Chronicles of an Eclectic Life

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Marina and Ulay

There was Marina, and her lover Ulay, who planned to make an example of their love, and decided to represent the coming together of two hearts unlike any other couple. The year was 1981.

They would cross the great distance of the Great Wall of China - Marina started walking at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China, and Ulay began walking at the western end, in the Gobi Desert, at the same moment. They simply walked towards each other along the Wall until they met in the middle 90 days later.

They had thought that they would get married when they met in the middle. But by the time they managed to actually do it, their relationship had disintegrated and their meeting ended up as a kind of divorce ceremony, marking the end of their love and work together.

In the process of stretching human limits, and being the proverbial pair that bridged distances despite all the hurdles, the wall turned into a metaphysical entity that reminded them of their own limitless capacities, and the challenges that they could take for themselves. It reminded them of a dimension beyond the mundanities, even beyond the motive force of love that started it all in the first place.
Try as much as we could to dissect and reason these two lovers, only experientially-gained reasoning could explain this.

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Well, thanks to some help online, I would not be making my back any worse than what I presently have, which was as a result of fiddling with a few bikes in the garage to make space for parking.
Note to self: need a stronger knowledge of applied physics and a stronger upper body frame.

With Oakenfold's beats pulsating gently through my head, I can mull back over a change in my office landscape over the past few days. Some of my closest friends will be missing. Gone, too, are the cute 'village girls' that I always found loitering about; I'd generally amuse myself with lipreading their inainities, as well as obsessing over the awesome few. Now I will have long empty hours of no or little code to fiddle with, which, willingly or not, is can help me find time for office naps, table tennis, and frivolous, flirtatious chats on gtalk after hacking over the corporate vpn. On retrospect, today's hour of sleep right after lunch was probably liberating. I could swear my dreams had brought another vivid scenario to life in tat hour, but I fail to remember it now.

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Sunday, July 18, 2010

durian, ravana

We had known about mango being the 'king of fruits' all this while. Seems that was just a national label, since the real king of fruits is something else - methinks a sampling is needed, and also the great challenge against your olfactory senses in making the first bite.

I should probably make a new entry for this dedication to the cinematic ~~master~~piece Raavan (that I got to watch only yesterday evening), since it was overpowering. But the efforts it requires would be too much for something whose script does worse than a Vivid production, and whose team should receive public lashing in the following order:

script writer
screenplay
aishwarya rai
vikram
abhishek bacchan
mani ratnam

For those who think otherwise, pls get in touch with me over wood-baton-tuesdays or leather-whip-thursdays.

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Friday, July 16, 2010

Taking over the town

This day was exhilirating, both sides of the cinema screen - a fledgeling story going on either side, and life mimicking the art that it sought out towards. I should count the day as epic, because never before have I indulged in cinema - the movie theatre types - to the extent of catching 3 first-day releases in succession in two different movieplexes. And it's been my first being chased by a nimbus cloud, hot on my heels. And also a first of sitting through an entire movie soaked in the rain caused by that cloud.

Impluses, when diligently followed, often unfold into a fond memory, if nothing more overpowering. But more than often they overpower you, and it is amazing to see yourself transformed, feel your senses synchronised with your inner morals, all this without subscribing to any formal education; the natural course of life seems more potent and successful for your future than any pretensions and formalities we abide to in the society.
What strikes me is that learn being impulsive, appreciate the call of your subconscious, and soon you learn to challenge your impulses to throw something even better and more liberating to you. Things like this are first class adhesive for the various snippets of your character that your fragmentarily find yourself into.

Office, you ask? That took a holiday owing to the itense feeling of liberation that I woke up with; or to put it officially to the bosses: "allergic rashes and severe muscle pain". It's delightful to be keeping a separate public profile or I'd be crippled from making this mention here.

Evolving into that pseudo-spiritual ToI supplement, am I?

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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Where does wanderlust come from?

Father's Day is fast approaching, and by coincidence, I am preparing for a trip to Nainital, where I’ll be with my father, who always migrates to the happier altitudes for the summers. Here’s something that I feel is a sorts of inheritance from the man.

Why do we travel? Or maybe the better question is, where does wanderlust come from?

I was thinking about the origins of my own travel curiosity and remembered my father's stories of traversing great distances, either as a necessity or out of impulse.

For a background, my grandfather was from a remote village in Kumaon called Guniyalekh, that lies a little beyond another slightly-lesser-remote village of Padampuri, in the district of Nainital. Family tragedies and the cause of employment had him settle down in Lucknow almost 80 years back. He kept his fascination for his roots alive by building a cottage in the quaint village of Gethia, not far from Nainital. Come the summers, Gethia would serve an ideal base-camp for visits to our ancestral lands that lay deeper in Guniyalekh. My father recalls the entire family travelling the distance in equal portions by bus, on mules, and on foot. Those were the days of denuded dirt tracks through forests and dangerous stream crossings, and I’m still surprised to hear of my grandma and my aunts’ courage and struggles to travel these distances. Being abused and seduced by the nature, all at once.

My father took a difficult resolution upon my grandfather’s death, that he would legally obtain rights to the lands – or whatever was left unoccupied of those – in Guniyalekh; the longing that lay in all hearts now turning into a hope, a hope that turned into expectations from my father. Having graduated in law, and choosing teaching for a profession, a man who spent much of his time extolling and preaching the ideals of ‘kanoon’, now set forth for the corruption-laden legalities of the real India. More than the legal procedure, it was the travelling involved that could make a person submit to defeat. After several trips between Lucknow and Nainital, endless juggling between Gethia, Nanital, and Guniyalekh, fighting the bureaucracy in Nainital, and death threats by selfish villagers who had their own plans of illegal acquisition in mind, he managed to get a piece of eternal satisfaction that everybody wanted... If the geographical pinball of a great acquisition wasn’t sweet enough, there are his tales of spending snow wintry nights in shacks out of necessity, going on a snow leopard hunt with the villagers, among the others.

The sights, smells and sounds that I lust for must be nothing but a nostalgic fact to my old folks, I am just trailing on their footsteps, clutching for a version of my own.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010

Note-to-self: avoid getting run over at the nearby crossing from time to time. It was a lighter vehicle today, however, so I'd have escaped only with a crushed leg.

The weekend has Mumbai that I've only seen on the reel, feel closer - the skies are expected to raise hell over the next couple of days, and the municipality is doing random silliness to curb the damages of the rain.
I returned from the office yesterday night at 2330, clutching a sweaty tee and cycling gloves, and a book expounding the unbearable lightness of being. The sight of half a dozen colony resident canines crowding around a small tin case sheltering the water pump confounded me. My approach had the dogs distracted, and agressive petting followed. The question of the creature inside the tincan still remained. The building guard soon arrived to intimate me not to go closer, as there was a snake inside , which was why the silly dogs were crowding around. Against the routine logic, I homed in closer. My findings brought forth the fact that it was a large mouse. Of course, I traced out the snake as well, cramped inside a small opening in the rocks not too far from that pump.

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Sunday, June 06, 2010

zeitgeist

Cookie Monster: hey
Guy Harlot: hi
Cookie Monster: saw iron man 2
decently watchable
Guy Harlot: tell me something that isn't
i saw badmash company - its also similar
Cookie Monster: come on !!!
except for anushka sharme
the bloddy movie was
insulting ur intelligence
bleeding madras
are americans really that stupid
and us indians tht inti
Guy Harlot: well in yashraj chopra world it is
and anushka sharma was the downside of it, i'd say
that guy mad after prostitutes was the best of the lot
Cookie Monster: lol
anushka sharma downside
somebody tht hot??
Guy Harlot: have i mentioned before that she carries ZERO appeal
oh yes, it was at sakley's that i'd mentioned that
now she makes me see a company colleague in a less harsh light
Cookie Monster: ohh pls
shes beautiful
awesome figure
Guy Harlot: so being skinny is her winning point?
Cookie Monster: she aint skinny
Guy Harlot: well anushka sharma and sonam kapoor do not appear so gorgeous after their recent public works of art
Cookie Monster: public work of art??
Guy Harlot: this movie of anushka's, and sonam's kitsch spice mobile ads
Cookie Monster: lol
Guy Harlot: in the current light, if they offer themselves to me, i will merely enjoy a tit or two before backing away
Cookie Monster: hahahah
if they offer themselves to u??
Guy Harlot: of course, they can. there have been greater miracles in the timeline of our planet.
Cookie Monster: yaa like the advent of life
Guy Harlot: yes, and the medical condition called micropenis
i say you'd rather not investigate into the latter
Cookie Monster: ohh boy!!
i should have listened to u
so whts up?
Guy Harlot: i'm seeing a discourse on erotica
"अँधेरी रात में, दिया तेरे हाथ में"
Cookie Monster: lol
wht the heck is tht
Guy Harlot: indian women being deflowered by radical postmodernists
we shall resume our discourse later

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Saturday, June 05, 2010

Untitled

They all had gathered in the drawing room. It was 12:30AM in the night; hence every moment of their forced waking was a restless one. Their restlessness was also met with an anxiety that grew with every soft step of mine across the room. Silently, I circled the small table at the center, my eyes distracted into studying its minimal features, as if they could reveal to me the exact words to represent the gravity and urgency of my thoughts in a simple fashion. I cannot remember how much time I’d spent testing their patience; they stood there like lethargic vegetables, feeling perplexed at my present behavior, and only too willing to crawl back into their beds. However, they were sympathetic enough to assume that I had come across some interesting incident or an idea that had been lost in the process of translation into speech, and by the mathematics on my face they tacitly bargained into sanctioning me time to express myself. Well, they had to wait anyways; I could not let them get back to their beds without breaking to them the news of my death...

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Saturday, May 29, 2010

things

May has been hard hit by my emotional state of crawling deeper into my shell. Inaction and inexpressiveness have been the defining labels. This blog has not seen much love.

The week that just ended was defined by setbacks -

Firstly, the Naxal audacity ballooning, and resulting in several more deaths over the week that went by. Imagining an outcome is scary - for our government would bear these scars forever, economic development will be thwarted, the regions would see intense warfare and bloodshed, there would be more grisly decapitations featured on the news to which people would boast of their disgust during dinnertime.

And then my plans of travels in Europe going into the dust with a fractured Visa process that our governments have fixed upon. It is very irksome, having the resources and inclination, and yet feeling crippled is not a feeling I've come across often.
Now I'm considering agents, bribes, and tearing through these frameworks to see how its done. One last flounder before I give up.
(similar frustration)

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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Am I starting to dislike office?

It is getting growingly uncomfortable avoiding snowclones in daily expressions.
How awkward to trip into the '...than fade away' mode at the start of the week. Well, the concept of a week rarely holds significance when each and every day is a revelation of sensations about things around us.
Observing human behavior soon turns to sorting through litter, as there is rarely something that would make you feel proud of not being the furniture that you sit on... Well, on retrospect, I get more from my chair than I get from my friends and foes around me. Maturity has a new definition - "A state of immutability of finding yourself vegetable existence fulfiling".
Utahraptor, WE NAILED IT!

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Monday, May 24, 2010

OMG OMG OMG!

OMG OMG OMG!
What are we doing reducing ourselves to oblivion?
Arguably, oblivion is our fate, as the statistics and much of our timelines prove, but need we force us through the hole?
What will be of us when we are decaying away, eating our own weight in namkeen mix and wiping the roaches off our lips?
It is agreed that physical deterioration is insignificant in today's world; we can burn ourselves away to a miserable light mass of fleshy bones, or a horrid fat monster, but how would be handle the mankind's new bastion - the mind? Do we have enough to keep us hooked? Have we promised ourselves extravagant nostalgia 10 years down the line? Have we created memories that can prove our flourish in times to come?
Just what will we be doing when we touch 40, retired, lethargic, thinking of wading through life for another 50 years or so?
Is there anything to keep us from being defined as merely a reservoir of sexual energy when we turn 30?
Is there anything to keep us from being defined as a mere corruption of excretory functions when we turn 70?

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Saturday, May 15, 2010

Halfway being

With his character being scalded by the water from the geyser funneled through the water spout onto his tender and grimy body, he went into thought. His brainy mass started working on several thoughts at once, possibly one for every thin yet firm jet of water that hit him through the spout.

First, as the soap worked around his chest and legs, he saw the thought - one that cropped in his head midway the night - to its entirety. Yes, they were still in a state of infancy, a degenerate bullish existence (ref. Ch1, "Hackers and Painters", by Paul Graham). They still saw much things in the light of 'cool' and 'uncool', and their modus operandi of making acquaintence was immediate confirmation of their validations/invalidations, and a hope for the other person for the same. They had reviewed so much in so many, yet it only seemed to make them worse in their judgments. He wondered whether he should formally approach them and de-commit all the commitments that had been exchanged in the process of mutual acceptance.

Now onto the nape and the back, and he was reviewing his (partial) renewal of zest and activity in life. Weekends always made him mull over that. He saw himself active enough, happy enough, and fit enough for all of his day's activities - nightly ping pong games had it all covered. He had no concern for a cosmetic body, for he was neither in a profession that would require that, or in active physical relationship with a woman who would desire that.

The shampoo negated his thought process, as the surfactants seeped into his eyes and had a burning sensation. The dimension of his awareness narrowed to the hair on the floor, then dirt sediments stacking up around the drain pipe, and the color of his bathroom mug, which he had believed to be green, but in fact, was purple.

Soon, with the bath done, and the drying in process, his thoughts shifted to the immediacies of his crowded life. He had office to be at on a weekend, he had to - definitely had to - take care of his laundry, maybe there was cycling to take up later in the day, he had a college friend to meet after 3 years, he had his cousins to take out for dinner, and help his NGO friends with their website; crowded life. With the fabric of the towel now running softly over his body making gentle finishing strokes, he dreamt of company a girl he'd like to see himself involved with, and let the assuaging thought hold on for an equally fleeting moment.

Cold coffee, sleep, and hopes for a fabulous day in his pending wakefulness.

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Thursday, May 06, 2010

K&K

"Books are immortal sons defying their sires" - Plato

So it is Peter Soren Kierkegaard's birthday today - today, if you are still on American time (EST). His 197th one. I had, surprisingly, been reading about him since a day back, stumbling upon his reference in one of the dinosaur comics. The man's gonna be by new fad.

Karl Marx also shares the same day for his birthday. Having been horrified at the continued legacy of his political writings, I have never delved a bit into him. Nobody says I should.
Anyways, both their 200th birth anniversaries are near; I believe there'll be good cult celebrations around those months. Shmoop, probably would hold some festival. Knowing and celebrating these people 200 years since their conception is immortality, indeed.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

I think about you all the time

Should introduce a 'friendship contract' to my close ones. There would be a clause demanding concern and the act of keeping in touch. This thought comes from lots of incidents of my old friends being unresponsive, and failing to keep a general tab on each others' lives. Each one to their own shell. Each one to reducing others' lives to a fascinating drama; and feeling bored when the fascination runs out.

Saying this is contradictory to my nature. But I feel like being T-Rex at this moment, with my hypothetical hypocritial idealism. There are ones I think about they'll never know, while there are ones who I know so well yet think so little about (and so little of)... "Dont worry, I keep myself surrounded with insignificant people and myself", as I convinced Kirti sometime back.
But the situation of knowing somebody well, thinking about them at lengths, and keeping out of touch all this while bewilders me.

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Saturday, April 03, 2010

irked

It'd have been a charming morning had my friends not been lazy about going out cycling or for a walk.
It'd have been a charming morning had my roomie - my backup option when the friends ditch - the time to go out for a stroll.
It'd have been a charming morning had my other roommate not been burdened with the obligation of driving his friend to an interview, and left the bike for me for a morning drive to some nearby beach.
It'd have been a charming morning had the milkman milked the cow by the time I'd arrived, so that I wouldn't have to make a second trip.

A frustrating start to the day. But that made me write, nonetheless.

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I'm not qualified to say that

It's odd when people find themselves not qualified for an opinion or a suggestion. Generally, they convince themselves of this disqualification on the basis that they themselves couldn't buy completely into the fact, or - worse - from their emperical study of their own nature of going against this thought when the situation demanded of it. And the more personal the opinion is, the more conflicted we feel sharing it.

For example, there's Priya, who recently backed from giving an opinion on one of her best best best friend's taste in choosing guys. She was there, she could see the dysfunctional side of it, she knew the mess her friend was gonna get into, she was concerned about her, yet she won't let her know - all because she feels she's lost her right to, since she sees her friend in her own shoes; similar things to what she'd herself gone through. Two-faced, hypocrite, so fake.

At a level, this seems a shining example of indiaviduality - people owning up to their character, and setting their own check on what they're allowed to share.
But consider the ultimate consequences of this strategem. Would you restrain yourself from giving an opinion on all that you ideally think of, but couldn't do? Would you stop yourself from rethings that you've always been led to believe in, but never found to be true? I believe the neurosis would set in sooner or later.

Like when you stress to those young 'uns on the importance of school grades with the realisation that the cream of the crop didn't fare any better?
Like when you share fitness tips with the realisation about your craving for chocolates and butter chicken?
Like when you support woman empowerment knowing that you and everybody else in it spent their teenage years in endless pornography, reducing the image of a woman to nothing but...?
Like when you educate your children on the virtues of an outstanding life with the knowledge of how average you are?
Like when you scold others against throwing their heads out of the car windows knowing that you yourself feel mighty heavenly about it?

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Thursday, April 01, 2010

For the Sachin fans

Sachin,
Screw you for being the unambiguous cricketing genius.
Screw you for always being the safe option.
Screw you for making everybody look wise.
Screw you for dumbening down a million over-the-tea conversations.
Screw you for giving the girls easy conformity.
Screw you for leaving the aficionados with too many facts.
Screw you for lowering expectations from any of the other players.
Screw you for being unimitable.
Whom do people speak of, 20 years down the line? Still you?

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Old horses

Knowledge refresher
Sridevi: 1963
Hema Malini: 1948
Rekha: 1951

It is startling to find that Sridevi is, in fact, not far from our modern-day bollywood badshahs. What's also startling is Hema Malini looking fab beyond 60. And Zeenat Aman, at 59, still conveys relics of her amazing appeal. It must be hard to keep looking awesome for two generations or more!

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Oddoscopia

Weird dreams again. I underwent pangs of calling off a relationship for, like, 30 minutes today, all inside my head during sleep.
Even my first coffee after waking up from the dream turned bad coz of the milk
And my stomach doesnt feel too well from the chicken (of 3 kinds), fish (of 2 kinds), squid, and crab I had yesterday.
The dogs of the neighbourhood look needy and cute on this breaking dawn. Might as well step outside myself, pet them, go out, trek, jog, climb trees, spot deer.

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after marriage

K: where's the economic bnenefit of her working
K: you can let her live on her salary put your salary into investmnets
A: i would rather prefere to earn more and let her live off her dream
K: let her do things of your choice
K: mere khyal se one has to go for his career one has to concenterate on the family

[this transcript prepared over a vodka&rum session]

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