'm watching every Prometheus and Bob video I can find online, been looking for Ted the Head but he's vanished. Like humbo-humbo-humbo K Lal Jaaduwala. This is such a spastic post. Mea maxima culpa. But we'll all look the other way and that, in short, is why I love the world.

2010-11-21T02:42:00.002+05:30

oh, they die for me.
oh, for me they die, for me
they die, for me. meh.

2010-11-18T00:32:00.004+05:30

A man called me Menokaaaa and I found a little girl under a flowering shrub, it's been a hysterical sort of day. More on this later.

2010-11-17T21:31:00.003+05:30

I could float around on my perfect little paddle here all day, ignoring all the grinning cactus faces on the shore, letting pools of sweat form slowly under my eyes. Trouble is, stretching out flat means gravitating towards a centre means my belly is where it's at. The moment my toe itches I sink in with a plop.

2010-11-16T13:54:00.003+05:30

Ripe Figs

by Kate Chopin

Maman-Nainaine said that when the figs were ripe Babette might go to visit her cousins down on Bayou-Boeuf, where the sugar cane grows. Not that the ripening of figs had the least thing to do with it, but that is the way Maman-Nainaine was.

It seemed to Babette a very long time to wait; for the leaves upon the trees were tender yet, and the figs were like little hard, green marbles.

But warm rains came along and plenty of strong sunshine; and though Maman-Nainaine was as patient as the statue of la Madone, and Babette as restless as a humming-bird, the first thing they both knew it was hot summer-time. Every day Babette danced out to where the fig-trees were in a long line against the fence. She walked slowly beneath them, carefully peering between the gnarled, spreading branches. But each time she came disconsolate away again. What she saw there finally was something that made her sing and dance the whole day long.

When Maman-Nainaine sat down in her stately way to breakfast, the following morning, her muslin cap standing like an aureole about her white, placid face, Babette approached. She bore a dainty porcelain platter, which she set down before her godmother. It contained a dozen purple figs, fringed around with their rich, green leaves.

"Ah," said Maman-Nainaine, arching her eyebrows, "how early the figs have ripened this year!"

"Oh," said Babette, "I think they have ripened very late."

"Babette," continued Maman-Nainaine, as she peeled the very plumpest figs with her pointed silver fruit-knife, "you will carry my love to them all down on Bayou-Boeuf. And tell your tante Frosine I shall look for her at Toussaint--when the chrysanthemums are in bloom."

------

First read during an SAT sample test. I harbour a lot of love for people who can work an economy of ideas into their story and leave propaganda out, Chopin does it beautifully. So does Colette. This story isn't the best example of what I mean, I just like it a lot.

2010-11-15T16:00:00.002+05:30

As much as I like chilled-out spaced-out laidback people, I think neurotic people are much cooler. I think it's the ability to always live with a worst case scenario that does it.

2010-11-13T00:04:00.006+05:30

If today could be an overrused phrase it would be epic fail and this is why: I read The Bell Jar in the morning, which depressed me so much I put on uncomfortable shoes and went shopping with Puja and bought things I will never wear or use. Then I got blisters on my feet, then I ate a paltry ten momos in spite of being in excruciating hunger because I had no money left, then I watched a holocaust film that made things worse because it made every misery I could think of pale in comparison (except the Inquisition maybe, but that occurred to me much later), then I came online and found out dtdc messed with my life, then my shuffle played Perfect Day, then I lay face down on the floor and a moth flew into my eye. I resolve to not sound like this anymore starting tomorrow but tomorrow had better keep its side of the bargain. Always, always read Calcutta Times first.

I am working, I am working, I am too lazy to move my ass and sign in.

2010-11-06T22:57:00.002+05:30

Diwali ki haardik shubhkaamnayein! Subah subah sab kuchch phod dala kya?

Happy Deepawali maa, romba shopping ayiduthu, romba damntired-a irukkein.

Gotta love them phonecalls.

2010-11-03T23:10:00.000+05:30

Kahaan toh tay tha chirangan har ek ghar ke liye,
Kahaan chiraag mayassar nahin sahar ke liye.

Yahaan darakhton ke saaye mein bhi dhoop lagti hai
Chalo yahaan se chalein aur umra bhar ke liye.

Na ho kameez to paaon se pet dhak lenge
Yeh log kitne munasib hain is safar ke liye.

Khuda nahin, aadmi ka khaab sahi,
Koi haseen nazaara toh ho nazar ke liye.

Ve mumtaain hain ki patthar pighal nahin sakta,
Main bekaraar hoon awaaz mein asar ke liye.

Tera nizaam hai sil-de-zubaan shayar ki,
Yeh aitihaat zaroori hai is bahar ke liye.

Jiyein toh apne bageechon mein gulmohar ke tale,
Marein toh gair ki galiyon mein gulmohar ke liye.

-Dushyant Kumar

My obvious gift to the world today is not attempting a sloppy hindi-script rewriting. Too many spellings that I'm unsure of.

Talk about verse for change! CBSE floors me once again =\

2010-11-02T08:04:00.005+05:30

The one time in my life I hit an absolute lucky fluke was when my class XII Board results came out. What made it better was that no one in school knew I wrote every exam high on roughly five cups of black coffee to keep myself awake, and notified the management, which sent me a shiny slide phone. Perhaps it was meant to assuage. Or bribe. Or put into effect a managementish theory about performance, which is as pointless as it is strange but there you go. It didn't really matter, my prison term was done. I carried the phone around for roughly two weeks, gave myself palpitations about how often I let it fall down and left it behind at places, then passed it on to my father and returned to my Motoflip. The Japanese horror movie feelings stopped, my dad took to the phone and listened to ghazals all over the place. It got on with him fairly well for three years till he left for a trek on Sunday and went into the train loo ten minutes after leaving Howrah behind, where he managed to drop it through the toilet-hole into what I assume was a pile of steaming crap. He sounded apologetic about it. I like to think of it as a befitting end.

2010-10-31T11:22:00.003+05:30

I want to curl up under a rock OR climb into a stray truck and go away OR disconnect every phone in the house OR turn into an insect. Nothing but vitriol for Muldivana. I will die before this goddamned project comes through, only not of starvation.

2010-10-28T20:23:00.006+05:30

What cost happiness? I really miss having a music player. It pierced me the deepest this morning sitting bang in the middle of a swank deserted street somewhere in Sector5 at five thirty, shivering with excitement at the fact that it finally felt like October right then, dry leaves and a tepid chilliness, the works. I had Soham's iPod on and found a lot of old early morning music, it made me weary of having to switch my computer on every morning and getting through startup. No more Walkmen, and my iPod might never be resurrected so maybe I should get myself a new one? This is a good thing, I think, to be able to watch things happen with a soundtrack that sticks because they pierce you deep, the songs (like all things you miss without validation), even if it's just a pack of dogs sniffing each others' bottoms down the road at this particular moment.

Here's a chronological list of what I heard twice over in the one hour spent waiting for the unit to arrive: CSNY - Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Ben E.King - Stand By Me, Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues, Otis Redding - Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, Prince - Little Red Corvette, The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again. Alphabetically too, you can see I worked my way down a playlist. I think it was mostly stuff from that 500 greatest songs of all time list, I played the Redding one extra time not because I love him, even though I do, but because it felt curiously pleasantly painfully apt. Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting when the evening comes. I'll beat the lot of you at being placid on mornings like this.

2010-10-25T22:56:00.014+05:30

I feel like writing a long, rambling post circa three years ago but I can't unless I sit down and write on paper, if I'm writing more than a paragraph I need paper nowadays. I used to be able to connect things better back then but I've realised that it isn't really my call, all that declaiming. This blog's more annoying and more depressing than the others and it's infinitely more difficult to hit Publish here but things come out easier. Think what you say versus mean what you say, I'm kicking it out of the ballpark as far as writing stiltedly goes but it was bound to happen, wasn't it. Doesn't stop me from writing this post, though, I'm going to force it out if it kills me. This is where you start hugging yourself for warmth.

(Excellent. I'm doing it already.)

I bought three books today. Two travelogues. Colin Thubron's Among The Russians and Dan Jacobson's The Electronic Elephant. One noir. Waltz Into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. I found out later that he wrote the story Rear Window is based upon. Hopefully I'll read these by the end of the year, hopefully someday I'll read every book I own before I buy any more, or switch to shoes or something. Till then I'm going to stock up for the library I'll have when I start living on my own and need to spend on more important things, like bottled water and soap and mosquito fumigation agencies.

Then I found Van Gogh brushes on dA. I've been tinkering around a lot with brushes on Photoshop but I can't do anything very useful (or appealing) with them. These, however, work like a dream and MS Paint is now close to facing mutiny.

First attempt at fooling around:

This is the painting version of a macro shot of a very colourful snail shell. Evidently these brushes work like Vincent only if you are Vincent.

Two tries later, to my mild astonishment, I got something less Van Gogh and more Roerich. Or maybe that's in my head.

It looks better if you click full view. I call this masterpiece Pointy Mountains.

Also. Before I forget, today was the day we were introduced to the the Weiner of Respectability prevalent in Oscar Wilde's time.

And now that I've finished uploading I don't have much incentive to write, besides I'm pretty sick of this post already so there you go; I've decided that the next one will be more than a little broody. It's a beautiful world, let's take a moment to appreciate the insides of our eyelids.

=)

2010-10-21T14:11:00.004+05:30

Begin interjection.

"Ohho, why does she always need to be rescued? Now she will be raped."
(reaches for popcorn)
(me: firangs? FIRANGS? Where'd they come from?)
"Ohho, doesn't matter, she's going to be raped."

"What are those animals?"
(A minute passes)
"But why are they there?"

"Ohh he's an evil robot now."
(stunned silence)

"This is too much."
(Ninety minutes after it starts rolling.)

"CAR BATTERIES? SERIOUSLY?"
(me: Hahaha, Implausible delivery, car batteries, this is almost like 3 Idiots.)

"A...hand... a... snake! Aiyyo, it's a snake!"
(Took that long for the aiyyo to come out, but it did.)

"...but why is he wearing lipgloss?"
(pause)
"And why is the robot wearing lipgloss?"

End interjection.

Pretty unproblematic, my mother. But I'm the bigger Rajni fan now.

2010-10-21T14:10:00.002+05:30

I add alttext to a picture and it doesn't show, now how will Scott Weiland find my blog? HOW?

2010-10-19T12:40:00.005+05:30

पसंदीदा आदमी है वह जो सूट पहन कर भी रॉकस्टार लगे।
(Oh wait)

2010-10-18T18:32:00.009+05:30

I thought it was a good day for piano today but that day's already happened.
Around two weeks ago. These deja vu things keep happening, I'm so used to it now it's practically a religion, call it an indication of the life I live these days but I've enqueued other stuff on the playlist.

Panchami was definitely deja-vu. Iced tea then beer, back home iced tea then iced tea, when has this happened before? Then emptying a caps gun on a terrace and being told about spirits and sniggering inwardly about my experiences with ghosts, shit, that's happened too. The most beautiful thing about Saptami was the brownie because, hell, there's got to be some novelty - a flat you've never been to, a terrace, the silhouette of a tree, a train flashing by, lace curtains that look like pressed cauliflowers. Things like that. Then Neeli and I walked into a police society's pujo at Tollygunge because the entrance had these salmon pink lights strung up above a curving path in a way that made it look like the underside of a long tentacle, then the next day I remembered things I hadn't the day before. Repeat via overlapping.

And because I've already started enlisting things by day, this ashtami was more or less similar to last year's, Kankurgachi then Salt Lake, only infinitely better because there was less alcohol. I bloody hate alcohol sometimes. Most of the time, really, I bloody hate dehydration. My inside's a veritable desert, sir! Wa-terr! Wa-terr! Sorry world, not happening.
But we all cave in, it's an eventuality in the case of humanity and a character flaw in my case. Yeah, I'm smiling now.
Then Sambit made me die on Nabami by making me go pandal hopping all the way to Shuruchi Sangha, no less, then I got back by getting on a ride called Break Dance at midnight, then the next morning I stared sleepy and bleary-eyed at that machine-themed pandal at Babubagan and contemplated stealing a bolt or a nut, but even that felt like it had happened before, and the next thing I know I'm waking up this morning vaguely surprised I can remember it this way.

There are even photos up for me to remember from. It's been a good pujo.

2010-10-10T18:14:00.000+05:30

XXX

WE play at paste,
Till qualified for pearl,
Then drop the paste,
And deem ourself a fool.
The shapes, though, were similar,
And our new hands
Learned gem-tactics
Practising sands.

-Emily Dickinson

2010-10-07T13:16:00.003+05:30

Drink before the weather changes. Then what if I want to write an autobiography? And if I start at age one and take three years to write about twenty years and then another year to write about those three years and then six more months to write about that one year, just like Dr. J said, can I resurface in the world of 2015 and pretend I've been in a time-capsule all along?

Will I go mad? Probably not. Will I drink before the weather changes? Probably not.

2010-10-06T22:30:00.003+05:30

I have new books but I must read others first. List:

For Novel and Modernity:

- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
- The Wings of The Dove, Henry James
- Le Pere Goriot, Balzac
- A Happy Death, Albert Camus
- Ulysses, Joyce

For SFF:

- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- Holy Fire, Bruce Stirling
- Idoru, William Gibson

Comedy:

- Volpone, Ben Jonson
- The Way of the World, William Congreve

Otherwise:

- The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
- The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli

What I want to read:

- Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
- Truman Capote: The Complete Stories
- Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
- number9dream, David Mitchell
- Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk

Good. I can now hole myself in till November.

confirm folder delete?

2010-10-05T22:06:00.003+05:30

First PPG drawing, off Craig McCracken's dA profile.

(He's my friend now =O)

justbauhaus.

Nikola Tesla's letterhead.

Josef Frank. My kingdom for a wall like this.

A young Steve Martin attempting self-ignition.

An old Vogue editorial with Lakshmi Menon in it that I really like, shot in Goa.

On a Train to Darjeeling, Raghu Rai.

Want on room door.

This image (an English teacher in Japan trying to get his students to figure out conversation by making them write DC dialogues) is all over the net by now but I have it saved for a reason.
You. Are. Obstacle.

Finis.

2010-10-04T15:59:00.005+05:30

We all know stupidity is inexorable so I can't make this post about that. I'm stupid sometimes, you're stupid sometimes, way of the world. What I can't figure out is time-bound stupidity. Like when your mother buys you something she thinks you'll like based on your clothing tastes at age twelve. No, that doesn't really happen to me, I was just looking for an instance. Or if you're dealing with people who think you're the same person you were three years back, wasssaaaaaa letsgo havehookaahh, like that. That doesn't happen to me either, I'm just giving reign. The signs are far more intangible so how to communicate non-interest? It should be visible, it must be, I can't be bothered having secrets and I can't be bothered calling and I can't be bothered tracking who x or y or z are screwing around with now. That's for when we meet up and spend the night talking about what we shouldn't be having to occupy our time with, at least that's what I thought, or maybe I'm just not mentally stuck in class ten anymore. I'm reminded very much of someone I know applying this mental-age-class-ten moniker to engineering students and someone else to Pizza Hut employees but I've wasted enough time on this already. Apathy always, brave heart. Apathy ALWAYS or spaz out and disintegrate, we all have a choice.

2010-10-01T07:53:00.002+05:30

Trying to do grownup things. Lists, boxes, notes, so much compartmentalisation I'll go down foaming at the mouth any day now.

I exaggerate (as is normal), I have a test in two hours and have decided it's time to do all of the above, especially the going down bit.

What will make it all the more memorable, I think, is if I bite someone in the leg first.

2010-09-27T01:02:00.008+05:30

Way in, then way out. I like doing this for fun sometimes, reduce saturation to zero. Then new things pop out, clothes look interesting.

All of these photographs look terrible in colour.

The other thing I do for fun is add watermarks to photos and feel important.

2010-09-26T21:35:00.003+05:30

Blog update versus status update, which one to pick? I have a pretentious new profile pic (yeah, Warhol colours, where did we see that last, really) and and insane urge to knock India Art News off my blogroll. The thrills I give myself. I don't read it and the only reason I added it was because I spent an entire day on it sometime back because of something I wanted to look up, I don't even remember what it was. It makes no sense. I'm also not a Pitchfork person but I keep it there because of the feeds. I'm glad I knocked Hyperbole and a Half off the roll sometime back, it's fun when you stumble upon it randomly but as a weekly read it's fucking tiresome. It's weird how there are people saying fucken all over the internet, extremely inordinately weird, when did this become a thing? VGL? But when was VGL? So offputting when you chance upon it amidst what might have been an otherwise straightforward account of life or somesuch. I don't know why I'm still writing this post, probably this sudden rush of affection for blaug, heaven knows this blog could use some love. I don't really love it though, I pretty much just use it like a vehicle I push around, like my poor defunct bicycle. So now I'm analysing this, waaaack, I'm out.