Thursday, January 14, 2010

title-less :D

The limitless vastness of my terrace sky,
a morning sky suffused with blue.
The wisp of clouds scudding by,
greeting the cheerful kites that flew.

Up goes my lucky orange kite,
cast into the sky with a beginner's care.
encouraged by the wind and the radiant sunlight,
glides buoyantly, proudly, in the mellow air.

Soon it ascents like a poetry in motion,
to it's own realm, to where it belongs.
And kisses high heaven with a lover's emotion,
with the gushing air singing reuniting songs.

Does the coloured kite soar like a happy heart?
Or the happy heart soars like a coloured kite?
How should I describe the romance of sky and kite?
Should I play the melodic music of Mozart?
or simply cantillate a silly poem that I write!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The god of small things

There are books that are unputdownable. Books that are enjoyable. Books you wish you were in.
And then there are books that you don't particularly relate to and yet these are so evocative.

I don't relate to this one even remotely, and yet I'm finding it extremely redolent. It's bringing back memories, recollections of things I thought I'd forgotten. Justifiably forgotten. But maybe it's not just because of the book. Maybe it's because I posted a greeting card yesterday. Usually mother posts it. But yesterday, I bought the ten-rupee stamp, I scribbled the address, I slipped it down the red metal box. Yes, that can be a contributing factor.Yes.

It could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long before the Marxists came. Long before the British took Malabar, before Dutch Ascendancy, before Vasco da Gama arrived, before Zamorin's conquest of Calicut. Before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from teabag.That it really began in the days when Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.

Who should be loved, and how. And how much.
Convincing, yet debatable.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

random flashes

apple juice
bhaaiyya,didun
aaltaa
mojdees
amul cheese cubes
lady bird
pyramid
chunnilal ramnarayan
thick black frames
cotton dhoti
chicken pakodas
jhaal mudi
republic day '96
phulkopi aaloo'r torkaari
mountains of chilli powder somewhere in maharashtra
bright smiley erasers
pair of earrings @ Rs 30, souveneir of fear, token of servility
banana trees, pine trees, fat jackfruits
steep, narrow, red mud road
paalika bazaar-new delhi
neelanjana-the newspaper
sand paper greeting cards
timeless tales-cartoon network
garlic pickle
'deserved' golden shoes
essel world
tea estates
time machine @ science city
secret mission,secret names, secret villains, secret lift, finger guns
ncert-stnadard 4-bal bharti-chapter 9-haathi
red ribbons, white ribbons, black ribbons
black and white printed frock
sleeper coach
swimming lessons
five star
the lost uncle
florida
ghargatta
1 kg= 1000 grams
samantha, tabitha, harriette, angela, kelly,phillips
allarippu, jatisvaram
fresh cow dung
plain copper colored saree
shantiniketan bags
nilanjan
rangan
sarojini naidu
a petrified bhaarat maataa
chinese rice
a cancelled tour
humaaraa sankalp
lice infested hair
green tiles
leisure
stolen scarf
smelly minal
"hum jeeeeeet gaye..tum haaaaaar gaye". "hum haaaaaar gaye...tum jeeeeeet gaye"
mere haathon mein nau nau chudiyaan hain
mim
ruffle lays
meemee, baapi
mars bars
caged parrot
bobby, mahesh
"hands fold, lips fold.."
kalupur fish market
billoo
kajol-the ten year old runaway maid
rakhi, rakesh
cigarettes
hand held shower
champak

Thursday, January 7, 2010

idiot alright

Phew! what a day!
First I don't study anything for my vivas, then I get up late.I'm already running 20 mins late than the scheduled time and yet spend ten precious minutes in finding the damn dupatta (I hate this entire concept of wearing 'indian' formals for the vivas). I hurriedly reach my friend's place and because she has forgotten the helmet we make a detour to get it. And here comes the gaffe extraordinaire, after covering more than three-fourths of the distance I casually mention something about the file and remember- "Holy mother of Lord, I FORGOT THE CERTIFICATE!!" :o :o
My friend says it is too risky to go back now." You're the first roll number" :o But somehow I decide to go against my friend's pragmatic suggestion of first sitting for the vivas, explaining it to the prof and then getting it. So, I take an auto and ask the guy to rush like mad(which btw he doesn't :x), make a dozen phone calls to mum, ask her to rummage through my stuff, get home, grab the pesky piece of paper and rush back. Being a rash driver helps sometimes. Although I should be grateful to the all but one green signals I got in the way .It has been my observation that if you get a green signal in the first signal, the probability of getting more green signals increase. Although it is a function of a lot many parameters, so nothing can be statistically generalized. Maybe it was because I had just two turnings and maintained a near constant speed.
Anyway, I reached just in time. Literally, just in time.
I sort of like this ass-on-fire, dramatic life- BUT only in retrospect. :D

Watched 3 idiots yesterday, with my fellow 2 idiots :D.
Almost a week ago I fished a certain book out of my father's bookshelf-Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! It's an unputdownable book, if you ask me. How strange I didn't even notice it all these years when it laid there accumulating dust all over it. And the combined effect of both the movie and the book is a little unnerving.

I often wonder, ponder about this. Sometimes in a shallow way and sometimes deeply.Deeply,while yeilding to the rote system, but usually in a shallow way. But then, when I watch or read something like this, the thoughts resurface and I get restless, reckless, frustrated but mostly lost..

What is all this? This was not suppose to turn out like this. College was not suppose to be like this. The head should feel fuller after almost four years of education, not emptier.I don't remember when was the last time I asked a question, or ruminated on a problem. I no longer ask myself (let alone the profs) what is the immediate use of having to learn something.I seldom wonder why I still remember the basics of gravity learnt in school almost eight years ago but am blank about ripple counter that I learnt two years ago. I've been cramming like mad for almost a month now for the uni exams. It's insane! My way of preparation has undergone drastic changes. I hate it. It's so hard to do something that you disapprove of, but the fact that nothing else can fit the bill in this system makes it worse.This feels like a total discharge process. I was not like this before. What the hell happened? :( Something is wrong, something is terribly wrong. I wish I knew how to fix it. Maybe I do know, but I just don't know that I know.

I wish I had someone like Feynman around who'd first amuse me by showing his 'discovery' that no matter how I position my french curve the lowest point would always be parallel to the x-axis, and then amuse me more by telling that's because the derivative of any function at it's minimum value is always zero-basic calculus which we apply in complex problems and yet are unable to identify in cases like this. Or perhaps an unconventional Rancho who'd apply the elementary knowledge of soft water being a conductor of electricity to do something..ermm..well..something reeeeally fun :P
The point is I have sort of stopped exercising my brain. I'm just studying, not learning. There's a lot to learn and a lot more to well..yeah..unlearn. Unlearing is very important. Useless stuff, destructive stuff should be done away with. Now that the problem has been clearly identified, I hope the solution is somewhere around. I hope all will be well.
There's something about this 'all is well' phrase. JKR ended the series with. 'All was well', refuting the rumors that the last word was 'scar'. I like this phrase. It's more comforting than it sounds, in a rather uncanny way. I had a first hand experience of this today.

PS: In my school days some idiot must've been so pissed of being called an idiot that he/she made it an acronym for I Do Ishq Only Tumse!
PPS: How idiotic! :D

Saturday, December 26, 2009

'09-lessons learned:

Often the most trying circumstances are the ones that teach you a lesson or two. There are some mistakes you've got to make. Some tears you've got to shed. Some vile people need to enter your life. Bad things need to happen. Only then will you appreciate the good ones and also the not so bad ones.
These are the major occurrences of the year which put me through a lot of agony, which I now think, was quite unnecessary. This is both the comedy and tragedy of looking at things in retrospect. You either hit upon things that you should've had done/said or things you shouldn't have had.

Year 2009. New semester began. All was well. Was extremely happy to be assigned an interesting project. The desired modifications were challenging and the expectations, encouraging. The icing on the cake was that I was to continue with my old project team- people who were more than team members- they were the people I had come to regard as my closest friends in college since previous sem. I knew everything would go smooth just like previous sem. Like all previous sems. Nothing would go wrong. Except that, it did.
Egotism is something that harms not only the perpetrator, but also the people who are subjected to it. But with friends, or people you call friends anyway, one tends to overlook and let go a lot of things.I completely understood when they say they couldn't contribute to the designing as they had to take an entrance (which btw was totally unnecessary at that point of time), So I and another teammate started doing both our and their bits, like I knew they'd have done. We looked up, rejected , discarded, archived something like a thousand plausible circuits, were asked by our professor-who for some reason refused to treat students as a humans-to make a million changes in a strictly stipulated time. But a billion calculations and trillion taunts and more than two weeks later one prototype was finalized and hence I told myself happily that a work well begun is a work half done.
But the good project, like a lot of good projects, looked good only on paper. It is frustrating when something that seems to be so simple doesn't work. But we kept working anyway. Our friends were still on a self imposed study leave.
One fine day they returned and we gladly filled them in with what all progress we'd made. And then kept trying to get the output somehow. Wow! now this finally feels like team work. And even if something was funny, and the vibes I was getting were not so good-I was too happy to sense it. And then one day I took a leave for two days for some important reason, on the third day celebrated sari day with college friends :). And when I got back in the lab on the fourth day, I wondered if I had been in coma for four years! The prof called us to his lab to reprimand us because we'd been very insincere and in his words 'dummy members'. Because apparently according to our 'outta-leave-friends-cum-team mates' we didn't do anything. I think that's what 'are-you-fucking-kidding-me' moments are like. Feels like..you know..maybe the before and after Tsunami scenario. The ugly turn of events that followed this are too sordid and too painful for me to type. And honestly I don't want a record of it anyway. But from where I see it now, I think being thrown out of the project that I initiated and nurtured was not a bad thing after all. Because I saw the true hues of people, was able to differentiate my real friends from the phoney ones, did another project that was of much more use (no, the grapes are not sour :D), and proved my mettle to the prof who later went on to praise us in front of the same people who were responsible for the entire mess. No regrets. Yes, I feel bad that things can not be same as before but I also can't have it the other way. People backstab. Life's like that. Move on.


My friends were worried that I had not had a major crush in years. The last one was five years ago (from that time). They kept suggesting guys after guys and I kept pooh-poohing them, until the time for a big entry came. Entries, actually. This would remain one of the strangest events of my life. Two guys who share more than their names, zodiacs, languages, heights, builts, intelligence. At one point of time it was actually as thrilling as a movie :D. Both of them were so similar and yet so different. They came at about the same time, stayed for about the same time and I started liking both of them at about the same time. And then there's the very obvious dilemma. I couldn't figure out which one did I like more. First one- lovely, Second one-too good to be true. More proper tags would be- the simpler one and the stud. But it's always wise not hit on someone unless you're sure. In anycase I don't casually hit upon people. Something that I need to learn before the clock starts ticking, but that's not until I'm twenty five or six. So anyway, the stud kept offering me ride back home and I kept declining it. And even though I used to cite some feminist crap as the reason for not accepting his lifts, the real reason was that I got too conscious of myself every single time (Shit! my hair isn't even properly shampooed, why the hell am i wearing yellow :x ). But on one beautiful moonlit night (talking of nature playing it's part!) I sat behind him. I knew he was blabbering something, but I couldn't hear him. For my insides were doing conga and there were a thousand violins playing in my head. BUMP...BREAK..."..and that's when my girlfriend said..blah blah"
Whaaat??!!?? OK. So, the sound of the surroundings is back.And that my friend is how a card castle falls. Never laughed so hard-at myself. Matlab what's with life! He could've mentioned it anytime. Anytime in more than a year long aquaintance. But no! He had to mention it precisely at my movie moment. And soon after this incident he started boring me with his silly girlfriend talks. But if truth be told, the more he talked about his girlfriend the more relieved I got that the person he's talking about is not me. For one, he kept on referring to her as 'my girlfriend'. Till date I don't know her name. Neither do I have any curiosity for it. Hopefully I will never cross paths with him again. And the simpler one, I found out wasn't so simple after all! But at least he's still lovely. There are times when you can neither eat your cake nor have it. But that's because the cake is fungus infested and you can't see it! Life's like that. Move on :)


But these issues are way too trivial. Difficult was the part when Chikny left vikki :( But she's quite happy and honestly it doesn't matter that much, like she said it won't and like we agree it doesn't. Ok, it matters a little bit. But only a little bit. And it won't matter much when we'd move out the coming year. Although she is quite thrilled at the prospect. Now I wonder why :P

'09 taught Acceptance.
Letting good people into your life is important but equally important is to let the bad ones out-accept it.
When I say bad, I don't necessarily mean bad person. Maybe just bad for your focus and your long term happiness. Although some are downright bad! :P

And also, cliched though it might sound, but still needs some acceptance. Change is constant. People might go to different places but that doesn't mean they drift apart. Uttara didn't drift aaprt, did she? Definitely not. :)

"Acceptance is the first step of understanding and with understanding only can there be recovery"- Albus Dumbledore :)

PS: Might've quoted incorrectly. My memory is cursed!
PPS: Only if Dumbledore wasn't gay.. :P

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Que sera sera

She knew it was coming, but she couldn't do anything about it. She predicted the fall of Troy. She foresaw everything, even her death. But nobody believed her, as she herself knew very well that nobody would, for she was cursed. And she knew she was cursed. So she did the next best thing-she went ahead and embraced her fate artistically, but not before giving it a tough fight. Brave girl Cassandra.

Ugh..I've been spending too much time on Wikipedia. I've been reading too much Roman mythology. And I've been watching too much war movies. Cruel, gory ones. I have no idea why the hell I'm doing this, but for the past couple of days I've been poring over every documented detail available on internet pertaining to the world wars. Infact I'm having this sudden urge to read Mein Kampf. Not exactly sudden though..I wanted to read it for sometime now.

No enthu to key further..
" Success comes to those who believe in it the most, and believe in it the longest. And we're going to believe"- Alec Baldwin ( Pearl Harbor)
Well..there's a distinct possibility that the citation may not be word to word correct, but meant more or less the same. And at this point of time, helps a lot in allaying my apprehensions.
Alec Baldwin reminds me that the new season of 30 Rock is neat! :)

PS: Hey, Que sera sera sera..jo bhi ho so ho!
PPS: Arbit it might seem, but trust me it's not. This is how I feel right now, and in the parlance of a completely confused person, this is the most appropriate thing to say. Que sera sera- Whatever will be, will be. I'm yet to listen to the Doris Day original version, but the Dixit-Deva dance was totally invigorating :)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

days of life


Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child is far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for living.
And the child who is born on Sunday,
is healthy, wealthy, happy and gay.

Not one of the best opening lines for a post? Nonsensical. I know.
And yet I woke up with this nursery rhyme in my mind. I think I was reciting it in my dream..or was I? Dunno. But nothing new. I wake up every morning with a different song/poem/rhyme/jingle, planted absolutely randomly in my head. There have been 'Sirf ek saridon aur sardard se aaraam' mornings, as have been 'Ek chatur naar' mornings. Sometimes I wake up and sing ' hum honge kaamiyaab( I miss our music sir ;) ) and then on other occasions I have to quell my desire to sing sutta out loud. Yesterday, I sang the Nescafe jingle and sometime in this week I woke up crooning a beautiful english stanza of a hindi song(The one Elizabeth sings for Bhuvan in Lagaan :) ). Anyway, I've been singing this rhyme out loud, throughout the day. I've also borrowed Phoebe's 'Smelly Cat' tune for this. Works well. Really! That reminds me. I fed the cutest cat today :) It, like a lot other stray animals and especially birds, is my mother's discovery. One fine day, she must've heard a distant meowing and must've peeped down from the kitchen balcony only to spot a feline, conspicuously hungry.
This takes up the count of the numerous creatures to whose dietary requirements my mother is committed to. Half of our food grains, I suspect, are consumed by the birds she feeds twice a day ( thrice when she has holidays), and the nuts she argues, would go waste anyway if she doesn't give them to the squirrels-as I'm not too fond of 'em. Monkeys drop by infrequently, and are always welcome with chana, biscuits, bread, at times bananas. Dogs bark during mornings to get their regular dose of chappatis and when she has morning school on saturdays, she makes it a point of pack some food for the lonely,hungry cows on street. She never lets the house maid to leave until she's eaten her freshly prepared breakfast, and nobody in my living memory who has asked for food to my mother has ever returned empty-handed. She is so generous. All mothers are actually. They say one should judge a person by looking at how they treat their inferiors,not equals. If that be the parameter, she not only passes, she probably tops. The way she can bond with the house-maids,vegetable vendors, peons, sandwichwallahs..I can never blend in that well no matter how hard I try. I remember how I had to survey various people from different economical and social backgrounds for my twelfth class english project, and she practically did it for me. I didn't need to go to subjects as she already knew everything about them! I love her even more for all this than for the fact that she's my mother. I might not be as beautiful a soul as she is, but on some levels I think I have both inherited and imbibed a fraction of this philanthropic trait of hers. I wish I was half as nice as her. I'd be such a better person then. :)