Easy Rider

2009-10-25T20:06:00.005Z

Rukku's song

I'd never seen Rukku athhe in anything but a nine yard kache sari. She always looked immaculate and quite striking. A gentle lady. She's one woman on my father's side of the family who always wore around her like an aura, a sense of equanimity. White flowers for some reason I thought suited her. I always made it a point to take her some at least once a year.

I didn't meet her too often but the affection between us was unconditional and genuine. I liked it when she sounded worried about me or my siblings or my myriad cousins. It was a sense of beautiful comfort when in her house, drinking her filter coffee and listening to her husband whose mind was sharp as a tack despite being a nonogenarian, quizzing us on archaic science. Laughter just came easy around this strange couple.

One home less now in Bangalore now where I can drop into a safety net of real comfort. She died last night uneasily in her sleep. I didn't get to say goodbye.

2009-10-24T15:33:00.011+01:00

Melancholy

freedom and contact

two distinctive impulses confusing in its dichotomy.

An uneasy feeling of being trapped in an alien land. How can a little booklet make all the difference? We truly enslave ourselves with artificial constraints. And to make it worse I torture myself with imaginary claustrophobia.

It's all going to be ok

reassurance...it remained elusive till this afternoon

why didn't he know or guess?

on the verge of tears

all i wanted was to be wrapped in his arms in a moment of human empathy...all i wanted was a big hug

i lash out...he is too preoccupied with other things to get it....I'm crestfallen

Should our fated to be short relationship be devoid of everything beautiful just because we choose to impose on it a time limit?

We have absolutely nothing in common. Maybe I convinced myself that we connect on prehistorical humane way...something like a Mineon ideal. Perhaps I'm still right...I don't know...i dislike being afraid of being misunderstood. Won't he turn to me even slightly in his time of need? The thought makes uneasy strides.

I'm going over to give him his hug as a friend.

Que sera sera

P.S- I sooo must be pmsing to write such rot!

2008-12-23T01:07:00.002Z

To Vivek

Sitting amongst a random bunch of people. Geographically supposed to be proximate. I don't belong. Yet sometimes the most unexpected people surprise you. Unbelievably, the person who invited me, even in his oppositional chalkness with his affability destroys part of my constructed stereotype. He could in all his difference just turn out to be a friend. I am pleased

2008-12-08T20:37:00.002Z

Dreg

This miserable excuse for a human being who lives close by is a blithering idiot. It's confirmed now beyond doubt. I did give the thing a goodish while to prove otherwise but oh no it insisted on being the beacon of a rather excessive mental retardation.

I first noticed this leaning towards fuckedupness during the very first days of our acquaintance.

It was a mammoth effort on my part to not die of boredom when it trotted along. And guess what the pillar of braindeadness did? It completely bewildered me with its total lack of imagination in not getting my rather simple jabs at sarcasm. To its credit, it does display character. Its character is like the weakest, most watery tea...the kind you get in NCC camps or Abu gharib possibly. To think this wonder of the world reserves a right to judge people who are different is...leaves me speechless.

I demand to have the right to puke on this thing.

2008-12-03T10:44:00.002Z

Tagalu

1. If your lover betrayed you, what would your reaction be?
mmm nice...yay!!! I don't have to feel guilty anymore..lol

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
to lead a Wooster like life. Oh Jeeves...

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
bitch person...ssssssstarting with the letter..isn't it obvios..bah!!!

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
go on a lifelong expedition exploring the world

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
eeewwww no....not possible. there is not the remotest possibility of friendship if i was attracted to someone. I'd have been busy bonding in other ways.

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
both equally

7. How long would you wait for someone you loved?
heh...wait? when there is so much love going around?

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Seduce him (lol...I swear I'd still allow him to have quality time with his grandchildren. I wouldn't interfere)

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
female infanticide

10. What takes you down the fastest?
public speaking

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
I dunno...on a rocking chair, knitting socks by the fireplace in my castle with 2 children and a dog at my feet..a scene of domestic bliss
Or
covering war somewhere as a unilateral
or
as a social butterfly/trophy wife
or
as the proud owner of my wonderful travel bar
or
working on projects for lonely planet
or
ideally doing all the above at the same time

12. What’s your fear?
those damn oblong things they usually insist on having at children's parties

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
She's a 'cartoon' person.. LOL. A brilliant child.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Single and rich of course. Think about it... this allows for so many more options.

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
roll over, switch on my macbook and check mail...exciting eh?

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
erm can't I have em both?

17. Would you give all in a relationship?
depends

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
I have a really short term memory . I forget very quickly which is probably why I forgive just as easily.

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
alternating between the two...strikes a nice balance me thinks.

20. List of people to tag: priya, aka, prem

2008-12-01T19:32:00.002Z

Staccato

Shabby work, he said. So fucking what? I protest against this insistence on perfection. I've always believed in not being constrained by anything, especially not time. Why then should I give in to conventions of something as restrictive as language (psst I have no idea where the commas go in this sentence).

I don't want to use commas where they should be simply because it's stifling. Hmm yes it could be argued that the reader may find it difficult to follow. My point is why shouldn't the reader get off his/her lazy butt and get the implicit meanings without artificial crutches. Implicit's not good for him either. Subtlety apparently has no place in journalism. Maybe its better not to know too much then. No fear then of hidden meanings.

Of course there should exist rules for those who want them to order their lives. For others like me who prefer disarray over anything else, nobody should be allowed to force romance out of language. Whether for impact or otherwise, all kinds of writing must flourish if only for the sake of variety.

Writing is an art. I'm not disputing that. And like all art it must follow convention to be privileged. I refuse to cave in. Besides I don't mind being shabby at times and good at others ...whatever strikes my fancy. I want to decide.

2008-10-13T17:31:00.003+01:00

Raven rant

Molten moods could lead anywhere. These days they have a mind of their own and insist on going the wrong way. I've given up on absolute control. I can taste the bile sometimes but force it into an ever lingering dull pain.If it lasts much longer I'm afraid of permanent adoption. Frightened of almost everything. I find kindness in the strangest places in spite of it.

I allow myself an occasional fistful of happiness.

2008-05-29T23:00:00.011+01:00

Crimson and Clover

Different songs play in my head but nothing fits...I try desperately even now to find the perfect one.

Part I- Closing time

a lone stranger walks in and politely asks for a pint just before i shut down the cafe. I spill beer on the already cleaned bar unable to resist the gentle demand.
Idle conversation and then a hunt for a "real Dutch" pub.
2 beers and an hour of chatter...i realize strange attraction...a foolish sucker for men who know their music.

"i have a girlfriend," he said
i paused for a full minute
should i pass value judgment i wondered.
french values perhaps?
was i going to let ethics stand in the way of spontaneity?
i gave in to desire...his and mine
Geston, i thought from beauty and the beast...funny thought that
not even a little baked...how could I?
besides, a gentle giant...was I straying from the norm? is that why I broke free?

Part II- Crash

We spoke the same language. His English a little broken...yet it was babel on a certain plane. It's not that we didn't understand each other...we just spoke or didn't from very different places

i think of him a lot these days but it's the moments not the person, though i know i confuse the two
i don't know him....i probably will never see him again in my life

Its been a week now...
we keep in touch ...a few lines of inane chatter of no significance.
i know i'll meet someone new and quickly move on.
even memory is going to fade away but I want to file away those beautiful moments for recall in some small recess of my teeny brain. Strange content and turbulent peace. It's a little scary I think.

I wish him well and am grateful too if not for anything but for curing me of the mal boy. This could turn dangerously wistful. I look forward to other things and try to forget. But first (and in this case second too) experiences are precious, especially if you've been taken to places you never knew existed.

I'm going to let him read this.
I don't think he'll understand fully.

I'm going to find that song

2006-10-15T21:32:00.000+01:00

An end, a beginning and a beginning of an end.

A bald head - the man in the red hunting jacket

A metaphorical fall

A year of cold contempt

A second tumble for the second

A conversation on g talk

And then a perusal- the final straw (or was it?)

And my carelessly but stubbornly built defensive wall (of denial) crumbles faster than mum’s ‘best’ made cookies. Hope is a terrible, terrible thing. The surest way to bring about its swift and satisfying demise is to use or in this case grapple with technology, one of the more archaic ones at that – (reading of) writing.

(In between a look at an interesting profile- perhaps a beginning)

Oh what tangled webs we weave!!!

A discovery

Two distinct but beautiful screensavers. Two pining hearts.

The equation ought to have been right.

Reading disintegrated any delusions that I may have deliberately harbored.

Two exposures, three people.

Two hopelessly clinging on to the ‘unattainable’ other. Tempted to try psychoanalysis here but resist.

It can’t get worse than this I think when much to my dismay I realize something extraordinarily eerie and disturbing – I am capable of reveling in any emotion. I’m in fact much enjoying the heart break, the cold despair that clutches at every grain of my being

I giggle and develop a profound interest in bats. And then giggle some more.

2006-06-29T17:41:00.000+01:00

Violent desires

I need an M&B and now. This whole god damn house is wall papered with books and I can't find one freaking mush novel. Think I'm going to scream.

Besides this guy whose blog I read and whom I thought was one of the weirdest, funniest guy I had come across has in fact proved to be a- little- more- than- I- can- handle of the former.As he himself suggests what he deserves is a cruel castration for his limited understanding. Oh crap!That's not true, any form of understanding would be crediting him with some kind of intelligence, no form of which he appears to posess. Maybe I should leave a scathing comment on his blog but does he deserve it? Or perhaps it would be more gratifying to knock him down with the bag of doorknobs he talks about.

Living with Chickungunya is certainly not pleasant!

2006-06-23T11:12:00.001+01:00

“Eros is good”

Beautiful velvet swirling sensuously around every inch of your near bare body can get dangerously addictive. Neither food nor sex can equal the erotic tactility of water.

Powerful strokes cut through the water at precise angles, a couple of hours after which limbs liquid with the exertion relax at the edge of the pool. Combined with the waters heady caress, there is pleasure in the pain. Every particle of my body surrenders to this sweet agony.

But like any psychedelic drug, dosage needs to be consistently upped to obtain similar results. I slowly increase the number of laps till I’m almost working out three hours everyday covering a stretch of two and a half kilometers. A few weeks into this madness and the body resists what the soul craves for. “Swimmer’s ear,” the doctor sympathetically clucks and pronounces. A fungal infection of the ear that could leave me 60 per cent hearing impaired or to put it more bluntly deaf. But hey the first whimsical question that pops into my head which I give tongue to is, “What about mermaids then?” “Earplugs and eardrops,” he prescribes, not unkindly completely ignoring my, what I considered then, valid question.

Free ears, something which I never thought I’d ever say (I know it sounds like a corny slogan for a right to information or something) can only be appreciated relatively, when you are forced to go about with stuffed ones. Not only is it incredibly painful it also surprisingly heightened my olfactory senses. This seems like a good thing but it really is not. The aromatic delights of a dead lizard somewhere in some far flung corner of the club is not something you wish to revel in. Also the pain is a bloody impairment. A hundred and twenty laps takes what seems like an interminably long time, almost an eternity to complete. My savior...well erm blah. A three day respite will do me a world of good. To free ears. Cheers.

“Eros had better be better.”

2006-06-18T14:20:00.000+01:00

Wasn't born to follow - The Byrds

Oh, I'd rather go and journey

Where the diamond crescent's glowing

And run across the valley

Beneath the sacred mountain

And wander through the forest

Where the trees have leaves of prisms

And break the light in colours

That no one knows the names of

And when it's time, I'll go and wait

Beside a legendary fountain

Till I see your form reflected

In its clear and jewelled waters

And if you think I'm ready

You may lead me to the chasm

Where the rivers of our vision

Flow into one another

I will want to dive beneath

The white cascading waters

She may beg she may plead

She may argue with her logic

And mention all the things I'll lose

That really have no value

In the end she will surely know

I wasn't born to follow

2006-06-17T13:23:00.000+01:00

Nothing really – Go fish!

The other fish at the pool were giving me snotty looks and it took me a while to figure out why. My pretence at hibernation was apparently assaulting their delicate sense of sight. Reluctantly, I head to the preening arena otherwise called the beauty parlor in common parlance, to shed the additional plumage.

I utter but a mere whimper when the waxing lady there gives me a sharp look and barks “Control! Quiet down. It’s not like it’s your first time” and continues to happily try and part my body (or rather my epidermis) from soul. Of course not lady, you should have heard me when my waxing virginity was taken. The thousand tiny points of tingling unbearable pain had me change the atmosphere from a swank up market place to a Nazi torture chamber in minutes.

“Hindi?” she growls after a few minutes of caustic silence. I am still indignant, but relent (just a wee bit) and answer, “Illa, Kannada”. Her rigid face eases out a few of what I mistakenly took to be wrinkles but which actually turn out to be bunched up skin in its effort to bear semblance to a frown. “Oh I thought you were Hindi,” she says. “Illa Kannada”, once again I assert, this time pleasantly.

Now I don’t know if I have to be offended or pleased. Pleased at her pro-south Indian attitude or offended that she took me to be one of those you know who. Oh hell! At least now she won’t pretend at leech anymore and try and bleed me to death. I go along and play the let’s be as many languages as possible today game with her. “Tamil?” for the heck of it, I disinterestedly question. “Telugu,” she answers. I quickly switch to being cities. “Me Hyderabad,” I nod matter of factly. Geez! didn’t expect this to go so good. “Me Hyderabad too,” she gleefully confirms.

This was fun. I switch back to language. “Actually at home Tamil” (a literal translation of what I said to her in Kannada) I try. Alas the follicular expert didn’t take too kindly to this back and forth banter and turned back into leech monster. And not such an expert either. Drip! Drip! Horrified eyes watch in morbid fascination two large drops of iron rich make their - suspended in time for eons, but inevitable and fatal- descent towards terra-firma. Two seconds later, delayed reaction sets in. Screams rent the air in a freaky déjà vu. I feel like a born again waxing virgin.

2006-06-13T17:25:00.000+01:00

'Untrue South'
What is with people desperately wanting to sound intelligent or with others trying to lure you with what a friend of mine calls reverse-reverse psychology (of which he accuses me of employing –pah!). Also my roommate and good friend (love ya really!) has been really annoying me with all the Hindi she’s been spewing left, right and centre , polluting the ‘holy’ mann ina maga’s land. And she’s not the only one. The other day when all was well with the world, I skipped along to buy some curd.There I was all tanned and as brown as any South Indian could get, looking slightly lost, as there was all milk and no vendor around. I could have made off with a handful of the stuff but that was not what I really wanted at that point.So, I sigh sadly and am about to turn back when a voice speaks from somewhere in the hazy background which was perhaps the only thing that could have made me change colour. I turned a deep shade of claret, fuming inside but you know, me being me, maintained my cool. I mean I was really cucumber, I was almost icy when I managed to reply to his blasephemous ‘kya chahiye? Dood? (made on the soil of namavaru Rajkumar- mannina maga himself- I mean the ‘doodwallah’ bah). My icy stare is doing nothing to faze him, so I accompany it with ‘halu beda, mosaru idiya?’. Still no impact. “Nahi hey”, pat comes the infuriating reply. God I’m going to give up on all original Bangaloreans if they choose to be so subservient to an Aryan language and race.

And man do I blame people like my above mentioned friend. So it’s okay (barely) to use Hindi in Hyderabad but here in Kannada land to use it is unforgivable. Even in Bangalore, her first words are of the horrid non-dravidian tongue when she approaches strangers (vendors or otherwise) –“bhaiya…” Lots of my original Bangalorean friends pretend or perhaps refuse to learn their native tongue. It’s a pity and a shame.