Woke up with a splitting headache, a million hammer-pinion systems over working themselves in the head. Put on ‘The Pianist’ soundtrack to ease the morning, the CD player was on Shuffle mode, it started of with Track 8 – Grande Polonaise brilliante. This kind of eased the headache, but this track begins in such a sweetly depressing way, it numbs the heart. Consequently, I slipped into an irrational state of depression.

At work, was chatting with a colleague during my Coffee Break, conversation veered towards the Euro Cup. We discussed England’s prospects, being the soccer crazy lot that we are, we created our own little fantasy team – a team formation if we were Technical Consultants to the England squad. It is as follows,

Defenders: Sol Campbell, Ferdinand….
Stopper: Lampard
Midfield: Beckham, Scholes, Ashley Cole, Gary Neville
Forwards: We will resurrect the ageing Alan Shearer,
Play Owen to test the Offside trap, like how Cezare Maldini played Inzaghi
And yes Beaty, to head home winners.

To be noted, we have excluded patently uncreative players of the likes of Manchaster United’s Nicky Butt and Liverpool’s Heskey.

It could work…magnificently actually. But its sheer escapism I know :(

But what the heck, the fox Eriksson may go ahead and draw up something absolutely different, and England may win the Euro in spite of it. But my headache is gone now, and I don’t feel like a newspaper that was left on the porch, when the rains came down.

"With a variable key
you unlock the house in which
drifts the snow of that left unspoken.
Always what key you choose
depends on the blood that spurts
from your eye or your mouth or your ear.

You vary the key, you vary the word
that is free to drift with the flakes.
What snowball will form round the word
depends on the wind that rebuffs you."

Paul Celan
With a variable Key - Holocaust Poetry
Translated from the German
(Yes German, the language of his mother and of his mother's murderers)

Watched a news feature on Landless Laborers in Harayana, last night on the telly. There are villages, where 2% of the people own a 100% of the land. Land reforms are obviously, non-existent.

Landless laborers (whole families) are involved in the entire process, from sowing the seeds to the final harvesting. To use a Management expression, they provide end-to-end solutions, but the returns they get from the landlords are on an average only one-eighth of the produce value!

The urban-rural contradiction, with allusions of poverty in villages and prosperity in the cities, is often rather misleading. What do we really own? Is the desire for ownership, moral, ethical and justified?

Life for Rent, and often, the only thing we own, is an entry on blogspot.

Labels: Free Form

"But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine"

Downright depressing and fatalistic, in a way, but rather true...just think about it.


Driving a car through a crowded street, the air-conditioning, the windows insulating you from time and space.

Kids don’t rush across the street, you don’t need to push the brakes.
All the crossings blink green, you don’t need to change gears.
The radio plays all your favorite songs, you don’t have to reach for the channel button.
The streets buzz with life, but you don’t need to care.
The only thing now is your life, beyond the window glass is thoughtless caricature.

And you just drift-drive on ...streets leads to abstruse lanes,
Abstruse lanes meander aimlessly, but you don’t even notice,
Lanes end at cross roads, you don’t pause and you don’t think,
...and then the wide open...the highways,
the city recedes, there is always good roads under the rubber.

Kids skin dipping in ponds wave, you just smile.
Gas stations loom ahead, you drive past…your tank is full.
The woman you loved sits on the garden bench, an eye on the road…
You slow up, smile and say something…before driving away
She laughs, and then she waves …asking you to come back.

As you drive away, you look at her …through the rear view mirror, you haven’t moved on.

Labels: Free Form