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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 =\

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.