And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Oh boy.Did anyone ever tell you how a sabbatical somehow tends to miraculously transform itself into your busiest time ever? Or how you can get whiplash from family conversations when your family is scattered in all four corners, and is yet to discover conference-calls? Or how a receding adrenaline rush sucks ass if you've got no nicotine to help the withdrawal...
I wish someday some mysteriously wise creature would sit me down in some rare quiet corner and, as dusk returns to graciously grant us the reprieve of yet another brief night, share...
how year after year, as the wedding season approaches, you discover yet another three cousins of marriageable age with intent - they seem to grow faster than fate can knock 'em down -
and how the cabbalistic secrets of the arcane world of travel-agents and tour-bookers seem fated to retain their impenetrability for all but your own all-seeing ocular organ
why thermal underwear is not quite as vulgar as a pair of purple panties
and how pai continues to bypass the actual posts to further her secret evil plan to rid the world of weary,verbose 'englit types' one by one through the expedient method of 'If I don't see you, you're no longer there'. Oh, well... the comments are welcome anyway.
Season's greetings...and yes, I have been off nicotine for two weeks now, and the strain may just be beginning to tell.

EEK!

a mouse! a mouse! and this isn't just the fevered imaginings of a hysterical victorian maiden looking for whatever little attention she is allowed to claim. This is the true-blue reaction of a little girl who is alone in her flat and sometime sinisterly close to midnight, has a big fat rat calmly waltz into her room, its uplifted nose twitching inquisitively in the air, as if sniffing out her fear. Well, our redoubtable heroin, being the modern-day capable woman of the world that she is, does not so easily relinquish her territory to the invading vermin. With her rousing battle cry (or as close as she can come to it at the moment) leading her into the attack, she springs into unpremeditated and instinctive action. Crouching back into the farthest corner of her bad (which thankfully meant her legs were already off the floor, and no unseemly hopping up had to be resorted to) our heroine utters a real, live, heat of the moment 'EEK' of her own, at a frequency high enough for the mouse to register, thereby proving that fiction is seldom stranger than truth, or too far from it. Well, what can I say, I refuse to be ashamed: it actually worked. It sent the mouse scurrying away out of the door, leaving me free to (once I had control of my limbs again) bolt across the room and quickly shut my door. Yeah, I admit I'm too cowardly to care what it does to the rest of the house on its recce (looks like it was examining the place preliminary to moving in), at least till the sober light of day that encourages the putting on of a mask of calm bravado that will allow me to deal with the problem with perhaps some shreds of my dignity intact. Well, one can hope, and tomorrow is, to quote just one of those corseted, cosseted yet cunning and capable precursors, another day. Also, put it down to the heavy darkness and solitary quiet of midnight that seems to encourage this sort of paranoia, but it seemed like a trained mouse sent here to do just that: do a recce and freak out the lone female inhabitant of the place to have her run out in all her skimpy underdressed glory for the enteertainment and eternal delight of boorish burly bastards who have nothing better to do with their time than feel good about themselves because a girl shrieks when she comes across a rat. Hmphh.

The Comic Bunglings of a Panicked Fool.

Item 1 : who spends 250 bucks on beer with a group of relative strangers

Item 2 : who spends hours cruising gay blogs for a purported (ha) paper on representations of the male as an aestheticised object in the male gaze

Item 3: who drops ash all over her keyboard because she cannot do only one thing at a time

Item 4: who goes to the chemist and asks for nicotine gum for her professor, and then, oblivious to extremely interested onlookers, proceeds to engage the chemist in a long discussion on why gum for tobacco chewers is different from that for cigarette smokers.

Item 5: who then goes back to said professor, and engages him in a long conversation (over lunch) about the severity of withdrawal for a nicotine addict. (the same professor who spent a month in hospital battling for his life because of his smoking a couple of years ago. Oh yeah.)

Item 5: who tells the maid to make 4 paranthas and then spends the whole day wishing she had asked for 8.

Um hum, uh ha… ladies and gentlemen – I give you:

The greatest of all fools, the fool fit to be the next American president, the fool who wants to teach English in a foreign country, but can’t even read an application form correctly until the seventh try, in short, the fool who gives a bad name to fooldom…

And then, in her colossal blindness, has the nerve to talk blithely of other ‘retards’.

and if you don’t get the answer, you deserve to be my friend.

.....

God, dead or otherwise, is not my greatest enemy, APATHY is. I suppose the essential angst/complaint of the twent-first century kid would be boredom, or maybe a surfeit of entertainment.
There's a new begging scam on the streets of delhi: a group of women walk around with one very pregnant woman apparently going into labour. They ask for money so that they can take her to the hospital. I usually, as we have somehow all been trained to do, look through them, or look away. One morning (afternoon?) I was coming back from a friends house in Vasant Kunj after spending the night. We had had a good breakfast followed by a couple of very good hash j's. I was in an auto, stoned out of my mind, and somewhat half-heartedly concentrating on not letting it show. The auto-wallah had some radio-station blaring loud enough to wake god and his neighbour, and for once I was too out of it to tell him to turn it off. So there we were, the auto-man and I, tearing down the streets of delhi in a mobile party for two, turning heads and generally having a good time. (dunno if he was tripping too, tho' most of them usually are). A traffic light - the one at the flyover on Africa Avenue, which is usually a long one. Suddenly I noticed a lot of people turning around to look at something to my immediate left, so out of natural curiosity I turned too. A woman was standing there and saying something to (at) me. By the looks of it, she was in full-flow, and had been for a while. Panicking a little, coz I couldn't make out a single word she was saying, I forced myself to concentrate, looking at her attentively, if a little blankly. Wrong move, of course. I had just managed to catch the words aspataal, paise, bus when she decided verbal communication was a washout, and visual messages might work better. Out of nowhere she produced this woman with a huge stomach protruding right in my face, and continued with her pitch. I was just so relieved at finally being able to make sense of what she said that I asked her which hospital they wanted to go to. Taken aback, she recovered quickly enough to give me the name of one. I turned to the auto guy- who was looking at me in the overhead mirror as if he had just realised I was either crazy or stoned out of my head, and asked him how much of a detour that would be. He shook his head. Undaunted, and sort of caught up in my own momentum, I then scooted to the furthest end of the seat, and gestured for them to get in. I will never forget the look on the woman's face, she looked like she wanted to hit me! She said there's five of us. I said well I can drop two of you, and the rest can follow later. The light was changing, and she had given up on me: she just turned around and walked away... sad, it might have been the most interesting auto-ride I ever took (including the one when there were nine of us in one auto at midnight in Jaipur). Oh, well...

Interesting tho', how the number of people copulating in this country and getting pregnant makes this such a very workable scam, all the year round. These people have ideas. Also sad, no matter how much I try, or think and talk myself out of it, they will somehow always be 'these people'. Tho' they fascinate me and I keep saying how I would love to try this sort of unhinged, marginal, free, life on the street ... its the mental boundary that is always impossible to cross. Damn the righteous, productive, insidiously bourgeois middle-class upbringing. Or do I mean that?

Aha!

And no, I am not becoming self-obsessed. Well, no more than usual.

Being 'Special'

This is a rant I have been trying to NOT write for a while now. Apart from being entirely too mean (ah, who am I kidding, like that would bother me) it is also somewhat politically incorrect, and let's face it, a bit too snooty. But well *insert unrepentant devilish mea culpa and lovin it grin here* ...
So, I'm taking spanish classes, in a class of all of two students, which at the time seemed like such a good idea. Oh, yeah, and to clarify, the second student is me. Hmmm, and why, in a completely uncharacteristic gesture reeking of dramatic-transformations,-makeovers-and-other-sponsor-attracting-tactics, you may ask, have I put myself second? Well, that's because there are a few rare people in life that you come across (if you get to be that lucky) who are so very 'Special' that you cannot help but put them first. If you let them, they have the power to change your life, transform the way you look at yourself and the world, and maybe even shake your belief in Darwin. Along the way they also tend to provide a few laughs to be shared with a circle of close (and equally Mean and Evil) friends.

Papoosha, my previously mentioned dog was one of them. He, too, is special in ways that are impossible to explain. Though god knows I've tried (goto picture for brief but speaking visual clue). Anyways, so, I never thought I'd be the kind of twice-blessed person who gets to meet more than one such mind-boggling spectacle in one lifetime. But there you have it, I've been know to be mistaken before (tho' not about Dick Van Dyke). So, the other student in my spanish class, as I'm sure you've guessed (unless you too are one of these exceptional kinds, in which case let me know, I think I'm starting a collection), is the new special person in my life. Wow, that just comes out so wrong without scare quotes! She's this lump of a girl who I would not have likened to a sofa based merely on her physical appearance (honest, the thought never even crossed my poor little misrepresented mind), but the more I get to know her, the more frequently a piece of furniture replaces her in my head. Tho' not the kind of fun and friendly furnishing found in the marshes of Squornshellous Beta. Well, between a classmate with a piece of driftwood for a brain and a teacher who believes the path to comprehensibility goes uphill all the way on Decibel Mountain, these classes are more fun than I care to admit. No really. What other way to an ideal start for your day than to sit there groggy eyed on an empty stomach watching all the fun and, I must admit, feeling sorely left out of the whole "special" thing. So the retard goes back and makes a mistake in something that was drilled into us about two classes ago, at which point also it resulted in the same ten minute struggle between the two that it quickly develops into again. If they weren't two women, I would take their daily monosyllablic battles as some sort of neanderthal 'guy thing', but as it stands...

Everytime the Retard makes a mistake, it all quickly degenerates into a shouting match between the two, with their faces inching closer to each other with each successive volley - throwing just the one poor mispronounced word at each other till in sheer desperation the poor word rolls over and gives up the holy... well, you get the picture. Which also leads naturally to the question "Which one of the two am I referring to when I say the Retard?". Ten minutes ago I would have said my classmate without thinking about it, but now I'm reconsidering. Maybe its like the travis song with all the pregnant ladies, and I'm the poor fellow in chains at the end.

p.s. Song of the Month: Femme Fatale by The Velvet Underground. apropos of nothing. or maybe Some Kinda Love instead.

My Life is Like a Half-Strung Guitar

"Hip", wrote Norman Mailer, "is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle...
If the fate of twentieth century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, why then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self."

So where does that leave me, with my half-strung life that could, given the time and attention it demands, someday produce perfect harmonies and righteously climactic riffs, if only I can manage to stick it out through the stringing and the tuning and all that. Progressively more social with each growing day, I sometimes even find myself smiling at random people and being (heaven forbid!) 'civil' to my flatmates! Oh Mr. Mailer, why do you tease me so... just when I don't need to hear that I had it but I lost it, like a french schoolmarm you rap me sharply across the knuckles for being polite! Oh, woe is me, like it weren't tough enough already to fight against my natural instincts to just stare through people and hope they'd disappear; to break down the walls of the bell jar in which I seem to spend my time, so that people's voices intrude eerily, floating in vaguely from a distance, incomprehensible till I actually register their presence, and lift the glass edge a little to try and understand. O! And yes, darlings, this is perhaps as long as my brief flirtation with 'normal' was meant to last - no more 'happy' or 'optimistic' or 'the sun always shines on tv' for me. No wait, I think I'll take that last one.

Anyways, despair is never too permanent, and there isn't just one authority on anything. Definers and definitions abound (it is what we've now been doing for forty thousand years after all):

" But really, hip is hip, enduring through all permutations. Anyone who leaves the house with bed head has an idea of where its light shines." - John Leland

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defence rests.

Beta Late Than Never

Yes, I am also aware of the fact that if I had stopped long enough to think about it, I could probably, just maybe, have come up with a better post title. But since this switch to beta is about the most exciting thing that has happened in my blog life of late (not to mention life in general... though the retard is still spicing things up in my Spanish classes), well, what else is there to talk about, I ask you? No major hairiness issues or race prejudices to air, and what can one say that Russel Peters or Borat have not already said - though I did once promise myself to write a post titled "Beige" (c.f. russel peters on SNL). And I did have some fun encounters of the third kind when I went back to college today to get some reco's - but more on that later. Really need a nap right abou.....dsjfhmzzzzzzzzzzzz

Out of Africa

I had a farm in Punjab, and being the boring sedentary thing that farms usually are, that's where it has stayed. Fortunately for me, things being as they are in this ultrapatriarchal part of the world, this implies no similar condition/attachment/predicament for me. I mean, of course, of the land ties and obligation variety… of the looking-after-the-property sort. And so, being the fortunately free female that I was, and the only one of my kind within the known universe, or at least within frequently inhabited parts of my own household, I – to cut a long story short, sometime – upped and left. For Africa, that is. Via Yemen via Bombay via the jailhouse via Delhi. And somewhere in there an unexpected, but always fun, ‘via Bhopal’ cropped up as well. Don’t ask, even if you weren’t going to. I’m actually now considering that as a more appropriate, if less subtle and allusive, title to this post. Don’t Ask. Oh, and none of this is a diatribe against the actual trip: that was the very stuff that… anyways, I wish it had never ended. For more than one reason. At least then I wouldn’t have had to talk about it so damn much. Now that whole godforsaken tale has been told so very many times, and has held me back from blogging for so very long by its sheer formidable mass, that that is all I am going to say about it. someday I might concede a picture or two… but that day aint here yet. And now that I have finally slain my belroc we shall have life and living again… and one of these days maybe even a post that actually says something.

Anyways, sort of an update – I graduated, and am now at sort of a loose end…at least as far as my parents are concerned – for them Chile might as well be xanadu. Oh yeah, that’s a bit of a jump in the narrative – as you must have realized, I decided not to do an M.A., or the M.A. decided not to do me, either way, something that could have been just some more of the usual hot air seems to have… well its early days yet to be making grand claims, so more on that later. What I am doing now is learning Spanish, for a reason apparently, looking for quick money making jobs - which might not quite be true, considering I got one last week and then turned it down – and generally moving towards a sort of objective…not so long term. Hmmm… so much for all the passion and drive.

and still there...

Still lazing around too much in Asmara to blog at all. But the guilt drove me to compromise with some sort of a note... besides the backlog of things to blog about is weighing me down into the ground... much to say, some inclination, not much energy or will....hmmm.... don't hold your invented breaths is what I'm saying. Besides, aparently its so much more fun when you don't get things straight from the horse's mouth, as long as I hold my peace, the crazy world being woven out there by all and sundry makes my life sound way more interesting than it really is...

Song of the month: Girls and Boys by Blur. Somehow, go figure. Tho' you may be more than familiar with what can only be called my obsession with Beetlebum, this one's still a bit out in the left field.

“I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it”, said a very interesting man once.

Recently, my (now lamentably erstwhile) flat-mates and I were taking our usual one-in-the-ayem, fifteen-minute chat and hysterical laughter at unbelievably bad jokes (both unexcused by caffeine or nicotine ODs) breaks, and we caught ourselves having a serious discussion. Surprised because we had given those up a long time ago in the spirit of Christian sacrifice, and the interests of maintaining bonhomie, we nevertheless could not resist the lure of one last go at playing at being adults with serious life-decisions to make, and a whole huge world to alter and reforge in the melding fire of our beliefs. I wonder if that heady rush and feeling of power you get in the middle of a debate will ever go away, and also if that feeling explains why there are so many happy fanatics – it would be a permanent high to believe something so vehemently all the time, instead of only for the brief moment the thought formulates between your head and your lips. At least for me, once it leaves my mouth (or someone else’s) everything reduces itself to mere rhetoric. Good, effective, or otherwise, but irreducibly, irreversibly, rhetoric. Anyways, I had started it off (yea yea mea culpa) with arbidly asking if anyone else felt like they were still waiting for their real life to start happening – a life where you made choices for yourself, created your own options instead of choosing from the options made available to you by the world depending on your sex, class, age and nationality. This simple question seemed to require much further clarification. I didn’t mean choosing your major or your college or what job, or even between college and a job. I meant thinking hard about what you would really like to do with the brief period of time given you, not within these pre-defined set parameters, but without restricting yourself as you have been conditioned all you life to do. I mean if I really want to run a bar/café in some small mountain village in Chile, why does that immediately, even in one corner of my own head, become an absurd, laughable idea? Can I not mix drinks, brew coffee or mate, know Spanish, or get there? Which of these would prove an insurmountable obstacle? So how come I’m not already there? And when will whatever is stopping me cease to factor in my decisions? Anyways, what it boils down to, I suppose, is me asking the question (though I don’t know of whom exactly): IS THIS IT? IS THIS ALL? And also, while we’re at it, what is IT anyway? Well, now the questions are out there, and somehow, 42 just no longer does it for me as an answer…

"Enivrez Vous!", said Baudelaire, on wine or poetry or virtue...

Ah, bliss. Just finished Brave New World, and embarked on Motorcycle Diaries... ooh the forgotten pleasure of having the leisure to spend days and nights immersed in someone else's world or mind. I didn't realize till about a week ago just how much I had missed having this kind of control over my life - my time is completely mine to do with as I please, and my sweet, bewildered Dad doesn't know what to say when I sleep at five and wake up at two, and wander around with my nose permanently glued to a book. Its a relapse into a Condition they thought they had completley cured me of. I mean, there I was, for the last three years, out in the big, bad world all by myself, actually socialising and stuff (relatively speaking). But they failed to realise that it is moments or times like that which are my vacation from the serious daily business of ... well reading seems too inadequate a word... it doesn't quite express the all-consuming frenzy, the rapturous transportation, the ex-stasis - the out-of-body experience of it all. I suppose the little death could be a workable metaphor, the hormonal push towards; the biological drive for more than survival, for connection, affirmation of your status as self-described homo sapien sapiens; the relentless pursuit of that known and yet elusive and constantly surprising telos - which dangles at the tail of every venture, unseeable, impalpable, but reassuringly undeniable through precedent. A bitter-sweet end most of the time - one craves, simultaneously, the reprieve from something too demanding on our resources, while also dreading the end of feeling so intensely, painfully, real and alive. Oh, that this too too weary flesh...

News Like it Oughta Be

Fury over ‘Marijuana is Good for You’ Campaign



Written by Harry Porter
It's good to toke - a tourist enjoys a relaxing break in KecskemétHungary’s quiet arrival into the European Union has given way to a blazing row after the Magyars declared ’marijuana is good for you’ in a bold bid to boost tax revenue.The country’s new approach to ‘soft drugs’, however, has met hard line opposition from other EU leaders in Brussels who have slammed the Hungarians as “irresponsible pot-pushing peddlers of death, disease and moral decay”.That particular outburst came from the moral high ground of the United Kingdom which has nurtured and preferred its own legion of ‘lager louts’ to the more soporific pursuits of the Netherlands… and now Hungary.Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that the EC could be plunged into a political crisis if the lax approach on marijuana and cannabis was not replaced with far more robust legislation.But with Peter Medgyessy, the Hungarian PM, already announcing his decision to step down from office, his attitude towards Mr Blair was relaxed, but far from conciliatory.In an approximate translation, Mr Medgyessy said: “Calm down man, chill out; what you need is a really good hit. Will I skin up?”The Member states were not totally united behind Mr Blair. The Dutch, all wearing MP3 players, seemed totally nonplussed over the situation while the Belgian contingent remained silent, raising suspicions that its stance was linked to the sudden increase in chocolate exports to the former communist state.Hungary’s legalisation of the Class C drug came with the cultivation of 1,200,000 hectares of the Great Plain, already home to thousands of orchards, vineyards and bountiful farms.This year’s mixture of blazing sunshine, high humidity and an abundance of rain saw the hemp crop surpass all expectations. The average plant, with the Hungarian growers opting for a Northern Light/Haze hybrid, soared well above 2.5m. This first crop is expected to finally surpass 125,000 tonnes.The Magyar government has levied a hefty tax rate on marijuana and resin sales with a kilo of high quality, top leaf ‘grass' selling for 4,126 HUF (approx $20).While this is still an expensive luxury for many ordinary Hungarians, it is a bargain basement price for tourists.Villagers have been quick to capitalise by setting up ‘stoner stalls’ and the city of Kecskemét has even introduced a special ‘smoking park’ where tourists can relax with a giant pipe while listening to Hungarian cover versions of Grateful Dead recordings.

from
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i6401

Revenge of the Sssrrriitthh

ugh. There is no other way to begin or end this post. I know I've been fairly discreet about it so far so it may come as a surprise to you that I've been having what is politey termed 'a roach problem' these last few weeks. I meant to blog about it in detail last sunday but the newspaper guy came and diverted all my disgust and anger towards an equally creepy recipient a mere four legs short of roachdom. Anyways, so I finally had enough of hotfooting it into and out of the loo every time with my hair standing on end, taking the quickest tinkles in the history of...whatever (I'm surprised I didn't shoot into space on impact or something), and decided, in true Truman style, to "give the bastards all we've got!" So I sprayed them with this deadly little roach-killer spray (though I'm sure half the ingredients would also be found in my cigarette ... but there you go, self-hate is never easy). And then for the next two days I couldn't stop thinking of all the stuff in that thing that I released onto this poor, beleaguered planet of mine, and which I know, with my usual paranoid flair for uncannily accurate prediction, is going to come back and bite me in the ... well, lets say substantial areas of this 'too too weary flesh'. Also, getting to watch the death rattle of one of my poor victims at close quarters is not exactly guaranteed to give me sweet-dreams now, is it? Suffice to say, the excruciating agony conveyed by the skeletal writhing hexaped tends to jump onto my mental screen at unexpected and innoportune moments, and this consant gatecrashing of the out-of-control party that is my mind is beginning to get on my nerves. Oh, there it is again. Excuse me while I go jump off the balcony.
ugh. (like I said...)

"I Do Not Want a Police Enquiry" --- Please Sign Here

If there were a line you could call your signature line, a catchphrase or sentence you felt perfectly defined your life as it stood at that point in time, what would it be? Well, I can't say, for myself, but I definitely know what it is for my younger brother. The one line he has seen more often than his name, address or text-books in his first year of college. And no, despite what he might say to the contrary, it isn't 'Call Me' outlined in lipstick. When it isn't the last line of the release form he signs in the hospital before getting treated, its the last line of an application he signs to prevent his banged up vehicle from being towed: I do not want a police enquiry. The amount of 'enquiring' he has already saved the police, they should give him a reward or something. My brother gets into fights, road accidents or simply injures himself for no good reason. Actually, there are usually three reasons that suffice in his universe to explain these happenings: Bad Luck, Bad Luck, and Bad Luck. He'll just be sitting around minding his own business when some friend looking for 'friends' to go beat up someone will happen to catch sight of him - "what was i supposed to say, no?"; he'll just run across someone he don't particularly like when either they, or he, is in a bad mood; or he'll just be occupying the very corner of space someone suddenly has an impulse to push - nothing personal of course. And don't even get me started on the millions of ways in which the accidents are not his fault - this one time he calls me at two in the morning coz the car behind him, not the one he was in, has had an accident, and I say: 'were you drinking?' and he says: 'Of course not you idiot, we never drink in the car'!!! The first time I visited him while he was in college, he came to pick me up on a borrowed enfield wearing a cap - which was very unlike him considering how in love with his lovely locks he is, so of course i got suspicious and pulled it off to reveal: a bandaged head. So he tells me how he had to get nine stitches coz he was out on the landing and he jumped too high and banged his forehead on the ledge (which would be slightly hard to swallow even coming from a basketball player, except that I have seen him do this to himself before - he'll jump too high in joy or exhilaration, and Bam! I have to admit it takes a special kind of talent). So then we're riding the wrong way on one way streets (his solution is to speed up so he's doing it for a shorter period!) and breaking all kinds of traffic rules, so i say 'tell me honestly, was it an accident?' and he goes'No... though i did have this interesting accident a week ago' and displays the scrape on his elbow while giving me the details. After a while I ask him, "was it a fight then?' "No..." followed by a guilty reminiscent smile, " but i did beat up this guy a few days ago", and pointing to the bloodstain still on his knee: "That's his, I didn't get hurt, he was this puny senior who had been bugging me for a couple of weeks", fond chuckle. And then of course there are all those times on the court when he'll run into knee-high walls coz he didn't see them, or trip over someone else, or fall over a bench that 'isn't usually there' or... well you get the picture. Ok, as kids we were the ones with permanently scraped knees and elbows because, well its easy to get distracted when you're having a good time with such single-minded concentration, but one's got to grow out of it sometime right! Ok, maybe I'm just jealous coz I did while he still seems to be living in that simple world where everythings good and things happen to you inexplicably and you don't stop to question them because you don't want the magic in your world to up and leave. Or maybe I'm just worried about the levels of carelessness I now realize you cannot afford to enjoy in this world.

"The Cable Guy II" or "No one told me about the psychopath quota in blue-collar service sector jobs"

This morning I was woken up early by Mr. Extra-creepy newspaper guy. (Ok, fine it was nine but I’d slept at three so…). Anyways so the bell rings dispelling forever whatever sweet dream I was having, and I jump out of bed, haul on a shirt inside out, still too lazy to actually mouth the extremely inventive curses going through my head (Now I really understand about the Draco dormiens nunquam titillandi. Previously I just thought it was just a good joke in latin – but now all those tales of chivalry about waking a slumbering monster and getting burnt to a crisp cinder begin to make sense – I’m sure my morning breath is pretty deadly in its own right, and my temper aint no picnic either). So, I open the door a smidgeon and I know its him the moment I feel someone yank the door from my hand and open it wide (that’s the kind of ballbreaking-inviting behaviour we’ve endured all year). There he stands in our wide open doorway (sore point) his feet planted firmly wide apart like he could be here all day, his hands on his hips, his extra wiggly eyebrows over his creepy gray eyes giving me the works (I bet all that Rapid-Eyebrow-Movement is actually like morse or something, only we’re too slow to get what it’s flashing). After the door stunt I’m just glaring at him (though my groggy half-shut eyes may have made it hard for him to tell, coz he didn’t seem to get it – but then again, maybe he’s too busy flashing eyebrow messages to register any sort of normal human communication). So I’m glaring, and the creep goes ‘Newspaper Bill’, and the last thing I wanna do is pay him (it would be like rewarding your dog for waking you up as a pup – not a good idea trust me) so I tell him to come next week in a markedly grumpy and unfriendly tone. He wiggles some more and says: “Why, is no one else here?” and I bark out “No.” (Yeah that’s me at my smartest in the morning – tell the creepiest guy you know that you’re living all by yourself in a flat). And then he’s making some more R.E.M (see above) presumably preliminary to some comment, but I’ve had it so I just slam the door in his face (sole moment of satisfaction in the above interaction). Ugh… ok, I realize both cockroaches and creepy guys have a right to exist and probably (though I fail to fathom it) a purpose on this earth, but do I really have to cross paths with them? God, if he existed, would be a Mean Man, coz I’ve now had to face both on my own. I miss my roach-squashing, early-rising flatmates. Ladies, if you’re reading this, come back; I promise I’ll be good.


Late last night while drooling (again) over Johnny Depp (even I’ll admit ten years is stretching an infatuation a bit much… but the more I know the harder it gets), I was rudely disturbed by an SMS from an old schoolmate of mine. It read, and I quote:
“Year 2006… 50% quota for all sc’s…Year 2016… roadside hoarding reads… “U CAN’T BREATHE THIS AIR COZ U R NT SC”… Screw all politicians … An appeal to all youth… never ever vote again… WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCASION… Oops did I spell it wrong… yes I did because im no fucking SC…” (sic for the whole thing… I’m copying it letter for letter).
Well, apart from the punctuational diarrhoea (I shudder to think how many sentences, if not paragraphs, those stops could have punctuated – its like the population density of Dharavi), the vehemence of it all was what got me. Especially considering the source. But on second thoughts, the source proved to be not as inappropriate as I initially thought (ok, bg.: this is the girl who interrupts this debate I’m having with a teacher about durkhiem’s category of altruistic suicide and how (I feel) you can’t classify a death in battle as such… and we’ve been going at it rather heatedly for a while – my argument somewhere includes the whole thing about choice and knowledge of possibility of death involved in something like crossing the road – when suddenly she pipes in, in all earnestness, with: “But sir, if a man is crossing the road and this whole hive of bees comes and attacks him and he dies, would that be altruistic suicide?” you get what I mean? I mean here you have your average twenty-one year old, going through Life As a Long Succession of Boys, Beer-Mugs and Joints, and suddenly she takes time out of her college-life to forward something like this to arbit old acquaintances – wow she really must feel strongly about it. My first thought (though mean) is maybe she got dumped by an SC recently. But then I start to think about how there is a whole lot of resentment building up even among us consumerist-yuppie types over this sort of thing. I mean even in an extremely polite (relatively) institution like ours, I’ve heard reservation slurs (though more sophisticated and barbed than the usual) and I don’t just mean your average jock-joke or sportsie/ Christian tag – a couple of years ago this one guy from eco made it to IIM-A on SC quota, and people still talk (lightly, of course) about how he really is shit rich and so didn’t quite deserve the quota thing. So I begin to wonder, in this age of cutthroat or slit-wrist competition, are we as a generation beginning to feel shortchanged by affirmative action? Not is this sort of resentment justified, but does this sort of resentment exist on a large scale, and is it leading up to some sort of frustrated boycott of the system (since that is all that lies in our power – we can choose to opt out as a gesture of protest, but that’s about it – as a votebank, the General Category is too dispersed and scattered a unit to be won over by any one sure-shot promise: it pays to be a minority in votebank politics)?...
Sorry, more later, I just realised a mere twenty-three hours is all that stands between me and an history exam whose syllabus I haven't looked at even once all year, and if I want to watch a movie later in the day (which, goes without saying, I do) I should get cracking right about now. Make that twenty-two and counting...

"How to Build a Universe that doesn't fall apart two days later"

If you thought "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was bizarre but exciting and somehow reassuring, you aint seen nothing yet. All the various Delusionals, paranoids or otherwise visionary protagonists in the fiction of Philip k. Dick were poor imitations ('twice removed' anyone?) of reality. His reality that is. Here's an excerpt from the wikipedia entry on the guy himself:

Dick and his visions
In his youth, around the age of thirteen, Dick had a recurring dream for a number of weeks. He dreamt that he was in a bookstore, trying to find an issue of Astounding Magazine. This issue, when he found it, would contain a story called "The Empire Never Ended", which would reveal to him the secrets of the universe. As the dream repeated, the pile of magazines through which he was searching got smaller and smaller, but he never reached the bottom of it. Eventually, he became anxious that discovering the magazine would drive him mad (like the Lovecraftian Necronomicon, promising insanity to its readers). Shortly thereafter, the dreams stopped. They never returned, but the phrase "The Empire Never Ended" would appear in his later works.
Quotation
My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?' Many of my stories and novels deal with psychotic states or drug-induced states by which I can present the concept of a multiverse rather than a universe. Music and sociology are themes in my novels, also radical political trends; in particular I've written about fascism and my fear of it.
Philip K. Dick
On February 20, 1974, he was recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. Answering the door to receive a delivery of additional painkillers, he noticed the woman delivering the package was wearing a pendant with what he called the "vesicle pisces". (He probably was referring to the intersecting arcs of the vesica piscis.) After her departure, Dick began experiencing strange visions. Although this may have been attributed initially to the painkillers, after weeks of these visions such a rationale becomes less probable. Throughout February and March 1974 he received a series of visions which he collectively referred to as 2-3-74, shorthand for February/March 1974. He described his initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and occasionally brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome, which he would glimpse periodically. As the pictures increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed that he began to live a double life, one as himself and one as Thomas, a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. Despite his past and continued drug use, Dick accepted these visions as reality, believing that he had been contacted by a god-entity of some kind, which he referred to variously as Zebra, God, and, most often, VALIS.
[edit]

VALIS
VALIS is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System; he used this term as the title of one of his novels (and continued the theme in at least three more books) and later theorized that VALIS was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial communication. VALIS has been described as one node of an artificial satellite network originating from the star Fomalhaut in the Piscis Austrinus constellation. According to Dick, the Earth satellite used "pink laser beams" to transfer information and project holograms on Earth and to facilitate communication between an extraterrestrial species and humanity. Dick claimed that VALIS used "disinhibiting stimuli" to prep the subjects for communication, in one case the symbol of the vesicle pisces. He wrote about this experience and his beliefs that the Roman empire never ended in detail in his essay, "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later".
At one point, during an encounter with VALIS, Dick learned that his infant son was in danger of perishing from an unnamed malady. Routine checkups on the child had shown no trouble or illness; however, Dick insisted that thorough tests be run to ensure his son's health. The doctor eventually complied, despite the fact that there were no apparent symptoms. During the examination doctors discovered an inguinal hernia, which would have killed the child if an operation was not quickly performed. His son survived thanks to the operation, which Dick attributed to the "intervention" of VALIS.
Another event was an episode of glossolalia. Dick's wife transcribed the sounds she heard him speak, and discovered that he was speaking Koine Greek, an ancient dialect which he had never studied. As Dick was to later discover, Koine Greek was originally used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint. However, this was not the first time Dick had experienced glossolalia. A decade earlier, Dick claimed he was able to think, speak, and read fluent Latin under the influence of Sandoz LSD-25.
In his essay, Will the Atomic Bomb Ever be Perfected, And if so, What becomes of Robert Heinlein?, Dick mentions that he began seeing pink light during an LSD experience, eight years before he wrote and attributed the so-called pink lasers to VALIS.
[edit]

Exegesis
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was unable ever to fully rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to fully comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an 8,000 page, million word journal dubbed the Exegesis.
Quotation
If you find this world bad you should see some of the others.
Philip K. Dick
He spent sleepless nights furiously writing into this journal, in some instances high on large quantities of amphetamines, which no doubt contributed to its eclectic tone. A recurring theme in the Exegesis is Dick's hypothesis that history had been stopped in the 1st century, and that "The [Roman] Empire never ended". He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism, which, after forcing the Gnostics underground 1900 years earlier, had kept the population of the Earth as slaves to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had contacted him and unnamed others to induce the "impeachment" of Richard M. Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor incarnate.
As time went on, he became increasingly paranoid, imagining plots against him perpetrated by the KGB or FBI, who he believed were constantly laying traps for him. At one point he alleged that they had been responsible for a burglary at his house in which various documents had been stolen. However, he later stated that he had probably committed the burglary himself, and then forgotten he had done so.
His later works, especially the VALIS trilogy, were heavily autobiographical, many with 2-3-74 references or influences. Dick was also a voracious reader of works on religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and Gnosticism, and these ideas found their way into many of his stories. The final novel to be published during his life was The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, though many more were published posthumously, most notably Lies, Inc.
This section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please check the section for inaccuracies and modify as needed, citing sources.
Many writers have subsequently speculated that Dick may have suffered from schizophrenia; Dick was certainly interested in the topic, and wrote an essay entitled "Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes."
... hmmmm...

On a related note, the dissociative disorder known as multiple personality disorder has only ever been reported in the U.S.

The more things change…

March 23, 2006

Aah, home. It’s been a while since I had an experience so surreal without any significant substance abuse preceding it (unless you consider my food intake in the past 24 hours – I’ve probably single-handedly caused another day of starvation for all of Somalia). Anyways, its back in the madhouse – which, with my mother gone to Africa for the foreseeable future, is rapidly deteriorating into the sort of early eighteenth century Bedlam so memorably captured by Hogarth for posterity. My dad is filling the gap left behind by her by assembling the sort of menagerie he has secretly always yearned for (despite my mother’s protests, and sanity, we usually had three dogs, and among other animals were graced by the presence of a squirrel, rabbits, a turtle, and three chicks – I think he not-so-secretly always missed his childhood, where he was surrounded by pets notable among whom was a bear-cub whose mother had been shot - till it grew too wild and had to be given away to a circus). As I write, ‘the family’ now consists of:

One father, euphemistically called eccentric (the kind of patriarch Gerald Durrel probably had wet dreams about)

One grandmother with no teeth, flesh, or language to speak of

One servant boy who laughs loudly at guests and openly ‘collects’ any loose change he finds lying about for his ‘bank’

One dumb, docile Doberman who mistakenly believes he is some long-lost cousin of Bambi

One parakeet with a shrill whistle, a reluctant vocab of some ten odd words (that’s still more than my grandma’s), and an incomprehensible affection for the dog (actually its mutual, they spend all day together and seem to have some sort of Starsky and Hutch deal going, though thankfully without the hairdos)

Two cockatoos that I don’t yet know well enough to describe

Twelve budgerigars

And

(lemme see if I can get this right)

Three zebra necked sparrows (or something like that – I obviously don’t watch as much Discovery as my dad)

We’re also looking around for a pup at the moment, though despite my best efforts I can’t seem to interest dad in a Great Dane. We’re hoping to find a good mongrel with decent descent (as far as traceable – we like the element of luck something like this brings in – you really don’t know what you get till its all grown up, by which time you love it too much anyways. Besides, don’t underestimate the element of surprise – it really does add spice to our daily lives)

So, after the usual tour of his menagerie and his garden, I was introduced to the new love of my fathers life – furniture making! Though I must say his designs are damn good. For one, he had designed this excellent bar, which I wanted immediately I saw it. With his lifelong love affair with antiques, it isn’t surprising that all his designs have this lovely dated, period feel to them, with intricate detailing, curlicues and whatnot.

Over dinner, I had a conversation with my father about drugs (something that has never really happened before, I have always previously shared gyaan and experiences with my mother – but with her gone, my father and I find ourselves having weird conversations sometimes – like the time I couldn’t decide between two pairs of heels and called him up to consult since mum wasn’t available: he told me, in a tone of rising panic, to buy both just to get out of that conversation). It all started, innocuously enough, with a discussion of the state government. Dad started telling me of all the crazy things they were doing, including removing limits on the number of theka licenses available in the state, and reducing prices of liquor to canteen rates (shit, if a bottle of bacardi now costs only 150, I think I wanna come back and study in Punjab). Then he told me that they had opened a legal vend for marijuana somewhere in hoshiarpur! Apparently, recently the cops have been on this major trip in Himachal, burning fields of cannabis and fining the owners, and Hoshiarpur is like on the border, so the Punjab govt. has opened a shop there where bhaang can now be legally purchased! Imagine my surprise, considering the global campaign for marijuana legalisation and the current topicality of such a move, not to say thoughts of a more personal profit. Anyways, my dad took this for naiveté on my part, and the next half an hour became this mincing duel, where we were both trying to educate the other and share our extensive knowledge while steering clear of admitting any personal involvement or experience with various forms of the magic weed. So, he’s trying to enumerate the derivatives, and how they’re consumed, while I’m trying to take this psuedo-scientific tone, like what I have is textbook knowledge that dried leaves and buds make something called…what was it…weed, and extracted resin gives you I think what they call hash, while bhang is just the green leaves pounded into a paste. And he’s saying yeah, I think ganja is what those sadhus smoke up in a chillum, and hashish you heat and crumble and roll, and how you can’t tip a joint like you would a fag … all the while carefully refraining from any anecdotal references, a tough job for such inveterate story-tellers as himself and myself. And then I’m making this Habermasian argument against licensing and legalisation as a means of control while he is arguing for it on the basis of price regularization and quality control. Anyways, you’d think it couldn’t possibly get more bizarre. Well I brought up (I can never resist) how pot is actually so good for you, and that brought up opium (ok, in Punjab its tough to keep opium out, it practically infuses the atmosphere there is so much major, and respectable, consumption of it – if it were legalised it would be the new whiskey of the state). So then were discussing how derivatives like heroin and cocaine aren’t healthy (expert benders of truth and reality we may be but even we can’t stretch it that far) but opium in its pure form is. So there’s me with how it formed the base of most of Chinese traditional medicine, and this anecdote about this young man who went home with some and hid it in his grandmother’s medicine bottle (she suffered from migraines and body aches) and forgot it, and the next time he went back she couldn’t stop raving about it – how every since she started taking this ‘new medicine’ she hadn’t had a single day of pain or headache, and how she’d never felt better. And then him telling me about how his grandmother was addicted to it, and she was so strong and healthy in body and mind well into her nineties. (my massi suspects that my grandmother takes it too, since one of the symptoms is usually incessant tea dinking, but considering her current rapid deterioration I tend to doubt it). I’ve heard enough stories by now of completely respectable people (including prominent politicians) nursing a habit – in fact, it’s still considered a sign by some of good living and raeesi, but I must admit I was a little surprised when dad started telling me of people we know socially, mostly old people, who took it on ‘doctor’s orders’ – people whose diabetes or arthritis were kept under control, whose heart problems disappeared, who became rosy cheeked and years younger. The only side-effect, as far as my dad could tell, was that it made your teeth rot and crumble. Oh well, with all the money you’re saving on medical bills, you can afford a good dentist right?

This has to have been one of my all-time favorite conversations with my dad; right up there with the time I almost talked him into describing his LSD trips to me.

Next post: a socio-historic analysis of the widespread social acceptance of opium addiction in Punjab as understood and theorized over the years by your humble narrator – with various collected anecdotes thrown in.

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

March 28th, 2006

My grandmother just died. About an hour ago. Actually two hours now I suppose. It wasn’t entirely unexpected; she’d been a breathing corpse for a while now. Visitors always said how it would be merciful for her to ‘go’ now. How this was no life, and how she’d had a long and full life. But somehow it was still too sudden. Dad had decided only yesterday that it was time to start calling her siblings to come and meet her one last time: her eldest sister was here today when it happened. I found out when dad came upstairs and told me to get dressed. The first thing that happens when someone dies is an invasion of your house and privacy. It’s almost immediate – hordes of relatives and random morbid acquaintances descend on your home like a swarm of locusts. Before you know it, lechy distant uncles are ‘holding you comfortingly’ while you overpower the irresistible urge to kick them in the balls, while megalomaniac distant aunts start giving orders with such panache, and ‘understanding’, of course. For an avowedly anti-social person (especially when it comes to the ‘family scene’), I really do pick my moments to come home, don’t I? This very morning I caught myself thinking ‘let her last till the fifth, please let me leave for Delhi before it happens.’ Ah, well I can’t really expect results from someone I don’t believe exists, can I? And the deities of Chance have never exactly been my best buddies – even if luck is being a lady, as a bisexual I only stand a fifty percent chance (at all times) of hitting it off. Which is, I suppose, what you would call ‘a reasonable percentage’. They’ve brought in these slabs of ice, which they intend to put under her, but ‘the ladies’ won’t let them yet. It’s funny how instantly, automatically, her room, with her body, has been turned into the ladies seating area, while the men get to sit outside. People walk in, look at the body, nod here and there at a recognized face, pay their respects to the bereaved (so far my dad and I – my mum’s uncontactable in the wilds of Africa (ugh, lucky her) and my brother’s on his way home. I don’t suppose at times like these the animals quite make the cut as ‘Family’), and make a beeline for their preferred seating area. Seeing as how I very conspicuously did not know what to do with myself, I have been allowed to come and sit upstairs, in ‘the bliss of solitude’, such as it is. I have only a very vague idea of how these things go (I’ve avoided them most of my life), but apparently the path (the praying) will happen tomorrow, after (I think) the cremation. Which means tonight is just --- ? that’s right, more people coming over, much more crying (I think I’m fairly dehydrated already, the tears are almost a spontaneous physical reaction – besides, I come from a weepy family, I’ve inherited the flair for melodrama from my grandmother, who spent all her life trying to be the star of a great soap – if only she were here to enjoy this). Though draped as she is in white, and lying as she is on ice, and being as she is now, mere skin and bones, she would fit more in a low-budget vampire movie with bad lighting and no script, though I suppose there’s too little cleavage around for us to qualify as one. But its horrible how instantly there’s so many people, so much to take care of, you aren’t really given time to pause and regroup. But I suppose that’s the purpose of it all – distraction. Besides, it drives home the point very dramatically that life moves on – you can’t mope around all day when there’s another twenty people to be served tea. And the really nosey, irritatingly presumptuous relatives do give you an emotion other than grief to focus on – anger. But it’s still unbelievably horrible when you’re standing there howling your eyes out, wishing for nothing but some privacy, and some random idiot comes and asks if the VIPs have arrived yet!! I mean, really. Half the people who came seemed more interested in who else was showing up (most commonly her youngest brother, who is a Governor), and were unabashedly crude about their curiosity. Ours is a nation of socially condoned voyeurism: there really is nothing more acceptable than treating someone’s personal affairs like a roadside drama. Of course you’ve got every right to watch, comment, dissect, interrupt and pass judgment out loud, and so what if you don’t know the people concerned too well. In fact that gives you the distance required for objective analysis – it makes you an even stronger authority!

Ok, I’m not denying the realization that expressing anger is a cop out of dealing with sorrow, but I’ve sort of had it a little with being put on display at the moment, so...

The Denial Twist

And in a circular universe such as this one, one inevitably comes back across The White Stripes. Even if you 'skip the light fandango', which one constantly promises oneself to do. Last night was grad d - no pictures yet... I didn't take mine, and everyone else, in the spirit of tradition, nostalgia and all ye anciente artifacts, seemed to have brought out their old load-film-and-develop-roll shebang articles. So ... we wait. But experience is untranslatable. Who was it said ‘poetry is what is lost in translation’? After the usual dallying and dillying till about eleven o’clock my classmates and I finally decided we weren’t after all ‘too cool to attend conti’. Especially since it was at a place called Climax. Yes, imagine the endless possibilities that opened up for a whole college-full of smart-asses who had been waiting all their lives for just such a moment: “Are you going to climax tonight?” “No we’re all watching Brokeback Mountain in Muk East we’re definitely not coming tonight.” Riots nearly broke out in the frantic scramble to claim copyright on that little line of jokes (I must admit to cracking my fair share of them)… especially since the usual mobbing energy reserved for the dessert stall needed to be diverted considering the all-time low quality fare on offer. Something being touted as soufflé, which came in colors yellow, brown and pink (go figure), and was (we heave a sigh of relief) accompanied by the saving grace - a miracle of nature (culture?) even they could not manage to ruin – VANILLA ICE-CREAM!! Anyways to get back – it was the usual boring affair, though perhaps being our Grad D it held more topical interest for some of us. Kartik got an award he was not too embarrassed to accept; can’t say the same of Gautam who (predictably) beat some girls from the choreo team (otherwise known as I can’t believe you missed when Richa Chadda’s pant’s tore on stage!) for the prestigious leg-shaker of the batch honour (though after Ghaziabad some believed it rightfully belonged to Jayant Sriram of the recently found my groove or so I think when I grind with Tenzing fame). Anyways, Gautam was too bashful (would you believe) to go up on stage. Unfortunately the same could not be said of Aby, who was both more visible, and more visibly gone, than he has ever been before (though after his recent miraculous personality transformation one feels disinclined to take his trip, however for the sake of art sacrifices must be made, however reluctantly). His thank you speech went something along the lines of: “Ummm... First year was funn. Uhh, College has been so much funn. All you first and second years are funn. All you people have funn.” (He really should have been president it would have been like the reign of the Thoma all over again). To the accompaniment of screams and cheers from the usual mathsie fans. Though one must sympathise, he is after all (as he repeatedly insists) ‘on antibiotics’. Yours truly (yes, I, too, adore people pretentious enough to refer to themselves this way) was called on stage too, alongwith Lara, to present the award for the disappearing act of the batch – the nominees were Aby ( I think he was the de rigeur nominee, butt of all jokes, and life of the show – in other words last night he was the George W. of college), Baruah, and Ramola – as I remarked to Swati, a list comprehensively covered by the flat. So Baruah won, but surprise surprise, failed to make an appearance, so of course Aby had to come up on stage again, the poor old antibiotised-out-of-his-mind sod. And give a speech goes without saying – though I’m told this one was an imitation of Baruah – I suppose I missed the subtleties. Anyways to get back to conti , to cut a long story short we hired a cab at eleven, got lost thanks to our genius of a driver who insisted he knew where Climax formerly F Bar was, reached there at twelve fifteen when the bar was closed and the place only open for another forty-five minutes, and eventually ended up going to Mist at The City Park for coffee at one. The five minutes we spent outside climax were fun, though the music sounded lousy, and apart from Joint and this tragic fellow called Chandy Oomen, not a single person we saw enter or exit the place looked like they were from college. Still waiting on the insider gossip but no leads so far, not even those tantalizing roaches (as they say in news channel lingo) so hope hanging by a slim thread. Summertime.

Jayan’s message to Swati this morning: joke for the day – ‘So how was Climax last night, what time did you come?’

I’m worried – I sometimes catch myself singing along to Engelbert Humperdinck – what d’you suppose that could be a symptom of?

Buddha boy disappears as science gets hotter than ever before

see here
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7C6B1E97-F4B1-4403-8568-5A85FA2968BC.htm



while in other news, scientists have achieved a temperature of 3.6 billion degrees in a lab, hotter than the core of the sun though they don't quite know how they did it:

http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html

And now ... a Claim to the Name!!!

After years of obdurate resistance I must confess I have finally succumbed: tea drinkers of the world rejoice, ye now have me in your ranks!! Officially a member on the strength of the three cups of cafe chai (more milk than tea, more sugar even while we're at it) that I once had to combat a recurring cough, I believe i can now endure the hoi-polloi brews, and maybe even seretly enjoy them. Though still can't stand coffee. And maybe it has something to do with the cafe too: the magical charm of Mohan - who with a smile can talk you into practically anything, while giving you his machis and bumming a fag; and the persuasive grumpy facade of Bhaiyyan, who stops so rarely that whenever he does you want to cash in on the moment and order something while you've got the chance. Ah, of all the men in my life, I always miss most those who serve me everyday, my own personal (somewhat limited) genii.

Its funny how a post on anything now tends to degenerate into a (Quasi/Psuedo/Pre?) nostalgic eulogy on this rapidly receding world of psuedo/wannabe Quads, Dons, Gyps, and Intellectuals - but none the worse for that, and probably the better. If aspiration is proof of life, this is the most alive place I've ever been: so many dreamers walking main corr. that the whole place gets a surreal,dreamy feel to it, as dreams meet, intersect, copulate, part ways or merely chill out, cradled in a haze of bittersweet smoke.

When words fall short

And yes I caught the bug too; in the middle of last minute tute submissions, notemaking and general allaround PANIC, we're actually taking time out to throw the biggest party we've ever thrown... HELP... what were we thinking?!
Well at least we've confirmed that tomorrow is NOT a dry day - whew.

Say no to attachments... they could be infected

Senti - the colour of the season is
a very good reason is.
Mental - the number of parties springing up
the alco content in my cup.
Fare - for friends depart on wings and wheels
meanwhile, here's a couple more free meals.
Well - I treated life like a cartoon
now i feel three years went by too soon.

if you want a sample of this madness that has now descended upon us, wreaking havoc with the minds of formerly (at least reasonably if not completely) sane creatures, go here to see what I'm talking about:

http://twidledee.blogspot.com/2006/03/time-has-come.html

Saturday night and I'm sitting home in P.J.s trying to download (against impossible odds) Star Wars IV: A New Hope while wasting time on nothing at all and just trying to escape the general bluesy fug that surrounds this evening. My roommate's gone home for the weekend so the room is this big gawping hole of empty nothingness. And recalling the fact that I have a party to go to but have decided against it doesn't seem to help though it ought to, somehow. With Jos out as well, the house is just too quiet and there is only so much noise and presence a barely five foot munchkin can add, especially sober (sorry doll). Add to that i quit smoking today. Again. Lets see how long it lasts this time. However there is a clause allowing for social smoking - another good reason i should be at that party right now. Maybe I should just open a bottle of white wine (now that we have a corkscrew it has become a relatively easier task), slice up some cheese, fry some mushrooms (or is that buy some mushroms?) and watch, I don't know, some hitchcock or de sica or even the matrix. Or maybe I'll watch the animatrix one goddam more time - or Spirited Away - now there's a movie i would like to see on hash, its just so beautiful and pleasant: it already gives you that wonderful, carefree, running-around-in-your-own-universe kinda feeling you had as a child, where everything was always ok because you made all the rules, before they filled your heads with shit like gravity, and there were still these infallible persons your entire world could safely be entrusted to, and you actually had the time to wander off down dust-tracks that caught your fancy, or because you all believed the cow in front of you was actually an evil witch who kept kids in a cage and it was your sacrosanct duty to go free your fellow-tinypersons from her evil, shape-changing clutches. Maybe the lingering memory of that kind of world is also why a movie like kung-fu hustle appeals to me so innately, instinctively and immediately. Wow, that was the shortest blues I've ever had, I almost feel euphoric now (Secret confessions of a suspected neurotic with Bi-polar tendencies)... but woohoo!!! All i need now is a trampoline - so i can bounce while watching the matrix.
Yeah i don't know why that image suddenly popped into my head from outta nowhere, but think about it, it could be the only way to watch the matrix.
more pink than blue...
and yes thats The Beats not the Beatles...

The Share Scare

of naxalite rock bands and vladimir dubovsky... and konkani MIT graduate men met on the metro?!
what we all need, according to recent findings, are husbands with heads full of hair - or is that full heads of hair?
cotton balls dipped in chocolate, or was that pai?

This post was originally intended as a rant against the online assault of smut a.k.a. more porn than one could possibly need in a lifetime, unless one intends to die of an aneurism at twenty due to constant indulgence in unimaginably excessive acts of sexual congress.
As if it wasn't enough that no matter what you search for on your p2p software at least seventy percent of the results will be pornography: yesterday i searched for a woody allen movie and was halfway through downloading when i decided to check it. Cut to me frozen in my chair as two men anally penetrated a heaving woman with false -- eyelashes, simultaneously!!! Maybe its just me but she looked closer to puking than orgasm at any rate... anyways, that was the dirtiest joke anyone has ever played on me and damn it left me barking mad for an entire night, till i decided to have my rant...
which is now officially over... so.

How strange would Dr. Strangelove be...

go here and read this first:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/nuclear_fallacy

and then go here and sign this please:
http://ctk.greenpeace.org/gp-en/ctk-collectors/respond?item%5fid=2047368&obj_skin_id=51

This could be more important than you think, especially as a citizen of a desperately developing country where casualty rates, fall-outs and long term effects are often not given as much thought as they should be. Sometimes its only when the First world condemns and stops something that our lives become safer, case in point the Clemeceau, in the recall of which Greenpeace proved instrumental.

vid a little help from my friends

yaadgaar was today, which, bizarrely enough, means that I not only went up on stage, but did it to sing, and to top it all, did it more than once! Go figure. Sang 'When I'm Sixty-Four' with my flatmates, and an unmentionable song with my class, and no it wasn't 'Behenchod Sutta'.

Still searching for "Thank you for smoking" - sometimes my p2p sucks... though i won't name no names coz the rest of the time it's a pretty good thing to have. Just saw Dr. Strangelove - the man is an unparalleled genius in Hollywood history when it comes to creating a dystopic scenario that effectively conveys a hopelessness that usually borders on the absurdist...
Saw 2046 too, right after 400 Blows - funny the contrast, from a black and white, cinema verite, handheld camera told tale that holds you riveted throughout, to a glossy, almost tactile visual experience in its rich tones and warm lighting that merely manages to mesmerize your eyes for the most part. But for all that, just for watching/seeing you don't mind sitting through a rather long, somewhat weak tale, its so brilliantly compositioned and shot. I think this is going to be the cinematographer's decade if not century, the potential of the visual is beginning to be truly realised now - which may perhaps have something to do also with experimentation in animation... my god that is the way of the future. Some of the experimental stuff going on truly evokes awe, its a whole new mind fuck.

goto ... bizarre yet true?

http://nigerian-4-1-9.blogspot.com/?referrer=

stop motion rules

Death Cab for Cutie... for the best band name, possibly, after Duran Duran. Though Queens of the Stone Age and The Dandy Warhols give 'em tough competition.
Also the Michel Gondry video for White Stripes' "Hardest Button to Button" so majorly kicks ass it's not even funny.

here's the map of music based on the blueprint of the map of the london underground... funkier than a mosquito's tweeter

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2006/02/02/underground5.pdf

But that it's done at all

In a world where "size four" is such a goddamned unstated standard in the ladies' section of any store that I have virtually given up climbing that extra flight of stairs just to be politically correct-gendered, its no less than a moment of epiphanic proportions when i finally discover something custom-made for big women (vertically if not horizontally - and I'd rather say big than tall, what the hell!): power dressing. This is me going into rapturous exclamation not about chocolate or food or even chilly-wine or sangria (well maybe a little later), but about suits. Suits made to fit (and complement) a 5'10'' frame, and NOT FOUND IN THE MEN'S SECTION!! I mean, yeah I'll admit i buy my sneakers and Jeans from the men's section, but thats because they seem to design only men stuff with both utility and comfort in mind. Tho' with the whole new metrosexual trend i shudder to think of what I'll encounter the next time I go shopping (c.f. "SouthPark is Totally Gay"). Anyways, I can almost relate with Kartik's sudden wish to be a Corporate Exec. just to wear his tie loosened a little, oh, and the office with the view. There is definitely something incredibly sexy about strutting down the corridor in a black suit and a light pink shirt, your not-so-high heels (not so yours either) clicking away to glory, in a dance of morse that spells out 'watch out she means business'.

whoa! here she comes, watch out boy she'll chew you out...
ok this high flying exec-without-a-job has to sign off now to go watch Fiddler on the Roof one goddamm more time, considering that the only other option right now seems to be Goodnight and Goodluck. But tomorrow, ah, tomorrow is another story, one where i shall be awash with choices. hopefully...

yup, it's that time of the year again: when squirrels are sparse on the ground, puppies proliferate, and you spend half your time trying to dodge people you still haven't written write-ups for. Ah, it isn't really april that's cruel Mr. E, not when mid-January temperatures in Delhi start dropping to 0 degrees, and you find yourself coming down from dharamsala only to realize leaving half your woollens there wasn't such a smart idea after all.

Anyways, back to writeups and all such last-minute attempts at immortalizing oneself. It's quite unbelievable the amount of time and energy one is willing to invest in them - after all, they're no "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (a prime instance of the Gothic in Romantic Poetry apparently, and the only poem by Coleridge that Rockers still refer to). Anyway, it was fun if exhausting for a person such as moi with my extremely insistent amnesia and stuff - but thankfully its all over and done with. Now of course comes the even more impossible task of editing my own writeups - the word limit is 200 but my we have somewhat successfully managed to bully Jayant into giving us something more like 350. Though you know he'd say anything to get out of a tight corner, so this might no longer apply. But hey c'mon, as higher exalted beings who merely deign to inhabit the world of less lowly mortals (read non-english people) we are allowed some privileges. Besides what right minded editor would give up a chance to have more good literature in his publication rather than less. After all (to end on a modest note), as our prestigious forefather once put it "We are such stuff as dreams are made on".

On the 45

Moving into convalescence (though not quite recovered yet) from a period of long silences and short posts - a disturbingly universal condition as it turns out - the recovering, though still frail, patient promises... well, to fall off the wagon.
The first attempt however, notwithstanding Johnson and Gender (or Johnson on gender) must be appreciated more for the very fact of its existence than for its outstanding excellence. Much like most male children in North Indian Society - all they gotta do to be a veritable miracle of nature is exist successfully for as long as possible, and even that seems to prove tough going for most of them. Somehow the self-destructive gene seems to manifest itself in much more outwardly-directed violent impulses in males of the species, though thats not to say it's more predominant in males, I mean women still continue to marry men, right, and that's practically like cutting an arm off.
And yes, everyone's got their own little swan lake's and songs of course.