The Tinder Box

Intellectual rot

2010-06-12T01:17:00.002+05:30

So you're dying. decaying.
rather self-reflexively...

does it make the end profound or just plain pathetic?
perhaps sad.

2010-02-27T23:13:00.004+05:30

"Why is it we want to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants."

(Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin)

For you who lie silent tonight

2009-09-21T21:12:00.011+05:30

I will not return.

And night, mildly warm, serene and silent,

will lull the world, under beams of its solitary moon.

My body will not be there,

and through the wide-open window,

a refreshing breeze will come looking for my soul.

I don't know if any await the end of my double absence,

or who will kiss my memory amidst caresses and weeping.

But, there will be stars and flowers,

there will be sighs and hopes,

and love in the avenues in the shadows of the trees.

And that piano will be playing as in this untroubled night,

and no one there to listen,

by my window frame.

2009-08-12T20:02:00.005+05:30

Should've died when I had the chance...'cause it's beginning to hurt now...

All of a summer's day

2009-06-24T21:45:00.005+05:30

...something reminded me of the 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

`You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)-- `and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster--' (Alice began to say `I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily, and said `No, never') `--so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'

`No, indeed,' said Alice. `What sort of a dance is it?'

`Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'

`Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle. `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way--'

`That generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.

`--you advance twice--'

`Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.

`Of course,' the Mock Turtle said: `advance twice, set to partners--'

`--change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the Gryphon.

`Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the--'

`The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

`--as far out to sea as you can--'

`Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.

`Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

`Change lobster's again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

`Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his

voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

`It must be a very pretty dance'...

2009-06-22T12:00:00.004+05:30

Nothing to be done.

Spring

2009-03-27T00:25:00.009+05:30

As spring creeps up the drain pipe, I see the air filled with butterflies...blue and black...spiralling in pairs, a frenzy of nervous energy...

I spot a pupa on the new-born leaves of my Ashoka, as I help it shed its old weight, plucking off dead leaves...

and a couple makes love in the shadows of the neem, as the last of Danae's
gold showers upon them...

spring is here, it seems.

Meanwhile, I have begun cultivating obsessions...

...Paper Butterflies!

Clogged

2009-03-25T19:30:00.007+05:30

1) Woe is me!

2) I am/have been/will be suffering from what them people call THE 'Writer's block'. Gasp! (Yes, I presume I am a writer, I speculate not on the quality of my produce...pssst!!...somebody praise me...please!!)

3) I have been desperate enough to seek a cure. (Oh! the agony and shame of a public confessional...what the heck! you/we/I are all voyeurs)

4) Some one (i name not who) suggests I seek hypno-therapy. Exciting! Very...Though I'm chary about disclosing my super-secret plans on how to unleash a lesbian democracy.

5) I think I'll pass.

6) Here are the more mundane of the cures... One. B. Omega

7) Here's what I liked. Translate a random poem, from a foreign language into English. Start a Journal (I have the perfect little red journal-looking-journal for this!). Take a hike. Take pictures. Flip through old pictures. Watch foreign pictures. Flirt (Yeah, sure! If it helps with the blockage...I'll sign up for a harem). Meditate (ugh!)

23) If by the end of this I am unable to produce some fancy-schmaltzy piece of ecriture...then I'll...Pout. Plagiarize. Shut Blog. Write Limericks. Sell Lemonade. Stalk dogs. Kill ants. Tell fortunes. Sing in DTC buses. and bury myself somewhere...do you care?

50) Let the unclogging begin...

On the Saturday Beat...

2009-03-07T02:40:00.007+05:30

When idle and desperate, I randomly google stuff…famous people, obscure events, passing references, funny names, puzzling words, crossword clues, lost worlds, unborn babies, dead ages, dormant fossils etcetra…and I inadvertently manage to find something interesting that offers to validate my existence (to me, in the very least).

And sometimes, the long lazy hours of writhing on the web yield gems…Allen Ginsberg, for example. Almost a year back, while putting together a hurried 1500 words on ‘American Poets and the Celebration of Democracy’, I had passed him over to look into the more optimistic works of Walt Whitman. A year on, I am older, hopefully wiser and definitely more cynical. So I put aside my ‘Leaves of Grass’ and took up 'Howl'.

What I discovered was delicious...acerbic bitterness of dreams gone sour.

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless!

Whitman, who wrote during the mid-19th century, celebrated (without sounding jingoistic) the, as yet, young American democracy and the multiplicities that it served (or would serve) to unite under the spangled starry banner. (Sample 'I hear America singing' or 'Song of Myself'). While, Ginsberg gave voice to the nightmarish realisations, where Whitman's visions had found home, over an intervening period of hundred years.

Writing almost a century after Whitman, Allen Ginsberg arrived on the scene with the Beatniks of the 50s, who eventually became the hippies of the 60s...when the triumphalist euphoria, surrounding a once young nation, had gone kaput, having roughed two World wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, the Red scares of Mc Carthy-ite era...women, blacks, homosexuals and minorities of all kinds, carrying on with a much oppressed, discriminated-against existence.

The 50s and the 60s were remarkable times...evident in the manner in which counter-culture surged to challenge conformist currents. Thye were interesting times, no doubt, (Note the rise of Communism, Civil Rights Movement, Sexual liberation, Rock n' Roll, Feminism, Black empowerment, MJ-crusading) in the company of some very interesting people (Fidel Castro, Che, Beatles, Doors, Hendrix, Dylan, Marley, Martin Luther King, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac and the list goes on).

And Ginsberg is a product of these times, to be sure...a witness, a critic and a poet in mourning.

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
…
America you don’t really want to go to war.
America it’s them bad Russians
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take our cars from our garages.

Yet, what I personally found more interesting than the poet's trenchant critique of 20th century American society (or could it be 21st century India?!) and the brand of conservative blindness engendered by Capitalist mores...was how he transcends his location in time and space and finds relevance in contemporary ethos...minorities have still not found their voice, and them Pakistanis and them Chinamen are still plaguing human existence...we humans have managed to stand in the same waters twice.

Now before ones gets lost into a holier-than-thou mode, it is advisable I share the gem unearthed in the boredom of dreary saturday hours, and take leave. Presenting...the trigger - a video of Ginsberg, dressed as Uncle Sam (or so it seems), reciting 'The Ballad of American Skeletons', to the music of Paul McCartney. Theatrical, vitriolic...the old man is all afire!
(An alternate version containing the unedited lyrics in a live performance can be found here. As a plus you get to feast your eyes on McCartney strumming his guitar alongside)

Not a single line goes amiss!

And damn me if you don't end up tapping your feet to the Beat!

2009-03-05T16:59:00.006+05:30

My backyard has a few trees…

Yellow, golden and sometimes green

Cataloguing

2009-03-05T14:34:00.015+05:30

I want to….(in no particular order)

Twirl
Listen to jazz
Climb a tree
Keep a pet ladybird
Give birth to a fish

Witness the battle of Troy
Read Derrida without cringing
Sleep without guilt

Work without pain

Menstruate without cramps

Dance with abandon

Learn to drive/swim/play the guitar/piano/drums/saxophone/harmonica

Solve the Rubik’s cube

Visit the ruins of Machu Pichu

Run barefoot at India Gate

Blow soap bubbles

Pluck apples under a Tuscan sun
Make wine

Volunteer for the blind

Spend a night in Dharamshala

Become Diana’s virgin priestess
Tie a thread at Fatehpur Sikri
Lounge on Barista couches

Gaze into Oneiros’ eyes

Meet a butterfly

Shake hands with a penguin

Hear Lucifer talk
Watch Marquez write
Colour my face for a soccer match

Grow wit

Split an atom

Cultivate a library

Play Scrabble

Solve a crime

Throw a shoe at somebody
Walk without being raped
Draw water from a well
Wake up to a voice
Chat with Pandora
Make a shoe that fits

Own a field of carnations
Paint a wall orange
Know why ignorance is bliss and not a birthright

Not say “ThankGod”

Shriek in the rain
Stare at the sun

Row boat in an umbrella

Collect wine corks

Cycle down a slope

get up and go

2009-03-04T23:21:00.003+05:30

(over)Heard in the metro, a day after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan:

"Glad we're here, not there."

Doodle on

2009-02-15T23:21:00.005+05:30

"I have an opinion,

And a theory too, in the bargain.

I'll serve you with a doctrine,

or a dogma, if you care

A judgement is only too easy to come by

and Philosophies a dime! a penny!

But if it is hard facts you want, dear sirs

you believe in tooth fairies."

Indeed!

To My Valentine

2009-02-13T00:23:00.011+05:30

In the spirit of the season, I present to you...

Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths,
That's how you're loved by me.

History of a Boy

2009-02-10T21:15:00.004+05:30

"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for - well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat - I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell - everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."

"Well, everybody does that way, Huck."

"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't stand it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy - I don't take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a fishing; I got to ask to go in a swimming - dern'd if I hain't got to ask to do everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort; I'd got to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke; she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, nor scratch, before folks." Then with a spasm of special irritation and injury: "And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such a woman! I had to shove, Tom, I just had to. And besides, that school's going to open, and I'd a had to go to it; well, I wouldn't stand that, Tom. Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes - not many times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable hard to git - and you go and beg off for me with the widder."

"Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."

"Like it! Yes - the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come up and spile it all!"

-Mark Twain
The Advetures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

On a Blank Note

2009-02-04T02:21:00.008+05:30

On an existential trip (yet again), the scriptor of this blog has hit a blank wall...All weasel words have temporarily been suspended.

With great respect to the huge piles of unread books lying next to the bed (under the table, over the chair, in the bag and overflowing out of the cupboards) the scriptor will instead be picking up random books and quoting verbatim...anything and everything...

Inconvenience caused should be enjoyable...I guess.

Notes from Underground

2009-02-04T01:34:00.009+05:30

"I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease. I should like to tell you now, whether you want to hear it or not, why I couldn't even make an insect of myself. I tell you solemnly that I have wanted to make an insect of myself many times. But I couldn't succeed even in that.

Oh, if only it was out of laziness that I do nothing! Lord, how much I should respect myself then! I should respect myself because I had something inside me, even if it was only laziness; I should have at any rate one positive quality of which I could be sure. Question: what is he? Answer: A lazy man; and it really would be very pleasant to hear that said of me. It wold mean being positively defined, it would mean that there was something that could be said of me. 'a lazy man!' - that us a name, a calling, it's positively a career! Don't laugh, it's true. Then I should be by right a member of the very best club, and have no other occupation than nursing my self-esteem...And I should choose for myself a career: I should be a lazy man and a glutton, but not a simple one, rather one who, for example, was in sympathy with all that is 'best and highest'. How do you like that idea?

...Afterall, the direct, immediate, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is inertia, that is the deliberate refusal to do anything. I have mentioned this before. I repeat, and repeat emphatically: all spontaneous people, men of action, are active because they are stupid and limited."

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Got a groovey thing goin'

2009-01-28T01:37:00.008+05:30

The first time I ever heard the name (they have to be spoken without pause, written without space...for they may be two names, but are one person to me), I almost believed they were another comic-duo on television, like the likes of Laurel&Hardy, Tom&Jerry...to be frank, the two even looked the part...only to discover in them my first ever musical sweethearts...Simon&Garfunkel (and I bow down in reverence).

My generation would roughly be the one that grew up with the Backstreeters, thought Nirvana was so 'cool' (kool?) and swore they woke up to heavy Metal every morning (I did too!)...oh, and even Britney was around then (as she is now. Only then, she was a teen-ier sensation).

Confession:
a) I never found a single backstreet boy, 'cute'

b) I have never heard 'Smells like Teen Spirit'

c) and I could NEVER make sense of metal (I tried, though!)

What I did listen to (and consequently made sense of) were The Carpenters, Abba, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, THE King (Presley, ofcourse), Cindy Lauper, Jim Reeves, Paul Anka...someone who sang 'L.A.International Airport'...and every song that came out of a tattered, old 1968 diary...Grandfather's Clock, Poor Old Joe, Top of the World, Barney O'Hea!, Seasons in the sun, Killing me Softly, Old Folks at Home, Something Stupid....The diary belongs to my mother, and the songs are my inheritance, so to say...along with a cake recipe, a hostel expenditure account, a timetable and tidbits of news items, dated 1975 (that's stuff for another post though)...

But one of the most precious find off those pages was...'Sounds of Silence'. Hello darkness, my old friend...still make my spine tingle...the first strum of the guitar...and those words...I've come to talk with you again...Oddly enough, I always (in a manner of speaking) thought 'Sounds...' was a Beatles song. Simon&Garfunkel were, to me, synonymous with - Mrs. Robinson, Boxer, Scarborough Fair, Bridge over Troubled Waters and (the less popular, though equally beautiful) Bright Eyes - but never their single most smashing hit! That was an orphaned entry on the yellow pages...people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never shared...till such time as I did not have google and wikipedia to enlighten me. Here's more of what wiki told me...the song was supposedly written in the "aftermath the assassination of J.F.Kennedy...as a way of capturing the emotional trauma felt by many Americans." Another interesting bit states, the song was "originally recorded as an acoustic piece for their [S&G] first album Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m."....and the album was declared a dud...leading the duo to their first split up. The song went on to become a hit in 1965, after Tom Wilson re-recorded it with electric guitar, bass and drums and released it as a single. I recently discovered a rather amusing version of the song, covered by (Bob) Dylan and (Paul) Simon...Dylan, growling and Simon bravely attempting to do the harmonies with him! Makes you appreciate Simon&Garfunkel (without pause, without spaces) all the more!

Anyway, trivia aside, what's so beautiful about the song is the haunting tenor that talks of, for me, a people snug in status quo, happily espousing the cause of antiquated traditions and neon gods...no one dared, disturb the sound of silence...of the human race that lies self-assured of its genius, yet writes its own doom every passing minute...in silence. The song is about us, the masses that go into the theatres to watch 'Rang de Basanti', clap and cheer and walk out feeling cleansed after the synthetically savoured catharsis...

I, for my part, think I absolve myself by writing socially critical blogs (bravo! bravo!). Thus can I sleep peacefully during the day. For, as in the words of me darlings...

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail

Yes i would, if i could, i surely would

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail

Yes i would, if i only could, i surely would

Away, i'd rather sail away

Like a swan that's here and gone

A man gets tied up to the ground

He gives the world its saddest sound

Its saddest sound

I'd rather be a forest than a street

Yes i would, if i could, i surely would

I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet

Yes i would, if i only could, i surely would.

Slumdogs? eew! Not in here!

2009-01-25T16:42:00.018+05:30

The outcry has been oh-so deafening, even my cumulative ear-wax of 3 months couldn't save me!!

"Shiv Sena protests screening of Slumdog Millionaire alleging it hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindu community."
"Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan rubbishes Slumdog Millionaire for portraying India as a 'third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation'."
"Slumdog stars sued for 'defaming' slum-dwellers."

...patronising westerner intentionally insults the DIGNITY OF INDIA and its billion-plus pious (Dettol-sanitised) population...with his derogatory portrayal of (the otherwise beautiful, down-to-earth) Indian way of life. Uff! They probably didn't know we have Aishwarya Rai on offer for purpose of all international projects!

And what about the incidental fact that India is really a third-world, developing nation? Or that we are a people limited in our way of thinking...willfully blind to our own excreta? What about the fact that we beat our saffron-white-green-breasts because Mukesh Ambani resides in a 60-storey mansion, while 85.7% of the population subsists on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day? Or the fact that our dignified faces beam when Sunita Williams flies off to outer-space (it matters not that she wasn't even born in the country! She does have the requisite remnant Indian gene)? (Perhaps the Big Bee has answers to these questions...would he care to blog?) What about the fact that Mr.Marathi Manoos is terribly proud, for some mysterious reason, of the Dharavi bungalows (I dare not call them slums for fear of being lynched)? Or the fact that we use (and will continue using, for a long, long time) religion and god as excuses to avoid owning up to our pathetic selves, even though 'god' has been dead for quite somewhile?

What about the fact that this face is real...?

"Who cares? We need a scandal. Nolimus Aut Velimus. So like the Americans and the British we can be true Social Democrats and at last be able to shout, 'We're upto our necks in shit, it's true, and that's why we walk with our heads held high'."

-Dario Fo, Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Jai Siya Ram!

“…feeding a little life with dried tubers”

2009-01-24T01:43:00.007+05:30

Those words…they’ve been making more return journeys my way, than usual. Now that that's out of the way...It's one of those days again.

One of those days when the damp, even more than the chill penetrates your bones and you feel muddied all over. One of those days when you feel like picking at scabs till they turn blue or start bleeding. One of those days when your hair aches to the very roots. One of those days when the shower chooses to go cold on you and repeated cuppas of tea refuse to warm your innards. One of those days when the sun will fade the moment you settle down in hope of soaking some. One of those days when you call up someone and they’re just too busy to bother and the only ones available are the ones you shun like a plague (and you’re almost tempted to talk to them). One of those days when you open your mailbox 5 times a day just to admire the amount by which your spam outnumbers your regular mail. One of those days when the (must-must-read) book you’ve been pursuing for over a month declares, ‘I am undisputable tosh’. One of those days when you realize you’ve been in the process of ‘getting there’ for the past half a decade…and that maybe you will never really ‘get there’! One of those days when the butter is scanty on the toast and the omelet is runny. One of those days when you feel you’re all wrong and nothing can make it right. One of those days when the spray of yellow light from the bedside lamp won’t cheer you up anymore…and instead you manage to find solace (and a soul-mate) in Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’. One of those days when there is an invisible draught of cold air even inside the quilt and nobody to talk you to sleep. One of those days when Bugs-Bunny seems like a pesky big-toothed, big-eared rodent. One of those days when you realize rabbits are not really rodents. One of those days when it dawns on you that you actually know nothing…nothing at all and it has been a wild masquerade all along…you realize it’s time to walk off the stage

...and your warm wooly socks have suddenly developed holes. (and that's the crux of the entire post)

Yes, it is one of those days, yet again, when you go all whiny and think blogging about it on a public forum is a good idea!

Death of the Reader, anyone?

2009-01-16T02:40:00.014+05:30

"We are now beginning to let ourselves be fooled no longer by the arrogant antiphrastical recriminations of good society in favour of the very thing it sets aside, ignores, smothers, or destroys; we know that to give writing its future, it is

necessary to overthrow the

myth: the birth of the reader

must be at the cost of the death of the Author."

...wrote Roland Barthes

I have memories of childhood. Fond ones. Memories of being read Barthes and Derrida and Nietzsche to bed. I do not wish to imply that these were in any way soporific (barring on Sunday afternoons)...but I digress...today as I sat reading Barthes, I was reminded of my father...an exemplary reader, a lenient father and very a patient teacher...I have memories of innumerable after-dinner conversations spent casually discussing the arbitrary nature of all that existed (for it exsited only in language)...during these leisurely lectures (they are in a way, all my education) my father took it upon himself to personally introduce me to Mr.Signifier and Ms.Signified (they have made for good company over the years) Foucault's panopticons and Derrida's loopy deconstruction...he taught me to pronounce funny names like Al-bear Ca-moo (Albert Camus) and Jyauck La-caa (Jacques Lacan)...he diluted Saussure's phenomenal thesis exclusively for my tookish ears...it was he who told me that sex is biological and gender, social...it was from him that I first learnt the relevance of 'normal-within-quotes'...from him that I learnt not to believe in absolutes (for, 'all experience is subjective')...he spiked my desserts with Semiotics, Cybernetics, Linguistics, Structuralism, Post-Modernism, De-contsruction, Philology, Psycho-analysis, Sociology, Anthropology, literary criticism and no, it wasn't a troubled childhood. I rather looked forward to those evenings...transfixed on a chair (not willing to move a muscle, unless it be a sign of disinterest) as Papa jumped and read and explained and then read a little more...from book after book till there was a pile of 'to-be-reads' as tall as me...a special favourite being Gregory Bateson ("The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named") tee hee hee...

And all these cunning heavy-weights he brandished at me with such non-chalance...an off-handish manner, that almost deceived me into thinking they were nice folk...until I saw this-

"Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an "event," if this loaded word did not entail a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural-or structuralist-thought to reduce or to suspect. But let me use the term "event" anyway, employing it with caution and as if in quotation marks. In this sense, this event will have the exterior form of a rupture and a redoubling."

...wrote Jacques Derrida

...and I trembled (and sometimes I yawned and sometimes I sniggered)

Years have passed now and "the map is not the territory" has become the longest standing joke around our household...I have grown up and appreciate my education a tad more (Thankyou papa, you made Barthes easy)...still, the wonder that never ceases to sieze me by the brain is, why couldn't any of these philosophers write in a manner that was comprehensible?! Was their language, like their thought an expression of rebellion against traditional epistemes...if only it didn't come across as so confoundingly abstruse...if only they didn't conspire to kill the reader...if only they were as endearingly simple as papa...

(and I know this is a lot of dumb-and-blind criticism...but see, papa! I was listening all the while and I caught a few words too!)

2009-01-13T23:26:00.005+05:30

Do you ever get stuck on words? Or rather do words get stuck on you? You know...obsessively...stuck like an especially stubborn chunk of eclair that won't go away, no matter how much you pry about in the dark with your tongue....Well, I do. (get stuck on words, I mean) And quite often. Very whimsically too. Words with no relation to anything...you wake up in the morning and it's there...just..........like...CATACOMB.
heavy word, that! Like something you could beat the dust out of a carpet with...or it could be something like a honeycomb...you know, just cats instead of bees...sounds logical enough. No idea what you do with it, though...or what 'it' could do with you. But why not throw it around in conversation...to add that touch of intellectual flourish (that so eludes me otherwise)...something impressive sounding...'wandering the catacombs of my life'....end with a sigh...take a bow (applause)

The problem with such 'problem' words is that you never know what they really mean and you're always too lazy to find out. You just keep saying it over and over in your head...rolling it around left right and all those other directions possible... catacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacombcatacomb....until, well, until nothing. The word is headstrong...but it won't spring to life if you chant it repeatedly...and it certainly won't start making sense. You may sit and 'cogitate' all day...soon, if you have too much time on your hands, you'll be left wondering what it would be like to comb a real cat...so much for the catacombs of my brain.

P.S. - Anyway, since I decided to put this on the blog I thought it would be a good idea not to appear like such a popinjay...so here's what a real CATACOMB looks like...

P.S. 2 - For those still wondering about the meaning...
cat⋅a⋅comb /ˈkætəˌkoʊm/
–noun
1. an underground cemetery, esp. one consisting of tunnels and rooms with recesses dug out for coffins and tombs.
2. the subterranean burial chambers of the early Christians in and near Rome, Italy.
3. an underground passageway, esp. one full of twists and turns.

I am currently reading up on their genesis and progression through time and human history...those catacombs must be kept alive!

requiem for an indian road

2009-01-07T23:42:00.005+05:30

Every inch spat upon

not a sliver rests unwashed

...a stigmatised existence,

indeed.

Aponia

2009-01-04T23:54:00.009+05:30

Tonight, she has decided to poke a needle through your eye...the naked twin looking out from the mirror. You are to be her special guest for the night, it seems....and for many more to come. Always thought it was the other twin that was naked...Naked Desire. But when this one takes hold, you are stripped of even the last ounce of shame...a feast on the ugly, putrid remnants of a sorry self...must feed her well, given her corpulence.

Tonight you are an untalented, ungifted, unintelligent, unwanted, miserable lacerated excuse. Go choke on your own bacchanalia...and don't look into the mirror, you're not pretty!

2008-12-24T08:26:00.005+05:30

“Picture yourself on a boat in a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies….”

Somehow these lines never made sense…and passed me by as some psychotropic-ally invoked form of poetic license (The Beatles you know! they can be...umm...a li'l obscure. I mean what is dear Lucy doing in the sky with diamonds, huh?!) until…alas…last eve…the moment of epiphany, that melted in my mouth, as I gently sucked off the tangy marmalade from a Cookie Man cookie. Waitaminnut! Tangy…marmalade? I bit into the juicy peel…slowly…lingered as the juices found their way around hidden corners of my mouth, then down my throat, and up my brain…and truth bared itself in a divine revelation…like a writ stamped into the clear blue sky (not marmalade, of course)…Tangy-marmalade….Of course doofie D!! Marmalade is made of Tangerines!!

And as the prophetic tangerine tree, swayed in the background, with its little golden nuggets, lilting along to the music of the winter breeze, I hummed Lucy to myself…a sigh of knowledgeable satisfaction...It still doesn’t make much sense, but at least I know what those tangerines were doing around with a marmy sky! And yes, I can picture it….boy! can I!

Now back to that juicy peel…mmmmm

From you

2008-12-22T01:08:00.024+05:30

“I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online. My breath catches in my chest as I hear three little words, ‘You've got mail.’ I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York. Just the beat of my own heart. I have mail...from you.”

As I sit down wrapped warmly in what my mother calls ‘granny’s blessings’…the steam from a hot cup o’tea fogging my brain…Sunday is sadly coming to an end. I don’t quite know why, but I am reminded of a song by Freddie (Fred E.) Ahlert….

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you

I'm gonna write words oh so sweet
They're gonna knock me off my feet
A lotta kisses on the bottom
I'll be glad I got 'em
I'm gonna smile and say

I hope you're feeling better

I'll close with love the way you do
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

And I'm gonna make believe it came from you

This takes me back to late night shows of “You’ve Got Mail” and talks about bo-tt-om-dwellers and The Godfather, of butterflies off to buy hats and celebrating the fall with ‘bouquets of sharpened pencils’…

And I find myself wishing for someone who would write me a letter. A long winded, leisurely one. One that talks of everything under the sun and yet nothing in particular. One that I can read under the spray of yellow light from my bedside lamp and then stow away underneath my pillow. A charm for good dreams.

I like letters. I like writing them. I love receiving them, even more. There is nothing that quite compares with the sheer thrill of getting mail….and I’ll make some space here to include the “e” versions as well…

And now as I try to recollect my experiences of the postal kind….a certain blue inland letter from Nanaji comes knocking...

*For the less-informed (ignorant would be a rude way of addressing a potential reader, no?!)…an ‘Inland Letter’ otherwise also known as an aerogramme is a sheet of postal stationery where the letter sheet doubles up as an envelope. Refer to Fig.1.2/exhibit A…(whatever!)

Nanaji wrote the most meticulously worded letters possible. They were mostly addressed to ma, w/o pa. The opening paragraph would be a polite enquiry about the ‘pinkness’ of all our healths. Followed by news he wished to exchange. Neatly divided, every matter that he wished to discuss had a para each devoted to it…and he never ever wasted any available space…not even the folds.

It was always the most interesting of games…trying to piece together a letter from the fragments scattered across in all manner (inside, outside, vertically, horizontally…) till we found the last piece of the puzzle… affection and love…Nanaji.

Most of the times, these letters would carry a line or two where he’d address me and my sis, indirectly. But sometimes, like a gift out of a Christmas stocking, would pop out little letters addressed solely to us! Oh what fun…an entire letter written to me! I’d carry it around for the next few days…reading and re-reading it till I had it by-heart….love and affection.

Not much has changed…except Nanaji. He’s gone. And so have those blue letters. But I still cherish a well written mail.

One of my longest standing correspondents…invoked on a winter eve in panic…we’ve talked across each other…like two parallel lines….on and off…erratic to the level of surreality…and surreal to the level of eccentricity. He would (still does) send me little rhetorical pieces…and I’d immediately proceed to comment, squiggle, squirm or shout in reaction…

The most memorable mail…one whimsically titled You didn't reply to my mail! :((
This restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos...
signed…P

Now that I think of it…Brilliant poking tactics…really!! He must have chuckled every time I launched into an ear-piercing “Aaargghhh” mail…

Unfortunately, the closest of friends have persistently refused to display their skills at penmanship.
One of my greatest lament has been regarding the reluctance on part of my friends, when it comes to writing mails…thirsty summers would pass in different cities with only a two-liner go-between …Of course I will have to make an exception for the summer of 2004, when D decided we must discuss the virtues (or rather the vices) of the then newly elected government, led by Sonia…erm no…Manmohan Singh. The air went thick with virulent and excited mails…going back and forth…D to D…till we called truce and let Manmohan go in peace.

But the best of our mail conversation went something like this…
D: make a yahoo messenger id...fast
D: Maybe......someday
D: ohh....you want to keep me waiting
…………………………………………………………………….

Then of late…some two years back, to be precise…I developed a habit of making ‘virtual’ friends…one for every year. We (they and I) would exchange mails…even chat…till talk dwindled to the level of ho-hmms and lols! and I ran for cover (and for anybody who wishes to contradict me…or say something about freak proposals…I don’t know you!)… Yes, we did begin by professing we were in search of experiences of the cerebral kind (gegege)…then we got derailed. The year petered out, so did our conversations …

Till of course, one day, when I got hooked…….mails that just wouldn’t go away!
They came in the guise of friendly missives, songs, scientific exhortations, human lamentation and most memorably, chapters from Sandman…capriciously innocent, A wrote me a treasure in words….mails under the most cryptically Delphian titles. Sample - Various…On God…of herbs and stewed rabbits…Preludes and Nocturnes…X and Y….olive greens...fiddlers green ....inquisitions and nightmares…..Mail from Digenes....Endless Nights….Ironies…Diamonds and Rust….edelweiss…. Fables and Reflections…Hmmm…Usual…nothing at all…

I may or may not have replied to all or some of these…as and when the whim-struck fingers have permitted. All the same, I am convinced that written correspondence, wins out over every other form of communication….especially telephonic. For instance, A and I can find little to talk of beyond our three meals; or when P calls, more often than not, we resort to talking in silences. Letters possess the quality of an "emotion recollected in tranquillity", to borrow words from Wordsworth. It is not just witty riposte..and it seeps over and beyond daily banal converse...the spell of unspoken words that work their way to possess the reader somehow. I swear its black-magic! And I'm a willing victim....There might be those, anyhow, who’ll argue in favour of more ‘spontaneous’ discourse…but I think I’ll sit this one out… and wait for a mail…that just won’t come…not now at any rate

Affection and love

2008-12-12T16:58:00.012+05:30

Elelgy to a wheelbarrow...
Dead leaves and a tale of pity

Orgy-Porgy

2008-12-11T05:01:00.002+05:30

I have been man-handled and assaulted. I may even have been brutally raped. But what is worse...I have witnessed (what might have seemed to the participants) a highly erudite discussion on underarm hair. Yes. You may go over the sentence again...carefully...it says, Underarm hair. Would it matter much if I reported, that the conversation was broadcasted on national television. The conversants were two styled-to-seeming-perfection females...twins, no clones (they were obviously synthetic produce), with obviously not a sign of 'underarm hair' in sight. Pneumatic, as Huxley would say. Very. Like meat. The specifics would make little difference. Was this on television or radio, that I was attacked? The topos could belong anywhere...even reality is a plausible option. The possibilities for depravity are great, indeed! For reference, I may guide you to the nearest television set. Follow at your own risk, ofcourse!

Come one, come all...
Barkha Dutt will apprise you of the state the of the curtains that became escape ladders for victims at the Taj (oh, you poor, poor curtains!), and Karan Thapar will bemoan the tragedy of not having frequented the Sea lounge in Taj more often...EXCLUSIVE! EXCLUSIVE!...a few miliseconds away Star News will interrogate Chandra Mohan Bhajan Lal's second wife on her views regarding the first wife...a bald guy will make sport of abusing people...all this while poor Saloni's cancer-afflicted husband takes jal samadhi (how I wish I could!!)

This is rape. One of its kind. One that the victim abets, even enjoys to a great extent. And all in the name of entertainment.
"Amusing Ourselves to Death"...what an eponymous phrase afterall...for all that constitutes our lives. Neil Postman saw it coming in the last millennium...a world obsessed with trivia. Postman examines two seminal dystopian texts - George Orwell's '1984' and Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'. The observations are acute, "In '1984' people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World', they are controlled by inflicting pleasure."

Big Brother does not watch us, rather it is we who watch him...we watch him sing, dance and yodel. We watch as he cries, laughs and curses. We watch him dissect cosmic mysteries and we watch as he baby-talks us into status quo. He looks like Prannoy Roy and talks like Rakhi Sawant. And we watch...enraptured. The Huxleyan 'nightmare' translates into reality every minute as humans successively shun existence as people begin living only as an 'audience'...turning all activity into an act of over-publicised vaudeville.

I'm not quite sure where my ire is directed...if it is the media alone, then I absolve myself of all guilt...I also, at the same time, deny myself all agency...

Sigh, so they do mess with your brain, huh?!
The clock has struck 5, I see I'm losing track of my thoughts. So I think I'll switch off and withdraw from words, tonight...
Goodnight —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!
Fare ye well.
.
.
.
P.S. As a parting shot, to make up for weasel words...I present...Watterson, a stroke of genius

This one was too good to be left out...

2008-12-09T04:08:00.019+05:30

Sometimes he comes to me in the defeaning silence of the night...the man with eyes like two dark pools of twinkling stars. You wait, in naked anticipation...yearning to be taken in by him...again and again and...again. You hug yourself tight and playfully beckon him to an embrace...something in that twinkle says he won't come, when called. But he does, perhaps...alas, you were asleep. He slipped away before I could touch him. Like the man in the dunes. Now, really! And with eyes wide open you search, desperately... around the corner, in cosy nooks, in the still warm depression on the pillow, in the touch of an imagined caress...the trace of a token, a promise, a dream, atleast...maybe he'll come back tomorrow and maybe he'll stay. And then we'll read the morning papers together.....the man with eyes like two dark pools of twinkling stars and I

mumble mumble mubmle

2008-12-09T04:06:00.003+05:30

Try as I might profundity fails me...most miserably, at most times. Tragedy is profound, 'they' said. But then there is seldom any tragedy in trivialities...save in the fact that they exist merely as that...trivialities.