Off the wagon

I seem to have fallen into the bad habit of vomiting god-awful first draft of my posts and then spending forever cleaning them up. Its beginning to seem like work. I dont like. The latest theory attributes this obstruction of ahem... literary flow to withdrawal symptoms - I havent touched a book in a while. I should have known i'm not strong enough for cold turkey.

Men at arms, here i come!

An Englishman in New York?

I'm on my way to the gym. The sun is peeping out sleepily from behind the clouds, debating whether to rise or indulge in those two precious minutes of sleep. In spite of myself, my spirits are lifted. The sun is no longer the enemy, the harbinger of morning, the siren for respectable people to be out of bed. It is just one of us, a co-sufferer, someone with unreasonably early work hours. I give it a metaphorical i know, life sucks pat on the back and move on. Up ahead i see this lady and her daughter standing on one side of the road, probably waiting for the school bus. The lady looks up at the rising sun, closes her eyes, bows her head and folds her hands together in prayer.
It should not come as a shock, but it does. At that instant, her motivations, her feelings, her actions seems so alien to me, that thats exactly what i feel like - an alien.
I suppose at some point in our lives all of us have felt it - the disconnect, the separation, this distance from everyone around us. Which is why even those small, meaningless connections you make with random strangers become all the more important. It is why i love watching Tamil movies in Pune. Being surrounded by all those Tamil speaking people, I feel like i belong. Or the reason why i like Chennai more than i logically should. Which is strange because i dont feel at home with the language itself!

P.S. I wanted to write about how every generation tries to find its own ways to deal with this alienation, to find something to belong to. Be it family and society, or rebellion or a caught in the middle generation that seems wants to belong but but is equally afraid of being bound. To anything. But i couldnt write it without seeming that i was a) being pompous and b) making sweeping generalizations.

Tit for tat?

The age old question again. If someone tats you, is it okay to tit back? Should you stoop to conquer? Or should you just stand straight, taking it all like a fool, hoping to shame the tatter into better behaviour? It doesnt work, this nobility. Except of course, in Hindi movies involving the Mahatma. I'm not arguing against his ways, all i'm saying is that they are not very effective when its one individual against the other. But the question still remains. Does the fact that you are reacting excuse the level you have sunk to? Or do the same standards that apply to your actions apply to your reactions?

I dont like questions i have to find my own answers to.

The messiest of them all

You know the person who exists just so that people can look at him and feel happy that their life will never be that bad? My desk at work is that person. With everything that lies on it and underneath, on a typical day at work, I will, at least once:

trip on the mouse wire
kick my CPU shut
go underground in search of the other end of some cable
pull off the network connection

Its a good thing i dont work on the top floor, people there have whole civilizations under their desk! Just looking under makes me feel like i'm "in" AOE.

(Look at the lame name dropping! Once she has played the game, years ago, by herself. But i guess its better that than pretending to be on first names terms with CS, after months of nothing but second hand association. And anyway, who plays these games nowadays?)

One and a half green bottles...

Know what i've realized after a shamefully large number of years of existence? I suck at keeping in touch. I know, its kind of like "discovering" in the 11th standard that you are left handed, its not like life didnt give you enough opportunities to find out. But thats just it, i think life didnt. Being the kind of person who does more of her talking in her head, even if people have moved out of my life's current window, they are very much a part of it inside. So if you ask me, i'll never admit to being out of touch. Plus, there has always been a current set that takes care of life outside my head.
What then lead me to the realization of left handedness? Remember that 10 green bottles standing on a wall rhyme? Well, it looks like someone seems to be very systematically playing that game with the people in my life. People are "accidentally" falling off. Not anything new, but in the past one green bottle would always be replaced by another. Different, to be sure. but essentially it would still be a green bottle. Now for variety of reasons the replacements have stopped. Or rather, just gotten bizarre. Sometimes there is just a bottle cap where a bottle should be. Sometimes its a green eyed bug. And empty space, lots of that too. And some that i know are green bottles, even though they dont look much like one right now, if i could just get it together to work on them a bit. I could of course go pick up the fallen bottles, none of whom, touch wood, have actually broken because of the fall. Which is when i realize how much hard work that seems like, how used i have got to drifting through life, to taking whatever it gives, to not sticking my hand out and asking for more.

Dark cloud. Black lining.

I complained about having to pay income tax, until i met a man with no income.

Look at the bright side, i told him, at least you dont have to file your returns.

Yes, the last day has come. Once again, having settled on do it yourself, i have not done it myself yet.

Work this week

1. N.O. No. Its just a two letter word. Say it. Seriously, how hard can it be?

2. Seeing what i might grow into, i all the more absolutely do not want to grow up.

To the universe in general: Stop with the signs already! Such obvious ones they are too. I'm not blind, you know. Whatever happened to subtlety, to hidden messages that people had to actually work to get to? I dont even like that book all that much.

Lessons for the day

When you are going on a trip:

Do. Not. Kill the one who says 5 minutes and takes 25. Do. Not. Kill the one who ditches early in the morning. A fine fool you'll look like when you find out later that he did it for excellent reasons. Do. Not. Kill the one who calls up when you are waiting on the road for 5 minutes to turn into 25 and asks - jaana hai kya aaj? Do. Not. Kill the one whose mood takes over early in the morning and decides no one is going anywhere. He will fight it and he will win. Do. Not. Kill the one who goes to sleep 4 hours before you are supposed to leave. Do. Not. Kill the one who thinks coffee is a good idea just 2 minutes before you reach to pick him up.

Cause then it would be just you, another punctual fool and the driver. Much fun that would be. Also because no matter how badly it all begins, the day makes up for it. Many times over.

You could of course kill the oaf who dropped the camera. You might want to find out, as an academic exercise, if that would be murder or suicide.

MPD

Guess who bangs her foot against the door and then apologizes to the foot?

Me. Or should it be We?

Its only just begun

A few months ago, one of my talks to myself:
You can either watch what you eat OR watch your toes disappear under your belly.
And you HAVE to choose. So quit moaning, pick a side and get your a** off the fence.

(Yeah i'm pretty curt to me. And rude. I dont like it, but what to do?)

And for once, i actually listened. Decided i couldnt bear the separation from my toes. Joined a gym. Watched what i ate. When i ate. How much i ate. Lost a ton. Just like that. Leaving me to wonder what i'd done so wrong on all those previous attempts.

Now that i'm off the hook, now that the vigil can be relaxed, do you think i breathe easy? Hah. Like i think i've said before, i dont do grey well. I can say no to everything. I can eat only desserts for lunch. But in between? When i actually have a choice? It feels like whichever side i pick, i lose. Plus, the whole decision making process is so arbitrary, i'll go in determined on one thing and the next second be doing the exact opposite. So when i go out to eat, there is no saying who will be dining: will it be Dr Jekyll nibbling on his salad or will Mr Hyde polishing off the plates.

P.S. Yes, i am properly ashamed of caring enough to have gone through it all. But boy, does it feel good!

I think i may have found love

Science fiction section at Landmark. On a weekday. An immensely fulfilling i could die right now feeling slowly spreads through me. Not to be confused with the more familiar i wish i was dead feeling.
Philip K Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, God bless you all.

Now reading: The Manticore's Secret. Very good. Although it did seem like the end came because he ran out of pages. My favourite part is the one with the Unwaba. And the third one is called The Unwaba Revelations! I'm torn between the lure of instant gratification and the rewards of patience.

A few of my favourite things

Its my favourite place in the world. Okay, in Pune, but for a frog in the well like me, its really the same thing. A bridge on a river that runs behind my house, whose name i know with a probability of half (there being only two rivers in Pune...). A graveyard on one bank, grass gone wild on the other. Grey, slow moving water. Home to some aquatic forms, but more prominently to plastic bags, dried flowers and other assorted waste generously contributed by the masses. And of course the accompanying stench. Serving as bathroom cum dhobi ghat for the surrounding settlements.

Yeah, thats what you'd see.

What I see (because very cleverly, i go only after the sun has set, when it is too dark for the water to look grey) are the bright city lights lighting up the water. A solitary boatman on his boat. Random flashes of some fish. The coolest wind in my hair, no sign of no stench. Stars so near, i can reach out and touch them. The feel of the bridge as it shakes a little when a bus goes by. And if i'm lucky, a train goes by on the twin railway bridge, light and dark, light and dark, all faithfully reflected in the water below.

In case you think i've lost it. I took a bunch of cousins there last weekend. And they saw what i saw. Except that the young ones were convinced the end of the word had come every time a bus went by.

My second favourite place in the world. A tiny stone wall running by a tree on the main road, with a top is so low and so flat, its more like a bench. I can sit there for hours, listening to songs, watching the world go by. The only distractions being travellers who stop by for a "break". (A wall by the road. And trees. What do you expect?)

As i made my way to the second one yesterday, everything looked new. And green. I couldnt find the damn bench! I walked on for a few seconds with a totally melodramatic expression on my face, this cant be happening, this cant be happening looping in my head. Then just like that i remembered this Monty Python sketch, which i often think is the most brilliant way of saying life goes on. And i had to smile. Suddenly, it didnt matter.

I walked on, revelling in the glorious weather. Up ahead there was this guy lying on his bike, looking up at the sky. Please dont be on the phone, please dont be on the phone, in my head again, but the idiot was. Should have pushed him off and taken over.

P.S. Another one exits. I take solace in Monty Python. And to her i say, shine on, you crazy diamond!
And lets try and make it to that movie this weekend?

Supposedly, i dont watch TV

How could they? After these masterpieces, how could Tata Indicom make/approve/telecast that ad of theirs? Damn, I wish i could find the video somewhere. If you havent seen it, it shows a husband who feels lost in his own home because his wife has gone to her maika. He keeps calling her up, mere shoes kidhar hai, toothbrush kidhar hai, doodh kitna daloon (okay, maybe not in that order, but you get the picture). Its like being caught in a roadside version of some designer dress at a party where the birthday girl is in the original.

If thats what your phone does, encourage such idiocy, maybe the best thing to do is to hit you on the head with it. Even without the Airtel ads for comparison, this one is (at least) 20 years too late.

P.S. Look at the number of posts! Looks like i'm suffering from written diarrhoea.

Introducing...

So i graduated into qualifying for a laptop at work. It was something i'd been secretly expecting. I'd catch myself dreaming, while lazing on the bean bags kept at the library, of some day having a laptop that would set me free. To work from a bean bag. Or a sofa, shoes off, feet up. To lie in some corner, transcribing the millions of posts coarsing through my veins. Even so, when i was called and told, here, its yours, i wanted to yawp and turn cartwheels. Of course, since i was at work, i had to content myself with a few discrete jumps in the loo.
At home, it means we have now become a one-computing-device-per-head family. Before you look down upon this extravagance and shake you head, remember the days when we used to snigger at families with one two-wheeler per head? And those with one phone per head? Its blowing in the wind, this is, and soon it will get to you too. Me Aunt says its the fastest way to bring about world peace. I agree.
I love my laptop (think i should give it a name? Laptop is too formal, lappie sounds like a dog) even though it hasnt exactly set me free. I havent figured out the wireless connection yet. The damn thing only connects to open wireless networks, which, considering where i work, would be like a night watchman leaving his home unlocked at night. As of now, i've been treating it as a giant pen drive, lugging stuff from office to home and back. Someday, it will change my life.

My claim to fame

I watched Batman Begins with a bat in the room. Beat that.

(A bat, which earlier in the day, was christened Chamgu by a cousin. He got so excited when he spotted the bat, he ran after it yelling, chamgadhad, chamgadhad. Everyone thought he was making up the name.)

Keeping the faith

Warning:

Offence intended = NONE
If Offence taken != NONE
Give it back. Its mine.

Most people find it in religion. Some in drink. Me, i find my escape in American television. It can absorb me to the exclusion of everything else. It can show such miserably complicated lives that i come off feeling grateful for mine.

The only time it lets me down is this season break thing. Whoever heard of God taking a break?? Especially on a year when He has already gone on a strike? Unfair, i tell you. I would have switched loyalties, only i've heard God doesnt do Internet.

Its the Monday talking

Why the %$#@ do all questions end up in what do you want from life? And if you havent figured that one out yet, well then, you should be indifferent to whatever life throws at you. In between, where you want something but dont know what that is, in betwwen lies hell.

The God of Small Things

Eshtapappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

The name has been ricocheting off the walls of my head since yesterday, each time with a different first name.

Rajupappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

Channapappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

Its funny, how well it goes with the names it meets off the walls of my head.

I dont want them to end. Estha, Rahel, Ammu, Chacko. Every morning, amidst all the chaos, i sneak into their world. And come out only when my folks very conscientiously pull me out and kick me off to work. I dont think i've felt this way about a book in a while. And inappropriate though it is, almost every page reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird. I get the same wistful feeling i did when i read that one. Of wanting to go back to my childhood, as an invisible, adult, observer, as the omnipresent narrator of my story.

She warns you, oh she warns you on every page that its all going to end badly. And yet, even that cannot stop life, and the love for it, from seeping though. Small victories of small people need not fade away in the face of war, she shows. They can be scooped up and scattered in a book about war, such that they become bigger than the war.

P.S. At some point, it occurred to me that i could do this as a book review. And a much later point, it occurred to me that i havent actually finished the book.

Flashback

In case anyone is wondering what brought about this sudden spate in posts.
Flashback to what i started to write a few weeks ago

Its not that i dont have things to write about. I have about 300 posts in various stages, some swimming in my head, some on paper, some as saved drafts. (okay, 7 or 8 of them, if you want me to be precise). But this immense cloud of laziness seems to have enveloped my world and all it allows me to do is work, eat and sleep. Time seems to pass without too much effort on my part. Its only that stupid voice in my head that wont shutup and still makes up lists of things i should be doing. No, scratch that, even the voice in my head isnt the list making kind. It just randomly throws at me things that i could/should/must/ABSOLUTELY MUST be doing, none of which i catch, all of which fall on the floor, making a big mess, in the middle of which, i calmly exist and continue to do nothing.

I need to bootstrap myself out of this state. And so, with you as witness, O mighty Internet, i solemnly swear to

And i left it at that. Because, life in the past months has tried its best to teach me that there is a time and place for everything, even for the truth. So i decided to postpone the swearing until i was reasonably sure i was out of the slump. And whatdoyouknow, even stuff that you scribble on Notepad and leave lying around in some forgotten corner of you PC, can do magic.

World wide web?

Sometimes, people you meet out of sheer chance (or as Wodehouse would say, concatenation of circumstances) come back later to save you life. Same with some seemingly insignificant thing you overhear. Almost makes you believe someone up there is connecting the dots!*
It is beautiful, yeah. But for me this glass is half empty. Something like this always leaves me wondering about the ones that go unconnected and the big pattern i am missing out on as a result.

*No, i'm not trying to say everything happens for a reason. Yuck, no.