Intellectual rot

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

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

"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

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.

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

All of a summer's day

...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'...

Nothing to be done.

Spring

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

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...

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!

My backyard has a few trees…

Yellow, golden and sometimes green

Cataloguing

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

(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

"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

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

"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

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

"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'

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!

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”

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!