The 'Fist' & The 'Pacifist'

2008-07-22T21:15:00.004+05:30

Pather Pachali : Our Song of the Little Road

Our pride aside, it is not really surprising that sections of the West reacted the way they did to "Pather Pachali" (or "Song of the Little Road"). The poverty stricken, dreary lifescape of rural India - must have been an unpleasant shock to many Western viewers/critics.

If one watches the movie today, 50 odd years since its release, the characters embroiled in a life or death battle (literally) for shelter, a square meal - does come as a jolt. In fact when I re-watched the movie a few months ago, to be honest, I sometimes cringed. The world of ipod's, high speed broadband and square mile malls, begs disbelief of lives steeped in penury, of the oppression of existence and of aspiration blunted by destitution.

However, having said that, Francois Truffaut's comment, "I don't want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands" is a reflection more of his insensible insularity than of the movie.

Pather Pachali - The Song of the Little Road is a metaphor for man's rite of passage. The way the world you know starts to give away. Roots begin to stealthily putrefy life. Life incarcerated by inertia. One has to give it all up and move. Leave in order to live. To abandon all you know and to clutch at the unaccustomed.

Its the story of all our lives, the family who left the village for the city. The son who went to America, and the one who came back. The migrant who crossed the border. The peasant who gave up the till. The man who donned the workers uniform, and the one who relinquished it for ever. The family who moved to the leafy suburb, and the one which moved to the loft conversion down town.

Some Journeys are aspirational while others are escapes. Often there is only an one way ticket available.
Journey's heralds new beginnings, but they also often... shut the book.

2008-06-12T19:19:00.001+05:30

Today

In the morning I thought of money. Money & money matters. Mutual fund NAV’s. Bloody fund managers. The sensex. Clinical depression. Sting. [Tina adds - Sting had Clinical depression].

In the afternoon I thought of Wild Strawberries. Trois couleurs: Bleu. Juliette Binoche. The pristine sugar cube in the black coffee. The Apprentice. Advertising. Satyajit Ray. The whistling train. Summer Holidays. BOAC and BAA. Qantas. Rain man.

Hence QED.

2007-05-29T18:50:00.000+05:30

She

The world is far more incestuous than we think it is. I get to know of her, through friends. Information which is... unsolicited most of the time, but gratefully accepted all of the time.

I saw her in the car park a few weeks ago, she and her partner were waiting for the valet to fetch the car. I waited awhile to see her. She is still terminally pretty, but there are no pretenses anymore - the world now knows how old she is, and she has a very strong hunch.

It's always the skin; young skin has an oneness of color. Age is like a time veneered artwork, evident in promise but compromised in vigor.

I looked at her; the stunning smile on a face which I knew had once been more beautiful. The poignancy I think lay in the realization of time and age - mine foremost. What my mirror routinely concealed - manifested itself in a dimly lit hotel car park.

I have always admired snakes, the way they shed their skin. Definitive departures and shiny new beginnings. Simple and almost evolutionary. We humans, make heavy weather of it – dry skin, scabs, warts, wrinkles and falling hair. Dross and decaying, dead habit almost.

On the way back home that evening, I pulled out of pigeon holes - all those hurriedly aggrandized memories. The caramelized laughter and the fiery piquant fights.

Stephen Stills, had once said in an interview to 'Rolling Stones' magazine - "There are three things men can do with women : love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature".

To you, I have done all three. Unfortunately, none too successfully.

2007-04-16T19:22:00.000+05:30

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"

- 'Eloisa to Abelard', Alexander Pope

2007-02-12T13:46:00.000+05:30

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2007-02-01T13:47:00.000+05:30

Blood Alcohol Labels.

He felt like having a drink.
Strong stiff ones. Like pretty maids all in a row.
He wanted the buzz. The heightened sense of everything.

The live band, cranks up the drum microphone.
Weaving traffic like colored ribbons in the breeze.

All roads lead gently downhill. Cars lurk like ghosts at every bend.
Every turn takes you home. To share your bed with sleep.
Like a fly in a whirlpool.

Like a sticky traffic signal he thinks of her.
Weak. Amative. Green.
He pushes hard, fast and faster.
The night breeze like hornets in a tunnel.

Floyd on the stereo. A melee of then, now and never.
He squares up for a fist cuff.
I am the champion of the world he says.
The gambler frowns on the odds.

He cusses and he waits.
Calls them out, one by one.
He digs his heels into the night.
No footsteps. No silhouettes.
He spits into the cloud of dust.

The bells toll.
"Last drinks! Last drinks!"

The Abbot and the black heart.
"Its time" they say.
Time for a hand brake turn.

2007-01-11T18:12:00.000+05:30

Beyond the Middle Place

Hotel rooms, amidst the measured queen size bed, the table lamp and the basket of fruit, have their own passive life.

When I first arrived in Somerset, for months I was at this hotel, unremarkable in every regard except one. It had a large framed print of "Lament for Icarus ", the print itself was of average quality. Uneven colors, and not particularly well framed either.

It's a Victorian Nude of course; Icarus lies dead by the sea after his flight to freedom ends in disaster. He is tended by nymphs who hold him and lament his unfortunate death.

Daedalus, imprisoned by King Minos, devises wings built out of feathers and held together by wax, as a means of escape. His son Icarus follows him in flight. Once in the skies, Icarus, apparently convinced of his abilities of flight, gains altitude and the sun melts his wax bonded wings. The young man falls to his death in the sea.

The months I stayed in that hotel room, at times I stared intently at the print, at most other times was oblivious of its existence. On sleepless nights, with a village in slumber beyond the window, Icarus and the lamenting Nymphs often came to life.

No magic realism, no emerging characters, no talking nymphs.

Like a ghost beyond the horizon.
After sleep, after blinding light.

After the fear of heights and the depths of the sea.
A place to rest your head.

The afterglow of life. Beyond the middle place.

2007-01-09T01:36:00.000+05:30

Sunshine Happiness

A fantasy calendar girl, with backlit hair.
A Colored morning on the church pews.

On a shallow sun afternoon, I built a fort.
Familiar strangers and unaccustomed silhouettes.

Beer on the beach, at the high tide bar.
Two rupee boat rides on the lazy blue.

Sunshine happiness, I knew you one winter.

2007-01-05T13:45:00.000+05:30

From Coast to Coast

They say if you have seen one beach you have seen them all. On the 31st of December 2005, I was by the Arabian Sea at Daman, the southern tip of Gujarat. Exactly a year later I was at delightful Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast by the Bay of Bengal. A journey of 1200 kilometers in 12 months, almost diagonally across peninsular India.

There were stopovers of course - the confused and cosmopolitan Geneva, officious and idyllic Bern, the icy winds up the Matterhorn, opulent St.Moritz and the quaint stamp sized Liechtenstein.

And as I stood at the Pondicherry Promenade, the warm sea breeze crawled through the fabric of my clothes. The sea smothered the rocks and rose like salt crusted sprays in short-lived revelry.

It doesn't matter where you were, in doesn't matter where you are coming from. You just pause, see the sea, feel the rain, goggle at mountains and keep walking down that winding road towards the bend around the corner.

2006-12-15T18:23:00.000+05:30

"We had to cozzy up in the old gymnasium...
dusting off the mandolins and checking on the gear.
She was helping out at the back-stage...
stopping hearts and chilling beer.

Yes, and her legs went on for ever.
Like staring up at infinity
through a wisp of cotton panty
along a skin of satin sea.
Hot night in Budapest. "

Tull, Crest of a Knave, 1987

I dont know where I have been, but I am coming back.

2006-08-29T21:10:00.000+05:30

If you stare at the sky long enough, the lights will go out.

The fist & the pacifist is closed till further notice.

Cheers.
Rohan

2006-08-14T18:40:00.000+05:30

Smoke on the water. Fire in the sky.

On saturday the week long Geneve Fete drew to a close. It had rained all evening, the fireworks display by the lake, which officially signals the end of the fete, appeared to be a no show.

At about 9:30, the rain petered down and I made my way towards the lake. I was near Cornavin Station when the fireworks display began. The roads leading to Quai Mont Blanc were cordoned off for vehicular traffic. And suddenly there was a mad rush - people sprinted down the road towards the lake side. It almost felt like one of those disaster movies, when the monster makes an appearance at a crossroad, and people run in the opposite direction.

The Quai was packed. The fireworks were splendid. Gold spangles lit up the night and then slowly melted into the river. Spiraling globes of blue and red, burst upon the sky for a glorious memorable moment and then allowed the darkness to slither back in. The geometric shapes and seemingly random patterns of light, burst upon the night, as the thousands who had gathered looked on spellbound.

The reflections of the fireworks on the lake - created awry images of brilliant light. The hotels which line the lake, had guests out on the verandahs, taking in the spectacle. The fireworks extended their imagery to the shut windows, lighting them up like neon signs on a boulevard.

I looked around at the people around me. There was a sprinkling of locals, those who had driven into town, and people like me, who had come from distant lands. Couples held each other close, families huddled together. And the children in prams, were not sleep and cranky anymore.

And suddenly, almost magically, under the night sky lit up by fairy lamps - Gay men kissing each other, didn't bother me. Neither did the Arab tourist with his retinue of wives and children. The war in Lebanon, felt like a story concocted by the media.

Geneva calls itself - the city where people meet. And for fifteen minutes, those thousands of people, with different languages, religions and color of skin, magically and almost in the most serendipitous kind of way, came to embody the essence of "The United Nations" much more than a building across town would ever be able to.

P.S. Across the lake, Montreux, is known as the Swiss Riviera. In 1971, while Frank Zappa was strutting his stuff, the Montreux Casino caught fire, casting a pall of smoke over Lake Geneva. This inspired Deep Purple's classic song "Smoke on the water, Fire in the sky."

2006-07-10T16:16:00.000+05:30

No Cakes and Ale : Part Deux.

The way our founding fathers envisioned the Indian nation, the way the Indian people have voiced their opinion - it is clear - that we as nation will judge our self by the extent to which development filters down to the most marginalized, by the empowerment of the most deprived and by the extent to which those furthest from the mainstream benefit from the fruits of the Indian Union.

Sensex pole vaulting to 10000 plus levels, the testing of a nuclear device, Marks and Spencer opening shop at the neighborhood mall - these are only the highlights of our growth as a nation. Let us not be self-deluding to believe that this alone typifies growth or are even its primary indicators.

The rural and urban poor do not cast their vote based on Infosys setting up a state of the art facility, neither are they swayed by India winning points over China at Davos.

The parameters of the average Indian are crystal clear - land reform, access to infrastructure, access to education, social empowerment, and access to livelihood options.

Not a single opinion poll commissioned by media houses, print or television, based out of the metros - predicted the BJP loss at the center. Urban India was doing well. We had Lindt on supermarket shelves and American sedans in our garages. The disconnect between urban and rural, forward and marginalized was so palpable - while we were basking in the warm sunshine of India Shining, India in the villages voted in anger.

Let me gets some facts straight here,

1. Higher education is obviously not the only great leveler, primary education must be strengthened and its reach widened. It should reach villages, and families which have so long been outside the net. There isn't an argument about that, is there?

2. Like all policies, the execution is flawed, and the purpose is very often defeated. But does that mean we do away with the initiative altogether?

3. Successive generations which have benefited from reservations should be excluded from any further dispensations. A system should be in place to enforce the same, and be executed efficiently. (Very idealistic I know, not for once overlooking the inherent corruption and inefficiency).

Keep aside vote bank politics and populism. (The narrow ends of small men).

What's the driving concept behind reservations? It attempts to empower those who are intrinsically marginalized.

I don't get this - if the concept of reservations per say is the bone of contention. Why wasn't there a nation wide protest against the women's reservations bill? Why wasn't there nation wide protest, when some state governments reserved seats in panchayats?

The answer is simple - it didn't affect the urban middle class. It didn't impinge on our world of Multiplexes and H1B visas. It didn't affect Marine Drive, Connaught Place, Park Street or Brigade Road. Hence, it was not a hot button for the media. In fact we nodded our heads in appreciation - India was taking affirmative action. Reservations were good.

But reservations in our colleges and universities - that's evil. How could you reduce seats in the colleges and universities where we aspire to study or send our children to study someday? How can you take away our prospects of MNC jobs and fast cars? How can you be seen at the same clubs as we do? Will your son study with my son at St.Xaviers - that's preposterous!

That is unfortunately the crux of the problem - we the urban middle class, have chosen to live in a sanitized bubble. Disconnected from the real India, out of sync with its real problems. This is new imperialism. We are the new "us" and they unfortunately are still the "them".

P.S. This is the much delayed follow up to the previous post. I received comments/emails but couldnt get down to replying to them individually. Apologies. Hope this post responds to most of the comments. Cheers!

2006-06-12T12:44:00.000+05:30

No Cakes and Ale?

I am not one for opinion rants. But that precedent will unfortunately have to be broken. Yes, the thorn in the flesh is the whole Reservation shindig.

To start things of, Yes I support Reservations. And yes I think they should be caste based.
Which caste blocks should be included and the extent of the opportunity pie is something I would leave to experts.

I think the protesting students and the whole "do away with reservations" voice, is missing a very important point. Large sections of society - the backward castes for example - have been traditionally deprived of education, livelihood options and other social opportunities. And their lack of access to opportunity isn't a product of them having less potential or less ability.

Centuries of dominance by upper castes by way of education, livelihood options, governance and policy making - has ensured that the backward castes have remained only on the fringe of growth and empowerment. With such divisions, with such anomalies are we an equal society? If we are not an equal society, how can we expect one and all to compete on merit?

I live in urban India, which is a pretty dolled up version of the country, low on the real problems and high on the post-liberalization glam. But yet, I do not know of a single forward class working as a domestic help in my building or as a facility staff at my workplace.

Independence means nothing, nor does a booming sensex. The backward classes at independence were atleast a century behind everybody else. We raised the tri-color at red fort and said - we are all equal now, start running...run like the wind!

It doesn't work that way! Even if they ran like the wind, they started a century behind the start line anyways.

I have worked with the Chinese, and boy is their English funny. This in spite of the Chinese government over the last decade pumping the largest sum of money - not into technical education, nor medicine, but yes English. This is probably the first generation of Chinese who are actually learning English in school. Obviously they don't match up to us yet, because our education in English is already 3 or 4 generations old.

Yes of course, with seats being reserved, a large number of students with apparently "more merit" will miss out. It's sad. But that unfortunately is the cost we will have to pay as a nation.

A backward step? Maybe. But only so that we can give the fellow Indian who has fallen behind, a helping hand.

2006-06-09T15:09:00.000+05:30

I met her today.

Glenary is not what it used to be. The mall is crowded and chaotic. But yet in November, Darjeeling is sharp and pleasant.

At midday the muted sun and the wispy white clouds, mists over the cerulean. The world it seems has a renaissance master manning the lights.

The Kanchandzonga makes an appearance at its own whim. The interplay of - light and the passing clouds, on the canvas of pristine snow. At once - a tinted penumbra and then suddenly a mellow incandescence. Gray shadows and off the palette shades.

Almost, natures own son-et-lumiere.

I never thought I would say this - she finally looks her age. The smile though, is still full of zest, and her hair, dark and intriguing. The only thing which has changed - for the first time I think, she needs me. It isn't a happy feeling. It makes me queasy and sad.

2006-05-22T16:42:00.000+05:30

The world is painted in water color. Our lives are in Oil.

The sky, the blue bleeds into the light gray, the light gray coalesces into the deep. And then there is the citrine sun, which spreads itself into everything and nothing. No lines, only swathes. No colors, only hues. No finalities, only Intermediates. No satiety, only permeations. No endings, only transitions.

Lives are in Oil. Births and Deaths. Friends and Enemies. Marriages and Divorces. First Dates and Last farewells. Blinding light and dark tunnels. Stark colors. Disparate ironies. Love and Hurt. Flamingo red and burnt sienna. David and Goliath. Truth and Lies. Yours and mine.

2006-05-22T15:41:00.000+05:30

Me...

She always said, I was weak. She always said I could never take a stand.

I never believed all of that.

I took great decisions at work. Under pressure I solution like a man on fire.

It just happened a few minutes back, we had a resource utilization issue. My manager was perplexed, lines on his forehead, he was pouring over the figures. I saw the problem, I figured the end, and I had the mean. It's normal. It's so natural. It isn't even an effort. I just "see" the solution. No lengthy deliberations, just a clear clear mind.

But now, as far as life goes - I think she was right. I never did take a stand. I followed the straight and narrow. I wallowed in the perplexity. I savored irony. I celebrated inaction. Self deludingly believed the middle path to be the hgh ground.

In retrospect, the work days were never twelve hours plus, the clients' demands were never that worrisome. The next role change was never that critical.

I realize now, I was never a workaholic. I realize now, I was just a refugee.

2006-05-02T15:44:00.000+05:30

Objects of Interest (?)

The Gandhara Art exhibit at the Indian Museum is a favorite haunt of art college students. With satchels by their side and drawing pads on their laps they sit there sketch the Buddha for hours at a stretch.

I am not much of an artist, but I like watching the artists at work. The way they use their pencils to fix dimensions, the way their hands sweep over the paper, and how rarely they use an eraser. As they sit intently concentrating on their work, the towering Buddha looks on.

My personal favorite though, has always been the Egyptology exhibit. The Mummy occupies the center of the room and is surrounded by a host of instruments. Instruments that measure moisture, relative proportions of various gases and the like.

One weekend in November, we went to the Museum. I bounded up the stairway to go see the Mummy and the intriguing little instruments, with fancy dials and thick glassed meters. She didn't know what all the fuss was about.

The stuffed reptiles across the floor repulsed and intrigued her at once. The dinosaur display was grand - creatures from a lost world filled up a first floor room. We weren't in a hurry, we lost each other in the bigger rooms, fought over going to see the ornaments display - I asked her to make a choice, ornaments or textiles? "Both" she said, and strode into the Ornaments section.

After an inordinate time at the Ornaments Section, we walked past another room, which jar lined shelves. Brown orbs suspended in murky water. We walked in.

The jars in a row, displayed the evolution of the human fetus. The first one - an elongated sphere no larger than the palm. The shape, "A Prolate Spheroid", that's what they are called. The odd shape and form, did not suggest anything mortal. The murky solution, in which it was suspended, made it look strangely morbid.

The subsequent jars had more evolved fetus - the spheres flattened further turning almost cylindrical. The features began to make an appearance. I turned around to show her the appearance of tiny hands and feet - but she wasn't there. I looked around the room, and then into the verandah outside. She was standing there, with her back to the exhibit rooms, looking at the square patch of sky.

I stopped. Should I say something? Should I be an extra bit chirpy? Should I say I understand?

I walked up behind her, felt like holding her close. A part of me wanted to ask her "Why?" But that was another life. That was their story.

There will always be a part of her I wont know, a part of her I will never touch. Movies in which I won't star.

"Hey, wanna go and have a beer?"

"Yeah", she said.

We turned to leave.

2006-04-28T10:59:00.000+05:30

The Homecoming

The taxi rattled and stopped. The driver mindful the engine might not fire when the lights change, started it up again. It stood, it rattled.

Abeer settled in his seat, drifting in and out of sleep. He moved away from the window, the draft of rain came in gasps like a spray of cool nettles. The streetlights - spheres of distorted illumination hung like ghosts in the falling rain.

The last time, he had spent the whole trip back from the airport making an inventory of all that was new, and trying to recall all that had gone. He remembered some, while others escaped all attempts at recollection.

A new housing complex, where a paper had once stood. He had pointed it out to Deborah, and then the place had been left behind. Now, he didn't try and seek anything out. It was dark and the rain hung like a haze over the road, there was no Deborah to show anything to. No scraps of the past to be glued to a page marked 'now'.

Did Deborah think of the old mill? Or the other things he had shown her on the drive home? Maybe she did, maybe some house or office in downtown Houston, reminded her off their vacation in Calcutta. It was a romantic notion, but he doubted it. His eyes were heavy with sleep again.

He remembered the afternoon they had driven to Galveston, to meet her parents. He owned a pickup and was too drunk to drive. She had parked the pickup in the sun and he had had a terrible headache all afternoon. The glare of the sun on his face, his eyes in a squint...

The taxi rattled, heaved and tumbled through the rain.

As he opened his eyes, to peer through the murky windscreen, he knew that the taxi had left the wide avenues of the By-pass, and was now slithering its way through the narrow lanes of Lake Gardens. Abstruse lanes which suddenly opened into wide roads, when you half expected a dead end.

The taxi drew into the drive way. The luggage was duly heaped at the edge of the stairs, and he stood and looked around, the house seemed pretty much as he had left it. The garden looked de-weeded, and there was a new postbox under the soffit. A cream coloured box with the words 'Chatterjee', painted evenly in black letters. He paid the taxi driver, giving him a tip of thirty odd rupees, his Non Resident status making it almost incumbent upon him to do so.

He stood under the Portico awhile longer. The rain had become a trickle, the driveway was a map of muddy water pools. The sky seemed clear and the night wrapped him in a comforting coolness.

The many vacations here had merged seamlessly into one single memory, a memory of now. The rest of his life...a memory of everywhere else.

The Marigold beds were bare - it was the Monsoons. He paused for a moment longer, a smile passed his lips at the thought of Homecoming and all its romantic allusions. He picked up his bags and crossed the raised step into the house.

2006-04-26T12:28:00.000+05:30

Their Story...

"Actually doing it is very different". Smoke twirled in an upward spiral.

"I was young... I had thought about it, I had known men and all of that. But this was the first time... that romance and flirting had a physical meaning. I was in a room with a man - he was around me. It's a new experience - you are feeling things for the first time".

I listened. Their coming of age story, perhaps?
I knew them both, but now I listened as if I had tuned into the radio. Attentive but not involved.

I looked down from the window, cars glided through the rain, following orderly geometric paths. A two way street - friends going partying, a doctor rushing to a patient.

Everything seemed to be part of a Perpetual Motion machine. The cars barely stopped for more than a few seconds, even when they paused - the passengers - Closed arguments, arrived at conclusions, shared secrets, confessed to the truth or kept their silence.

I turned around. She had stubbed out the cigarette.

"I felt this with him for the first time. He must have felt it with someone else... for the first time. That someone else, with yet another...maybe it was you?" She looked straight at me, almost expecting an answer.

Life is always changing - like a kaleidoscope gone awry. Unpredictable and myriad, yet strangely orderly and ordained.

I thought of the two ancient men on the battlefield. One a reluctant warrior and the other an all knowing charioteer. To me - both teachers.

"Prepare for war... in peace.
Be at peace in pleasure and pain, in gain and in loss.
Be at peace in defeat and victory".

I walked towards the couch where she was sitting, and reached for the pack of smokes. I smiled "No... it wasn't me".

2006-04-26T02:36:00.000+05:30

Of Going Away...

Last year, like now... the Nor'westers had come.
Last year, I nearly drove into a fallen tree.
Last year, I made another journey.

With an eight hour flight, a lot changes...people, mobile phone numbers, the space you call home. Amidst all this change - there is excitement...excitement of travel, of experience, of weather, of feel, of language.

As May arrives again, I wait for flight tickets in a rexene case.

But there is this strange feeling of life not done. What am I leaving behind? What did I build? What did I create by virtue of being me?

If I didn't go, would things be different? Would I stay back to forge strong relationships which would last a lifetime?

What of those people, who live and die in the same house - with the same trees in their backyard, with the same view from the window, with the same set of neighbors? Are they blessed, because they are saved the pangs of dislocation?

In the past six months, I tried to build all of that, which gives us our own individual identity and anchor.

Another free and fanciful departure waits. Going away is a constant, hopefully someday so will the reason to return.

2006-04-25T11:12:00.000+05:30

They were lovers like that...

Ashmit had been waiting at the kerb, where the road running down from her college met the wideness of Park Street. She walked down the footpath, brisker than usual, her eyes searching him out - amongst the trundling buses, speeding cars and half open shops. And then as she was almost onto the kerb, she saw him.

They sat on the stairs of the music store, till it opened for business. They walked around aimlessly for the next few hours, circling the block without actually realizing it. They spoke off the months since they had last met. College, Exams and how she had missed him.

He walked by her side, looked at her as she spoke. She was wearing a turquoise-teal short kurta, not cut-to-fit, in the light confused breeze it flapped against her jeans. There was an unversed elegance about her, a diamond solitaire on a slim chain, rested below her neck. "How beautiful are you?" he asked himself.

The coffee shops opened by eleven, they sat at a table in the corner. The lights were lit, the sky was turning a light gray and there was a sudden nip in the air. The anticipation of rain floated over everything dead or alive.

As she sipped coffee he tentatively reached for her hand, she smiled and laid her fingers on his. They talked about how they had missed each other, and the solitude of living in different cities.

She re-collected how Ashmit had proposed, in the darkness of a Cinema Theatre.
They had gone to see X-Men 2 - he a fan of the comic heroes, she just liked Hugh Jackman. They were late, the movie had already started. By the door - her eyes blurred by the darkness, she searched for the usherer. He stood looking at the screen. At the far end of the hall, she saw the yellow beam of the usherer's torch, and held Ashmits arm "That way". In the darkness she had tugged at his arm, he held her back and whispered "Swastika ... I love you".

They laughed, and squeezed their hands together.

The moment bled into the next, she sipped coffee from a large white mug and looked at their fingers intervolved and clasped, resting on an ochre tablemat. The palms at once warm and clammy, the fingers tingly with touch.

It started raining and they stayed on in the shop for a while longer. She looked through the full size glass doors and saw the city scamper to find shelter from the rain. Pedestrians animatedly hailed speeding taxis. Vendors pressed their backs against walls of buildings, their wares covered with colored tarpaulin squares.

She felt happy and warm, Ashmit was here. But there was emptiness, a sense of loss, of what...? She didn't know.

A feeling of disquiet, even though she felt at peace.

2006-04-25T07:46:00.000+05:30

The Bhagwad Gita at Midnight

In the dark night of my soul...I feel desolation.

In my self pity, I see not the way of righteousness.

I am thy disciple.

I come to thee in supplication : be a light unto me on my path to duty.

2006-04-24T14:05:00.002+05:30

News from the Cubicle...

My floor has got one of those fancy "Bean to Cup" coffee machines. Good. Now I can get good coffee at my desk! For the whole of the past month, used to trudge down to the training floor to get good coffee.

Yes, you guessed it right. This has been the highlight of the day, and maybe the week.

Going on vacation with the folks - end of next week, an event which is happening after ages.

Summer is here, I have this gut feeling that my Geneva assignment will happen sometime third week of May.

Yes, looking forward to spending yet another summer with friendly Europeans.

Have treated my consultancy job so far, as a raffle ticket... the prizes being trips to quaint lands.

Gotta get more focussed now.

2006-04-16T22:39:00.000+05:30

2nd Anniversary!

Yes two long years of the contradiction laden yet celebratory coexistence of the fist and the pacifist.
Not bad!

Reflecting life itself, I have shared my moments of stillness and the joys of travel. Found refuge when work was maddening, found voice when all I wanted was for my side of the story to be heard.

Yeah pretty much everything. I am your regular Have-a-modem-Have-an-Opinion sorts!

Well the thank you bit, just one - rS! Yours was the first blog I ever read, and that was the inspiration. Thank You!

2006-04-03T00:39:00.000+05:30

Waiting for Swastika.

Park Street is lazy on weekday afternoons, a lot like a diva waiting for her big performance on Saturday night. Taking things slow, taking things easy.

The muri-wallah was setting up his square tin box, people milled around a man selling tea. A couple walked down the footpath, college kids...with satchels hanging across their side. Young lovers between days as a student.

It was a month and a half since I met Swastika, pretty par for the course really - in a bong sort of way.

Common family friend kicked everything off - boy in his late 20's, girl in her final year of college. The word "Shombondho" * flew around for a bit, and then that passed. And the buzz word now was "Beeye" *. To be honest I liked her, terminally pretty, lovely eyes. She listened, more than she spoke.

We were introduced at a party. We spoke for awhile. It was "virtual privacy", at least a dozen eyes made a mental inventory of our every move.

On the way back home, my parents popped the question - so what do you feel? At a crossing, waiting for the lights to turn green, I said "Yeah...all right, go ahead".

As I look back now, I cannot believe - the moment in life when destiny asked of me - whether I intended to commit myself to a woman for ever more?

My answer was a staid, "Yeah...all right, go ahead". No cantons of love, no expostulations, no drama, no flurry of emotions just a "Yeah...all right, go ahead".

We went out the following weekend - took her out to meet my buddies. As usual we talked of school and drank scotch. She smiled, made conversation on and off. She wore a flattering black dress, her hair framing her face. The sparkle in her eyes when her lips broke into a smile.

On the way back to drop her home - asked her if she was happy? In retrospect a superfluous question - did I expect an answer to the contrary? More importantly could I handle one?

On the way back home that night, it struck me for the first time - So buddy this is it, you are getting married.

I looked at my watch, she must be coming soon. Three girls walked out of the college gate. She wasn't one of them. The phone rang - people always want a bit of you - on the only afternoon you decide to take off in years.

It was warm for November. I lit a cigarette.

The last time I met her was six months ago in Bangalore. We had dinner, I saw glimpses of her. Bits and pieces of the past, that hadn't gone away. Dinner was over by ten. I dropped her home. She didn't ask me to come upstairs. Neither did I ask if I could. Maybe there wasn't enough left anymore, maybe our egos were still larger than the night. Maybe she had other plans. Maybe we were just sticking to the script.

I let my cigarette drop. I wanted the phone to ring now. I picked it up from the dashboard. Should I call? Should I just text? I let my fingers run along the fancy touch dial.

I looked up, and I saw Swastika. She walked out of the college gate and towards the car parked down the street. I leant across and opened the door on the passenger side.

"Hi", she said as she sat down and reached behind to find the seat belt extension.

"Hi". Waited. "Ready to Go?".

"Yeah", she smiled.

* Shombondho - A proposal for Marriage
* Beeye - Wedding

2006-03-27T10:46:00.000+05:30

Unbeknown

White chics chewing the end of cigarettes,
Lil bong bitches, in ugly faded jeans.

Watching a movie, and thinking you'll change the world?

What do I need?
A blue sky vacation. Can't do those anymore.

Who am I?
40 Business cards in a plastic box.

Can I sing a sad song? Can I turn it around?

2006-03-19T23:46:00.000+05:30

"Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood... the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostituion."

Hmm...Bertrand Russell, interesting.

2006-03-18T19:09:00.000+05:30

An account of the past week.

I am just over 24 hours away from Manic Monday.
My little vacation is over. Back to work Monday Morning :-(

So here goes the list of what took up my days,

1. Slept. Oh slept like a fat cat!

2. Had a two & half hour weekday lunch on Park Street with the G!
Calcutta Decadence people!

3. DVD Watch
Inner & Outer world of Shah Rukh Khan (yes I know you hate me now!).
I am a sucker for Star Power and all of that. On a serious note, like 'Inner World' very honest.

Reindeer Games (Charlize Theron/Ben Affleck)
A dozen loop holes, but quite entertaining.

Assignment, (Ben Kingsley)
Not crazy about it. But not too bad either.

8MM. (Nicolas Cage)
Nice concept. Lost the plot a bit, I thought.

Ronin (De Niro)
Hmm…a classic.

Iqbal (Nasseruddin Shah)
Very very neat! Many Messages, all at different levels.

4. Did the Yoga thing, twice a day as opposed to the customary once.
(Yes me the health freak!)

5. Invested in half a dozen Linen Shirts. Chennai here I come!

6. Promised to play golf every day, played just once. Darn!

7. Watched Cricket on the Telly,
Pak v. SL, Ind v. Eng, WI v. NZ, SA v. Aus
(Yeah this should have topped the list!)

And of course,

Bye bye love. Bye bye happiness
Hello loneliness.

2006-03-14T20:39:00.000+05:30

Given a long enough timeline, your girlfriends ex's will become your best buddies.

2006-03-09T14:33:00.000+05:30

You, Me & Stephen Stills.

"There are three things men can do with women:
Love them, Suffer for them, or turn them into literature"
- Stephen Stills

I have done it all - I never did a thing.
You were selfish - you gave all you had.
I have been strong - but weak in every other way.
You loved - and you lost.
I won - and the lights went out.

2006-03-06T11:35:00.000+05:30

Its getting crowded, lets get out of here...

One can make a career out of looking at the side mirror. The apparition of having moved on and the free will of backing up.

Sitting on a highway sipping a cold drink, she stuck to coffee. Coffee in a decorated khullar, promising to make the experience somehow "more ethnic".

I had never spoken about him, but the side mirror gazing brought it all back. His father was a forest official, who after spending decades in the Madumali forest reserve had been recently transferred to the Indo Bhutan border. We made plans - he would stop over at Calcutta and we would go up to the forest. Shack up at a forest bungalow. Wear round hats and drink whisky till we pass out on the reclining chairs. Listen to "Coming back to life...", in the death of the forest.

I went home soon after, for my twenty day vacation. When I returned, I heard the news from my roommate. He had died on the way to the hospital. The accident happened on the highway; they had to bring him to the hospital in a public bus. His mangled leg, bloody temple, blood squirting through his open mouth as he tried to speak. The bus stood at a traffic light waiting for green.

We placed his body in a coffin, packed it with salt and ice. Sprinkled mint leaves. He lay there oblivious of it all; a life not yet begun, of plans which would remain just that.

I sipped the cold drink which now felt warm and syrupy, cars and bikes had lined up by the shop. Din and bustle. Oily snacks and sweet coffee. Noise and Laughter.

"Its getting crowded, lets get out of here...", she said.

I started the ignition, that's probably what he had said too.

2006-03-01T14:57:00.000+05:30

You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy...

You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody.

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody...

2006-03-01T11:46:00.000+05:30

The Ex & Next Thingie!

Heard this on the news,

"72% of people who reunite with an old flame find happiness and stay together."

That's quite a statistic!

The newscaster went on to say - "there is a certain comfort level in seeing someone who knew you 'way back when'."

Hmm, the ex & next thingie!

2006-02-24T17:26:00.000+05:30

Finding Nemo...

The trains rushed by, at first - murky dark silhouettes disseminating into the night, then gathering themselves to splinter the calm.

The concrete sleeper lying by the track shuddered; the quiver ran up our spines. My mind floated to vibrational energy, "vibrations are quantized energy" I thought to myself.

Nemo was sitting on a rock, doing his own version of Knockin on Heavens Door. One of his many covers, each different...sometimes he crooned his "Oooos", other times he grunted them gruffily.

To piss him off bad, one just had to ask him "Brother you doin the Indigo Girls cover?" And he would hit the ceiling!

I swayed to the tune almost involuntarily. Sid was trying to blow smoke rings, he blew nondescript vanishing cones instead. "He must be pining for her again", I thought to myself. I was going to holler out to him, but another train hurtled past. Men jostled for space on footboards. Dim lights rushed past with rattling velocity.

We soon had a chorus going, Rohit and Adi theatrically swayed behind Nemo.

Nemo didn't lash out this time, he was in his own little world. He strummed his guitar softer and sang sweeter.

I didn't know then, that one day he would be building petrol pumps in little towns. The days I watch the news till the end, the weather girl pans her hand and points to where he might be.

We drank sweet tea at bus stops. Watched the Star Wars trilogy, rewinding our favorite parts. Hiked rides on a truck. Smoked cheap cigarettes and studied all night. We did it all.

And now, an Ipod on a long haul flight. Strange faces in fancy bars, tall drinks with exotic names. Tax returns and EMI's, wifi hotspots and Lebanese food.

Mama take this badge off me
I can't use it any more.
It's getting dark... too dark to see.
Feels like I am knocking on heavens door.

2006-01-31T12:45:00.000+05:30

As long as you follow...

Now I know I can't lose
As long as you follow
I'm gonna win (I'm gonna win)
I'm gonna beg, steal, or borrow
Yes I can live today
If you give me tomorrow
As long as you follow.

Thank You!

2006-01-18T13:46:00.000+05:30

Lost for Words...

So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean?

But they tell me to please go fuck myself...
You know you just can't win.

2006-01-05T16:48:00.000+05:30

One More Stupid White man!

Read this on the Allergy Advice strip of a Tesco Egg Carton.

Allergy Advice : Caution Contains Eggs.

2005-11-29T11:32:00.000+05:30

Monsoon

Sayontoni woke up earlier than usual. The morning suddenly felt oppressive, sweat on her neck and arms settled on the linen. She shook of the sheet, but that wasn’t enough. She unfastened the window, it recoiled slowly, allowing the freshness of the morning to float in. The breeze dispelling the staleness of the night.

The freshness of the morning, the glow of the sun still low in the sky, the ample shadow of the bamboo groove across the garden fused with the smell of the earth fresh with rain.

It was the twenty-seventh and Ashim must have arrived a few hours earlier. A glow seemed to spread from her face into the air around her. She caught the smile on her face and felt silly. Her stretched limbs cocooned in the softness of her bed linen, her toes touched the wrought iron bedpost and immediately she felt tingled by its coolness. The coolness against the warmth of her skin; gingerly she placed the flat of her foot on the wrought iron. The chill on her skin, amidst the dispersing warmth of the room. She thought of Ashim, the last time he was here and the first time she had made love.

The lakes looked pretty when the rains came, the dust and grime of the city washed by the first drops of rains. He had touched her on the shoulder and she had turned to see his face ablaze. The warmth of his breath filled the taxi like a cloud. She turned into his arms feeling warm, scared and fitful. The windows - patterns of rivulets, clear streaks on an obscure slate. He had clutched her close.

She opened her eyes, feeling that restlessness again, not for what was to transpire, but for what had. She buried her face in the uneven softness of the pillow. She didn’t see the rain pelting down on the lakes anymore. The moment from a few months ago had dissolved into now.

Her shuteyes saw flashes, images running in a cinemascope gone awry. The denim of his trousers, trepidation and felicity as she had held him with her half cupped hands. He had gone weak, his head falling back on to the rexene headrest. The rear view mirror, her navy blue t-shirt clumped like a crutch under her arms, Ashim's head on her shoulder and under her chin. The gaze of her eyes in the mirror, at once both the object and the image, linked by time, space and action, but incongruous in every way else.

Her temples ached, she took a deep breath. Her mind was in turmoil, a canvas of random feelings. The exhilaration of a fair ride and the despondency of a long journey.

2005-11-23T13:20:00.000+05:30

The "Comeback" post.

Steffi Graf & Mc Enroe did it, 'The Eagles' & 'The Pixies' did it.

Metaphorically and otherwise. My UK summer over, the warm Calcutta winter is now.

Was I busy? Yes.
Ran out of steam, huh? Yes.
Anything "up"? Yes.
Will I blog again? Maybe.
Will I write again? Yes.

Cheers!

2005-08-19T20:31:00.000+05:30

Read this at a pub, by the sea, at Poole.

"The liver is evil and must be punished..."

2005-07-26T18:14:00.000+05:30

The worst thing that can happen is to be awake at night without sleep. Every moment is spent grappling with the devil.

The mind is such a dangerous thing. It remembers all that you have buried. Piled with earth. Knelt and prayed over.

It mercilessly digs up the past, gnawing at your belief in the future.
Its malicious claws rummage the earth, de-weeding time.

And all you can do is to talk to yourself. To hum your favorite song. To recite a schoolboy rhyme. It doesn't help if you switch on the lights. It doesn't go away if you unclasp the window.

After awhile it degenerates into a decibel melee. Your voice - your little voice in your head. Indignant and scared. Trying to drown out a chorus of a million deep and deceptive voices. Deafening in unison. Frenzied in discord.

Then all that is left is to pray. Pray that the night ends and that sleep takes you away. Unknown to yourself... you pray for death.

2005-07-23T19:37:00.000+05:30

"These are songs about people, who's souls are in danger or are at risk.
Through where they are in the world or what the world is bringing to them.

Thats a human constant.

Whether people are religious, or spiritual or not.
These songs are about that risk, that danger, people feel on a daily basis. "

Bruce Springsteen, about the songs from his new album "Devil+Dust".

2005-07-23T17:31:00.000+05:30

Subjected my self to one of these snap Quizes, in the hope of finding the answer to the Question "Who's the true me?".
Well, dunno.
Here are the results.

The True You

You want your girlfriend or boyfriend to be together with you always, no matter when or where.

With respect to money, you spend as little as possible.

You think good luck doesn't exist - reality is built on practicalities.

The hidden side of your personality tends to be a little selfish. You only do what interests you.

You are tend to think about others' feelings a lot, perhaps because you are so eager to be liked.

When it comes to finding a romantic partner, you don't have any particular type in mind, but you are inclined to look for someone who will say yes when you ask him / her out.

Who's the True You?

2005-07-22T21:40:00.000+05:30

Devils & Dust

Got God on our side.
We're just trying to survive.

But if what you do to survive,
Kills the things you love?

Fear is a powerful thing,
It'll turn your heart black, you can trust.

It'll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust.
It'll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust.

2005-07-21T21:09:00.000+05:30

Crumpled sheets of Heartbreak Hotel...

Tired, broken, drifter.
Teeter, reel and stagger.

Did you take my breath away?
A journey down a hot asphalt highway.
The Crystal gazers didn’t foretell.
Crumpled sheets of Heartbreak Hotel.

2005-07-21T14:13:00.000+05:30

Happiness after Tax.

I have weird sleep patterns on long hauls. Whenever the good flicks are on, I am invariably, deep in slumber.

I couldn't get the weekend in Bangalore out of my head. I felt happy for Megs. Her sparkling kitchen tiles, the rust color cushions and the Zen parked in the garage.

Urban. Professional. Happiness after tax.

A rectangular daari beside the sofa. The nightly movie on Cable. The domestic bliss of laying the table for dinner. The joys of haggling with the dhobi, over the bleached bed cover.

The husband who carried her passport size snap in his wallet, the house, the car and the dog named Boo. Her own little world.

"I don't know how to say this...marriage has made me very happy".

So, why the mindless sex in a car?

Mind Pills.

I had never been to a shrink before. I had seen it in the movies.
A black leather couch. Staccato Monologues. Tears, with the face sunk in your hands.

But as I walked back home, it didn’t seem that bad. The doctor was affable and didn't rush me. At the end of the appointment, he gave me a prescription for pills.

"Mind Pills?" I wondered to myself.

White plastic bottle, with the words "Mind Pills" printed in black. What's the color of the pills, I wondered? The color of the mind?

In most probability it will be boring white or something. And the wise men will drum their knuckles and say "its what inside that’s important".

I went to the chemist next, handed him the prescription. He didn't arch his eyebrow or lower his eye glasses. He just disappeared into the dim interiors of his shop.

I pictured him rummaging through a rack which ran for ever. Pills for pain jostled for space with Pills for the heart. And yes, pills for the mind, beside the row of pills for life.

2005-07-19T19:41:00.000+05:30

A Summer with Penny Lane...

In penny lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean,
It’s a clean machine.

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And tho’ she feels as if she’s in a play
She is anyway.

Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies,
Penny lane.

2005-07-16T20:57:00.000+05:30

You can't start a fire,
You can't start a fire without a spark.
This gun's for hire,
even if we're just Dancing in the Dark.

2005-07-13T16:01:00.000+05:30

Table for three.

I arrived on a Tuesday morning, and called up Megs the next evening. We chatted for a bit, small talk really. I asked if we could do lunch tomorrow, to "catch up"? The husband if he had any employment at all, would be busy on a Thursday afternoon right? I didn’t really fancy meeting the husband.

Megs to my surprise said yes. With the promise of meeting for lunch, we said goodnight. A couple of hours later… a text.
"Hey. Hv smthng importnt tomw aftrnn, can we meet in the evng? Real Sorry…".

I texted back, "Sure, no problem!"

Yeah right! She was scared! If we met one on one, what if I made moves? Me…the serial public snogger. And yeah, "Real Sorry…!" Wish you had said that, the day you suddenly decided to get married.

We met at a Resto-bar curiously called “Linkin Park”. Hear this from me, only a place which peddles expensive lager and bad food, calls itself a Resto Bar. What’s a Resto-Bar anyways? A bed-cum-sofa?

We met at 8, Megs really did look gorgeous. Her hair framed her face, and her eyes were bright and full of life. Was I supposed to say, “You, looking so nice! You look so much in love…”? I kept quiet, saving it for never.

Aditya, the husband was a twat. A guy who nurses one Fosters Pint all evening, has gotta be a twat, come on…? Anyways, even if he taught blind kids Braille, I still wouldn’t be a fan. So let’s just hang it.

He tried patronizing me for a while. I think he knew Megs and me had a 'scene', before they got married. Maybe she "briefed" him in the car, on the way here. Megs made nervous jokes, trying to keep the evening civil. But after awhile it really didn’t matter, because I gave up all pretenses of sobriety and ordered whisky on the rocks.

After dinner they gave me a drop to the hotel. The hotel was on the outskirts and over looked a lake encircled by a pretty promenade. We bid friendly good nights, with the promise of meeting up whenever I was in town again. I stood at the porch, as they walked away taking a detour towards the lake. They had decided to take a stroll. They walked close together like a happy silhouette floating amongst the promenades fairy lamps.

I hit the bed, my head in a confused swirl. I keyed in a text for Megs,
"You were looking so nice. You were looking so much in love…"

Send.

2005-07-11T20:18:00.000+05:30

The Telegraph finds my blog "Wickedly Funny". WICKED!

My little blog and buddy, "The Fist & The Pacifst", was featured by the Telegraph!

An excerpt...

The Telegraph, July 09, 2005

Like Bridal Beer and other bloggers for whom the city is the backdrop, not the main story, Rohan Guha (http://rohanguha.blogspot.com/) is sharing a life, not the history of a city. But when Guha does do a "Bong post", it’s wickedly funny: "The whole hullabaloo about Durga pujo, simply put... is this.... for most Bongs it’s a one-week window to fix your social/love/sex life. The friendly neighborhood pujor pandal, is nothing but an exotic singles bar."

Yes I am thrilled to bits!

2005-07-04T13:44:00.000+05:30

Love songs like small whispers.
Drunk on a Sunday Night. The new week, a life time away.
I laugh to myself, the delusions of a little man.

You are asleep in my little town.
Maybe you think, a thing of the past, might not yet be over.

I thought about you on Suburban trains.
When I missed you, I closed my eyes in the river breeze.

Imagined Road trips, when I squinted behind shades.
Turned around to see if you were standing by the door.

When I had an aching head, I wrote bad verse.
On cold boat trips, I longed to hold your hand.

At parties, too bored to be happy, too drunk to be sad.
I wanted you by my side, I wanted to turn heads.

Polished guitars in show windows, I wish I had a song.
Flower shops under stripped tarpaulin.

Close to midnight, writing to you on white sheets. I finally realize.
All I ever wanted was a beautiful love story.

2005-06-30T18:41:00.000+05:30

"You call someplace paradise...
Kiss it goodbye ."

2005-06-27T13:44:00.000+05:30

I am in love with you stranger...

The bleary eyed mornings of dream filled nights.
My closed eyes and you in retina color.
In the green fields, in the blue rain.

In the whirl of the night,
Laughing loudly, smiling softly.
On your lips. In your kohl lined eyes.
I think…
I think…I am in love with you stranger.

Waiting for a beep on the cell phone all day.
Running home to write shards of life in an email.
I think…I am in love with you stranger.

Blue China plates and lovers kissing on a bench,
Whiff of perfume, headlamps on a dark winding road.
An old song on the radio, jogging into a new day.
I think…I am in love with you stranger.

Colored curtains on suburban windows,
Unlocking the front door at day’s death.
Walking gingerly on wooden footboards,
Car spotting on lonely intersections.
I think…I am in love with you stranger.

Driving past beautiful cottages, with quaint names
Promising to knock on the doors, with you by my side.
I am in love with you stranger.

2005-06-25T00:46:00.000+05:30

Me been tagged...!

I have the distinction of having been 'tagged' by Ani. Yes there are some Questions which need answering, and I will do so posthaste.

Number of Books I own...
Gees, never really counted.
My mom studied literature so she had tons, then every birthday and anniversary, dad gave mom books. And they have all now been handed over to me. Every year since class three, I was taken by the folks to the book fair, till I think class seven, after which I went solo.
Generally, buy a book every few months.
So ballpark, it would be a thousand plus books maybe?

Last Book I Bought...

The Plague, Albert Camus.
Hmm, well to use a cliché it’s a multi threaded experience. It’s the personal story of men and woman intertwined with the story of Oran, the town they inhabit. Its subtle, strong, passionate, weak, it’s like life itself.

Last Book I Read...

‘The Waiting’, Ha Jin.
It’s about an affair between a middle aged doctor (well married with a child) and a young nurse, set against the backdrop of Red china. Communism and above all Destiny dictates their rites of passage. It also highlights the fact - that when we do find love, it’s often at a significant cost. Tragic, hopeful and touching.

Five Books that mean a lot to me...

Love in the Times of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I for one feel that Florentino Ariza deserved way better than he got, and yes the
Smell of bitter almonds is almost a mental map. Finished the book in Koln, sitting on the banks of the Rhine. Watching steam ships trundle across.
'And how long do you think we can keep up this coming and going?'
Florentino Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty- three years, seven months and eleven days and nights.
'Forever', he said.

Great Expectations
Was my class XII text, loved it! I have this pet theory, that Estella is in fact all that we know is wrong to desire, but surprisingly can’t help ourselves.

Of Human Bondage
Yeah, we are bound to each other in strange and inexplicable ways.

And bringing up the rear are Catcher in the Rye and English August. Catcher in the Rye cause it is cult book, and there is tons of dope I dug up about this book. English August, well it’s the first book by an Indian author in English, which is about us, our generation. Yeah I know we are getting old.

2005-06-24T15:55:00.000+05:30

Last evening...

"You are in my system Roh, sometimes you are me. Like a mark that fades and then darkens, and fades and darkens..."

2005-06-15T14:23:00.000+05:30

"It is better to feel bad, than feel nothing...".

2005-06-13T13:54:00.000+05:30

My new house, the neighbor’s cat and wishing you were here…

Saturday I moved into my house, my own house.
No.2 Drum Avenue, Glastonbury.

My own house … with tenancy papers. The electricity, gas and water connections in my name. Yeah, I am feeling pretty self important at the moment!

Did shopping to set my place up. It’s a furnished house, so really don’t need to/have to do much. But I bought cream bed sheets, a gray quilt and black towels. Yeah, black Turkish towels… neat and chic.

I made friends with the neighbor’s cat. It’s got a coat of uneven black and white, and it just waddled over the gravel strip which separates the neighbor’s front yard from mine. It isn’t a fat cat, what’s the word…yeah…its "tubby", you know what I mean?

I cooked my first meal in the house, mixed vegetables, rice and an omelet.

And now, after washing the dishes, latching the front door and flicking off the lights. I am in my room, listening to "Wish you were here". Watching the candle burn on the ledge, the flame flicker and the crazy shadow dance...

Yeah I am thinking of you, the girl who makes me feel like a schoolboy. A schoolboy in love for all heaven and hell. All the dreams and none of the fears.

How I Wish you were here…

2005-06-09T13:37:00.000+05:30

About Him...

Today morning seems another life.

Woke up in a hotel whose name I didn’t know. The two hour jeep ride into Bangalore, we didn’t exchange a word. No, there was one line. Sam pointing to the mineral water had said "Give me the bottle".

The plane was now hovering over Calcutta. She must be home from work. It must have been odd for her to be back to work after the weekend? As it will be for me, tomorrow.

Last night, we listened to music and got drunk. I felt glad, I wasn’t alone. The play list was hers, Joshua Tree and other stuff I didn’t even recognize. Very Sam. Eclectic and pretentious at times…but yet nice. Very Sam. I think I miss her.

We made love last night. Sam reached out to hold my hand, she didn’t say a word. She didn’t smoke cigarettes and didn’t ask me questions. Not like Sam. In the morning, there was no cloud of regret, no sense of an ending, just the underlying discomfort of a manic Monday and the realization that the spoken word was limited in expression.

It was November, the air was cool. But on the drive home from the airport it felt nice to have the window rolled down. The last few years were spent on the cusp of change. The ever present feeling that places, people and life are slowly metamorphosing into something. But many of those wheels have now done their revolutions. Life has changed.

U’s husband Indro has a website, its tacky with neon banners and unaligned text. But yet, it’s nice - in a fuzzy way. Over the last few years I have kept in touch with U, through Indro’s website. Pictures of them at a b-school party - clinking glasses and her lovely smile. A close up, a ring on her finger. Their wedding pics. She in a saree by the wall unit. Their first house. Their new car. Her cubicle in the bank. Yeah I have kept in touch with her. Its eight years since we last met.

They like two goldfish in a fishbowl. And I like an eye in the sky.

I bumped into Megs at a conference a couple of years back. She looked more wonderful, than when we dated. I invited her husband and her for a drink that evening. I got pretty drunk and got into a fracas with the waiter. The husband, an accountant didn’t drink. I like to believe that she might have thought about me, when she lay in her bed that night. Or maybe after screwing like rabbits, the couple bitched about me.

Ori and Mallika are expecting their first child early next year. Doktor is lecturing dumb first world kids at the University of – Rapid Springs or Clear Water or something. I have lost touch with Rahul, but half an hour on Yahoo or MSN, and I am sure I can scrounge a contact number.

And that leaves me, a bumpy Indian road, a German car and my own wedding to attend, about this time, this day next month.

2005-06-06T00:15:00.000+05:30

Betty Davis Eyes.

2005-05-23T22:14:00.000+05:30

Little Orange Post-its from today…

Three of my colleagues here, sharing the same office space as me. Are soon gonna be dads!

The ETA for all the kids (sets of kids maybe) is next week. Hmm...curious but true.
All of these to-be-dads have a spring in their step, or maybe I am just imagining things!

In totally unrelated events, my current song on winamp (and it's been current for the last few days now) is 'Sex is not the Enemy' by Garbage.

Check out these lines,

No evolution
Sometimes it depresses me
The same old same
Oh we keep repeating history!
The institution curses curiosity
It's our conviction
Sex is not the enemy

I won't feel guilty
No matter what they're telling me
I won't feel dirty and buy into their misery
I won't be shamed 'cause I believe that love is free
It fuels the heart and sex is not my enemy...!

2005-05-22T17:28:00.000+05:30

Like a Bridge over troubled waters...

Sail on silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come... to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.

See how they shine.
If you need a friend...
I’m sailing... right behind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

For you, I lay me down.
Cheers,
Rohan.

2005-05-21T22:08:00.000+05:30

Not the Bong you use to Smoke up... Part Deux.

I am breaking whole new ground with my posts. To start with, this is a follow to the one before.

To cut straight through the rhetoric and to the chase. Bongs are very passionate about sport, no two ways about that. For those of us who have actually watched a big ODI or a derby clash at Salt Lake stadium, the buzz around the stadium and in the city in general is awesome. Everybody is pumped.

When India sniffs an ODI victory at the Eden, people in the stand burn torches and with the Ganges in the background, it looks like fireflies swarming the night. But let's do a reality check here, cricket, we have a fairly decent national team. Hockey, the great Indian revival is yet to arrive, but to be fair, we are still competitive. But football, being passionate is one thing, but where is the semblance of quality? You just need to see the quality of one of our national league fixtures, an East Bengal v. Mohan Bagan for example. The skill levels are abysmal!

So bottom-line, we bongs need to get real. Our supremacy over the game is Ancient History 101. Following world soccer and playing an additive role to the mass hysteria is fine, but before we beat our chests in soccer glory/pride/knowhow, lets please first look at our bare cupboards.

In agreement with Reshma's comment, most of us look back at the Pujo's with a great degree of fondness. Happy memories, of adoring aunts and indulging uncles. The sounds of the dhaak coalescing with peals of laughter.

Ok, reality check time. Last year pujo, was my first in the past five years. What happened to my wonderful Triangular Park Pujo? The Pujo is now characterized by PYT dressed in back less choli's offering a 'designer onjoli'. Guys in a rocky-esque/vicky-esque black SUV's driving up and down the road with blaring 'house music', if you didn't know better you would think you were in West Delhi!

Coming to the language bit, yeah we aren't the only ones. It just takes two bongs to start off a fantasy trip about fresh Hilsa fish in bangla. Having said that, two mallu's could kill you with their prolonged chatter about Alleppy (presumably), and the only word one is able to discern is 'Appam'. Punjabi's well yeah, every thing from a pin to a piano, is pre-fixed with the b****d word. It is funny you know, this typical punju talk reminds me of object oriented programming (yeah it's a weird mental map!). In OOPS we have objects and classes. An object being an instance of a class. With the Punjabi speak, everything is an instance of the class b****d. Everything - cars, exams, the internet, magazines, beer...the works. I mean a car cant even move on its own, unless you fill it with gas...how could it "do its sister", or anybody's relative for that matter... including yours.

2005-05-19T14:34:00.000+05:30

Not the Bong you use to smoke up ...

It's 11:30 at night, and surprisingly I am Sleepless in Somerset.

I read Anusha's Blog today, which is pretty neat by the way. It made me realize something significant, for all my Bong/Calcutta chauvinism, I have never written a post about either!

Well, here goes a list. Some truths I would like to reiterate and some myths I would like to destroy.

1. I think South Calcutta people (especially the guys) are far neater than the one's from the north.

2. The bong obsession about soccer is way over the top. A whole generation of bong men sits up the whole night under their mosquito nets, to watch obscure matches between Fulham and Norwich City! We bongs suck at soccer now. Its almost over compensation, like why some guys buy big Hummers... you know what I mean.

3. While bong women can be awesomely beautiful in their own way. But the misplaced notion the most of them have, that being 'naaka', would somehow make them more alluring to the average bong guy… simply put, is disgusting. By the way, the closest legit English translation of 'naaka' is mawkish.

4. Why does every Bong have to be a 'dada' or a 'didi'? Why cant we just be colleagues, buddies, work mates...whatever! Even strangers!

5. Bangla bands suck! The guitar riffs are take offs. The lyrics are decadent in the guise of being progressive. And what the jack are 'jeebon mukhi' songs? Every song in world is about some aspect of life or other. So how in the good lords name are 'jeebon mukhi gaan', even a wee bit path breaking?

6. The whole hullabaloo about Durga Pujo, simply put... is this... for most bongs it's a one-week window to fix your social/love/sex life. The friendly neighborhood pujor pandal, is nothing but an exotic singles bar.

7. The bong fixation, with fish in particular and food in general! God! Either its lunch, dinner, the fish market, some recipe. Very uncharitably I must add, this whole sub conscious obsession about food, must trace back to the Bengal famine or something!

In conclusion, there are tonnes of things about us bongs that I just can't stand. But having said that, there are tonnes of stuff, I just adore!

In spite of my love hate thing with fellow bongs. I am awfully clan proud!

2005-05-18T12:36:00.000+05:30

Suddenly Stonehenge...

Street, Somerset is two hours down the M5 from Heathrow.
As soon as we hit the countryside, the Rolling Meadows and fields stretched on forever. Having lived in the plains, the landscape flanking major highways and rail tracks is usually flat lands, extending as far as the eyes go.

But this was different, almost as if an artist had run his brush in an undulating continuum. The lush green fields dotted with grazing cattle, interspaced with bright yellow farming tracts of rapeseed and mustard. Nature's eclectic palette.

Most of the way, I floated in and out of sleep. Whenever I woke up, I took in an eyeful of the rolling countryside and then promptly slipped back into slumber.

One of those times, I opened my eyes, to see that we were driving up a gradual incline. For as far as the eyes could see, were fields of green and yellow. It almost felt like cruising in a helicopter, with man's untouched earth stretching on till the end of the world. The car steadily mounted the incline, and the landscape seemed to open out even further. The road soon forked into two divergent paths, and at the vast center of the fork, one could discern large stones arranged in a semi circle.
It was Stonehenge!

It felt surreal, vast meadows and fields and unexpectedly at the heart of all this, the stones of Stonehenge. If it weren't so real, if it didn't stretch across the windscreen, I would say I was being fanciful.

Suddenly Stonehenge.

2005-04-25T14:06:00.000+05:30

One wants to own me, one wants to stone me, one say's she is a friend of mine...

"After Aditya...I really shut myself off.
I'll be honest...I didn’t feel for you the way…you felt for me. I always knew you were deeper into it...than I was."

This wasn't the first time she had told him this. But it seemed 'final' now. Almost like signing off a long rambling letter.

"Can I ask you something...will you be honest with me?"

"Yeah", she said. He wished they could have this discussion face-to-face and not on a crackling Korean cell phone.

"Would you have married me...?"

"See, I wouldn’t say no. Just that I didn’t feel it..."

A woman's ability to be practical, he thought to himself, always surpassed his own.

Strangely enough, the only song that played all evening in his ears was Billy Joel’s 'River of Dreams'. Why 'River of Dreams'? It doesn't even fit, goddammit! This is one of life’s moments...right? And the background score is all so tangential, same guy...different song. 'You are always a woman to me', would have fit in...the girl walks away and the guy serenades here for the last time.

He lit a cigarette.

-------- x --------

It was the last day of the Sale. The trousers going at 30% discount were all piled in a heap. One had to rummage to find the right color, the right size. This would work very well for shop-aholic women, rummaging through stuff to lay their hands on the real bargain, "adds to the kick", he thought to himself. But it didn't quite work for him.

That was when the college chic, walked up to him. She wore a white shirt with vertical stripes and a wonderfully well-fitted pair of jeans.

"Excuse me, you are Abeer Sen, right?" she said with an embarrassed half giggle.

"Yeah".

"Oh ... I have read both your books. I think you are amazing..."

One-to-one situations, when he was accosted at shopping malls and theatres, were kinda odd.

Firstly it was embarrassing, cause he didn't ever quite know, what would be the appropriate way to respond. Secondly, ideally he would have liked to have a chat...ask women for example, whether they identified with Sayantoni? What were their favorite parts of the book? Did the love making sequences emote or titillate? But again he was too self-conscious to ask, even worse what if the girl thought he was flirting?

-------- x --------

The afternoon seemed to go on forever, the curtains were drawn and the fragrance of the scented candles hung like a warm cloud over the room.

Toni had her eyes closed, but he knew she was listening to the music.

"Tell me, what's it like…what do feel when you dress up for a date? Like when we are going out, you get dressed...what is it that you are thinking, feeling...do you think of me. Anything I mean...?"

She smiled, with her eyebrows arched. He knew that smile, he grinned "Toni tell me... its important...".

2005-04-20T01:50:00.000+05:30

Cinderella

A sudden urge to swing the door open and run. Her broken soul desired the fantasy of flight.

She peeked out of the door, and almost immediately the black hound was up on its fours. Its growl reverberated through the dungeons, like a thousand banshees invading the solitude of the night. Intense dark menacing eyes, fixed the on looker to the spot, chilling the spine and numbing the senses. Its sinful canine mouth waited to decimate life into bloody shards.

Quickly she retreated back into her cell and bolted the door, bracing herself for the inevitable.

Her stepmother had confined her to the dungeons, with the hound as the sentry. The hound's growl would be an indication that Cinderella had set foot outside the confines of her cell. The stepmother, her face twisted in a forever scowl would then rush down the stairs like a bat out of hell and beat Cinderella with a stick.

Cinderella's soul wrenching howls of pain as the stick broke her skin and the stepmother's torrent of curses in a fiendish voice, created the most eerie spectacle one could imagine. It was almost like an opera of death in the devils own chamber.

Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters, lead a life of grandeur. There would be balls in spring and tea parties in summer. From her dark cold cell Cinderella heard the sound of dancing feet, delicate symphonies on the piano and the joyous clink of raised wine glasses. She longed for a life of joy and laughter, longed for brocaded evening gowns, of diamond chokers, of a sumptuous meal and a night of peace.

Her cell had a tiny window, which opened out into the fields beyond the manor. In the fields under a tree sat a bedraggled beggar in a coat of motley rags. She knew that the beggar was aware of her confinement. But he never made any attempts to rescue her, how could he? There was a detachment of guards outside and the hound by the door.

Oh! How she hoped for a handsome prince! One who would ride a horse and brandish a sword, one who would gallantly rescue her from misery and confinement. But all she had was this dirty beggar, with a scraggy face and a shuffling walk!

But then one day the prince came, he fought the guards outside and ran his sword through the hound's heart. He entered her cell and scooped her up in his arms. She looked into his deep blue eyes, his handsome face burned like a match. “Oh! You have come...I have been waiting for you from the beginning of the world”, she said.

Once they were outside, the prince mounted her on the horse, all set to gallop away to his palace. Escaping her million years of imprisonment and stepping into a paradise of forever love.

"Stop!" cried a crazy voice. Startled she turned around to see it was the beggar.

"Don't go he, you will never be able to come back".

"But I don't want to comeback. He is a prince! He is taking me away to Paradise..."

"But you don't know him..." said the beggar, "You must return before time stands still, and the dying moment is reborn... I will be waiting..."

She laughed, "You are crazy!"

The palace was even more beautiful than she had imagined. The prince had already readied an exquisite trousseau for her, flowing gowns of purple satin, chokers of a hundred diamonds and dainty slippers of cut glass. There was a feast laid out for her, the prince's musicians played lilting tunes to welcome her.

Later that evening, in her new gown and jewelry, she danced with the Prince. The prince held her close to his chest and they danced passionately. They danced in each other's arms for hours, till finally she was exhausted. As the clocks approached midnight, he picked her up in his arms and took her to his bedroom chambers. In the center of the room stood a large bed made of ornate gold.

Exhausted as she was, she fell to the feathered bed. The prince lay down beside her and breathed into her face, "Finally you are mine..."

With the clocks nearing midnight, her eyes slowly shut out the world around her sliding into slumber.

A jolt woke her up and she screamed. A man with blood stained canines held her throat with a vice like grip. It was the prince! His blue eyes had turned beady. His face had turned ugly and torturous. The prince tore her dress like a mad man, and laughed a cruel laugh. At that moment, the clocks struck midnight...

Time stands still, flee before the dying moment is reborn... I will be waiting...
Flee...Flee before the next moment breathes... I will be waiting...

The clocks shrieked, and she disentangled herself for the prince's grip. Naked in her cut-glass slippers she ran out of the bedroom chambers, she had to flee...

There were two doors in front of her, she tried opening them, but they were locked. She turned around and there were three doors, then four, then five, six...

A mad woman ran round and round paradise...and the clocks shrieked...

Inspired by an Urdu short story by Anwar Sajjad.

2005-04-14T16:11:00.000+05:30

The Oracular 'S'

The smoke rose like spirals, abandoning their cryptic definition and withering away into the night. This wasn't the first time I had seen 'S' smoke. I had been surprised the first time though, but had successfully feigned indifference. Not that I had 'issues' with either men or woman smoking, but 'S' didn't look the 'smoking type'...you know what I mean? But, frankly she contradicted every 'type' one would assume she is.

Yeah 'S' is a shrink. And affection aside, she is a real good one.

"How does it work? I mean what's it like...is it like being a clairvoyant with a degree?"

"No", she said with that child like chortle-laugh.

"Its like anything else... like research, like science...you identify a pattern... and your works done".

The little shrug of the shoulder. A 'shrink' in a little black strapless number, who I could talk to in 'Bong'. It felt like the phase in super-hero comic books, when the guy next door first begins to discover his powers.

"But I mean you aren't looking to break the guy down to a formula, you aren't exactly looking for e=mc²? You are looking at broad categories, right? What if you are prejudiced? What if you are trigger-happy and plonk him in one of your 'favorite little categories'? Basically what I am hitting at is... how can you be objective all the time?"

Like always 'S' had been listening intently. I always had questions for her. I have always been intrigued about the way shrinks and moviemakers work, at one point I was curious about authors and poets too, but since I now write myself...the profession has lost quite a bit of its inscrutability.

"That's because I am not being emotional, sweetheart...I am not listening to my best friend admitting he is 'gay'. They are patients, I have to listen to their problems and help them...I don't have to feel it in the way I feel about the rest of the world. I have to feel professionally...its simple."

I held her soft and dainty hands. She put down her wine goblet.

What does it mean when someone kisses 'open-eyed'? I got to ask her this one too.
Maybe it means nothing... maybe one of them is keeping their eyes on the road ...

2005-04-03T01:30:00.000+05:30

Of Sudden Memories, in sudden places...

A Friday evening in February and it rained. This was the first, no second time, she cuddled up beside me. Yeah I remember these things, the walks by the river and what she had worn each of those times. See, maybe that's where I screw things up - I remember the details but don't see the bigger picture. Capture the moment and become oblivious of the landscape.

Driving was difficult, my air-conditioner wasn't working too well and the windscreen was getting all frosted. Our friends had been dropped off. She had planned it nicely, so that it wouldn't seem obvious...that we were fishing for our space.

The road was closed. The first time we kissed, it had been raining. The air was cool and a chill was stealthily crawling over the night. She was leaving later that evening. It was Ironic.

I though, was stuck in an abstruse memory. The memory of a night in Berlin, of walking the streets and taking photographs of cars at intersections. Setting the exposure just right, so that the camera captures the trail of head lamps. Red and yellow hued ribbons streaking the night. Gazing at the shiny new buildings on Alexander Platz, sitting on cold stone steps and watching a midnight theatre. Catching every third dialogue and laughing way after the punch line.

That night, strangely makes me feel peaceful and powerful. The re-affirmation of being a tiny spec in this forever universe. The prudence to ignore the irate boss. The patience of enduring a never ending traffic snarl on your way home.

When I was with her I felt all that. Now I am driving home, the cacophony of horns, the haze of falling rain. Looking at the blurbs of headlamps and the memories of when red and yellow hued ribbons streaked the night.

2005-03-18T17:09:00.000+05:30

From a novella in progress...

Sayontoni woke up earlier than usual; the morning suddenly seemed oppressive, sweat on her neck and arms settled on the linen. She shook of the sheet that had covered her at night, but that wasn’t enough; she extended her hand to the ledge and unfastened the window. It recoiled slowly allowing the freshness of the morning to float in. The breeze entered, dispelling the staleness of the night. The freshness of the morning, the glow of the sun still low in the sky, the ample shadow of the bamboo groove across the garden fused with the smell of the earth fresh with rain. It was the twenty-seventh and Ashim must have arrived a few hours earlier. A glow seemed to spread from her face into the air around her. She caught the smile on her face and felt silly about it. Her stretched limbs cocooned in the softness of her bed linen, her toes touched the wrought iron bedpost and immediately she felt tingled by its coolness. She liked the coolness against the warmth of her skin; gingerly she placed the flat of her foot on the wrought iron. The chill on her skin, amidst the dispersing warmth of the room, made her think of Ashim, the last time he was here and the first time she had made love.

The anticipation of their meeting a few hours from now, made her queasy, filling her with a sense of excitement. Excitement - not because he was here now, but because he would stay for a while. She closed her eyes.

The lakes looked pretty when the rains first came, the dust and grime of the city washed in the wake of the first drops of rains. He had touched her on the shoulder and she had turned to see his face ablaze. The warmth of his breath filled the taxi like a cloud. She turned into his arms feeling warm, scared and fitful. The windows - patterns of rivulets formed by the falling rain, clear streaks on an obscure slate. He had clutched her, close to him.

She opened her eyes, feeling that restlessness again, not for what was to transpire, but for what had. She buried her face in the uneven softness of the pillow, and closed her eyes again; she didn’t see the rain pelting down on the lakes anymore. The moment from a few months ago had dissolved into now. And now, with her shuteyes the mind saw flashes, images running in a cinemascope gone awry. The denim of his trousers, the feeling of trepidation and felicity when she had held him with her half cupped hands and how he had gone weak with his head falling back on to the Rexene headrest. The rear view mirror, her navy blue t-shirt clumped like a crutch under her arms, Ashim’s head on her shoulder and under her chin. The gaze of her eyes in the mirror, at once both the object and the image, linked by time, space and action, but incongruous in every way else. Her eyes suddenly opened, feeling the exhilaration of a fair ride and the despondency of a long journey. Her temples ached, she took a deep breath to calm herself, but her mind was in turmoil, a canvas of random images.

2005-03-17T18:45:00.000+05:30

Time to hesitate is through,
No time to wallow in the mire.
Try now we can only lose
And our love becomes a funeral pyre.

I took this snap in a dark hotel room, on a Saturday night. A burning match stick marking time in an ashtray.

One of those evenings when I was giving sermons to my head...

2005-03-17T12:39:00.000+05:30

Romeo and Juliet...

A love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade,
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made.
Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade,
Says something like, “you and me babe how about it?”

Juliet says, hey it's Romeo; you nearly gave me a heart attack.
He's underneath the window, she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back.
You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?

Juliet the dice was loaded from the start,
And I bet that you exploded into my heart.
And I forget I forget the movie song,
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong Juliet?

Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame.
Both dirty both mean, yes and the dream was just the same.
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

When you can fall for chains of silver.
You can fall for chains of gold.
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold.
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin yeah
Now you just say oh Romeo yeah you know I used to have a scene with him.

Juliet when we made love you used to cry,
You said I love you like the stars, above I'll love you till I die.
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong… Juliet?

I can't do the talk, like the talk on the TV,
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be.
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you
I can't do anything, except be in love with you.

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be.
All I do is keep the beat and bad company.
Now all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme,
Juliet I'd do the stars with you… any time

Juliet when we made love you used to cry,
You said I love you like the stars, above I'll love you till I die.
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong… Juliet?

A love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade,
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made.
Finds a streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like, “you and me babe how about it?”

2005-02-22T09:43:00.000+05:30

IBM's Greatest Invention is the IBM'er

David Bradley is retiring on Friday after 29 years of service at IBM.

The man did a lot many things, but he will be most remembered for inventing "CTRL+ALT+DEL", also referred to as the three-finger salute.

Yes, he is the man who wrote the small segment of code, which for the last quarter of a century has been forcing obstinate computers to restart when they no longer follow other commands.

This is what he had to say about his relationship with Bill Gates,

"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous by applying my formula when ever any Microsoft's Windows operating system made by him CRASHES. Thus I win when ever he looses".

2005-02-14T12:42:00.000+05:30

One Step Up...

From the 24th of this month I am taking over the Toyota Project.
Yeah, I am IBM’s youngest Team/Project Lead.

The walk from Old Tiruvalam Road, has been pretty good so far…

I don’t know why I am being such a conceited trumpet blower.
Dunno …Really.

I didn’t write this, cause I wan’t it “read”, just wanted to put it down somewhere.

2005-02-02T13:26:00.000+05:30

The Starfish Sonata OPEN till your eyes close...

Siesta in the mellow afternoon.
The citrine sun draining into city lights.

A well-known street, an unknown city.
The Moon River under a clear night sky.

The movies that were never made.
A drifter coming back home, looking around the bend.

A Street band playing their songs on the Chapel stairs.
Applause in the darkness.

Memories of the land of golden sands.
Colored kites in the summer wind.

Silent squares and shuttered shops.
Strangers in your night.

Friendly voices in unknown languages,
The girl from Ipanema, living next door.

The happy cobbled street, and the board which read,
“The Starfish Sonata OPEN till your eyes close.”

2005-01-01T22:01:00.000+05:30

A journey in time is not the journey of life

Now is where you are,
The fresh steam from a coffee mug,
Interlocked fingers, a smile and a promise,
Thoughts, Contemplation and Conjecture,
Life - a street facing show-window.

A journey in time is not the journey of life,
A curio from a quaint shop,
The whispers in your mind,
A song sung in a feeble voice.

Now is where you are,
The table across a revolving door,
Once a lover, once a mourner,
Once a friend, once a wayfarer.

A journey in time is not the journey of life,
Trudging through the falling rain,
Puddles of water and contorted reflections,
Life - a warm corner of a coffee shop.

2004-12-31T14:57:00.000+05:30

Paradise Pier

Serendipity that’s how I found ‘Paradise Pier’.

The Second Hooghly Bridge runs in from the city and takes a sharp left over Princep Ghat, and then rises into suspension over the river. There is an unfinished ramp adjacent to the bridge, it was the proposed site, but technical reasons eventually pushed the site two hundred meters away. So all that’s left now, is a ramp of a bridge that never was, a pier extending into the river. It’s a wonderful place to be, it’s a mind space.

The bridge runs along its edge into the horizon, the pillions of colored light securing a gently curved suspension. The design born in a quaint quarter of Paris, under the circumspect gaze of a French engineer. Now a reality for another great city, my city Calcutta.

Paradise Pier takes one to the edge of the city, without actually taking one away.

The wide river rolls on silently. The infamous caliginous ‘Calcutta Smog’ hangs over the horizon. Blurbs of light from the opposite bank, diffuses into the night. River vessels float on in torpid motion.

The place means a lot to many different people, each describes it with their own private adjectives. But for me it’s Paradise Pier, a place where I have spent a few evenings with friends, and many nights alone in sleepless dreams.

It’s me on Paradise Pier.

The only survivor of the nightlife,
The moonlight shimmering on the river,
Songs with no videos, running in my head,
Life playing out God’s holy Pantomime.

Its’s me with the Night to my self,
It’s me on Paradise Pier.

It’s you with my mind space all to yourself,
It’s me on Paradise Pier.

2004-12-29T13:28:00.000+05:30

Realize this…

Yes I am getting old. It’s a fact now…no longer a fancy.

A friend from college came down for the weekend, he is currently studying business in Indiana, and it’s been over two years since we last met up.

Sample this,
We went to catch a flick and then stuck on at the Mall to do shopping, he wanted to buy shades. He checked out the entire store…these are good for driving, these look like imitation Oakley’s. I on the other hand was looking for a new laptop bag, can I fit my extra battery in this one, and does it have an extra pouch for my organizer?

The sport he has picked up in the last few years is Racquet Ball, a “with it” form of Squash I am informed. My only active sporting pursuit now is, a sedate game of Golf.

We were watching DVD’s one night. We used to watch tons of movies when we were in college, so we were trying to re-live the “movie-thon” of our college days. A quarter of an hour through Van Helsing, I dozed off…he saw the entire flick and then woke me up.

We went out drinking, went to the “Light Horse Bar” at my club. Plush leather interiors, two hundred year old paintings, waiters in cummerbunds and turbans. After that he wanted to hit a discotheque, it was past 11 and we were pretty sloshed already. I gawked at the idea, “Boss I have to go to office early tomorrow”.

So well its true, I am getting old.

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

2004-12-24T13:34:00.000+05:30

The Twelfth day of Christmas...and the Christmas Price Index.

"On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings,
Four calling birds, Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree!"

The Christmas Price Index

A partridge in a pear tree 93 $
Two turtle doves 40 $
Three French hens 45 $
Four calling birds 396 $
Five golden rings 255 $
Six geese a-laying 210 $
Seven swans a-swimming 3500 $
Eight maids a-milking 41.2 $
Nine ladies dancing 4400.13 $
Ten lords a-leaping 4039.08 $
Eleven pipers piping 2053.20 $
Twelve drummers drumming 2224.30 $

The Christmas Price Index 17296.91 $

(From the CNBC Kudlow and Cramer Show)

Expensive, huh?

Merry Christmas ! :)

2004-12-22T16:33:00.000+05:30

The King and his Swades

I have always been a big big King Khan fan!
I have had pitched battles with many a non-believer, and trust me there have been many.

I shall admit that he is no way as talented as an Aamir Khan or an Ajay Devgan.

The King Khan though, has Passion.

Passion is not at tangible scrap of reality; one can point a finger at and say, “See this is Passion”. It’s an intangible feeling, an experience almost. Some people have it, others don’t. Some people see and perceive it in others, others don’t know what its all about.

The thing with talent is that it is an already achieved “state”. In that sense it is placid, it is an exposition of an already attained position. Unlike Passion it doesn’t reek of strife and achievement, it isn’t vibrant. It’s the difference between a journey of belief and a pulpit of self-ability.

It’s the difference between a Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed.

Rahul’s world with million-dollar mansions, sports cars and epic love legends, we all know that its surreal, a fantasy world right? No actor with all his emotive talent and ability can make that world seem real. No deal of talent can make, Xavier’s college of ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hain’, seem like a real place.

This is where Passion makes a difference.

It doesn’t attempt to make real, it attempts to make you believe. Talent can at most make an Atheist an Agnostic but passion can make you a Believer.

Reading out a love sonnet from an empty diary (Kal Ho Na Ho)…that can never seem “real or realistic”, but passion can convince you that one can really love like that…that you can indeed find emotion in emptiness, meaning in solitude and love in apathy.

Swades has very relevant spirit and message. Yes technically it’s a step backwards. The editing is poor, certain scenes are quite pointless, and the movie’s structure is at times meandering, it lacks the tautness of ‘Lagaan’.

Comparisons with ‘Lagaan’ is inevitable. But such a comparison would be a bit like apples and pears.

Lagaan is Patriotic. Swades is Nationalistic.
Lagaan is representative of an earthy grass root movement. Swades is about an individual’s journey to his soul.
Lagaan is the robust euphoria of victory; Swades is the vulnerability of taking a step forward.

2004-12-17T18:16:00.000+05:30

Ladies and Gentleman... A Flexisexual!

flexisexual n.
Straight man who flirts with gay men to secure attention, a job, or a bigger tip.

2004-12-17T17:41:00.000+05:30

Not a Million Answers...only a few forever Questions.

What goes on behind your bright diamond eyes?
Not a million answers…only a few forever questions.
Can I someday hold myself from turning away, before having had enough?

To be in your room, see your little bottles of cream and your colored perfumes.
And then know… that which makes you beautiful isn’t little bottles with labels.

When your hair tumbles down the side of your face.
Wanting to tell you “Why don’t you tie it in place?”
Hoping you never do.
I am always there, to run my hand through it and put it right.

To see you looking down the road, waiting for me to come.
Hoping you’ll always wait… at the door, in the garden, at midnight.
When I am driving, walking, flying…I am always coming home to you.

Looking at the stark murky night sky.
Every moment like the next. Every moment like life.
The stars like your crazy diamond eyes.

To wonder what a fool I was to not walk up to you and say, “I am crazy about you”.
Knowing now, the fear of losing you.

Do you think of me when you walk away?
A bit of you stays back … even when you go.

What goes on behind your bright diamond eyes?
Not a million answers…only a few forever questions.

2004-12-17T13:37:00.000+05:30

Of Poems, Prayers and Promises.

There was this song called “The Box” by John Denver. I loved it as a kid, cause it had a nice “rhythm” to it and it talked about kids and a box. I just simply loved it. We had it on LP and I knew just one line from it, I used to chant these lines…slowly and sometimes as fast and as loud as I could.

“The box bound up with chains and locked with locks…”

Many years later, while in college I heard the song again. And for the first time realized all that it said and meant. It felt nice…revisiting a scrap of my childhood…I even remembered the little pithy…

“The box bound up with chains and locked with locks…”

It’s a wonderful song.

“The Box” from the album “Poems, Prayers and Promises (1971)”. John Denver.

Once upon a time, in the land of Hushabye,
Round about the wondrous days of yore.
They came across a sort of box,
bound up with chains and locked with locks,
And labeled "Kindly Do Not Touch, It's War."
A decree was issued round about all with a flourish and a shout,
and a gaily colored mascot tripping lightly on the fore,
"Don't fiddle with this box, or break the chains, or pick the locks,
And Please... don't ever play about with war."

Well, the children understood, children happen to be good,
and they were just as good around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks, or break into that deadly box;
they never tried to play about with war.
Mommies didn't either, Sisters, Aunts, Grannies neither,
'cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty in those wondrous days of
yore.
Well... very much the same as now, and not the ones to blame somehow,
for opening up that deadly box of war.

But someone did... someone battered in the lid,
and spilled the insides out across the floor.
A sort of bouncy bumpy ball,
with flags and all the tears and horror that goes with war.
It bounced right out and went bashing all about,
and bumping into everything in store.
And what was sad and most unfair is that it didn't really seem to care,
much who it bumped, or why, or what, or for.
It bumped the children mainly, and I'll tell you this quite plainly,
It bumps them everyday... and more... and more,
and leaves them dead and burned and dying, thousands of them sick and
crying,
cause when it bumps... it's really very sore.

Now there's a way to stop the ball, it isn't difficult at all,
all it takes is wisdom.
I'm absolutely sure that we could get it back into the box...
and bind the chains and lock the locks.
But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.

Well, that’s the way it all appears,
cause it's been bouncing round for years and years
in spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore.
And the time they came upon The Box, bound up with chains and locked
with locks...
and labeled "Kindly Do Not Touch, It's War."

2004-12-14T19:00:00.000+05:30

A thought from a Sleepless Saturday Night...

The most difficult thing for a man...is to understand a woman...(Am sure it’s the same for a woman).

But when a couple marries...or when they commit themselves to do the whole nine yards.

Does the man choose that woman...because he understands her?

Or is it that she is the one he has picked...to spend the rest of his life...understanding...?

2004-12-09T19:35:00.000+05:30

The Random Thought Generator...

I think the point at which you realize "you aren’t getting younger" (I wont use "getting old" because its even more ‘relative’ than the expression I did in fact use) is when you have a great many more memories than things to look forward to.
That’s a random thought really, unconnected with everything else.
Some other random thoughts regarding the twin phenomenons of "learning and experiencing" came to mind while driving to work today. Learning and Experiencing by their very nature are "stimulus-response" systems. An event or the apparent lack of an event, acts as a stimulus. The individual responds by,

Collating information and observations drawn from the actual stimulus, and thence reflecting and deriving from this information and observations.

With a real physical world action or intent of action.

Re-arrangement of already existing information.

To summarize, there has to be a ‘delta’. The stimulus – an article in a magazine, a Discman playing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, the statement of a law in a textbook, the Taj by moonlight, the rolling waves of the vast sea…etc are all events. If the occurrence of an event causes a "change of state / a delta" in the man/woman exposed to it, we can conclude that a process of "learning and/or experiencing" has occurred.

I know…rather pointless. This whole bit of speculation in the lines above, but it just sprung to mind and kinda stuck on for the whole duration of the forty minute drive, so well – thought ill put it down in a post. Its pointless I know…but as far as the mind goes ‘its current affairs’.

2004-12-08T17:30:00.000+05:30

Clint Eastwood meets “Nobody-fucks-with-Dessert-Daddy”

I like reading the Classifieds. Apparently in hack jargon its irreverently called “Hatch-Match-Dispatch”, meaning “Births-Matrimonial-Obituaries”.

Anyway last week I saw this job advert. for a “Jeep driver” in Kuwait. It really made the “fantasy making” machine in the head go into Overdrive. Wouldn’t it be awesome? Driving across the dessert sands from dawn to dusk. Looking at wide expanses from behind a pair of cool shades. With Bedouin headgear to boot. A modern day Lawrence of Arabia sorts.

I would probably drive people from one oilrig to another. A bunch of engineers perhaps. And at the opportune moment, when there is a crisis…something dramatic - like the Computer system controlling the Hydraulics of the rig has gone bust. I’ll make a grand entry and write some nifty piece of code to fix all the trouble. And the bunch of engineers will look at me with awe and reverence, I’ll then let then know in a Clint Eastwood ‘Man with no name’ kind of way that I am an engineer too.

But I’ll stick to my Jeep Driving job. A working class hero sorts, one who is not tempted by the comforts of a white-collar job.

I can almost imagine by self already, driving through the simmering sands with the sun turning the horizon into a blur.

The Bedouin tribes will get to know me of course, as I will be crisscrossing the desserts every day. They will probably give me a nickname or something “The Glimmer man” sorts. Something cool, you know what I mean.

Kids will wave as I drive towards an Oasis, Ill just lower my shades and acknowledge their greeting.

Ill be as cool as one can possibly be.
You know the Clint Eastwood meets “Nobody-fucks-with-Dessert-Daddy” kinds...

2004-12-08T13:46:00.000+05:30

A V-String!

Came across “V-String” a few days back. Apparently Victoria’s Secret calls its line of ‘g-strings’ a ‘v-string’. It’s an exercise in Brand Positioning and all of that, but it’s a neat piece of trivia too. That’s what I thought…at least!

2004-11-23T13:11:00.000+05:30

Personal Jesus... now on Winamp

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's there

Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal Jesus...

Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer
I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Your own personal Jesus...

Reach out and touch faith

2004-11-17T07:33:00.000+05:30

Always on My Mind…

It feels surreal, its six ‘o’ clock in the morning and I am in office with Willie Nelsons version of “You are always on my mind” pouring in through the earphones. It’s a wonderful song and funny too.

Always On My Mind
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
And maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have

If I made you feel second best

*A female vocalist croons softly, almost whispers “Yes you did…yes you did”.

Girl I'm sorry I was blind.
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind.

I find that bit hilarious, “If I made you feel second best….” and the female voice goes “Yes you did…yes you did”. I mean can’t she be happy that ‘ol Willie Nelson is singing her a wonderful little love song? Does she have to add her self-serving, bitchy two pence worth “Yes you did…yes you did”?

But it’s a wonderful song nonetheless, the King Elvis has a version of the same and that’s great too in its own way. But all I can think of now is cars and long drives. The time when we were drunk silly and we sang “Susanna” till we were hoarse. Three guys in a car, singing totally out of key, driving through a bumpy dimly lit Calcutta Street and thinking we were on Highway 69.

The time when we were coming back from Kerala, the middle of the night, me standing at the rear exit of the bus – with Bob Dylan playing on the Discman. The cool moist breeze blew across the backwaters and pelted my face, the chaotic sounds of a bus hurtling through the night and Bob Dylan’s contemplative voice stoically struggling to drown it all out.

Peace.

2004-11-16T15:48:00.000+05:30

I feel like knocking on Heavens door...

Mama take this badge of me
I can’t use it any more.
Its getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I’m knocking on heavens door.

Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door

Mama put my guns in the ground I cant shoot them any more
That long black cloud is coming down,
I feel like I’m knocking on heavens door

Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door

2004-11-10T11:16:00.000+05:30

My Movie

The copywriter Shalini ‘lived in’ with the Media Boss Rajan. She dreamt of the red carpets at Cannes and Locarno, ended up in a dingy police station with cops strip-searching her with their eyes. What happened to the Media Boss Rajan? He is now in Delhi, wheeling dealing and living the big life. But do you know he will have this big car crash so very soon?

The artist - Arjun and the writer - Anjali. Romeo and Juliet. They thought it would go on from now till eternity. But it lasted two months.

Shiva, the Software Engineer from San Jose, engaged to Lakshmi, a girl from his village west of Rajamundhri. He made the trip back home, living the “American mind Indian Soul” sham. She liked someone else…Venkatesh an Interior Decorator from Hydrabad. A guy who bought old design magazines and adapted alpine interiors for noveau rich IT engineers in the middle of Banjara Hills. Shiva went back to San Jose a six-hour stopover at Manila, with the pride of a martyr and the delusion of a fool.

The toy-boy Aakash who was “doing” his lady boss every weekend, she was “doing” his brains everyday. He realized all of this on his thirty-fifth birthday with a rave party at a distance and the sea at his feet.

2004-11-09T10:40:00.000+05:30

A Birthday and four Candles of Thought

It’s a week since my birthday (nearly), friends have often told me “You think too much for…my own good”. My usual repartee is generally a pithy like “We are… because we think”, delivered with an erudite and contemplative sigh. Not that I live by the maxim or something, but it serves its purpose as a conversational equivalent of a “Stone cold stunner”.

Anyways coming back to the birthday, birthdays have always given me occasion to “think” more than what is usual. Birthday week has generally been a week of thought. The celebration and the contemplation all at once creates a frame of mind congruous to the Mar de Gras revelry smack in the middle of Ramazan.

Well I didn’t make any Birthday resolutions or something, realizations and revelations were more the order of the day.

1. As a child I believed that 10% of the world is abnormal and 90% were nice regular people. But now I know this is a statistical fallacy, the truth is that 10% of the world is normal and an overwhelming 90% is abnormal. In which silo of this statistical distribution I find myself, is another matter all together.

2. While hindsight is indeed 20/20, it is rather difficult to get oneself to look behind the left shoulder. Not that we are drenched in positivism and are forward-looking by nature, just that we often don’t have the “balls” to look back. And yes “Look back in anger” is more than just a fine book, movie and stage production.

3. We will never really know what we “want” in life, so we just basically have to expose ourselves to multifarious people and situations, to know what really works for us and what doesn’t.

4. At age 25 I find my set of values, beliefs and convictions at odds with those of a large number of people. I shudder to believe how incredibly “out of sync” ill be when I am 50.

2004-11-05T13:51:00.000+05:30

Of You and I

Of holding hands on an evening of falling rain,
Forgotten passages on a gin soaked afternoon,

Of falling hair and laughter on a bar stool,
Solitude sunk in plush leather,

Of talk and hours vanishing like smoke,
An empty inbox at an airport lounge,

Of a planned vacation, waiting sheets in little hotels,
Shards in the breeze now and tickets before,

Of reaching out for the clasp of eternity,
Staying on to pick up the pieces for my scrapbook.

Of a life passing you by, going somewhere
A moment of indecision scared it may never end.

Of standing in the midst of Beethoven’s circle of joy,
Screaming into the lonely night, in a lonely city, in a lonely life,

Of waiting for your footsteps on the early morning floor,
And the knowledge that you never meant to come,

Of the warmth and chill of a room in winter,
The early winter wind freezing your soul.

Of attributing your happiness to happy serendipity,
Realizing yours was a walk on role in a grand design.

Of thinking our lives were scenes from our movie,
Knowing now it was someone else’s dream.

Of thinking about us together,
Were actually just you and I.

2004-10-27T09:23:00.000+05:30

"The future is already here. Its just not uniformly distributed."

- William Gibson

2004-10-20T02:37:00.000+05:30

He gets that from me...

A few weeks ago, heard a song by Reba McEntire. She was on 'The Tonight show with Jay Leno'. She has an amazingly beautiful voice.

I suddenly thought about this song tonight and dug up the lyrics. All the associated sentimentality apart, it re-affirms the sprit of Country Music...of essentially wanting to tell a story.

His early mornin' attitude:
You have to drag him out of bed.
Only frosted flakes will do,
He gets that from me:
Yeah, he gets that from me.

His curly hair and his knobbly knees:
The way the sun brings those freckles out.
Talk and talk, never miss a beat,
Yeah,he gets that from me:
He gets that from me.

He looks at me with those big brown eyes:
He's got me in the palm of his hands,
And I swear sometimes it's just like you're here again.
He smiles that little crooked smile:
There's no denying he's your child.
Without him I don't know what I'd do:
He gets that from you:
Oh, he gets that from you.

How he loves your old guitar:
Yeah, he's taught himself to play.
He melts my heart: tells me he love me every day.
And cracks jokes at the perfect time,
Makes me laugh when I want to cry.
That boy is everything to me:
He gets that from you:
He gets that from you.

Last night, I heard him pray:
Lord, help me and mama make it through.
An' tell Daddy we'll be okay:
He said he sure misses you:
He sure misses you.
He really misses you:
He gets that from me.

2004-10-19T16:09:00.000+05:30

Joy-to-Stuff Ratio

joy-to-stuff ratio n. The time a person has to enjoy life versus the time a person spends accumulating material goods.

2004-10-17T23:28:00.000+05:30

I swear I will "Live Strong"...

I really know what feeling “screwed over” means. I really do.
This is as low as it gets. It doesn’t get any lower.
But I swear I will “Live Stronger”.

I realize today, really really realize why Lance Armstrong is the super hero that he is.

But I swear I will “Live Stronger”. I swear I will.

2004-10-12T18:30:00.000+05:30

Going Home...

Today is my last day in Germany, I am heading home early tomorrow morning. In time for the Pujos!

I am looking out of my office window, my office a nice little room which has been mine for all of three months. The first day when I was shown into this office, the large windows had seemed very thrilling. The hills extended themselves all along the horizon and the white windmills almost seemed a slow hypnotic swirl. The hills were tree lined, and their color had struck me as odd, it was a somber black green, its shade seemed cold and bleak.

As I look beyond the window today, the hills have streaks of dull ochre. Its autumn, the leaves are turning various shades of yellow. It’s almost symbolic of my time here, the weeks and months spent at an Aluminum plant in the middle of nowhere. The wind is cold now and the sunshine seems distant. The windmills continue to lazily swirl in the late afternoon breeze, as if nothing ever really happened. Maybe nothing did.

I am happy to be going home but at once I am sad to be going away.

2004-10-11T18:09:00.000+05:30

A Hummingbird!

About ten minutes back, I was at my office window. Having a smoke, and looking at the scenery generally. And I saw a hummingbird!

It flew slowly past the window, about 200 meters away. It flew hypnotically, slowly…straight first then left, coming closer to the window. Then up a bit and it flew away…

Hey that was really really cool. I am thrilled to bits!

2004-10-07T13:01:00.000+05:30

You remind me of Mildred...

Yes you remind me of Mildred.

I don’t say this from a self-congratulatory ethical high ground. Please believe me, I am not being patronizing, I am just a normal human being and a good friend.

The whole way you look upon the world, as if you stand at its center. The way you cut off lives and people, based on your whims and fancies. The impudence with which you expect, people to keep at abeyance all that they feel, just because you now don’t find it convenient to feel likewise.

What really strikes me as odd is this, for all your study of philosophy, for all the books you have read, for all the doctrines of life you have analyzed…don’t you see something which is so close to you. Don’t you see yourself? The world around you, the men who swoon over you, see your luscious red lips, the lively laughter, you’re smooth as silk skin. But don’t you see that in your wonton disregard for other human beings…you look so abhorrently ugly?

“Now that he could think it out more calmly he understood that in trying to force Mildred to love him he had been attempting the impossible. He did not know what it was that passed from a man to a woman, from a woman to a man, and made one of them a slave: it was convenient to call it the sexual instinct; but if it was no more than that, he did not understand why it should occasion so vehement an attraction to one person rather than another. It was irresistible: the mind could not battle with it; friendship, gratitude, interest, had no power beside it.

She had a genteel refinement which shuddered at the facts of life, she looked upon the bodily functions as indecent, she had all sorts of euphemisms for common objects, she always chose an elaborate word as more becoming than a simple one: the brutality of these men was like a whip on her thin white shoulders, and she shuddered with voluptuous pain.”