Interrogative Clause

Counting their bones

2010-11-15T03:09:00.001+05:30

This had appeared in The Telegraph (June 1, 2006):

Counting their bones

Stroking their bulging bellies
Merrily with their rickety fingers;
The little ones stand in delirium,
While their mother serves opium;
No! She has no choice to make
This is all for today, they can take.
The kids then speak of better days
When they drink, if they do
Possess a few phials of cheap liquor,
(Life, at times, provides a great succour!)
So what if they lie stirring on the cold ground,
Ready to die under the naked moon;
There'll be someone to count their bones
And make a living of their own.

The Selfish Lines: reminiscing Amitav Ghosh's novel

2010-02-10T13:49:00.005+05:30

What was the motive behind drawing the first line?
Why is it that we are asked to 'draw the line'?
The same logic that explains drawing lines to demarcate territories, almost like peeing to make your mark.

Line could be at the centre of creation, sitting unholy, with destruction...

Lines could be what Lily Briscoe (from To The Lighthouse) was contemplating while considering what to fill up in space...

Lines could be what music was not supposed to be made off, but songs are...

Lines are what I construct here to fill up the white space, to make my mark!!

another chance, another time

2009-12-22T10:20:00.002+05:30

The day my idol, Justine Henin, retired, I was too drained to shed a tear. I just wished that someday I would get the chance to tell her (like I know many around the world would as well), how much she has meant to me
It is not the beauty of her game or her sheer hard work which elevated her above the rest or even the fact that she had the guts to quit in the finals of Australian Open 2006 when she felt she couldn't go on anymore...
It is a combination of all these qualities and even more that endures her to people who experience life...with Henin, we know, life has happened!

One and a half odd years away and she is back..
She has shattered the romantic myth of the retired tennis player..those teary images of the fallen superhero
She has decided to give life another chance, by wanting to win Wimbledon..

(Federer wanted it badly enough and he got it, why shouldn't she?)

Someone said that she has got everything to lose by coming back
Indeed, it is an enormous pressure
Can she deliver?

I don't ask that question

I know that for Justine, and for all of us, 'Impossible is Nothing'

Reality overcomes

2009-07-20T16:04:00.002+05:30

It is time for a pep talk...

I checked out the morning time tables for the new reality shows on television.

I am going bonkers with the cascade of 'celebrities' appearing on reality TV and making unnecessary money.

The workload is heavy today; but it can wait. I am unable to theorise any more and I need some undiluted fun.

I can't understand why there should be a bunch of skimpily clad people, skimpily cladding themselves and making money, and we should be such fools so as to actually watch them and criticise! I mean, we all know that it is unreal right.

It is nine at night and I reach for the remote to watch our latest celebrity on the block to get married on TV. With much agitation and dollops of 'critical thinking' I dismiss her as the latest hoax.

Worked up! That would be an understatement. I mean, we, the ordinary people, work so hard and look at these bastards making so much dough for no reason. Are they working? Are they pretending to work? Are they entertaining?

I change the channel for some more gossip in the form of telling the truth. Gosh! This is damn entertaining.

A Different Journey

2009-03-16T18:26:00.000+05:30

Right outside
The window, right out
The world is passing by
At varied rates
The nearby
Slowly
Crawls to gain
The farther
Swiftly
Rushes on
I try to run
With my self aside
Gaining on the farther
While the nearby
Falls
Behind
And
Thus
Escapes

savvy

2009-02-25T20:20:00.005+05:30

to begin with a trick question:

what is common to vaio and hp?

the tv buffs with a keen eye for advertisements will get it in a jiffy...i guess!

both are advertising their latest smaller avatars of laptops
and yes, both have adequately endowed female bodies displaying their beauty in absolute glory (ambiguity intended!)

but there is still more and that is the point here:
the extremely common argument of 'objectification' attains an amazing fruition here; the female bodies displayed here are in bits (for the viewer's complete attention on what needs to be attended to)
the focus is on the torso (in case of hp) and the swaying buttocks (in case of vaio), so much so that the faces are absent from the frames. to emphasise the sheer smallness of the advertised object??

need we doubt that!!!!!

bang on target

2009-01-02T12:39:00.002+05:30

"have a blast this new year"
the word 'blast' surely has catapulted into collective consciousness in more ways than one..
and no, i am not only referring to the mumbai attacks
the new year blasts in guwahati are just a chilling deja vu of the new year blasts in rampur, UP
and probably the chilling reminder takes us to a scarier realisation about how it doesn't matter to the public what happens in the geographic and social fringes of the society as long as the nation's elite (in all senses) aren't attacked

"have a blast this new year"
should we get superstitious about this phrase now!!!!!

the war

2008-11-27T14:21:00.001+05:30

Is it high time for us, as individuals in this collective nation of India, to realise that we have a war upon us?
The fresh set of terror attacks (yes, we have had countless ones in the recent ones thereby giving extreme agency to terrorists to play God or whatever with lives!) have exposed, this time in a more matter-of-fact way, that we are under attack. When will our authorities get the cue (I think the terrorists are laughing at the ‘great nation of India’ being bullied just so easily without any resistance whatsoever); and instead of moving on from one blast to another, condemning them (the word ‘condemnation’ is a farce now), actually rise to the occasion and deliver something, at least something.
Granted that we as a nation of too many people have a lot of lives to spare (sounds heinous, but one wonders why lives are so cheap in India), should the masterminds of our nation let this pass as well? As yet another attack on India’s democracy and such jingoist language which masquerades their actual inabilities? I don’t point fingers at one political party/one ideology/one thisthatandtheother...neither do I find it comforting to think that our religious ‘other’ is responsible for every killing spree that goes on here and there, every single day...
As the number of individuals obliterated for no reason of their own rise, the reasons behind these terror attacks seem more and more fickle...really all this is happening so that the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ (the number of sub-groups seems to mushroom everyday) can be let out of the prisons? The alibis don’t seem strong enough...
This is not just a war on our ‘democracy’ (as our government keeps rattling off every single time something happens); neither on the ‘hindus’ (as those imposters in the name of safeguard of the so-called Hindu selves would have people believe); this is a war on our understanding; this signals the shattering of our worldviews.

beaching about 'bangal ki khadee'

2008-10-17T11:03:00.003+05:30

the name bay of bengal always struck a musical chord in my young bengali heart
no other state could boast of having an entire bay named after it
(well logically, east bengal also should share a pie of the glory, but what the heck!!!)
somehow, the hindi term 'bangal ki khadee' sounded too lame, as if it were a smelly canal they were referring to
********************************************************
we hit the road, the train, the station, the auto, the bus, the stench, the smell, the chips and the stones and reached bay of bengal...a sorta long way away from hyderabad
(also gulping some beer, wine, vodka, brandy in between)
ah! for the sights of the sea, the sea, the sea
and yet, something looked the same
dejavu filled the senses
i have seen this sea
my cronies frowned as if to say 'we told you so'
*********************************************************
the water was warm, and slightly cool, a tingling sensation but nothing new
the water was muddy (in chennai pondy)
after all it was the same sea or bangal ki khadee

and now for some slices of less fiction:

cuisine india (?) tidbits

2008-09-22T16:22:00.002+05:30

That

1) Potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums/chillies were brought by the Portuguese; almost entire India, and rather very notably, the Bengalis, started using potatoes (especially potatoes)in almost everything, including biryanis.

2) Kashmiri Brahmins, like Bengali Brahmins, eat meat, but prefer their meaty delights without onions and garlics!

3) Pork isn't banned by any Hindu religious texts; but somehow, the devout practitioners (the meat-eating ones) seem to believe that they are rather 'dirty' and hence should not be eaten.

back to where we belong: english writing india

2008-09-11T16:39:00.003+05:30

I have been recently re-inducted into the cult (no-cult) of Indian fiction in English and I realise how much I have missed by strictly following a disciplinarian (read Calcutta University) diet (rather overdose) of British English literature.
Somebody inform those humbugs that Indians write English too, and often quite masterfully as well!

I must say that the preoccupation of Indian writers with the medium of English is strikingly present almost in every piece of writing that I have read so far. They all seem to question the position of English vis-a-vis everything that can be considered Indian.

2008-09-06T11:10:00.002+05:30

collateral comprehension

2008-08-05T10:00:00.003+05:30

timbuktoo decided to forge an unholy alliance with postmodern theory books the morning two days back
susan sontags, irwin howes spoke to her, or so she felt, as she leafed through a host of not-so-yellow pages
oh yes, there is only one culture, that of technology married to what we say, 'art'...as postmodern art is ever so different from everything we have seen so far...so the importance of technology cannot be overruled, et cetera, et cetera,........sontag's sonorous articulation was ringing in timbuktoo's brain like the Division Bell which didn't divide but integrated....or 'ideated'!

timbuktoo went into the library in the morning thinking that she would come up with some exciting postmodern theory which would shock the world
but instead chose to read a few fundamental essays
a wafting smell tingled her olfactory senses while she headed towards the reading stack
the same old smell she had encountered like so many others, so so so many others, of unattended lavatories in the morning
her other senses revolted
she ran to the stack, seeking refuge

timbuktoo heard sontag speak to her, and the plea for technology darted across her mind...but the smell hovered in her senses
wasn't sontag speaking of the predominance of senses...
both the argument and the sense made more sense together to timbuktoo

kiss kiss bang bang (not about the movie)

2008-07-25T11:08:00.005+05:30

this post isn't for the ones who avoid 'Headlines Today' and 'Aaj Tak'
because they are really wise and i have nothing but benevolent contempt for them
this post isn't for the ones who are unaware of 'Headlines Today' and 'Aaj Tak'
because they are ignorant; and ignorance is bliss; and so they are already in bliss

coming straight to the point
this post is for those who derive voyeuristic pleasure watching 'Headlines Today' and 'Aaj Tak'

we are (and must/should be) aware of what makes news in media, and what is passed on as news to the general and the not-so-general public
so it ain't that difficult to comprehend that kareena kapoor's bikinied self garners as much attention as the ongoing debates on the nuke deal
that has been happening eversince entertainment masqueraded as news and manifested itself in the avatar of 24x7 channels

but surely, 'Headlines Today' and 'Aaj Tak' have probably brought up the MOST PERTINENT ISSUES in today's times
their resume include:

sting operation coverages of various sorts: gruesome murders to political pogroms
the fresh-est stories of bollywood: saifeena the latest buzz; deepika and bipasha vying for ranbir
bikini babes talking about other bikini babes

now this could be seen as a gross exaggeration by all those who are uninitiated, hence my earlier proclamation...this post is not for.....et cetera et cetera

if sex and violence are The Two Pillars of Success, then these two 24-hour news channels have been clinging to the pillars with remarkable fidelity

so while you are dazzled by a smiling 'beauty' bedazzling you with extraordinary gossip of the stars of Mumbai, just look southwards: right there on the screen, you will have gory stories of violence as well

why this juxtaposition?

well, it is the garnishing on the dish

televiewing

2008-07-11T18:01:00.002+05:30

Timbuktoo woke up in the morning, and smelled the freshness of tea in her cup which had the remnants of last week's coffee around the edges."Ahhh...nice morning, today!"Noisily, she lumbered into the drawing room and picked up the newspaper which was torn around the edges.TV schedules...flip flip...Timbuktoo's heart did a sommersault when she spotted that Karan Thapar had invited P Chidambaram in the latest edition of whatever-the-talk-show-is-called

The evening dawned upon Timbuktoo’s lazy Sunday
There they were, on one of the innumerable infotainment (for the want of a better word) centres: the glittering Chidambaram and the bickering Thapar
‘yes, we agree, the oil prices have risen...we want the public to understand’ said glittering
‘and what about the inflation rates?!’ demanded bickering
‘the oil prices had already risen really high in the international markets...we had to take this measure’...
‘the inflation rates have rocketed in the past few days’...
‘we will try and keep the oil prices in control’...

Timbuktoo remembered a certain essay she had come across a long, long time ago...during the days when she used to furtively admire backstreet boys and frontrow girls...
A certain someone called Priestley had commented on ‘televiewing’

You stare into the screen
Questions are asked
Answers are never answered
What about connections
Well, it is all about the images

Timbuktoo suddenly felt her brain plummeting down to depths of ignorance

Disclaimer: The limks provided here do not reflect Timbuktoo's or the authors views on the above-mentioned people/things

poets of The Wall

2008-06-30T12:51:00.005+05:30

Pray, tell,
How many more pollysyllabic words
Will grace that body
Already stooping beneath
The weight of words!
How many 'ideas'
Will be clubbed in
To hammer the sense of illusion
If it is illusion...then can it be explained
Even with ten thousand words
(or should I call them 'lexical' items)

Now, you are treading space and time
With a dollop of metaphysics thrown in between
Is it a batter created with
Lazy syntax and semantics
Which were slipping away
But you, oh the crafty you!!!!!
Brought those two together
And recreated a postmodern time
In a post-postmodern space...

You speak well, oh poet of The Wall,
Hoping to make it to the canon one day
The rest lay trembling under the weight of those words
Which vye for attention
By virtue of its space.

day and night_from room 1001

2008-06-09T16:50:00.003+05:30

Room Number 1001

2008-06-09T16:01:00.006+05:30

Room Number 1001
29th May, 2008

This is a sound-proof room
It has all the comforts; and so I am restless

The view from this room is quite like the ones one gets to see in movies -- huge structures around; with a park thrown in between as a mark of environmentalist concerns. This is Asia's version of Manhattan, where every buliding that my eyes can see soar up into the skies; save for a couple of colonial hangovers, which are being quietly turned into relics and being termed museums. The jarring posterior of the City Hall obstructs my camera's eyes which is busy clicking all that is unable in my humble country. Probably, to show my friends how similar teh world in the camera is to the world we get a glimpse of, on Star World.

Pastiche - the word keeps repeating itself inside my head, reminding me this is all a huge impression already created.....a surge of patriotism swells within me.....

My gaze constantly shifts to the big screen hanging over the street across.....

The shapes and images flicker past, just like this city; as our guide laughingly mentioned, an a few years' time, this city will have changed completely!

impossible is nothing: justine henin quits tennis, and still inspires

2008-05-15T14:02:00.002+05:30

I have been a cynic for the past few years. I have criticised images circulated by popular media, as I have been trained as well as trained myself to distrust them.
But there has always been another side to this story. I have been inspired time and again by images of fist-pumping, loud-cheering, tears of joy rushing down the cheeks...great sports champions have really made me (like so many others all around the globe) a part of their victories and defeats.
I have been a huge tennis fan...and then I chanced upon the Wimbledon final of 2001...a relatively unknown Justine Henin was the finalist...the more I watched her on the little screen, the more my heart warmed up...a little girl, slightly taller than me, giving Venus a run for her money...that was what I had thought then...
And then from 2003, tennis inspired me when even books and words failed...Justine Henin was the reason...I used to watch tennis for her, and with her gone, I don’t feel the need to...
It is an impassioned statement indeed! But I know how a lot of tennis fans around the world feel right now. I shall not dwell in the statistics because there are innumerable sources to those nitty-gritties...
Where I think Justine has succeeded and been a true champion and inspiration to all is the fact that she has overcome all physical limitations and has generated power from within. To be on top of the world in an exceedingly competitive sport is great indeed...but to do so for over a long period of time requires extreme determination. And to do so, without all the natural endowments, seems almost impossible. Thus when Justine campaigned for adidas and claimed ‘Impossible is Nothing’, I believed her.
In her retirement, she has proved it again...to retire while retaining the title of being the World Number 1 is not something any other female tennis player has done till date...

Why I love Justine...the reasons are manifold...but, what I love the most is not her extraordinary talent in this thing called tennis, or the amazing records she has amassed over the years; but her ability to believe that she could be Number 1 in the world even in the face of the most difficult of challenges...and the sheer amount of work she put in the process of becoming and being the player that she was, is and will be...
She, knowingly or otherwise, I am sure, has inspired many a people to dream...of becoming real individuals of true grit...whose power comes from within.
I take a deep bow, albeit with an extremely heavy heart, to the woman, the individual who has pushed my imagination to the limits and has also made me believe that a lot of things are possible...if not everything!

Here are some more reactions of tennis experts to the Justine story.
Also, here is how tennis fans are reacting to this amazing decision.

p(r)etty consumer

2008-05-08T16:07:00.001+05:30

Timbuktoo peeped into her daily haunt and repose for some food and quiet. But today, man...today, the mercury had risen sky high...just like the prices of everything...
She braved her way through the heat waves which made the streets look dizzy.
“tralalalala...nonsense melody!!!!!”, she hummed and failed to sing.

She drifted past a few shabby shops and then paused.
AMERICAN BAKERS
The banner screamed...the cool bubbles of coke beneath the words charmed her senses...perhaps the epithet as well...

Timbuktoo decided to indulge...

After consuming copious amounts of wheat in various forms, shapes and sizes, she felt a void. The coolness of the bubbles was not to be ignored. The street looked dizzier...the way back to the cool closet of her office seemed like a not-so-long-but-definitely-treacherous journey through the Thar in the middle of a not-so-cool-evening...
Her imagination was flailing its arms around and had to be contained.

She walked up to the counter where the entrepreneur was snoozing after a fulfilling snack. She slipped the note across the counter and the man woke up with a twinkle in the eye.
“Aur kuch, madam...”
“Haan...ek coke...”she deliberated between 300 ml and 500 ml ... what the heck!!!!!!
“Ek pet bottle...500 ml”
The man’s eyes twinkled all the more.

Walking with a carefree gait, like the pretty ones in advertisements, Timbuktoo could now see the road clearly.
“Was it the food and the drink...” the question bubbled away in her head...

introducing timbuktoo

2008-05-08T16:04:00.002+05:30

I hereby introduce Ms Timbuktoo, a woman with a funny name and a funnier disposition. Her name was intended to not exactly be funny, but as fate would have it, her father also had a funny name which began with the letter ‘t’. So the effect intended in her nomenclature was alliteration.

Timbuktoo, henceforth will be a recurring character on this blog. Why so? Well, she is quite funny :)

nomenclatures

2008-05-06T16:18:00.003+05:30

the problems of nomenclature...ahh...we have all confronted them
why place us under the large rubric of this or that

here is an interesting article which argues out the case of the dwellers of an island whose identity have long been in the shadows of a strong group united by their sexual preference
and whoever thought that punctuation is just a headache of people who mull over nitty-gritties of the written word...think again

the subject of the objective

2008-04-30T16:05:00.003+05:30

the objective narrative
is surely grand
detatched amusement at the expense
the price has to be paid by the onlooker
so is it win-win-win, the objective?????????

but the subject of this objective
is s/he free from the self

the object of the subjective is the tininess of it all...

in vijaynagar

2008-04-30T10:38:00.008+05:30

there they were...scattered glories amidst nature's lap
and while we skipped along the road, there was the fulfilment of the horizon stretching as far as we could see

but little time was there to wait, and much to be discovered as in a ceaseless flight, we wheeled past...past the river which snaked along a long while
along the road which lay inviting with a thousand prospects

the search of the infinite was directed to a notice slab which rung a bell in our collective memories
'pampa sarovar'
of the ancient mythologies
and so we wheeled again
until we reached mythology's edge

and then there was a sudden realisation...of the grandeur of stories
something was missing here...in the reality
but probably there was something more
truth, again, proved to be stranger than fiction
the littleness of the greatness yet again discovered.................................

a cry welling up in the soul of a rosa-admirer

2008-04-28T18:10:00.001+05:30

GLOBALISATION IS THE TERMINATION OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION

kazuo ishiguro's Never Let Me Go: the end of labour?

2008-04-24T14:39:00.003+05:30

kazuo ishiguro's Never Let Me Go evinces post-human anxieties in subtle, nuanced humane language... if we are to locate the essence of the human in labour, much like William Morris did in the late-nineteenth century socialist utopian novel, News From Nowhere, then we have stumbled upon the perfect (anti-perfect?) piece of fiction here.
we have come across all sorts of clones in popular culture before...copies of humans who engage in netherworldly activities, who want to take over the world, also the ones who are quite human (but again not quite)
ishiguro creates a frighteningly human perspective in this post-human rhetoric and renders a new meaning to labour...in the industrial wotld, labour produces; and capitalists gain...in not-so-futuristic England, young adult clones donate their organs for the 'normal' people...these clones are created and interpellated into the system just so intensively, that they do not really question their fate...
probably the most disheartening fact is that although they possess all the necessary organs for their survival; they bear no organs for reproduction...the contemplative Kathy unknowingly bares her desire for motherhood in a little song-and-dance routine she indulges in...
if we are to stop here and reflect on the meaning of 'labour', we may find that the novel signals the end of labour in two distinct ways:
labour as in the human/post-human labour'er' whose body gradually withers as s/he fulfils the duties towards the selfish humankind
labour as 'in labour'...the labour'er' who is unable to bear children and reproduce, thereby signifying a termination of the self with the individual

and what about revolution...freedom from this bondage...
ishiguro has penned a dystopia here

on reading eagleton

2008-04-16T18:00:00.002+05:30

the future is here

because of technology

so nothing is impossible

or implausible

or impossible is nothing

so says adidas

is that the 'certain certainty'?

oh yes, i am bangalored too (3)

2008-04-16T17:51:00.004+05:30

the day's sunniness paved way for the neons which stretched as far as the eye could see...
even the recesses of that famed road (there is probably one in every city...only the sights and sounds in each of them differ) were lit
the haven of the abled...the den of the not-so-muches
and then it all flashed past me...Esplanade, broad and welcoming

the images were slightly dizzying...and my brain needed the tonic

and so i drank to being bangalored

oh yes, i am bangalored too (2)

2008-04-02T13:51:00.007+05:30

the morning clouds were happily concealing the illuminant, just like home...

and the streets were narrower than i thought they would be

but the spirit of the colonials were etched in every road and lane, or so i felt, content

on the roads

once again

narrow roads

of cobbled stones

with songs in my head

with songs in my head.....

oh yes, i am bangalored too (1)

2008-03-24T18:33:00.000+05:30

Exceedingly cool rains accompanied us to the station in one of the rather dingy corners of hi-tech city. But our moods were buoyant. We were travelling to our version of the silicon valley (Hi-Tech...uh-huh...comes nowhere close); our own version of the city of dreams and realisations; the city where the night revellers unite unmasking their day phantoms (which our dear exploitators have answers to, but will not answer...too inconvenient for everybody).
Interestingly enough, and quite pleasantly enough, all our co-passangers spoke English, and some RP as well...
We were southward bound to The City...
*************************
The sites, as the train approached the city, were beautiful in a traditional colonial way... I couldn't help but appreciate the corners of the roads, the crossings, the intersections and above all, the imposing structures at the bends...
The sights and scenes struck my senses one after another
My fellow traveller was rather amused at my over-the-top enthusiasm...
"But, but babeeeeeee, I am soooooooo happy...this place looks so much like home..."

reserved

2008-03-19T12:30:00.000+05:30

Those faces were peering at her.Some of them had wonder written on them, some of them had lust.Some others had wonderlust.She stifled."Excuse me! This is a ladies seat." She knew that the grammar was screwed up but this is how one conveyed...The man near the window tried to belch.Another looked playfully, trying to give a hint of a welcome to his darker recesses where he had already started stripping her bare of all her clothes...The man near the window, had already belched...she could probably smell a little bit of the vada or idli or something else he had for lunch, at some roadside, dingy cafe...just like she did."Excuse me...", another attempt, and the man at the window pointed out that the word 'Ladies' was not written in scrawny hands over the windowArguments raced inside her mind...The word had been rubbed off...She knew the intricacies of the seat arrangements.There were four rows of seats reserved for women arranged in two columns (at times, there were five)

A few men gave her dirty glances...what the fuck,how many seats will they reserve for women, these bitches extricate the men from the seats just to place their fatasses on them, aren't we tired as well...She sensed the accusations flowing all around.Even the women glanced at her surreptitiously. They were irritated that she was trying to voice her opinion. Now, that called for real rebuttal. How could she stand so close to the men while the contours of her bra were roughly visible...Stay put at your assigned place...the voices were reverberating from their souls!"Excuse me...", stubborn that she was, the battle was on.Her nostrils flared, the hair on her nape stood up in anger as one of the men in the little passage between the two columns brushed aside her, thrusting his hand almost into her butt.Serves you right, bitch...some of the men felt victorious.Then the bus stop arrived where a lot of people got down...a whole lot of people...even the man who belched.She felt vanquished while taking the seat as she could still sense the accusations around and she could still hear the unmuttered invitations of her neighbour...

after this.......where........definitely not nowhere

2008-03-12T13:15:00.000+05:30

i have taken a break from the relentless battering (bantering as well!) on the keyboard, as i need to reconsider the cynicism which pervades through my senses
a master's degree in english literature/language/culture/subculture/counterculture/absence of culture and a year of churning out materials (as they are termed) for school and college kids, i have found myself at the very verge of considering all academic degrees to be absolutely futile

methinks (haha) the tiresome nature of copies of copies of copies being sold in unthinkable numbers has bored the mind inside

my age is showing
and my hair is grey

but what now
after the enlightened ones
have ennobled me in a glance
somehow
i am somewhere
definitely not nowhere
back to the square
we all have been
amidst the 'dirty' din

an altered sense of reality

2008-03-08T11:30:00.001+05:30

hung up on nostalgia, aren't we all????????
old music, old wine, old books, old places where we have first tasted the sweet pleasures of love, old lanes and by-lanes where the flute-player went by, humming soft tunes which still bring a gust of refreshing memories

BUT

as usual, there has to be a 'but'
aren't these all pastiches
images we have learnt to adhere to

what if the past is not so 'real' after all
but a set of images which were inscribed by our very 'educated/imposed' understanding of the world???????

'won'derer

2008-02-27T15:05:00.000+05:30

i am wondering what to tell you, my love
for the necessities of my passion
to prevail in words
when i cannot be in close proximity
to your emotions
failed, have i, i fathom
eloquence is hard to come by
there are too many tried and tested methods
which one(s) shall i buy
if not, conjure up a new prospect
to comprehend simplicities
which constitute the realities
of the mass

a reverie

2008-02-22T14:09:00.000+05:30

i stepped out of the bus to bask in the early morning sunshine and to get into the scuttle of hiring a public mode of transport privately just for me

the sounds of the magical french movie i had watched the night before were playing with my auditory senses

there was so much movement all around me

the bustle of the angry commuters......

the bristling past of not-so-fast moving vehicles

the breeze

i could feel the bearable lightness of being

i was looking around for the glimpse of a vehicle which would wheeze past

and i heard a wheezing

of a different kind

a man sitting near the pavement on a tiny wooden box

his version of hearth

with a handful of distorted coins

his version of means

i knew he smoked

his version of leisure

was he so different after all

i decided to add to his means

he had a kind face which grew kinder

and all of a sudden, he stood up from his rags

and i was reminded

of days far away

when in the rain

i played with my old man

i stumbled upon a voice

he was calling out an auto-rickshaw which was wheezing past

"Madam, kahan jaana apko" said he, in the driver's seat, in yet another accent i had to familiarise myself with

i wanted to say "Thank you"

but i sang the tune inside my head yet again

there was a shimmer of unfolding joy in my eyes

i think he noticed

i hope he noticed

mizzle

2008-02-08T12:38:00.002+05:30

Dark clouds have been gathering in the sky for the past few days. It often gives me a feeling of protection from the glares of the heaven(s). An overcast sky for me is reassuring.........
the parched souls lusting after the cool droplets which fall on the cracked skin........
So many shapes and sizes these droplets have
They pour in gushing tirades, they drizzle, they mizzle, before they fizzle out into the thin air, grown overthick with the induction of the coolness into their evaporating demeanours

The word 'mizzle' has struck a chord with what i would call an excellent diminutive word formation
The clue of the meaning is in the word
I would probably go so far as to say that it rings the onomatopic bell in my imagination as well

'Mizzle': A lighter form of 'drizzle'

Yes, it often mizzles in mytown!!!!!!!!!!

how deceptive can polysyllabic words be

2008-02-08T11:14:00.000+05:30

I was going through a piece of writing on 'speaking accurately' (a dichotomy already in place there!!!!!!!!)
and then i chanced upon this word
a word that descended upon me like a noisy cascade of phonemes
ANTIMACASSAR
is it anti-massacre, i couldn't help but think
But then patience and a sudden sense of a deflating ego prompted me to look up the Grand Dad Oxford Dictionary.........and Voila!!!!
There is surely a word like that in the lexicon and it signifies the cloth that is placed on sofas and chairs to protect the fabric of those sofas and chairs from the oily heads of people who are seated (or probably going to/planning to sit) on them.
Now, who would have thought that a signified of 'this sort' would have a signifier like 'that'........

keep posting

2008-01-10T17:07:00.000+05:30

....................................
....................................

so what,
if
the screens that overshadow
the brightness of the daylight
it
holds you together
the fragments of the individual

it makes you long for more and more.......

keep posting
the wait is over
think, you think
you need not run
you can hide
not shy away
but delight
in the elusive joys of hyperboles

grrrrrrrrr

2007-12-18T12:14:00.000+05:30

Register
all the sounds register
all the moves inflict
the sounds
into the deepest, darkest, recess
Clasp
all the senses clasp
the invisible fingers grasp
the words
even in the remotest corners
Tug
all the joints pain
and the muscles pull
the cells
where the madness hides

romance

2007-12-06T18:44:00.001+05:30

We travel back and forth in time
And walk along happy streets
When space-time curves plunge to infinity
In your arms I retreat

wintry

2007-12-06T17:26:00.002+05:30

setting light on the waves little
the soft wind, you can see
in the mellow day
it is not rainy, but it's dark
as the sky looks overcast
and then the soft wind
whispers
the chill
and announces
it's wintry

someone sings soft tunes
perched on the cottony mat
the blinds half-open
allow the weakening rays
to encroach upon the territory
of the tiny bugs
and then the song wavers
as one remembers
and recollects
it's wintry

demand, draft

2007-11-23T10:28:00.000+05:30

a demand i am trying to draft
of grafted
memories like the train compartment
or the departments
collecting data to be drafted
in crafty ways
to ensnare
in the lair
we are blissfully caught unaware

2007-11-21T15:58:00.000+05:30

a definite movement beside me
stirs the twilight slumber
of the words in front

i was narrowing my sight
to concentrate on the secrets
of a new paperback

suddenly, a movement
should i say a frenzied movement (a bit morbid)
captured the glance of the eye

there is a rapture of the phobic
surrounding me
the erotic

violates
all the senses
as the roving eye settles

conquers the territory
almost
noiselessly

giddy, i try to suppress
the emotions of the vanquished
tears of shame have come so quick

my eye catches
the composure of the other
although there is the trace

of the happiness
of the bile
flowing through the spinal cavity

of the ride
that plunges down
to the lap of momentary desires

the conquest is over
the conquest is unheard
and now unknown

as the trace disappears

pass the bait, muster the temptation

2007-11-21T13:33:00.000+05:30

soft baby fingers
spine-chilling caress
the rush of blood
makes the brain dizzy
floating! am i floating
I am floating
bloated with the nectar
that i have drank
of temptation

the rush is on, is on, is on, is on
my fingers slap the brain
thrusting my senses into a territory
i go everyday, everynight

the heaving sigh around me
the dull drone of breaths
my brain registers all these things
all the little things
but i am breathless
i am restless
I am floating high and higher

I am gloating higher and higher

the tingling waterfalls are around me
surrounding me
I am just getting dizzier

The Daily Worker's Complaint

2007-11-19T13:10:00.000+05:30

Dry weather in the cool closet
The skin flakes and rusts
I have to buy a lotion today
Moisturizer to brave the dust
The heavy blows of light air
Follow me every hour
Staring i perform unreally
Locked in a lowly tower

And all the while
Expressions, impressions
(Depressions)
HOVER

the pot

2007-11-19T13:04:00.000+05:30

the hen in the coop had to start thinking...

and so she has

she welcomes questions...for herself; and the world

when the mind expands geographically, the coop hardly matters