Pleasures of youth are always unhealthy

There will be excerpts. There must be more of them. Eventually, they are just obvious proofs of what will turn out to be the most interesting book ever written and read that could be produced out of me.
I could feel each click as I breathed in and out, laid coiled heaped at the gray stone steps of the cold temple within fifteen meters of the snoring saddening heavy sand by the insignificant moonlight, lingering, adding to the meat freezing numbing sickening cold. As my body lay huddled like a heap of twine I dipped in a burgeoning stream of indulgent thoughts, remembrances and half accomplished meetings. As fatigue mixed with old age drained from my eyes, shaping my shoulders percolating into the dusty orange of my flowing flimsy skirt, I thought of you dear Lord like deserter. In this same mellow cotton of the beach, I would run forward, toward you, yet looking behind. The nape and the back, the strings tying the exploding excited limbs that themselves could not contain beads of furtive encounters. A quarter of me losing direction of the wind and a half is measuring the receding dithering you.
[cut to]
Warm smoke is clouding the folds of my neck. Now, I can sing along very well. I'll tell you everything about living free! I like purple filters and orange lights in my bath tubs as lather flows down my Siam skin. I was feeling kind of sea sick but now I am smelling salts. Switching like merry radio channels and closing my eyes only to see the coast. I work now and make clean bread breakfasts and walk through swept chrysanthemum streets. I love my clean kettle and I will tell you what made me disgusted.
The pleasures of youth, the overdose of comforting margarine foods, the strained night hopping to slap the morning sun in his face, unwashed drowsy tired scents on clothes. All the pleasures of youth are always unhealthy.

How theatres are organic and AVATAR sucked almost...

I went to watch AVATAR premier show, bought tickets so enthusiastically, landed in the line seated in theatre, newly upgraded to 3d. The show starts and with or without the spectacles, the screen is blurry and split. The show goes on for almost ten minutes. Gradually, slowly people realize that something's wrong and its actually not 3d! Lol, low grunting ensues from different corners and then finally, the courageous 'somus' (the most popular name shouted around) got up from their seats to 'ghero' the projection room. We watched in mixed anticipation, thrill and a little panic, wondering what would happen next. The screening stops and then a trial of reprojection starts. Sometimes the sound went off, the other times the screen showed three different colored images etc. Lots of people start shouting 'cheating' and people around me vacate to eat some popcorn and get drinks. Suddenly, the film starts again, this time working well. All start shouting, 'rewind kar, rewind!' All don their glasses again, whistles and hooting. Funny how faces would change to mass childish euphoria at some 3d effect. The film sucked. I went expecting some super realism through three dimensions and amazing music and a relatively simple story newly told. But, as the mediocre simplistic colonial story unfolded I felt my enthusiasm and joy recede by every minute. All of us staring blankly at the screen and chorus 'ooh's' and 'aah's'. What amazed me was that when the 3d wasn't working, the way we as a crowd were reacting was something like you see in films. Hooting, clapping, protests, interacting with this new setup where they've come to experience something that they aren't yet aware of yet know roughly what to expect. Also, subjectivity of visual experiences and how it takes us sometime to realize and shout out that "it's not only me who can't see this 3d! The 3d is actually not working!" Lol. Very Magritte like, do you see the picture that I see?
Ps. Do not watch Avatar in any other theatre but IMAX. Trust me, I feel I missed out something, it can't be that bad.

Undercurrents

There are happy posts, merely descriptive ones with attached emotions that make for thoughts. This is one of them. There are sane moments. This is a proof of those all beautiful satisfied things. Since a month almost I have not been eating anything but fruit and all sick-people's food because I was sick and am recovering now from Hepatitis A. This unfortunate incident brought in many good things that in the moment of experience as well as retrospection make me feel like a new person. Parents are as intolerable yet necessary elements as medicines, excessive love etc. Be thankful to them for not trusting you with your own health and life. Even if you sleep through their nagging, your brain's affective cells strain to register every advice which give you comfort when back again to the lonely independent world. Next, eat healthy and mean it. Don't torture your body with unknown alien, shady food items at cheap or tasty seeming places. Have some humanity-sensitivity towards yourself. This, I realized as the accumulative knowledge of five semesters. After that, stay in touch with positive people. People who are optimistically restless about doing exciting things with their life. Also, if you know some people make you happy and feel good when you see them, cherish those moments, use them to climb a step out of your muddle of daily confusions. When you mull over things continuously, you stop looking at things beyond and away. Finally, leave and let go completely. Once you decide that you want to give up on things, tasks, people, memories etc. There are good things that yellow illnesses teach. But, now it is totally lost to me why I cannot keep feeling this way all the time.

Our first film: Bylanes to a byline

Bylanes to a byline- Deadline productions from noopurraval on Vimeo.

Will I ever reach... or the last dramatic breath

This is the most dramatic moment to word this agony and tiredness and complete the ritual of a post after every semester. Though, this one seems the longest ever which started with film making and what not and ended in shams of me. Finally, the exams are over. The wait is shortened by a flight back home so that I don't have to rot away in the train. I have had this intense urge to reach home which is now culminating in the worst of fears. Dramatic because I am sitting at the airport and writing this. Battery dying. Will finish later for sure! Argh!

Dosa and soap

Yeah, well you won't understand. It's complicated. You don't have the privilege of access to our chats and messages. Yeah, well we are friends, not really. A little different. I mean, we are a little crazy. We stop and think and talk and stop and hate and like then love then fight then write then click and delete and tear and eat and jump and shake and wiggle and smile 'cos we are like that only. You see, it's complicated.
We are sometimes like Dosa and soap. Slime and base and eyes and lick and tickle and pinch and poke. You can't eat Dosa without soap because once you eat and then layers will form of oil and then you will want to put those flying strands of hair behind your ear because nowadays girls cut hair to make it fly so hair will fly and oil will touch hair and hair will stick and moisturizer plus shampoo will become useless and dust will stick. I will run to you, on the steel wash basin and see you are not there but I knew you wouldn't be but I still see a phenyl bottle and in desperate hope for good measure I open and put some hoping it is you, soap. No rescue because you throw my beautiful exciting tales in my face like flying polythene bags shoved under the trash can right when I start ranting and have no remedy to make oil less viscous.
I have taken many a long breath of my lives because it is good to breathe long. Long and short, long makes proud of life more delayed and short makes guilt of stacking huddled life. Long means healthy and short means hurried curry. But only you understand and the other find oh-so-enigmatic and only you catch conceits but the other oh-so-debate. Layers of us, Dosa and soap.
Ps. You take the foul words too.

Certainly deciding what I don't want

They all blend in together and seem to rush in together, brick, orange and rain. While I walk on extremely tangible gray stones seen through coffee mixed with bitter orange juice in perfectly melody synched deserted towns and tying a gold amulet around my neck I can feel the mad, lingering, biting, plaguing powerful feeling of wanting to lay affect like rubbing round circles on the back of your palm and toeing the first hair on your leg. That gleam makes me surge like a sandy wave filter through my porous clothes leaving a tanned sinful good feeling about my body. The dead, the nude and the fillers in the frame seem to urge me to go on because sunset is not the place to keep feeling this. Till then, colorful little washed out jaded purple cloth pieces and rusty salty iron bangles keep me busy. Buy some paper and scratch flowery curves, paper thick yellow cloth and fold it quietly into the big cloth straw bag, brown and deep red. By night time freckles and red spots make me comfortable with the skin I wear and the balmy evening's oily nudging and the book under the armpit are both in rhyme with how I may feel the best about me. It is then and only there that you may access what I want to see, show. We all three should witness the spectacle together.

Let's fast forward it!

Yeah, long time.

Couple of days ago, we all came together. She said 'let's watch!' We all exclaimed 'film!' Now, you know whose Saari we are pulling :) So, she belted out one 'clean' film. The film was really interesting and she didn't quite mind the profanities in the dialogs. Then, suddenly, the hero and the heroine come together to do something that humankind aspires to achieve in every action: lurrv. The usual Hollywood style, passionate making out that lasts up to 33 seconds in 'clean' films. And then, as we didn't realize, a divine voice harked, " Please, fast forward it!" To all us reservoir dogs whose sixty percent public conversations rely upon sexual puns, innuendos and obscure dirty jokes varying in degrees of murkiness, this was 'clearly' the funniest eye brow raiser of the day! She can't take mass embarrassment, you see... Later of course, we "fast forwarded" thrice.
[Inside joke ( I'm prone to dirty thinking):
Dear husband to miss: I say, tonight is good! What you say?
Miss: (shy) hehehe
dear husband advances hand to the waist
Miss: Uh-huh. Let's fast forward it, shall we?]

This bears no resemblance to living characters around who in any case love taking offense.

{Fast forward to a few days later}
A certain girl-happy-in-love-my-guy-is-divine goes to watch an obviously 'romantic' film. Haw! It's in English and we all know how these white people start doing things in public theaters. My-guy-is-divine gets so angry, I tell you! He wants to get up and go. But, girl-happy... stops him and he sits through it. Mind you, only for her! Now he is so upset he won't talk to her for few days. Gosh these white people, they can break relationships! Fast forward, I say!
lawl, guffaw

Twelfth minute of a clueless birth

Trust me I'm depressed. Something terribly clinical about it. As it is five minutes more to go for my birthday, I cannot help crying. I miss my parents, not really. But I miss a point. I am missing something quite pointlessly. Then I look around and see the amount of people I have pushed away almost everybody. I give creepy hostile sad vibes. I sleep amongst the awake and I grunt amongst the cheerful. There is a point beyond which the body and mind feel short of control. It is automated. It's a clueless start to another year and the only thought coming to me is of being stuck in this same state of the heaviness of nothingness and listlessness and inability and forced half efforts. There has to be a way out. Someone needs helping. I can't even write. Probably I should wrap up the blog, wall in front of me.

My air is a peppered pineapple

I was zapping through all the million t.v channels and safety mails telling us what to do and what not during Swine flu attacks. Some place had termed H1N1 as the micro terrorist. This is not a new thought, mind you. It keeps recurring every time when something is transmitted through air, be it through satellite signal viruses or anthrax germs or influenza. I feel it is not our water or land but our air that is the most exploited. It is actually like that pineapple, cut and wedged by multiple radio waves being transmitted, all the wireless networks, the television signals, the different infrared and bluetooth devices, all the light that travels in the medium of air, all the sound, the cigarette smoke, the bacteria etc. So much of activity inhabits the invisible air that is scary to gulp and swallow one breath full of echoes and smells, shooting waves and germs. A huge pineapple container stuffed with mostly not seen to the naked eye matter. I feel sad. Like SpongeBob sitting on a bus stop waiting for the water around injected in blue, waiting for it to naturally flow like blue flamed slow sickness. My air is a peppered pineapple. Heigh-ho!

You start playing. Birds fly

How I stopped head banging to Vengaboyz

We were sitting in the state of the art auditorium and 'western electric' was about to begin. I had absolutely no clue what they were going to play on the stage, I hated being there because anyways I wouldn't know what they were singing. Some of them are usually so nasal that its a pain listening to them live. You can't even zap. No control. But the only two people I knew in Bangalore were here and they were interested in this. Not only them, there was a booming crowd of some thousands who were all anticipating something exquisite. I had no clue again, I felt bitter and ignorant. But I have never failed! I just couldn't give up on this like that. Not to mention at least three more years of dreadful conversations and guitar holding men and women around me singing something that my ears refused to call music. It was one of the most belittling days of my life. I was something despicable I couldn't seem to reconcile with. Back then, I had more urgent solid tasks. One of them, I whispered to my own ears, was to listen to English music.
Yeah, it may sound so exaggerated but all I had heard before that was Vengaboys, Britney Spears and Jenifer Lopez. They were all banging heads like maniacs and all I could enjoy was colored light. Then started rigorous torturous ear lending to Yahoo free radio and somebody's ugly I-pod or mp3 player lists. Trust me, I couldn't tell Coldplay from Metallica and honestly, I didn't care. I would actually note down famous names and try and recall the songs when I heard them. Till date I haven't figured how many people actually could recognize some obscure(!) Pearl Jam number but would still go, 'Dude! the bassist was so kickass!"
Never mind, today I listen to 65% English and the rest is mixed. Today is not forced and I am not cornered by "Shit! you haven't heard The Massive attack?" What I learned is that its just a matter of knowing primarily. Then, liking or not. It doesn't matter if someone thinks Pink Floyd is god, there is absolutely no survival need to discriminate based on such exposure/information/aesthetic endeavor especially when today music can be reduced to a set of algorithms.
Don't even get me started on classical music. That's partly why I empathize and identify with pop lovers in India (no pop in India is not Sheryl Crowe). Balls to all those puritan 'rock', 'metal' lovers and their inherited guitars.. I will still listen to Shakira if I want to

My wired ribs

This comes after a long time, especially after watching four trashy movies in a row. I watched Terminator, Kambakht Ishq, Harry Potter and The Hangover. All four were supposed to be really entertaining for quite a few people. It was so depressing to pay for each of them and exclaim in disgust like a little child, to look at people around and protest with the "what's so funny" chant. This made me wonder if I am wired to be tickled in a different way or just not wired enough to be tickled. Loads of my friends keep saying that I don't laugh at their jokes or funny things in general because I have an impoverished sense of humor. There are things that really make me laugh, but they appear sadistic or 'beyond the ridiculous' funny to others. Things like the repetitive 'Bruce lee' jokes (if you don't know them, bruce lee's favorite breakfast= id lee)and other geek jokes or sexual puns and innuendos are funny. But something put out there obviously is not. I cannot tolerate American sense of humor, too demonstrative, too chomped on my face. I like Chris Crocker better :P
Its not like there aren't others with such deadpan wired ribs, its that there are just few of them and I like it that way!

Have you ever thought of it?

Have you ever thought of why some people make the lamest of jokes and get away with it? Have you ever wondered why some people just absolutely need to surround themselves with others? Why some people just end up getting all they want and it adds to their personal growth while others just endlessly crib like hopeless romantics? why some can sing so well and others are not so popular 'cos they can't? How is it that some are just content with relatively insignificant life and still manage to make friends, have lovers and live some semi-charmed life while some just get tangled in a metaphysical battle with their daily lives where they ought to fill in all 24 hours of the slot with their own consciousness? Have you ever wondered why some walk incredibly slowly and seem to have no qualms about the seconds and minutes wasted in transition itself that probably a quarter of their lives is spent in an inefficient method of working? Have you ever thought of running for the president, becoming a porn star with magical fingers, the world's smartest gamer and then, just yawned in the mirror looking at your miserable self because it is not good enough? Have you been to numerous counselors who keep pink and yellow labels with different disorder names and waited for hours for them to tell you why nobody wants to emotionally invest in you? Have you thought that after reading it, if you ever do, you may end up saying no to all of this and conclude that this is a zonked chick with a screwed life and free cyberspace who is boring me to death?
Do you ever think each exhalation out?
It is fatiguing.

And the sailing ships will pass you by

It is a creative writing piece written for a college competition. It tends to be dirtily ranty woman-ish somewhere. Excuse that.

I am still twisting that wet strand of hair like some rope dipped in tea. There's crumbs of walnut brownie on my lips. No, actually the corner of my mouth. It looks like the curve of the boat that we saw at the beach, I know. There is a salty sea inside the walls of my mouth, I can feel the watery slimy emotions brimming like a choker necklace up till my throat, the water exploding through my nose, my ears, all crevices, my mouth, the open ends of my globe like opulent eyes, my open freckled pores and those streams of saline flood cracking at the back of my neck. Stop, think about the death. Forget the funeral. Defense mechanism. Period.

Let's pick another one. I will rationalize my panic attacks and the irrational post traumatic stress of losing you. There is just enough time for the talk. After all, we are different people. I like beans and you, spinach. My eyes can't see, like rains on a plastic sheet. There is a storm brewing at the pit of my womb.

How were you? Now receding, ebb like, tissue by tissue, dripping in clots, aren't you petrified of the next storm in the sewage pipelines? That will be another storm, flushed. He is scrubbing my interiors clean, like cardboard. I can hear something like waxy paper. There is a mesh with big holes and it is filtering knuckled words and fist fights.

Just for four months' sake, I will write my own elegies to you.
"While I pack crates and move boulders from my choking throat, as I carefully uncork the ululating storm. I untie the cord. Snap! From Amneotic pool to murky suspicious oceans. You will sink, it will sink in you. Honks and gongs may sing to your sleepy mornings. After you gobble breakfast with Gillyweed and pebbles, wave through those layers of blue; huge red bottoms of sailing ships will pass you by.

The French connection

This is about the trip that is just over. A trip to Pondicherry (Puducherry). All those streets and those houses that were yellow and gray and blue. All streets named in French. So many people who spoke french. I was bummed. I cannot and am too exhausted to romanticize about the place but there is a beach between auroville and Pondy where I went at night. It was a fantasy, like some ancient African dance to beckon the moon hiding behind the clouds and the waves roaring, invading the land slight by slight. There are not many pictures of the place because it was birthday party scene and most pictures are of people. Still, I have just put some visual memory for color. It was a beautiful trip because I could still confidently speak french and connect to the french way of thinking and gasping about typical frivolities.
Je me disais que c'etait fini, que c'etait l'histoire. Mais les sentiments sont bien preserves, meme aujourd'hui. C'est comme un grand sac dans lequel il ya des mots pour la meme image mais dont la description la rend completement differente.

Bengaluru Queer Pride IV

Bengaluru Queer Habba III

Bengaluru Queer Habba II

Bengaluru Queer Habba I

Am I cool or the day I will make you unsure

Cut to shady evening in village-ish town:
You are so crazy cock sure of yourself, I say. How can you be like that?
Smirk, you are fuckin anglicized babe! How the fuck can you say things like "Yes, I believe so"? Say "yes" or "no". It's as simple as fuckin'! Pretty clean huh? Oops, did I put it too rough?
Stop with the sarcasm and I'll explain. I can never be too sure and that is why I say I believe, yes for now.
While cocky sure young hearts like you may or may not evolve in their minds, I am already troubled by the big picture.
What the hell are you saying! chill out!
I ain't saying you need to evolve or mature but there will be a day when you will grow old and less attractive and less rich and lonely, your mirror will show wrinkles of self doubt and you will suddenly begin to wonder: what now? How am I gonna deal with this self now?
Let's do a flashback into your young past till then.
Cut to dark hostel bedroom:
Bird's eye view shot of you on top, doing what you think is the best you can do now, sex. What if no matter how much you went up and down me and hurled me and spanked me and bruised my collar with bites, I lay there as unsure, obsessed about happiness and other eye widening metaphysical questions that have troubled ancient men for centuries? I cut to you then, and see this tiny young human at the most fertile juncture of his miniscule space of a spot called life, breathing it away. You are little, indeed, so sure and unable to see. I turn to the other side and close my eyes.
Cut to you, tight close up. Those lines of annoyance and frustration, you can't understand what's wrong and you are wondering whose not up to it. You have had days of screaming your lungs out but that didn't help. You turn the other way and sleep.
Cut to morning table at coffee.
Telephone rings. Some psychic call center query. Did you have sex last night?
Ummm... I believe, yes...
The person on the other end in their mind (What the fuck is "i believe yes!" Either you have it or you don't!)
I told you it's never so simple...

Barber art

There was some actual(pictorial) art which is yet to be added.

Teeth between gaps
Tongue swipes like my ATM card
Crooked nod with a square smile
I want the one who looks down

Please comb with a drop of oil
Park the mush with a neat street in between
They are snorting in the garage
My backups for generator

Bread and butter
Bread and butter
Bread and butter

Please make me a fluff gummy bear for the date
The butterfly by the sill
Buried three inches deep
Her white little feet, in my soap tub

Eyes, gray tin pods
Black balls tilt from one to other end
When I don't scrub or chip cuticles
Her double chin, quick!

Throw the head back and laugh along!
Or, tape it.

Ribbons, clamps, rods, claws, china clay
Acne, fish fat, bleach.
Strap, stick, smooth, pull.
Bubble: Cinderella, make the mirror say it!

Tittick tittick... Six it is

Save me from myself!
(Please mix some alligator skin with herb)
Page me when the hemline's stained
Save me, please, bail me out
from the terror of beauty,
from barb(a)er-ious art!

Ps. I, the barber, lose faith in the truth of beauty by the day. So is the terror of this art that heaves upon me, the Godly maker, convincing me of increasingly hideous ordinary objects around.

Goosebumps, spiked, with oodles of Cheddar

Those ruffles of black soft unkempt boyish neat hair. Even bees hovering around made it seem sculpture. Those little sleep starved eyes carved in hollow slits of the white landscape of your face with high cheek bones and open pores that I could count. Lips were insignificant except for the wine smell that flew through them. The nose was calm yet protruding like some ageing iceberg. It brushed past when you pecked my cheek. Cheesy, I know. The flutter of the heart when people aren't taught that goodbyes never accompany brushing the cheek. A mere mannerism in the air. Or, the hand on the spine, just the right firmness and the correct unsure touch. The other hand admires the curve of the neck while the head tilts and seeks approval only in the eye. The morning sunlight tans it and you are melted pleasant for the rest of my day.

Lingo leela

Few days back I went to this pooja/prayer ceremony and I witnessed a major update of lingo. The same happened when we were discussing how Non resident Indians behave when they make Skype calls. Giggle.
This lady who was conducting the pooja, all clad in saffron pro mantra knowing queen avatar started blowing smoke in fire, other good smelling stuff inside and then explained, "You should regularly do Pranayam 'cos it helps relieve you of depression! This was a bouncer! Till date, you'd have them speak of cleansing the body, mind, system etc and purging your sins of some other birth. But, this was new! This is exactly what I had been trying to prove in my paper on authenticity by using English, where English words which were a little obscure or jargon complicated to understand, were used to generate trust and confidence in the product or service's scientificity. Now the same thing with this pooja lingo, where the lady was reinventing and updating the beneficial service to keep pace with its customers. She explained that "depression" is a common phenomenon in daily life because of the increasing amounts of "stress". It was like introducing this whole new paper on "Psycho-rituals". Interesting.
The next is a very commonplace parlance thing. When I get a nice call from my NJ relatives telling me "wassup" with them. This is how it goes:

Relative: Badhu orrite (alright) chhe. (Everything is alright)
Amey hamna "house buy" karyu chhe and "car" bye kari chhe._____ bhai ney "freeways" par chalaavta aavdey chhe. "Gas" bahu j "frikkin" expensive chhe. Ahiya "Spring" chhe. "winters" (roll your r's! quick!) ma bahu "snow" padey chhe!Maara "work" (rrr) no time thai gayo. JSK

Translation: We just bought a house and a car. Mister____ can drive on highways too and petrol here is really expensive. It is spring time here but in winters it snows a lot.It is time to go to work. Jai sri krishna. :)

All this wouldn't sound so queer in English but apart from the highlighted words the rest is usually( say you-Ju-ali)in broken Gujarati. I never quite got why they say all this over and over and Indians here seem to think "house" in America country sounds different than house in India.

She knows what she wants, at last

Is intestine deep sour and nostalgically pinched in all her vocal chords where a flood just passed by hitting the walls of insane uncertain gestures. I am trying to search for meaning and happiness. i am trying to search for a lot of dependability. She is off to the river banks where the sun sets and the waters are scanty. She wants peace, and understands how the heart suffers. This is what she wants alleviating from.

I have some talking to do
to the self
and some convincing
or there will be a heartbreak of a cloud
and a rainfall of words
have to drag the treasure to the cliff
and see it divulge in the orange brown sky
Take that treasure to the heights
Where everything else seems smaller in the eyes
Where wind blows at a startling Speed
Where u feel there is nothing else u need
Rational Thoughts Amalgamate with Irrational ones
The Outcome of the same is the one
The Solace it would provide would be on a skew
But you would be sure that there is something up new.

At last she wept. And there was rain brimming the roadside cups, the flautist just continued, never woken...

I am blue

Yes, I have resurfaced and I was interning till now. I am terribly blue because I miss JYFF and I miss being an all important dependable part of an organisation and doing work that was fun. All those signals and all those hesitant steps. God, the flame, the pleasure of not writing and being occupied all the time. Chi! I can't even write for now. I need balance. Of mind. Of senses, those that were tickled. Go, go. Vanish, out of my life! I don't know you. Do not run after me.

The perfect Indian girl

I am the perfect Indian girl
With sun burnt ripe hay for hair
And caviar streaks in the air
With orange peaches for cheeks
Reflecting the gory yellow of my noons
I feel heroic with each pigment of tan
When i keep jumping man holes
And fall asleep in buses
My scalp produces a modest proof
I bathe the best on sundays
And my bag may stain with oil
My college dreams are television borne
I can pretend Napoleon never existed
When I nod furiously at my grandma's commentary
I can neither be a capitalist ('cos I don't have the money)
Nor a communist in wanting (by default I have to budget)
I am lauded with the parent pride anthem
And I tend to be 35mm wide and loud in love.
I am loud, you can count my teeth.
But that is how I justify all erratica

Tragic plight

Yeah, this is about this restaurant I went to. It is an integral part of a mini villa. They hire fol musicians and dancers to perform for the people who come and eat. Of course there is no bar but there is dance and offering of money by fat men and modern women dressed in fancy clothes. I was one of them. The tragic plight is not because of this. There is a deadlock here. These musicians have no other way of gaining a bread based on their talent anymore and on the other hand it feels shameful that they have to get their daughters and wives to dance like animals in a cage and get applause and money while their children are huddled behind the stage half hungry half sleepy. I just imagined myself as one of those young girls dancing and making moves to lure and appease numerous pairs of eyes. Every moment she can feel so many eyes watching different curves and moves of her body with unaffected desire or a notion of superiority. I did not feel right.

If you are wanting heaven, you only are dying

This is like a random thought after what will decidedly follow in the next post. I was feeling extremely low and cry-ey last night. I wanted to desperately shout aloud and tell people what I feel, the bouts of being unloved, unfed on attention and the lack of work to do drives me crazy. So, I was wondering why I feel so pulled and tugged. It is because I leave unfinished dialogues in every place, because I want to return or exist in all those places. Then, I realised that I can appreciate work done only by a few people. The rest, I cannot trust to do it the way I expect. That is why I end up doing it all and feel so tired. Twenty hours of sleep is not enough then. And thus came the title which is a gujarati proverb actually, roughly conveying that unless you yourself do the work, you cannot get the experiential pleasure of it. This is what I kept on thinking the whole time in the rickshaw back home. I love rickshaws. Until an oldie from a wagon-R kept staring and following my rick. Back to work, stare, howl, or just close eyes and ignore... I am too tired to protest.

Same holds true on my contemplations on culture studies and other critical theory on society. I realise that most of them who engage too much end up being miserable because: a) they efface the personal naivete or glint of prejudices/preferences in the race to be politically correct and b) they get nicely trained into problematising everything in life. So, what happens is, happiness becomes an illusion(not that illusion is bad) and sadistic pleasure by digging into others' research papers becomes primary. Prize? Plagiarized paper!!! Hence, after all I may not sacrifice my life to academic conquests and revert to public relations(=psychology)because if you are wanting heaven, you only have to die! :)

When you fall for the morning microphone

Mornings of paranoia and sudden conscious smiles.
Jubilant when you get little niches to dive in for secure unwatched blushing. Almost wading with the mainstream current and nodding furiously because I hardly even can hear what is being spoken. It is not awe, trust me. It is true love progressing through various stages of all three components: intimacy, passion and committment, except that all this is not mutual and is a fragment of my white board only. Gosh, he is here again, skin swelling and expressions as fluid as flagellum suddenly crystallized. Fake jubilant smile again. Agent M, all clear sir!(What am I, Lizzy Mcguire or some pink shoe? Slap me someone!) Then gradually the shutter fly releases little clothbags of of exalt, all buttoned up. Again radar sense proximity. Please tell me, what is this unidentified walking microphone doing to me since four years, off and on? Then, the villain, all pink bubble gum and agent is all tight again. Victim of inside jokes, heart fluttering like a shaken aspen leaf. Remind oneself, silence is golden. Act grumpy. Don't think of demanding attention...

Why I think women can't attain Nirvana:

Because they menstruate
Because they have maternal instincts (basic instincts!)
Because they tend to confuse sex with love
Because they have a penchant to carefully document every gaze and stare
Because they yearn to make an even better "aloo ki sabji" every single night
Because 1)either they are obsessed with male acceptance or 2) they can hardly take earnest male attention on face
Because they too, like men, believe that a woman should have less hair

Disclaimer:
More to come... Please add if you want. This is not a stereotyping competition, it is (as the label suggests,a a mere rant because this woman here knows all of this and can still not get over it)

Why I look down upon people

Well, I can't be more frank. The quotes that you see in newspapers are hardly ever spoken by those smiling faces with beautiful smiles. It is me, the psst-you might wan to say this-helpful but hassled reporter behind. Similarly, the enthusiastic sound bytes on radio that you hear and all those witty slogans and cheesy smartass lines that make you guffaw are rarely uttered by those squeaks. It is me, the sunburnt-deadline bound-tout savant jock who knows that it is beyond you and your spontaneous intellect/creativity to come up with such interesting things. Almost like a film director, everytime, I first visualize and then like some outcast Parajanov, I resign to fate accepting that nobody smart and funny roams the streets in daylight. So, I write a script. What to make people say. Done. Go, explain, street actors, brilliant work. Some can't even do that much. So? What happens when no girl can speak on cricket? Its me, I modulate-change pitch-package and its done. All this just affects in one way, I lose more and more interest in the queerness of people on streets and in media's "fun work".

The diary of a tired worker

It was hot, burning. I am singed and my face is red. The morning was spent in cold dungeon office setup like a lost puppy or a mole lurking in silent sound proof corridors, all red and green and locked and beeping. Shrilly women and men with the best sounding voices ever made me think what I would do for a month. Again the sinking feeling in the stomach of mine about corporate creativity and how I become a dumbass the moment I am hit by such waves of confident professional setups. Day got better. Evening even more assuring. Hopefully I should sail through. The burden of watchful ears is horrible. Hate to let em down.

In between, on the train

Running amok

Stones are walking backwards by me
Cars are bumping into me all along
I seem to pull the rain so down
The yellow hat can't fly back up again
Sandal shape invaded by my toes
The road is gathered more and more
Like a seven meter sari and my greed for all its ends
Running tunes are grabbed by me
Poor notes are chewed out helpless
As the clothes are hurled into bags
Their peace is disturbed by all my drone
Even the last of laughs is not spared
They are all pasted with glue to my lips
The chair swivels under my bum's weight
All the mint washed down in my belly
So many missed rings are buzzed to lure
But the answers are never picked by me
The world seems spinning and riveting
Off and even out of bounds
Wonders comes to the back of mind
When I realize
I am restless and my hands
Are unscrewing the well fit globe.

When Grandpa died

This comes in light of the developmental psychology paper that I have just passed. I read in the textbook yesterday that widowhood can be one of the most horrifying and crippling experiences.So, I was reminiscing about my maternal grandpa's death. I have no memory whatsoever of any pain associated with it though I knew him for more than ten years. All I remember is weird cut up fragments like me skating at home and my mum telling me that he is dead, the next day my grandma and hundred other people sitting quietly in white clothes making a spectacle of something sad, my mum weeping at every instance his name was mentioned. In fact, I made a heroic deal out of his death at school and felt some pleasure out of being in some special experience. This is all. Then, dispassionately I shifted my gaze to grandma wondering how she must be feeling at the time of his death. How ever could she let him go? How could she even see him breathe his last and shrink to four feet of body just like that? I probably would cut my own nerves and die with him. That got me to think what would I do if i were so deeply in love. Probably I would fall sick everytime my partner fell sick and be ready enough to die the moment I felt the other one is gonna die. I just cannot imagine death, bereavement and then as my textbook says:
First disbelief, then preoccupation with mental images of the dead loved one and then final resolution back to reality

Death and experiences of dead ones are not a drug that I can return after a trip. Is everybody so persistent on remembering dead ones or disbelieving the truth? My mum goes helping the needy in his memory but what does she really feel about the person she has lost? What am I, a super glue attached person or does everyone feel remorse on death so much?

Lesser words, more images

I
What was above the bed?
The empty ceiling sheilding more questions
lying beyond in the hermit sky.

What was under the bed?
The dead cockroach flakes
warm at peace.

II
Residue of exhausted lungs
Like Periwinkles on your doormat
Too dear to discard that
You silently elbow them
With closed eyes.

III
Donot claw at the dust
Leaves grain in your nails
Look straight, keep staring

Until the dawn sweeps in
Its blinding light
And you become numb
With fresh air.

On the other side of an ISD call

My feet are so firmly grounded on this land
Almost as if caught in the most banal quicksand
Tell me how it is to fly in a plane
Tell me, does it smell different when you breathe
Is it just in the mind, or are places actually special?
Do they really produce better fibre of cloth?
Why does it smell so good out of the cargo?
Why does the wait never disappoint?
What is it about a foreign land and crossing over?
Can only few privileged make it by providence?
Will I ever cross the seas and breathe else?
Or is it always here, waiting for the imported chocolates, perfumes and
watching films and reading books?
Will I also sit in a plane and tie my shoelaces?
I want to board a plane, break the sandbar of fortune
No more Australian beer, Swiss chocolate, Beat books and Canadian shirts
I feel blind when I eagerly ask how it all looks
I have to rely on their pictures and words
I also want...
Why are there seas? Can't we just cross on foot?
Why is there money? Can't we get generous hitch hikes?
There must be an easier way than facing a consulate
To fill bags of imported chocolates, perfumes and colorful clothes

When I play push on the edge of my bed

I push and I pull. Of course my ownself. I just keep pushing and pulling in thoughts and words and sighs and moans and tears and shouts and I mumble imagined dialogues in between. I keep at the edge and roll a few marbles bigger than the crevices. They keep awkwardly slipping through each corner and they hit the little multi-layered multi-colored sedimentary rocks and roll down in the water. I love igneous rocks better. They should never hurt cuticles or you feel pain, horrible pain. I just take that one step because I am so adventurous and then I brood over the huge step and its shreds around, then I just sulk and gulp up the whole thing as if some sour milk and sleep over it. Next morning it is not so bad and a few days later it is frozen well only to come out in sleep talk when i am possessed by Mara. Smile. I fear falling down, not so much as I hate the fallenness and the inability of "Sartre on Sex and Love" to soothe. So, probably as my way goes, I will deliberately fall a few more times and sit down not to fall or just sleep on the ground if no one pukes on it.

Congrats! Statistically you are a man

The fingers frantically clicked away
At revealing the true self
Could she know really
If numbers predict what she hides so well?

Gulaal

Usually I never comment on films I watch. But for this, I just felt like doing it.
I was actually quite unaware of what the film was about, to start with probably inadequate publicity or just the image of an off-beat film. The coloring, settings and costumes are eye candy, marvelously fauvist style loud vibrant colors to match each character. The story starts off really well and I loved the Ran-saa character. It is so true as Sonali pointed out the other day, Dilip the protagonist does not stir up any liking or connect, he remains hanging somewhere in the middle all the time. The second half was again, as for every recent film I've seen, draggy and incoherent. The story loses pace and vigor. Female characters wer "lameness" personified. Agreed, the editing was bad, some sequences were unnecessary. The whole teacher character given to the female was useless, some weird reproduction of a modern age, pot smoking cool babe (probably Kashyap is falling for the abuse of "showing drug use" in films). Piyus Mishra dazzles with all that John Lenon obsession and witty verses. The narrative was interesting because it cuts in and out of past and present (very common these days though) and uses music for progression (which is hardly the case in hindi films since 60's). The close ups are beautiful, K.K and the last sequence of initiation of the mud blood brother and his sister. Script is tight, almost no useless violence revelry. Mahie Gill is wasted and annoying. I loved the film for its visual appeal and music. Gives me all funny powered thoughts. I like.

The bunny looking heavenwards

At night when I walked in little fury, some daze, I passed the huge tar paved roads of my college which looks like a gothic set floodlit in orange. It was dark and silent as usual. People and purpose are to be explained in every inch of the college. No purpose no people. Wondering and wondering, on and on after two years of having been in here, I just looked around to see if anyone felt so helpless as me. But to my surprise I saw you, Bunny dustbin, looking upto the heavens, as if calm and saturated, no more willing to give way to the bickering of dissatisfied voices. I found solace in you

Genetic affinity to Jerks

This sounds so incredibly girlie and "how opal mehta..." kinds considering that this rant must not even be original. But, the more I wonder, the clearer I see a pattern in the kind of people I end up falling for or admiring. They are all, as some people say, Jerks, with a capital J. Jerks because all of them come with an expiry date of association and because all of them are highly unique, information seeking, self-obsessed and most importantly, emotionally challenged (by choice or disposition). The fact that people are so self immersed drives me nuts and draws me to them. But, then they cannot understand that happy beginnings should conventionally end up as happy endings. In most cases that surround me, chicks and monkeys with lower I.Q and worse looks have been able to secure huge groups of friends and their special charming toads. Somehow, I seem to be inadpet at either. I almost never crave for a huge group of friends but I would love to have my own toad who is hungry to know more, wants to travel, eat almost anything, reads when s/he is not asleep, watches movies and listens to music when s/he is not reading and sleeps when neither of this is happening. Of course wakes up only to talk to me. Probably it is too much idealism etc but then, why not? I am sure there are those kinds. I am so bored of lawyers, DJs, designers, teachers, musicians, poets and engineers. Can't there be a hybrid? But by this time, my cup of coffee is over, people are staring because I seem to break into tears the next moment(thats how my face becomes when I think too much) and I get up, eh, why bother so much when in the end you want to quit them all and run away on an individual journey. With all this exams bothering I can't even read, eat or write in peace. Broke as I am, can't go to cinema. Is there no middle option between riding a bike and learning everything at the radio station? I am tired of jerky rides, I want a smooth road for a while to laze around.

Is the Third eye to Open?

I am painfully relieved of lust, love, the sensation to finger touch and excitement from warm breath. I am in full control because I am in complete consciousness, false included. I can consciously love, hate, imagine, determine how much to give and turn the knobs of the intensity of pleasure. Am I just bowled over or is it a liberating irreversible corrosion? Can it be profanely illuminating at my age, my left over shreds of desire, my cognitive limitations or, is it a mere phase? Will a sequence of such phases give me a solution or a restful way of dealing with the probable large surviving chunk of life knowing that in all my quest for knowledge or otherwise, one day or one nihgt, in a fraction of time, I will cease to happen? Is waning of sensual hysteria a help to know more about the state of happening of life which is so futile that it is born to lose? Then why am I clinging so tight to a body which is a mere page in the universal storybook of my soul? Is attachemnt not beautiful? Or is it just wrong timing to be born in a post-industrial society?

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

The only way to get back

Shruti lost her bag. She would think it too selfish for me to narrate my similar experience. So, I am blogging it. Someone stole it from the library locker! No fault of hers but money, debit card, project gone. We roamed all around the college for an hour or so with the security guy. Some utterly inhumane conversations in between:

Library guy (sitting, reading): Oh, you should have brought a lock along... (reverts back to reading)

Reception guy: Um...No, I TOLD YOU ALREADY, WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT! There is no lost and found department, hundreds of laptops are stolen everyday but a bag, this is first time...mmmmmm...

Library lady: Go, now take a lock and put

This all just took me through a familiar stream of thought when my phone was stolen twice. On the one hand this lady was crying her heart out because theft indeed IS the worst emotional hurt you can inflict upon someone and on the other hand there were people acting like a bunch of jerks in the newest of fashion.
In fact its not their fault because most of us don't even know how to react after 5 seconds of shock to a person who has just lost something, forget someone. More than that was the bitter experience of gulping down the visits to every jerk administrative office in the college. You just realise the mindless, unintelligent, crude lack of organization and insensitivity to student needs embedded in this kitsch, dirty, porous imitation of an american university. The problem again, is not that they don't care, but that they reinforce faith in anti-establishment and the worst: they make you feel helpless, miserable and ruin a couple of your days, leave you in the corridors wondering why you ever admitted yourself to an institution like this. This apart, this is just projection of the loss of the bag/cell phone/purse etc onto the peripheral terrorists.
Then, when I was walking past a dustbin gazing at Shruti, I felt, what if I go to the library now and steal a couple of other bags. Would that make her feel better? Of course, some others will cry like her, but who cares? Either its just me with the kleptomaniac tendency or disposition to get over affected by theft or the only way to get back and make your day is do your little bit of "swapping" and balance your losses. Mind you, I will be a different theif, even today when I see a pink and white phone I suspect it is mine, travelling through hundreds of chor bazaar lanes and finally landed in this filthy hand that I just saw. When you steal, you steal a piece of my mind, a piece of my over sentimental heart and my dear bag/purse/cell phone. The only way to get back I see now, is to become like you.

Few days later:
Me: Hmmm... you lost your self in this place, ma? Too bad. Should keep such things in a safe (back to sleeping)

I am India

This is a little lame poster that I designed as an assertion of the indian identity. Chumma. Pass time. No appreciation entertained ;)

When I first saw the sea

One of us, she saw the sea for th first time ever in Manipal. The trip was fun. We walked and jumped and spoke and ate and travelled. I had a weird feeling standing at the brink of the sand dispersing in water and was so tempted to write. No camera could pan the whole sky, the sea up till the horizon and the stretch of white sand that my eyes were feasting on. Blue wisps of liquid hit my white pearly walls. Plastic, oil and sand were gracing my scalp cream. Rub some slick ash on the border of my vision, the Sun has already friend my pink, deep golden. Smoothen the waves and curves of supple margarine bosom,brush red mud off my soles and wave my hand to little clusters of tadpoles. I breathed air. I had fun!

Performative thought

I sit clawing, scraping at the blue flakey walls of your skin,right where your spine does a sudden curve and changes to opaline, hissing green in time when you trigger the sequence even without poking a lash. I cannot bear the ecstatic, cathartic chewing noises from father's mouth mixed with wet fingers on my shirt. Let me ululate into this tender ear of yours and generate low frequency waves like the drone of a blue scooter, the rattle of a cottong grey cloud, the biting and chewing of your brown hair by copper moonlight.
Cut me up, slightly, by each grain like a red watermelon's womb and make an eight on the peach with the tip of my finger before it punctures a hole. Create more fury by dipping finger in the vermillion tube. Rub the paint, smear, smudge and rough it up against the skin texture. Pour some oil, breeze through a bucket balancing on dead curls of fibre and mosquito legs dismantled near the drain. Do the yoga of my unstable wants and grin with me. Get up, its morning.
We are free, from jealousy.

Pikters skipters

Epiphanies of my punctured night

Almost like epiphanies are not well timed and recorded on video. There are some sentences that play in head like prime numbers. Like the haikus of Basho, I feel myself grow an inch or two in weird times and sometimes being stripped in public in the revelation of little talks. Like yesterday, she was talking about how her mum fed her food and I got a vivid memory recall of how I was fed similarly till I was in seventh grade and I wanted to rush home and cry and get my mum to feed me bhaakhri and moong daal.
That was the stripping of the bare naive person inside. Moment of truth comes when I cannot sleep until I have cleaned the room and my clothes and everything else and in this I think about the conversations of the day and then play the same cassette of the past incidents of eighteen years of life. I think about how I have been able to utter irrefutable common truths with so many subtleties and I felt like a photograph in sepia light on a cloudy day about to break into a downpour. Probably I keep reverting to the old past cassette because they are cemented referal points for similar experiences in future and present. Like a wasp in October. Cam you even imagine that in this mind which appears so thoughtful and preoccupied with a line of thought, actually play seven or eight stories at the same time: exercise and become thinner, save money, finish assignments, finish reading, perform better, look good, don't forget deadlines, i am hungry, i miss mum and dad, i wonder where mosquito is and finally why should I even care...
In such moments I take a deep breath and just throw myself on the bed like at the zenith of pathos and cry my heart out. Then suddenly someone sings "Stop crying your heart out" and I just begin to wonder if I am wasted enough or what. Then, I calm down and read and realise that all I really want to do is travel and read and teach, go to as many places possible and that is the consolation for a wavering life between extreme ambitions and apparent lack of a feasible goal. Also, I forget while writing, become blank, become irritated and then think for two minutes. Yes, I recall...
Whenever such epiphanies occur and I feel more stable than ever, I cannot come to look at the past as a stupid, foolish or impulsive memoir because for me there is not a higher present and a lower past. What I have done in the past of time, I am very much capable of doing and becoming like that even today and in the future. With puffy eyes and a cup of coffee I sit and write and again go to the compulsion of thinking if I actually write well.

February and the pleasure of touch

When you hold me by the loose uneven strand of hair that changes color by each ray of sunlight, when your eyes travel the tissues of my cheek and with every motion of the gaze I turn a deeper shade of pink, magenta, fuschia and purple, when your breath vibrates the air molecules that knock at my ear drum and make a hot orange splash that drowns my brain, I wonder: Is this February or the divine pleasure of touch or just me stuck in your old frame?

Radio script for a music show (30m)

Outline and script for radio show: Filmy funda

Duration: 30 minutes

Radio station: Radio Blues 99.2 F.M

D.J links: 5

Maximum number of songs: 5-6

Other things to be included: Radio station jingle, Sound bites

Day parting: Afternoon show (2:00-5:00 p.m.)

Language: English

Tone: Cheerful, Peppy

Pitch: High pitch female voice as D.J

Music genre: Hindi film songs

Tempo= Medium-slow

Theme: Film reviews, inside news/gossip, interviews with TV. /film personalities











Link 1: (bed= lounge music instrumental) A very cool hello on this hot Bangalore afternoon to all of you from your RJ _______. Now it’s time for your very own scoop of new, hot Bollywood songs, some gossip, and a lot of other interesting talk and an exclusive review of the much awaited “Delhi-6”. Ah-ah, this is not all! To catch the surprise celeb interview of the day, exciting hourly prizes and the filmy funda question stay tuned into Radio Blues 99.2 F.M.: It’s all about music! For now, enjoy this Dev-D number to kick off the lazy afternoon… a personal favorite too! (40-42 s)

Song 1: Nayan tarsey (Dev-D) (3m10s) (Tempo= medium)

Radio Blues jingle: It’s all… you say (chorus)…It’s all…I say (chorus)…It’s all…we say (chorus)…About the music! Radio Blues! (9-10s)

(Fade in) Song 2: Shamur- Let the music play (3m44s) (Tempo=medium) (Fade out)

Link 2: (bed= lounge/club) Yes, the music will keep on playing because you are listening to Blues and our only love is music. Talking about love and music, we just heard something really interesting about our dear Adnan Sami and his marriage which is…erm…literally on the rocks! It was heard that Adnan’s wife walked out on him after alleging him of domestic violence and mistreatment. That’s not what we expected my friend but all we can do now is wait and watch! Its two fifteen and time for my question: So, stop all your work, write it down! Tell me the name of the child artist in the film “Hum hai raahi pyaar ke” who is also a famous star now. Call me on 99-22-55-331 or text me your answers to FFspace992. Sonam Kapoor and the pigeon dance, Massakkali coming up next on Blues… (57s)

Song 3: Massakkali (Delhi-6) (4m52s) (tempo=slow-medium)

Ad slot for 1:00m

Song 4: Sapnon se bharey naina (Luck by Chance) (5:00m) (tempo=medium-fast)

Link 3: (bed= apache (shadows)) Again one of the cherished numbers of this season from Luck by Chance, Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut in the film industry and this is what she had to say to us at the Star Screen film awards: “(Zoya Akhtar sound bite) Hi, you are listening to me on Radio Blues 99.2 F.M and I thank you all for watching my first film. I hope that I make even better cinema ahead. Watch out for my next film “Red roses” and keep listening to Luck by Chance tracks only on Radio Blues.” Thank you, Zoya and we move on to another nominated track “Khuda Jaaney” from Bachna Ae Haseeno, Vishal Dadlani giving astounding music. Enjoy! (40s)

Song 5: Khuda Jaaney (Bachna Ae Haseeno) (3m35s) (tempo=slow)

Link 4: (bed=bugle sound) welcome back, this is RJ ______ on Filmy funda and now it’s time for Shout aloud, our exclusive film review segment: SHOUT ALOUD (sfx). The film for this week is the much touted Rakeysh Mehra film: Delhi-6. Erm… Let’s see- the pros and cons: first the positive: Doing it again, Rehman scores fab music, brilliant cinematography, Abhishek and newcomer Sonam both good performances! Negatives: The second half drags, the plot loses focus and somewhere you feel déjà-vu, all in all 3.5 on 5 stars to Delhi-6. Here’s what the audience had to say: (sound bites of random viewers) “Ooh, I loved it… Abhishek rocks… The songs are awesome… it was bit boring in the second half…” That’s all for my take on Delhi-6. For your comments mail me on Filmyblues@tv22.com. (1m)

Song 6: Bora Bora (Bluff master) (3m09s) (tempo= medium-fast)

Link 5: Its two thirty already, time flies like airplanes and India bags seven BAFTA’s with Slum dog! Congratulations and celebrations… It’s also the time for me to say bye bye to you until I meet you tomorrow with more songs, filmy news and the answer to today’s question! But, before I go, my song pick of the day is “Paper planes-M.I.A”. In fact the artist has a really interesting history: more on that and her future projects on Filmy funda at 2:00 p.m. on Radio Blues tomorrow. Till then RJ _________ signing off. Ciao. (35s)

Song 7: Aari Aari (Bombay Rockers) (4m12s) (temp=fast)

Total time taken: 33m 15s

Tyagaraajam Gali

Before it is mispronounced and misunderstood:
Tyaa-guh-raa-jem Guh-lee

The first word is made of the roots "tyaaga" and "raajam" meaning the "king of sacrifice". Never mind the king or queen, the masculine prick etc because no matter what "king" sounds more empowering to me and embodies more authority when addressed even to a female. Of course, since I write these they have something to do with me. I AM, in fact what is written. Yes, Tyagaraajam. I cannot deny, I revel in sacrifice (completely ego-feeding) and I love providing. I adore being the shady, half face in the dark-giver of all you ask-the silent godmother figure. That has been buzzing and came up because of everything in the past weeks and months. I just cannot say NO. I don't want to. I want to stretch a little, creep beneath, twist the finger and get the butter and then throw it to other hounds jumping below. Probably, this reliability and patron factor is unique to me. Sometimes, I can't get a better high. And hence, my "Gali". A space, lane, domain encompassing all activities of human life where there is bound to be a "Tyagaraajam Gali" and you will find me seated at the very heart of the golden throne inside on the eighth left main, on 5 august, 2005 (my favorite date because it is short to write in french letters).

Wanted! Help in Translation

I want some soopar person who can translate English to Kannada understanding the gist/essence of the matter, not literally translating. It pertains to a questionnaire which is to be administered to policewomen in Bangalore. No fees will be paid. If interested, please be calling at +91-9886918476 or plz plz be dropping a comment here. Many thanks :)

Little theatrics of the Exam-ed mind

This week is a full exam phase and fortunately my lofty ambitions of regaining GPA count have not been so wispy as a macro lens shot of Helmuth's fag. Three gone, literature and psychology are always the big dogs. For a reason. Literature is the paper I want to perform well in any condition. The sacred cow. Psychology is the first one I ever start preparing for and no matter what screw it up. Record on past four years except boards. The taboo pig. With literature gone today with a sweet aftertaste, I feel all my barking and obsession about the obnoxious negro rhetoric of being oppressed and their personal little articles becoming universally important with names like negritude ( that was not even original!), all of it has paid off. I read and read after photography paper. From 4 till 9. Came back home and collapsed. I still had to refer to Robert Young and Diaspora practices for an edge over my mortal classmates (snigger. I love reading up these hidden texts and keeping them for myself). I woke up in the morning and started again. By 12 I was bored and confused. I stopped. But I was quite confident. Finally I wrote and wrote. I put in all the privileged exclusive spice from those reference books. But the night was tormenting. I slept with s subconscious ringing voice saying "This much is not enough". I literally tossed and turned the whole night in the guilt of not having finished reading. Eventually by morning I could NOT resist. Phew-hah. It is gone, indeed for good. Welcome to my Obi! (Mutley grin)

To the brim I boiled and shot

This was a very eventful week. There was a fest that I participated. Since almost a year and a half, since I have moved to Bangalore and started engaging myself in questions of academic gravity, I gave up on things like debates, dances, theatre etc. But everytime I looked at the big stage in the world class auditorium, I wanted the spotlight on me and big photographs the very next day highlighting every pixel of my graceful poise in tragedy. Somehow, I never summoned enough energy and courage to actually make an effort. But, this fest was for all. The whole class. So, we all had to participate. Somewhere in the middle the steam was running off but they all pulled me in back. I finalny debated after a long gap on topics like "Animals should go to beauty parlors and spas". It didn't matter. We fought. I fought. Words just bubbled out and I was ecstatic. Not me. Not the me since the academic passivity. It was like a catharsis. I wanted to be sarcastic. I wanted to see the opponent shut her mouth. I wanted to laugh at her publicly. Everybody in that big audi heard me. I was out again.
On the other hand, dance has never been my favorite activity because my body is way too rigid. But, when we ran up those stairs like a huge carnival, a chinese dragon fiery, I was again someone else. We danced, I danced. Every moment of the harsh yellow light and cheering I enjoyed. We were wild. We were young. I was younger, wilder and shouting. I was the old mother of Ezeulu, the mother of the chief priest of village and these were all mine, not children exactly.
Probably, reading and writing more and not indulging in such performing arts has its own advantages but I realised that I need both of them. I am a wild child and I should not stop myself from apparent foolish, naive celebration of sadistic, fierce, extreme emotions of sorrow, pleasure from defeat and instinct to dominate. I savored every inch.

Love in a spray can Blue Body Heat

Listen to the other half. We are sick, you know. And the immense tragedy that mars our two minds is that our world does not even realise how sick we are.
Royal Blue of Bril I always wanted Camlin ink. Christine, she is a strawberry girl, I love Siouxsie and the Banshees. You should listen to their music. Also, London Undersound. Nitin Sawhney. It may sound like extreme ranting from the churning hollows of my stomach but a blue heat of Bunsen burner runs through. We are all linked to the common pipe through intestinal pipes, anus, rectun, mouth, eyes and ears and other holes. The heat is cringing and flowing with a constant speed. The more constant the more it tortures me little by little. Turning more blue by the day and night.

Only at night time-I see you
in darkness-I feel you
A bride by my side-I'm inside many brides Sometimes I wonder......
What goes on in your mind, always silent and kind unlike the others......
Fuck the mothers kill the others
Fuck the others kill the mothers
I'll put it out of my mind because...... I'm out of my mind with you
in heaven and hell with you......

My Night Shift Sisters
await your nightly visitor
they don't bother me
no they don't bother me

The cold marble slab submits at my feet with a neat dissection......
looking so sweet to me-please come to me with your cold flesh-my cold love
hissing-not kissing
a happy go lucky chap-always dressed in black he'll come to you, he'll come to you

My Night Shift Sisters
with your nightly visitor
a new vocation in life
my love with a knife

Fuck the mothers kill the others
Fuck the others kill the mothers
I'll put it out of my mind because...... I'm out of my mind with you
in heaven and hell with you......

The only respite I see is in complete surrender to the power of hallucinogens or total rigid will to live upright, uptight for some apparently humanistic reason. This may not make sense to you but I feel singed from inside every moment I wake to sleep and keep staring at the blank ceiling for nights and run out on people's dance programs. The heat is producing passivity plague. And the passive state of being is eating us in. In this state it is that body mind are so vulnerable yet so unaffected that I could give them up to anyone and not understand if I feel sad or should I restrain. Such is time when neither love nor hatred, leave alone their universal maniefstation can penetrate within. Probably exactly how the Yorkshire ripper felt after a murder in the silent, dark, blue and person-less night to be the only active being...

Dilemma of a national language: Dusting an old paper

I have tried to think through the issue of national identity and linguistic identity; the need for a common official language of communication, incorporation of what is national (common to all in the nation) and creation of conditions to make a particular language national and regional linguistics revolts.

This issue of linguistic identity juxtaposed against national identity, comes particularly in the light of the recent anti-Tamil and pro-Kannada movements happening in Bangalore. In fact the protest is not so much against Tamil as it is for reawakening the Kannada nationalism. Similarly, another instance of linguistic separatism came to light in Maharashtra where people of Marathi origin, essentially speaking Marathi, are being favored by Shiv Sena. They have gone to the extent of asking for special job quota reservations for Maharashtrians. It would be too vast in scope if I were to try and analyze all such linguistic conflicts that have taken place in India since independence. But I would like to narrow it down to the following points:

“Why is the national language such an integral part of the Indian identity?”

“What is the Indian identity?”

“English- the real national language?”

“The need for learning Hindi vs. the cultural subjugation of linguistic minorities.”

To start with I would like to draw in this magnificent idea harbored by all citizens of India of being an “Indian”. It is interesting to locate where, why and how this common idea of being an Indian comes to such a wide, linguistically, geographically and ethnically divided nation. This will take us back to the question of whether India is actually even a nation in spite of being so constitutionally. I believe that the basis of any identity formation would have to be the commonalities shared by the people who consent to it and integrate that identity in themselves. In the case of a nation and a common identity of its citizens, the most obvious binding factor would be the constitution which governs all of them and is accepted by will/consent of the majority. But there are various other factors which contribute to the manufacturing of a common identity. One of which is languages. It is precisely for this reason that there is a common “national” language. If one observes this statement, it does not only reflect a language in terms of the one that we speak, but also an opinion that we reflect. Hindi, the national language of India was made so after independence for several purposes. It became the vehicle of official information, news (AIR) and a means of speaking to natives of any state. It must have been necessary to do so in a multilingual country as ours to facilitate communication. But because of making Hindi the official national language, numerous linguistic disputes have arisen and through the carrier of a language cultural subjugation has also occurred. This brings us back to if all citizens accept Hindi as the national language. The answer is evidently no and it is this feeling of being dominated by a linguistically more prominent group which is leading people to redefine what is “us” and what is “them” in linguistic contexts. Hence, now Karnataka is being redefined and propagated on the grounds of Kannada speaking populace. Firstly, let us try and look at what makes learning Hindi necessary for one to be the quintessential Indian. Any language, as I previously demonstrated in my assignment (Use of English as a persuasive tool), is not a benign object merely used for accomplishing a task but is in itself, I may call it so, organic and alive. It is not an urn of power but is a power in flux which can be attained by learning that particular language and using it in a way that it restricts the scope of its accessibility. Today Hindi can go so far as to make a historical claim of having been accepted as the “independent India’s” language as opposed to the colonizer’s tongue. Since then, shrouded as the practical language to use throughout India, Hindi has much enjoyed a privilege in education. But there is a marked contrast in the acceptance of Hindi in north India as compared to the south of India. Narrowing down the argument to Karnataka, the recent uproar against emigrants from north-Indian states is only the climax to a chronic woe against Hindi speaking population. I believe the reasons for this are that the Kannadiga people, who now form a minority of Bangalore, are threatened by this majority which eventually undermines their interests and drastically changes the way they live, eat, dress and consume many other products. Also, here peeks nationalism. In fact, it looks like in spite of having merged all these states, owing to a unique culture in each state; one unified nation is quite an idealistic thing. To me a state looks quite an isolated entity when it comes to letting off one’s language, food and way of life to accept the Hindi way of life, dress, food etc brought in by the north-Indian people. And hence this resistance occurs. But the argument takes an interesting turn when we try and substitute the acceptability of English in South India as against Hindi. I do realize that recounting personal experiences and opining may lead to subjectivity and alter a critical vision but here, I dare mention that in the past 10 months of living in Bangalore, from the auto-rickshaw driver to a waiter in a restaurant to classmates in college, I have been able to communicate with all not using Hindi but English. The simple thing I wish to show by this is that the argument that English is spoken and understood by a small amount of educated or elite people of the society. Also, if one may wonder why people of basic services such as waiters, drivers etc may use English is because : a) in South India there are many regional languages as well, b) People speaking Hindi in Bangalore, Karnataka generally seem to possess a basic knowledge of English as well. These are probable reasons that I can think of and they could be completely wrong. But now if one tries to look through the scenario, Hindi appears inimical to what is “ours” to a Kannadiga while English appears to be “or all of us” since colonization occurred across the country. Referring back to the title, the word “dilemma” is extremely important. There is a myriad of confusion which surrounds usage of a language in different contexts which directly affects other’s opinions (favorable/unfavorable) of you and affiliation tendency. Hindi being made the national language does not bail it out of this dilemma, on the contrary makes it a north-Indian’s weapon in some cases, or even the language of the misers, rich, shallow etc (presumptions regarding people who speak it).

Relating to English is the very interesting phenomenon of “nativization of English”. Dating back to pre-independence, all nationalist leaders were generally bilingual, regional + English being the formula. It was in English that the idea of a nation with linguistic homogeneity was developed. People like BankimChandra used the Bengali and English syntax to generate a kind of Indian English which even now distinguished Indian writing in English from the others. The native’s interaction with English like in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura (Rumina Sethi) portrays the “Indian flavor” infused into English speech. To elaborate on this flavor, I would like to point out the stylistic differences. The metaphors and the way one’s experiences are written in “Indian” English are an almost perfect translation of one’s thoughts generating in the regional/native language marked by the culture in which it emerges. To come back to the question of Hindi vs. English in terms of literature, since English is used throughout India in education, it has led to an acculturation so significant that it has become a part of the “intellectual make-up” of the educated Indian English writers. Also, attempts to write in English have been made from people across the country while writings in Hindi have been limited to Hindi speaking regions. The evolution of Indian vocabulary in English has also led to its increased acceptance as the medium of writing wherein the necessary can be translated and the authentic words of our own culture can be preserved, catering precisely to the needs of a very “Indian” population after independence. There is a certain absorptive quality in English which has permitted it to become the vehicle of old, historical literature to the modern world keeping intact the “indianisms” attached. But same is not the case for Hindi which in terms of writing has also been treated as a regional language. Perhaps, this is also one domain where English emerges to be nationally accepted in the educated masses of India. Important is not whether a large population in India is literate but to see that English forms a national pattern in its usage. To oral literature, English granted the label of “Indian” and unified distinct cultural patterns. A major credit for such extensive incorporation of English goes to the bilingual intelligentsia existing pre-independence who in Lord Macaulay’s words was “Indian in blood and color but English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect.” This intelligentsia contributed a great deal to the phenomenon of “print capitalism” and English writing in India. It is to this intelligentsia, that comes the idea of a “nation state”.

To conclude, I would like to suggest that due to passionate linguistic struggles between Hindi and other regional languages, Hindi has not been able to acquire the “emotional” and “intellectual” status for the whole nation of “India” thus not making it the essential marker of the “Indian” identity. On the other hand, although quite restricted in its extent, English has been incorporated nationwide to represent oneself in writing or oral expression of thought to the outside world, thus successfully evolving into the lingua franca of the nation with its own share of indianisms.