Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Kahal Queera - Gagar

Traipsing up the hill,
Sometimes giggling -
the intimacy which two lovers once shared.
Whistling in the pines,
singing Lou Reed,
hoping for her around the next corner.

Racing with the setting sun,
the sun that recklessly paints the evening sky,
the sun that shows up occasionally through the silhouettes of pine trunks,
and pine needles filtering the last of light.
And he keeps going,
eyes dancing amidst the natural splendour,
ears alert for those whispers of the forest,
breath growing deeper, making the heart a tangible organ,
and the saliva along the jawline tasting like Mercury.

Running down the slope, now.
A sweeping glance across the landscape
describing an arc as if tracing a rainbow;
a rewarding sight indeed:
The dense greens fade
into lighter shades of green of the hill,
and then the eyes dive into a sea of dark gray of the sky,
which turns sweeter with every minute of arc of observation -
regal purple, into orange, into pink, finally merging into the blue,
the last blue in the sky for this day.

At one end of the horizon sits the moon,
silently stalking the diminishing sun at the other end.
The sun, like a regal figure, fades away in all its splendour;
leaving nothing but the shivers for the moon;
the night of the full moon, only a day or two away.

Too bad that he would leave without the scents,
of pine needles that clothe the forest bed on a warmer season,
and the full moon,
and the features of naked mountain slopes
lit in that white light.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Chance-romance expression template

Dear [INSERT NAME HERE],

If you're reading this it means I actually worked the courage to mail/email, so good for me.

You don't know me very well, but if you get me started I have a tendency to go on and on about how the writing is for me. This, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to write.

There's no easy way to say this but I'll just say it: I met someone. It was an accident. I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't on the make. It was a perfect storm. She said one thing, I said another. The next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation.

Now theres this feeling in my gut she might be the one. She's completely nuts in a way that makes me smile. Highly neurotic. A great deal of maintenence is required. She is YOU, [INSERT NAME HERE], thats the good news. The bad is, I dont know how to be with you right now, and it scares the shit out of me; because if I'm not with you right now I have this feeling we'll get lost out there. Its a big, bad world, full of twists and turns where people have a way of blinking, and missing the moment... the moment that could've changed everything.

I dont know whats going on with us, and I can't tell you why you should waste the leap of faith on the likes of me. But damn you smell good, like home, and you make excellent talk. That's gotta count for something, right?

Call me. I'm faithfully yours,
[INSERT NAME HERE]

Saturday, December 26, 2009

3 IDIOTS review

Here's a chronology of reactions/emotions through a show of 3 IDIOTS. I seemed to be in minority at the theatre, but suggestion to NOT see this film is one I can give with great certainty.

--------

What fuck, it shouldnt start this way.

Haha, his penis gets electrocuted.

lol, Boman Irani looks like Einstein.
Eeh, Boman Irani rides a bicycle. That does it for my image.
"नहीं भाईसाहब, अभी ज्यादा film नहीं छूटी" [to a couple arriving 10 minutes late]
Oh no, That US/Russia space Pen/Pencil hoax again?

Oh, wasn't expecting this song this early.
OMG, bathroom orgy in the boys' hostel. Sheild me!

Hah! I know Aamir would fix this flying thing.
ROFL, and now he hanged himself...
...pwnt, his own invention (that wasnt working earlier) conveyed his death.
Oo, Aamir is so against the system. Down with it.

Yech, there's Kareena. May she get crushed under the wedding pandal.

ROFL, funny speech. He replaced the words 'magician' with 'rapist' and 'support' with 'breast' using the Office 2007 "Replace All" feature. genius.

Yech, there's Kareena again. Where are those ancient Indian daggers Saurabh clicked pictures of - ones whose blades bloom like a flower inside the body?

Boring phase. Aamir just ranting about a failed education system and other things in a very loose manner. Chetan Bhagat, you fucktard and your fucktard novel.

Boring phase

Kareena again. Die.

INTERVAL

Boring phase

Boring phase

The is the stretch beyond Rohtang, towards Koksar. "Hey Atul, this is right after Rohtang. I've been here on a bicycle."

Boring phase

Boring phase

This is Darcha. I'm sure of it. "Hey Atul, this location is about 6 hours from Manali"
[dialog] R Madhavan/Farhan: "Lets go back, Manali is only 6 hours from here"
Yesss! Nailed it.

LOL, could it be any more melodramatic?
YES it can
OMG Aamir Khan would deliver Kareena's sister's child on the Table Tennis table.
OMG Aamir Khan is inside his Vagina trying to suck out the baby child.
OMG the dead baby child was brought to life by "all ij well" song
Atul: "film थोड़ी जल्दी ख़तम होती लग रही है" [after the grotesque delivery sequence got over]
Me: "अब और क्या देखना बाकी है?"
Some guy sitting besides us, to his wife: "Haha, उसने पूछा 'अब और क्या देखना बाकी है?'"

Ah, at least Boman Irani did rectify on that space pen myth.

Boring phase

Haha, his penis gets electrocuted

Pangong Tso! Please don't let it end here, at such a beautiful place.
And now they're onto the same piece of land that extends into the lake where me and Deepak lounged out (a wider view). Perfect. I wish I had a stone in hand.
SCHIZER. This is just sacrilege.

ZE END OF ZE MOVIE
---------

I'm happy to be spending only 80 for the balcony seats for this one at Pratibha. But I could've spent 60 had we gone to Novelty.

La ritournelle

Hm, returning back and setting feet on the soil of Lucknow was not as special as expected. Things seemed so in-place that I felt as if I've never missed anything. I guess I was expecting a City-17-kinda crumbling landscape to really feel shocked and nostalgic again, and draw images of the once-a-great-city. Perhaps a goat market on a Friday would've put me to tears.

Even the cold here is bearable. S and A were shivering like its the ultimate coldwhile having a fag at Kapoorthala last night, right before I was to comment on how disappointingly manage-able the weather outside is. Next on schedule is Novelty for 3 Idiots, Chowk for Matar Chaat/Bhaang, Koneshwar for Kesar Milk and Gomti Nagar (for nothing, really).

UPDATE: A couple of things that initiated the reverse transition:
1. Makhan malai - "They're increasing in numbers", my ma commented on the M&M vendors.
2. The winter party next door...garden, angeethis, chairs draped in white, and nawaabi guests

Fountainhead redux

Saurabh's comment to an earlier post on adaptation of great books into movies reminded of how bad some people find Ayn Rand's literature. Ayn Rand, in their opinion, cannot get through a scenario in under 50 million words (yeah, she's verbose!), always sketches the female protagonists as an image of herself, bashes any normalcy in our society, glorifies rape and justifies anarchist behavior that would put anarchists to shame. To top that, the cult of Ryan-ists is such an ego-centric, self-worshipping bunch that just reading their profiles would make your day.

PS: THIS TOPS
If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.


IMHO
The Fountainhead was the story of a socially-crippled-but-talented Howard Roark. I won't go into discussing his Mauvaise Foi, but he surely seemed deluded. The good bits in the novel were outside of it - the 12-page introduction, for example, which was so lucid yet powerful... have you read it with that same affection?

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

America India

"Surely must be an American", remarked Shaurya.
Her ways obviously gave that away - fancy but prim, loud, profusely overawed, gesticulating. All this over taking a photograph in Leopold Cafe.
And with that image of the explosive American came the contrasting image of the Cowboys, of American rural life in general - always seemed so quiet, reserved, serene.
I felt a rush at noticing that the Indian social setup was the other way round - the village folks couldn't stop talking, while the urban crowd formed a silent class that internalises all their feelings and can be seen sitting quietly and demurely at cafeterias and bars.

Rapid Action Mechanism

"Live every day of your life as if it were your last". I've heard that crazy pessimistic meaning of life so many times.

For those seeing death at the end of the day anyways, my yesterday's realisation would be more profound
Live every single day so, that even if you die by the end of it, there will be no regrets. The day should build up and leave you on such a high that you are supremely confident of your purpose and virtues. There has to be no evaluation. There has to be no could-haves. Preliberation is the word for the day, and bliss is the only parting way.
Something at the edge of the counter catches his eye, and he reaches for...

CLOSE on a framed PHOTOGRAPH as he picks it up: It's the photo we saw earlier of him, Carolyn and Jane, taken several years ago at an amusement park. It's startling how happy they look.

Lester crosses to the kitchen table, where he sits and studies the photo. He suddenly seems older, more mature... and then he smiles: the deep, satisfied smile of a man who just now understands the punch line of a joke he heard long ago...

LESTER (cont'd)
Man oh man...
(softly)
Man oh man oh man...

After a beat, the barrel of a GUN rises up behind his head, aimed at the base of his skull.

ANGLE ON an arrangement of fresh-cut ROSES in a vase on the opposite counter, deep crimson against the WHITE TILE WALL. Then a GUNSHOT suddenly rings out, ECHOING unnaturally. Instantly, the tile is sprayed with BLOOD, the same deep crimson as the roses.

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Ferrari owner who was reduced to a monk

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a really helpful book - it helped me pin down exactly what 'ovverrated piece of hyperbole' means. Its hard to believe that Robin Sharma sells. My instincts hinted at something banal as soon as Mr. Success left all his material possessions and flew to India to 'heal'.

My great virtue of patience took me through the entire book - hey, I dont expect miracles, but do expect some redeeming feature in a book that has been on so many bestseller lists. Friends all along confirmed that they were either advised against reading it, or themselves left the book midway - they could've never been more accurate.
I'd really want to file a case against the author for just taking some general book on Indian spirituality and Hindu/Buddhist idealism and masking it as a conversation between two white men.
If this book were walking down the street, I wish it were run over by a truck.

One part of why I found everything in there so intimidating was that spirituality has a much bigger context than than this layman's how-to. Having traveled to several places that are popular on the spirituality/religion map (though solely in the name of travel) it is easy to confirm that the 'higher dimension' that the book speaks of is excessive simplification and alteration. This book only mystifies YOUR LIFE.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Heat and Dust

4 nights back, at about 2 am, I progressively regained full consciousness from my slumber because of an interesting film on the tele. I had my plans of reading, which got delayed for another day, so captivated was I by that film. Though the generations depicted and emotions that played out on the screen were alien to me, I felt a connection, a familiarity, a great grab of nostalgia. It added to my reveries of a more interesting life, and I spent another day browsing around for more on that nameless film that had Shashi Kapoor playing a Nawab in the pre-independence era, and one magnificent lady (in the years of hippie-dom) tracking down the history of another magnificent lady who was a foriegn officer's wife and a muse to Shashi... Heard of James Ivory? Ismail Merchant? Heat and Dust? Yesss, thats the name.
These people must've made a few good, nostalgic movies on similar lines, I've got to have 'em all.

Read about the concept of a secret santa at reddit, that was such an amazing idea that went like a fairytale at this festive time of the year.
I learnt yesterday that not only did I get a Google Wave account back in November, but I even created waves and discussed irreverent things with my irreverent friends. That must've been on some strange forgettable night.
New to my place is the installation of Counter Strike on the machines. Soon we'll start with the killing.

4am post

One thing NOT exciting after having a minor accident is having a minor throat infection, then minor fever following that, and upon that subsiding, discovering a minefield (of ulcers) at the roof of your tongue. That puts me close on the heels of Chandresh in the 'what-worse-could-happen' list, who contracted dengue while recovering from his accident and had to be hospitalised.

Woke up in a disarray - at 0350 in the night. This was either because of my throat, or the chilly clime, or the mosquitoes, or a missed call from 3AM friends, or untimely bowel callings. Then coffee, then that discovery at the roof of the tongue, then picking up the unpaid phone bill and going through the precautionary swine flu symptoms listed in the footer and fretting about a more epic tale of illness, then trying to inch ahead on "The Monk who Sold his Ferrari" (and hating it), then boiling some water and fretting about the unpaid phone bill, then settling down with the machine.

In the blank phase that persists for upto an hour when you wake up and find yourself staring aimlessly into the kitchen sink, I might as well blog.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

current aural phase

The Flaming Lips' cover of Madonna's "Borderline" is amazing. And Anu tells me that they'll be performing entire Dark Side of the Moon on the new year's eve. I bet its going to be the most amazing performances on planet on that day.

Kaminey's "Pehli Baar..." (पहली बार मोहब्बत की है) - The title of the song can mean either 'debut of love' or 'having loved for the first time', both of which hold a completely different meaning, and make it all the more interesting to figure out.

Air's Sexy Boy and All I Need have become a bigger turn-ons recently.
Ou sont tes idoles, mar rasees, bien habilees? pwnt.

Some things lying around, but recently heard, and saw their way straight to the bin:
Moby - Wait for Me
Interpol - Our Love to Admire
The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute

I'm on a campaign to erase all my moodswing music that was never liked a second time. Suggest me good stuff, PLS.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Fish and water analogy

A fish will always be the last to know about the existence of water.

Or as it goes in the form of a parable:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"


The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. The split between two people, regardless of their facticity, comes from this fact - one realizes the reality of the connecting mediums of life better than the other. The oomph factor. Actions take on a more sincere form, and appear more meaningful, because there is also a conscious concern for these hard-to-see factors.

We all start finding a crisis in our lives sooner or later, because by the time we're into size 9 shoes (um, size 6 for the girls?), we have already learnt and practised the mundane things that constitute the framework of LIFE. Then things start to get boring, days seem endless, night lose their meaning, the novelty of seeing faces wears off. What about those more mature characters we see and praise and idolise? They come from the same background and learn the same framework, but they find the novelty of discovering the existence of their water.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Bicycle accident (04 dec)

I hurt myself today,
To see if I could feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that's real.

...except that besides pain, I saw the callousness of Mumbai traffic, the greed of autowallahs and the assumptions of our society. And no, I didn't focus on the pain, but on the subconscious mind that was already expecting it, and on the face of Lance Armstrong as he welcomed me into the podium of cyclists who've met awesome crashes.

You see, I had an unbelievable accident on my bicycle today - unbelievable for many reasons, including the filmi escape from a concussion even after going head-on at 45kmph, and only minor cosmetic damage.

(lyrics above from NiN's HURT - a song running in my head through 2008)