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There is a very thin line between cynicism and pessimism.

On books

I haven't purchased a single book in the last two months. Its just either been too hot to go out or I've had the usual one-day-weekend. This also has got to do something with the truth that a little over half of the books I've bought here are still unread. Its just been aimless surfing of the web and a movie or I've had the usual one-day-weekend.
How can I describe what it's like to walk into Crossword or Landmark on a not too crowded day (which happens more often in C than L, L isn't strictly a bookshop) and then sift... Sometimes I spend hours, though I've never picked a book and started reading it right there, that is something I don't feel right about. There are always so many books that plead to be read. (Thank goodness for Credit Cards and denial, they make shopping a guilt-free experience.) The smell of those pages, the excitement of turning over the book to read the blurb, the touch of paper.
But I always miss having someone to discuss a book with. I'm not even sure what classification I'd give to my preferred 'genre' of books. Fiction I can promptly say, I've never had any patience with non-fic, especially the self-helps(there's an abundance of these in the market nowadays, the ones which will land you right on top of the corporate ladder, help you build a fat fat bank balance, furnish you with the secret steps to be a people's person and blah), I also find myself turning away from contemporary acclaimed writers whose books are usually depressing, and Indian writers who follow the same trend. Or maybe they project themselves thus, to look high-brow and literary. Not having read many, its hard to say. I gobble up Classics, Mrs. Christie and Mr. Wodehouse, give me all YA books and I'm happy! Older Indian authors were a cheerful lot, Ruskin Bond, R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand off the top of my head, I remember those tiny NBT and CBT books, the only ones with stories set in India...tattered copies of some are still there at some, I just can't bear to part with them, I still love them. At that time, in junior school, the only source of books was the beloved school library and Universal Book Shop in Hazratganj where there was a ready stack of these books. Of course one doesn't see them anywhere anymore. I've been browsing through their website right now though, maybe I'll find something after all...

This Place Is Death*

I’ve forgotten what it was like to live with electricity cuts. Making impatient phone calls to the local electricity department to find out ’light kab aayegi?’, swishing newspapers, hand fans and other suitable paraphernalia to beat-the-heat, candles, silly games to pass the time, frets and curses, this was all Lucknow.
Because afterwards, there was the inverter, that saviour from quotidian load-shedding that’s part and parcel of North Indian summers.
With a rude shock I realized yesterday how spending incessant hours at an air-conditioned office had lulled me to forgetfulness. The flickering tube light suddenly died at 10 last night and it dawned upon me that the unexpected had indeed occurred. The next three hours were hell. And they had the gall, they had the gall to do it again at 5 in the morning. Ahhhhh.
Suddenly the surprise gift of a midweek holiday due to a bandh had lost its luster.
Weather must have gotten exponentially worse within the 10 day vacation I spent away from Chennai- it never is anything to boast about anytime of the year here for when it rains, it floods the streets, the office, the everywhere, and becomes a scourge.
To cut the story of a long (and very uncomfortable) day short, I was really looking forward to just going to sleep and escaping to office first thing tomorrow. And bang!, there she goes, there she goes again…
Of all the times to face a power cut, nighttime’s the worst-est. Combine it with sweltering summer of Chennai and you have a winner! Its unendurable, the very touch of cloth on skin elicits a burning feel, you twitch and fidget, and generally feel insane.
Last Christmas and New Year’s eve spent in Delhi had me running back to Chennai, very relieved to be rid of chilblain and cold water (I‘m one of those freaks who like to wash hands recurrently, so you can imagine) but I find myself doing a volte-face and I am sure now, winter might be tough but this is agony.
Its only going to get worse, and I’m not being pessimistic here. Suddenly being over-worked in office doesn’t sound too bad. I could, after all, take a nap in the dormitory, return to the house- I will never call it home- for a wash in the morning, and trot back to office. Or I could get a huge bathtub installed in my tiny nondescript bathroom...maybe I should research the use of solar batteries to power up iceboxes… or…

*Courtesy Lost

There's a man who
Lives by the sea
He takes his daydreams
Very seriously

You'll never see him
He lives all alone
He won't go out or
Pick up the phone

But he wishes he
Was the life and the soul of the party
But he can't 'cause he
Doesn't know anyone, anybody

Is it me?
Is it me?
Am I singing a song about me?

(Travis- Life and Soul of the Party)

The Three 'O Clock Itch

For some reason I suddenly wish to make a list of things I want to do right now, really really want to, not today, tomorrow or the years thereafter, right now:
-Gardening. Take a khurpi and start digging, sow some seeds, model a fictitious map on the wet mud.
-Stand in sunshine. A clear clear sky with swift breeze .
-Play Age of Empires. All day long.
-Tumble through the looking glass, just like Alice
-(Get rid of mosquitoes. I'm not concerned at all what role they play in the food chain -or whatever they call it these days- the damn buggers are not letting me write in peace- unfortunately I can't use the Internet and AllOut at the same time!)
- Make time stop. At twilight. And at 4 in the morning.
And
-Go back home. For good. . . But that's never going to happen. . .
Note to self: Wearing noise isolation earphones is extremely conducive to blogging.

Redux. .

And another one of those bizarro nights.
Awake late, obscure music, cool wind. . what memories!
Its good to know that there are some things about you that will never change.
And I think, isn't it the easiest thing to be happy? I mean, just forget everything else, just please do, try to be me; perceive, that joy comes in little globules of moments, beckoning, flirting, teasing- breathe, take it in, yeah, right now. Hedonism carved out of your own private time can never be a bad thing! :)

Simplicity

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

-Ernest Hemingway

Ouch!

OK, I'll try, I'll try really really my best to keep it simple the next time I write. (Which better be soon, the constant itch to write seems to have been replaced by a stagnant lull. Is it the lack of motivation, or just a lack of anything to write about? I doubt if life is getting sensational anytime soon, so I need to find objects of composition in the available 360- degrees; I mean visibility. How can I motivate self to write? Suggestions?)

...

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings."
- Jane Austen

The Trials of Arabella

"She whispered his name with the deliberation of a child trying out the distinct sounds. When he replied with her name, it sounded like a new word- the syllables remained the same, the meaning was different. Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief but it was impossible not to think of an invisible witness or presence in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract."
Ian McEwan, Atonement

How powerful are the words in a book. Once you take a stroll with them, they draw you slowly and cunningly into a tangled web; there is no escape from a good book until it has finished with you. You are in the clutches of every emotion that the protagonist feels- elated, bewildered, angry or shameful. The confines which separate humans are blurred, and you are at once more than one person, delving into each mind seamlessly as you follow the words which paint these pictures, these people, none of whom may have never existed, the circumstances surrounding them and their reactions nothing but a flight of imagination. But for you, the reader- they are real, they are suffering and surviving and as you plunder page after page, a satisfactory ending for them is your hope.

Atonement has been a thoroughly satisfying read, so very well cut into episodes, and with a staggeringly beautiful epilogue that quenches your thirst and curiosity completely. There are questions of course, the last boulders you encounter before the finish line, but in a rhetorical sense, because the answers are standing right next to them, and you know you are the one who put them in your head, you are free to believe as you choose to, its all your glass half-full/half-empty perception.
Briony Tallis is a 13 year old author whose innocent and capricious cosmos collides with the depravities of the adult world and her lie, albeit without malice, out of good intentions, a sense of justice and protectiveness, changes lives forever.
"Weak, stupid, cowardly, evasive- she had hated herself for everything she had been, but she had never thought of herself as a liar."

How wonderful the world would be, if one could walk backwards along the fourth dimension and undo the wrongs one did. No, you wouldn't want to go back to do the right thing because its the right thing, you would go because guilt, is the most destructive of emotions, one that threatens to kill the parent the seed germinated from. You would go because a life with that knowledge of a sin committed is but a life, it's a slow death. Of course, one forgets, but a mere remembrance is a scalpel gnawing at your skin, and pain, shame, self-pity become inseparable soul mates. The only emancipator to sustain you at that moment is, a resolution to make amends, to secure the future from being scarred by the blow you dealt long ago. And Briony, now 'grown up', begins to get the full grasp of what she did, wishes to make amends, to tell the truth, but is it too late, too worthless?
"...how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form, that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her..."

So there it is, 'a beautiful and majestic fictional panorama'- as the review suggests.
I couldn't have agreed more.

City Blues..

"A great city is a battlefield. You need to be a fighter to live in it, not exist, mark you, live. Anybody can exist, dragging his soul around behind him like a worn-out coat; but living is different. It can be hard, but it can also be fun; there's so much going on all the time that's new and exciting."

-(an excerpt from To Sir With Love)

Just Another Ordinary Miracle

It's not that unusual
When everything is beautiful
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

The sky knows when it's time to snow
Don't need to teach a seed to grow
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

Life is like a gift, they say
Wrapped up for you everyday
Open up, and find a way
To give some of your own

Isn't it remarkable?
Like everytime a raindrop falls
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

The birds in winter have their fling
And always make it home by spring
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

When you wake up everyday
Please don't throw your dreams away
Hold them close to your heart
'Cause we are all a part

Of the ordinary miracle

Ordinary miracle

Do you want to see a miracle

It seems so exceptional
That things work out after all...
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

The sun comes out and shines so bright
And disappears again at night
It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

It's just another
Ordinary miracle today

- Sarah McLachlan

The Chosen One

4 years ago when I first came across her I could have never foreseen how intricately my everyday discussions would be tied to her. If I'm amenable to a change of mind, then certainly she has been a compelling impetus to set my priorities. To me, she's an amazing powerhouse of abilities that common beings can only aspire to attain. With my stubborn expectations always in over-drive, I feel that the only woman I shall ever want, really want, would have to be a flesh and blood replica of her character. My crazy obsession with everything Syd precedes my reputation as a Potter fan, and it is not wrongly suspected that I’d prefer martial-arts trained fox to a marital-arts maestro!
From the moment she bursts on to the screen, wielding a new disguise every other occasion, every other vital thought oozes out of my mind, I am deaf to all other sounds (a point of major consternation to my mum) – yes! I’m completely enraptured.
Adolescence is responsible for the onslaught of a zillion crushes -yeah, been there done that- but I discovered her just as that spring faded into summery adulthood, and I have looked up to her as the-one-person with a will of steel, and an irrepressible urge to do the right thing. Sure, they make it look easy on television, but it’s really out of my league to discuss the emotional depths of a person leading a double life. All of us need a hero to revere, and to feel unnaturally connected to, I can visualize her resolve any tangle and therein lies my faith- I know I can-do-it, will-have-to, because somewhere inside me there is a notion, that I’m just as potent as the chosen one.
She’s an enigmatic beauty; her smiles embody all the happiness she creates.
Now Alias is gone, and I’m unsure how I’ll gratify my yearning, no other woman fits the bill, I know a lot of regular people, but there’s only one Sydney Bristow.

Spaghetti

This is the third time I've begun this post, and every time I find my wrting skills inadequate to precisely express my feeling.
Eventually I get jumbled up in words and can't connect back to the main topic, or else it seems like a long-drawn dramatic salutation.
Help me!

Of My Own Volitions

I don't take insults well. My face exhibits a deathly pallor and cheeks feel puffy, every second feels like it has slowed down by a massive degree, so that I can meticulously examine the expressions on my victim's face. In my mind he/she is the victim. While taking in all that soot offered to me I can savour impending reprisal and just plead with myself to wait.....
I have just realised that I fall into the category of those irritating people who have horrible 'taste' - apparently in everything. My preferences in movies, music, tv and women have always accosted severe criticisms. Forgive me if I take these personally, but this is who I am. What I like, what I hear and whatsoever I see significantly sculpts my psyche, and if standing next to me, you can dismiss my picks as repugnant, how am I to convince myself that you don't carry the same notions about me?
I swear that I shall never say "You look fat in that dress."; it hurts mate! My rant, however, is not against those who do, but against those who go "You look bloated in that attire!"
There is a vast difference in being honest and being needlessly vicious. People should learn to disagree gently. BUT, testosterone is beheld as elixir to succeed nowadays, so all common politeness goes into the dustbin, or better still, spat upon companions. And nobility is stupidity.
Next time anybody goes for the jugular, I'm walking away.

Romance at short notice....

"Saki (December 18, 1870 – November 14, 1916) was the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture."- Wikipedia
Why I should be concentrating on this gentleman's delightful accounts of mischievous shenanigans of free-spirited protagonists when Coulouris's and Shivratri's vacuous harangues on Distributed Systems should be ardently craved in light of an impending test is a question that winks at the ruinous corollaries of the vagaries of human nature.
Even more so, it should explain my jittery state of affairs and debilitated stomach hours before any examination.
But each such nervous breakdown is preceded by an intense feeling of unrestrained ecstasy; I can't imagine giving up these guilty pleasures!

An Ode to Dropdown Lists

Just so you know, I despise you.
Your pathetically ugly face is enough to invoke disgust from the deepest corners of any heart.
Your sickening demeanor can dissipate all notions I might have of my being a compassionate human being.
My heart revels in fantasies of gory revenge but there has been devised no retribution enough to satiate me.
Your words are poison, your presence infects me like a noxious breath that slowly fills my lungs and spreads through my blood enticing me to end your wicked life.
To do so would invoke exults from a million souls.

Thousand Words++

I love flickr.com. I can't even comprehend where to begin to express my utter fascination and glorious joy. Search even the commonest of words, the results will blow your mind away. There are images of places, people, sceneries, insects and animals, everything; and such amazing shots, that even when you think you've seen the best, you are continually surprised.
Photographers....are Gods in their own right. Every picture is shockingly beautiful, and yet so simple, pertaining to the mundane......are we commoners blind? I doubt if my eyes can see the beauty of the skies or the calmness of water as meticulously as their lenses capture! Sitting across the computer's screen, I can still feel the Brighton summer, stare rapturously at St. Peter's dome in Vatican, fantasise about living in Florence and count the days until I finally make it to Quebec and Toronto.
The favourites tab in my IE is beginning to bulge, but I'm still dissatisfied, there aren't enough people I've bookmarked, so many pictures I haven't looked at yet, and I don't want to miss a thing....

Feeling Static

He's just pressed the Pause button. He doesn't know why. The one who wanted to run away has just come back from a vacation. And suddenly its not just the sky that's turned blue. Ordinary everyday things irritate him to no end, and he wonders why his firm tolerance has deserted him! Skips everything and everyone, and shuts himself up, a part of him hoping that soon they will notice it and bombard him with queries! But past experience tells him that that isn't a great thing!
Why is he waiting for the world to change?
Nah, he needs to change himself, he knows it, and his utter failure at this exercise has rendered him so cynical and disappointed that he's beginning to believe that there must be something wrong with the world, after all, no man can be so flawed! He's been hoping, waiting for a opportunity to tear him away from his present life and put him away in a bubble where individual independence is not a selfish whim.
What next? Should he extend his reservations in Utopia or snap back to reality?

My so called love-life

Staying home alone on a friday
Flat on the floor looking back
On old love
Or lack thereof
After all the crushes are faded
And all my wishful thinking was wrong
I'm jaded
I hate it

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here

Searching all my days just to find you
I'm not sure who I'm looking for
I'll know it
When I see you
Until then, I'll hide in my bedroom
Staying up all night just to write
A love song for no one

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here

I could have met you in a sandbox
I could have passed you on the sidewalk
Could I have missed my chance
And watched you walk away?

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
You'll be so good
You'll be so good for me

- John Mayer

My Contribution to the Presentation

This presentation is copied from everywhere. I mean, literally! All I had to do was Google the right word combinations and figure out how the relevant information should be CCPed to make logical sense (or not, I mean - who’s reading it, huh?) Now this may seem like a child’s job but that’s where you’re mistaken! There’s just too much information, and it was I who sifted through long boring reports and papers to find the toughest, least understandable, most complicated gobbledygook that would impress the audience. Yes, I’m a Showman, sue me! Please don’t underestimate my assiduous efforts; it takes real guts and grey matter to come up with this creative stuff! Those of you who actually went to libraries and online communities and researched can’t possibly ever match my talent. To dress up fiction as swallow-able fact is a rare gift.
Thank you, O revered evaluator; thy kindness is God’s greatest gift to me.