Warning: Boring, Unrelated, Corny and Absolutely Irrelevant to You!

Swamped, drowned, enmeshed, immersed, suffocated in guilt.
When i will meet her 19 and a half years later...i will not know her, thats for sure. She'll look the same i know...she always has...but she has changed so much already...that she looks as though she isnt, even though she is.
Traumatic adolescence? Check. Fat? Check. Average? Check. Ordinary? Check. Double check. Triple check. Check check check. Ok, u can enter. Third door to your left. And be silent.
But then...she said, "Its always the brave who go first." She didnt say where.
-So whats your cause?
-Upliftment of the poor.
-Hmmm. Poverty.
-Errr...not really. More like women.
-Sexual abuse. Violent marriages.
-Err...more like widows.
-Eh?
-Betterment of their conditions. Remarriage. All that.
-Ram Mohan Roy, are you?
-Ehhh? Who?

Nyam.Nyam.Nyam. Yes, yes, Eliot and all that. Nyam nyam. Ei ekta cha hobe? Tagore's? Shesher Kobita. Sheki? Poroni? Nyam nyam nyam. Arre dhur moshai, Proust! Keats, only Keats. "Fled is that vision...ei..cha ta ki holo? Fled is the vision...tarpor ta ki jano?"

-And what now?
-Coffee?
-Nahh..
-My place?
-Call it a night maybe.
-Ok. Call me.
-Ok. Bye.

The thing that i love most about being in Bombay, or rather to put it more accurately, dislike the least is the immense amount of indulgence here, so much, that its not even funny. And after my extremely frugal lifestyle in Cal (well, almost) its a big deal when i order a coffee for 50 bucks without flinching. Ah, les parents! Where would we be without them? Ahem..not to ponder on that one very literally ofcourse.
Train rides are the best. Next time i'm only taking the train...it just feels so much more like travelling. I love everything, the crowds, the smelly sweaty iron handle smell, the train foods (non-veg thali: Rs 37/-), having garam-chai 20 times a day, listening to wailing, impatient kids, standing by the door (that is the best part), window seats, upper berths, every darn thing!
And and...theres just so much more to see. So many shades of green. I mean its alright reading about it in a geography text book or something, but when you actually pass stations like Rourkela and Bhillai, and you remember about steel mills and the likes..well, i dont know, its a nicer feeling. And there is a sense of belonging. In some obscure way. Inspite of paan stained basins and suspicious loo-seats that i made sure i didnt touch!! And even though i looked all bedraggled and harassed at the end of it, i remember how it felt standing at the door 20 mins before pulling into CST...
Oh and i got off at Nagpur too to see if they sold fresh puris anymore...but sighh...frying stuff on the platforms have been banned!

I have a houseguest, and i have to share my room...and since i'm not the type to mince my words..let me tell u, i hate it!! I hate not being able to play music in my own bloody room at 2 am, and having to blog in the dark (like now) coz someone needs their precious sleep!! Grrrrr....
Went around Bombay today, Lands End, Colaba Causeway, Churchgate...a lot of the South mainly. This place always gives me such mixed feelings. When i'm dissing it, i'm never entirely convinced, and when i'm heaping praises...i know i sound false. But i cannot tolerate other people dissing it either. What are u expecting to see here anyway? Old castles, elephants, and poor people earning their living through weaving handloom fabrics?? So..we have Louis Vuittons and Jane Shilton and 10 flyovers and malls and high rises and sports cars? Did u expect us to remain in the 19th century forever? Yes, we have progressed and we have worked bloody darn hard for it. And if Bombay is the way it is and looks the way it does...well, the credit is entirely its own. No matter how much i complain about its lack of certain things...Bombay's vibrancy, its colours, its success are undeniable facets of its magnetism. Its a symbol for sure...of how this country can grow forward and ahead. Sure, it isnt all black and white...and there are patches of extreme duality...but so what? we are getting there...its a beacon, and it makes me so mad when people cant commend the positive as easily as they can demean the negative.

Oh anyway...I am bored. As always. And i thought Woh Lamhe was besh sad. Inspite of Shiney Ahuja. And especially because of that chick whose name i dont see any reason of mentioning on my blog. Though i must admit, she has great legs.
Tomorrow is an important day. Hope everything goes well. For everyone, in more ways than one. I suddenly want to go to Sunderban. Maybe in December.
(Grrrr....houseguests!! I hate sharing my room..otherwise i'm usually nice. Really.)
Ok bye.

Sometimes...i just don't know. I mean can there always always be a logical explanation for everything? I swear I am a rationalist at heart...never mind my so-called romantic tendencies. There are really few things in life that i have done on impulse...everything else that seemed impulsive was carefully carefully thought out much before. As in, they might have appeared to be one of those spur-of-the-moment things, but thats just because my brain was working overtime even before you could say 'good-morning sunshine!' Yeah, i have a fast brain, get over it! Even when you think that I'm sleeping or dreaming or high...my mind's not on vacation. The only time that i dont think is when i'm angry...which is another story again.
So yeah anyway, impulse. I am not the most impulsive person, and thats the truth. Except for a few teeny times. That have inevitably inevitably led to severe repurcussions. (Do u realize how i keep repeatin words in this post? Its so funny.)
I tell u, i think way too much. It cannot be good for health, i just know it. Except before i talk. I barely ever think before i speak. And the consequences are, well..hilarious, disastrous whatever your perspective may be. Its funny coz, its always the truth that comes out...and awkward, coz its never really a pleasant truth. And sometimes i can ask really embarassing questions without realizing what is coming. But thats another story,too, which i dont particularly feel like relating.
And whats the point of this post? I dont know, i just got tired of seeing the previous one. Am ektu Eliot-obsessed right now (howmuchever presumptious that might sound) and i feel like i want to quote it everywhere. But i shall refrain for i know that in a few months time i shall be embarassed about it. Except for these two lines that i simply adore:
"Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room"
I probably got the punctuation wrong, but whatever. Aren' those wonderful lines?
I have so many things to do, but i have only one thing on my mind. One track. Ajkei bolchhilam. Never mind. I hate definitions. Boyle's Law and all that. Ugh!
There are some people i'm really happy for. the yay-yay types! And there are somethings really really bugging me. The last time life felt puro perfect was...well, a long time back. Not for too long, but oh well. Absolute perfect...as in, you know, no pet-batha, no slight headache, no chin-chine feeling, like that. Just a nice pleasant buzz. Sigh! Nowadays only beer gives me that. Along with 300 or so calories.
I am going to Bombay. Yay-yay!! Anything to be outta here. Its been crazy since May. Insufferable. Except a few times and a few days and a few things. Bad bad times.
Ummm...i blogged. Now what?

Random again.

I seem to have this sudden obsession of reading other people's blogs. Not unknown people. People i know. And not the fancy type blogs either. Just what they have been doing all day, and what they ate for breakfast types. And to see if I can figure out who the obscurely hinted personalities they mention are, and if they are anyone i know. And oh ok...I am curious as well. To see if i'm mentioned anywhere. It all comes back to me!

I love being asked to do things. Even though i think i'm really lazy, i still like being asked. Like i was so happy, when i was asked to help serve the dishes today. Sure i wobbled them and everything, but nothing broke.

I love receiving e-mails, that are not fwd types. In fact, i hate fwd types. I like long newsy e-mails about nothing in particular. It makes me feel happy.

It really doesnt take a lot to make me happy. I love a good funny conversation, which neednt always be terribly intellectual, but mustnt quite be "duh" either. I'm very particular about duhs! I love chocolate chip and walnut cookies with cold coffee. I love coffee. I love being pampered when i'm sick. (Sick of..?) I love being pampered in general. I love it when my dad calls just like that. I love planning certain things even though they are like far away and never likely to happen. Like a friends wedding in 2011, or an unlikely sleepover.

Oh, and i love classes (eeeks...not all). I so prefer regular happy things sometimes. And things that make me think. And I dont know what to make Poryphria's lover after having read it thrice now. Its a little psychotic, i conclude. And leave it at that. I hate it when people tend to over complicate Peter Pan, and over simplify politics. Its not right.

But, i still stick by the blogs. I love reading other people's everyday blogs where i can guess who or what they are talking about. And...if I'm ever mentioned, it totally makes my day! :)

Tarra-da da!!

I do not like playing victim. I'd much rather play indifferent. Sorry, did i say 'play'? I would much rather be indifferent. I think its the easier option anyway.
College was so much fun today. The surprising kind of fun. The not-expecting-it-to-be-fun kind of fun. Could have a bit to do with the fact that there werent any classes. But also the weather.sitting under the tree.listening to music.talking.real-talk, not small-talk.Delights.muriwala.school kids running about.Zen.
It would be much easier if all issues could be solved through some sort of a sport. Once you are out there, sweating it out, really, nothing matters. That drive is so missing. Its like, ok i would like to win, but whatever, even if i dont. Out there, suddenly it isnt about the winning either, but atleast there isnt a whatever. No whatever whatsoever. Whatever is the saddest thing in life. Not terrorism. But whatever.
I hate this growing up feeling. Its too blatantly staring me in the face. And if i ever hear another "...but thats life!" in another 2 days, i will seriously lose it. Sure u philosophic guru, u have life all figured out, defined and tied with strings in a brown paper bag (coz plastic is toxic!), but i havent, so let me just do it myself will you?? From everything, to the figuring out, to choosing the paper bag. I shall have blue if i want, and thats that!
Maths, i need maths back in my life. And i need to go back to being good at it. Which..is a pretty long way back to be going.
And i really want to say sorry to somebody, who probably wont even be seeing this blog. I know you want to help, and i know how hard you try. And i'm sorry. For being me.

: (


Sigh!

The world is in shackles,
And yet we call ourselves Free...
Happy 'Independance' Day, all.

Running around Trees

I am a hindi-movie-person, and there's no denying the fact. Just saw Gangster (alovestory) and liked it a whole lot. Even the corny end when she falls evanescence style into the world of after life and is reunited with her lover and kid both aptly dressed in white. I thought it was a pretty good film. Am not going to go into how it could've been a whole deal better, blah-blah...coz i just realized that i know nothing about movies at all. I can never sit and count the number of frames, and shots and cuts, and i am most likely to miss a 180 degree aberration and the likes. Instead what i see in a film is how it makes me feel, and how far i can laugh and cry with it. Not that i dont enjoy alternative cinema, but i cannot sit through atlami i dont get and then shake my head at the end of it. For example, i have till date not figured out Pierrot Le Fou, howmuchever little i saw of it. Ohh, i can write answers on it thanks to that wonderfully weird SRC note, and i can bhatao about French New Wave and the like, but i dont get it, know what i mean? Like, i get A Clockwork Orange, or that crazy Renoir film where everybody slept with everybody, and Caligari, but I so didnt get Stalker. Like i get Portrait of an Artist, but Ulysses is lost on me. Or that Plath makes so much sense, but Virginia Woolf, i cannot comprehend. Its just one of those things.
Coming back to Gangster (ALoveStory), i loved the way the film looked. Ofcourse the female cannot act for nuts, she is even worse than Ami(ee?)sha Patel who I think is the limit, Emraan Hashmi is ahem...but Shiney Ahuja makes me cry (thats a good thing!).
I like Hindi movies in general--not all, ofcourse, but the well-made ones. Like Dil Chahta Hai is one of my fave films, Hindi or English. And not beacuse it was technically superior and all that jazz, but because of its simplicity, i thought it was incomparable. Also Hazaron Khwahishey Aisi, which i have still not been able to get over. I still see DDLJ and KKHH whenever they show it on TV, i know almost all the lines by heart.
I like Bangla films too. Not the new ones because they are just a bad copy of Hindi, but the so called alternative ones. I liked Saanjhbatir Roopkathara, and Nishijapon and Herbert. I did not like Antarmahal, except for one particular scene which freaked the shit out of me. Doshar was quite sad too.
I wasnt allowed to see too many films as a kid. But i got my love for cinema from my dad, who use to record all the good films shown on DD7, i think. So on school holidays with no one home, I used to see all those recorded films. Unishe April, Shakha-Proshakha, Ghare-Baire are one of the few i remember i loved. I was quite young then, around 11 or 12, and those were my first encounter with 'A' films, though not in the way one might imagine. English films happened to me much much later, except for the patent ones like Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Ben Hur.
Even today when i discuss films with dad, it often surprises me that he doesnt wonder how or when i saw all of them. Maybe he knows. And maybe he doesnt really mind.
I was this film crazy person since birth. I saw whatever was acessible to me, whenever i could, whenver no one was watching. Sometimes i think i watch a lot less films now than what i used to. I wonder why. Probably the same reason why i read much lesser books now, than before. It was so much easier to find peace in words and stories.
Anyway, if that last line is not a perfect hindi-movie ending to a completely arbit post, i dont know what is!!

PS: I am completely in love with James' voice. I adore the way he says 'tuta-tuta sab'....there is something really sexy about him.

Surely life is supposed to have more meaning than this?
Isnt it?

Rather Random.

Maybe its a step in the right direction, maybe its not.
I know the golden rules, but its hard to follow.
I get so frustrated when i cant be good at something. I usually only do things i'm good at. Its a cover up.
I don't like being complicated. Most people nowadays seem to take that as some sort of a compliment. Its not, really. No matter how much u kid yourself.
Most people u talk to, want to talk about themselves. Which i think is a blessing in disguise.
I'm play acting all my life. I would be a great asset in soccer.
I want to do something really strenuous, walk for 10 miles, climb a hill, anything. Then i want to come home with pleasantly aching limbs and sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
I need to sleep. Period.
I suddenly want to do Saraswati Pujo type programmes: Rabindrasangeet dance, lal-paar sari, smudgy angry makeup, recitation, plays, giggles, radhabollobi-alur dum.
There was this one really bitchy girl there, who always gave me a complex about not being able to dance as well as the others. Its still there, the complex.
I recently discovered voice chat. Issgood.

Where's the party tonight?

The very first thing that she had ever wanted to be was a spy. This was 3 years before she had wanted to be in the air-force, and almost 4 years before she had dreamt of being a parachutist. In the end, she settled for a receptionist, for as she merrily told others "Well, somebody's got to manage the groundwork too".

He was commercial pilot. Lufthansa was it, or...? She kept mixing it up. But she loved him anyway. He was tall, he had nice shoulders and a wonky easy smile. Sha hadnt been on a plane before. He hadnt been in that hotel before. It was one of those hit-or-miss meetings. And it was a hit.

So they walked among clouds and dined amidst stars. When she closed her eyes she could see him at the controls, navigating 11,000 metres over ground level, bearing the responsibility of 300 lives. She soared along with him, higher, higher until she floated into oblivion. He stood on board and thought of her in the brown worn leather chair, with cloudy eyes and sky blue dreams.

They decided on Paris as their honeymoon destination. He said he would take leave. She wanted that he should fly the craft.
About a week before the wedding, she found a letter on her bed.
" I searched three worlds till eternity,
I found a girl who loved to fly...
She looked at me through rose-cloured eyes,
Her heart alas, belonged to the skies."

She searched for him for a whole year, offices, airports everywhere. It was as though he had evaporated. Even years later, everytime she heard the drone of a craft, she wondered if it was him at the cockpit.

He had taken a transfer to Charles de Gaulle, Paris. Even now, when he scanned passenger lists he wondered if he would ever see her name.
Inflight, as the plane completed take off he relaxed. Moving forward with confident, measured steps looking dapper in the crisp uniform, he bent slightly.
"Yes ma'am, would that be tea or coffe?"

Down below, a girl at the reception welcomed people with warm smiles, cloudy eyes and sky blue dreams.

"Aren't you ever going to be tired of acting your way through life?" the big C asked on a lazy afternoon, not too far from last week, on a day that was definitely not Monday.
I ignored it as i usally do. You give such things attention and they have a tendency to sit on your head. If u dont respond, it usually leaves.
Only this time it had this entire list of faults drawn up and seemed determined to stay put.

• You have no life. Get a life.
• You have no self-respect. Get that too.
• Useless waste of time is your forte. Get a new forte.
• Lose weight. Or atleast lose the complacency.
• Accept.
• Move on.
• Look for newer avenues. Diss the sidewalk, take the road.

I honestly dont know what the last one meant. Must be copy-pasted from someone else's list as usual. Typical.

Here is my own list:

• I have 8 new books, 3 new movies, and a new computer system waiting to be explored. I dont need a 'life'.
• I suffer from too much self-respect. Obviously you screwed up somewhere.
• Wasting time is not my forte. Crying over wasted time is. Time for u to get an update.
• Working on the weight loss bit. Trying reverse psychology.
• Complaceny is shattered, so you neednt jitter. This one's a fake 2-penny, i got on sale.
• Cant accept. Will ignore.
• Move on...where to?

Big C has retired for the time being. Its going to try the hard-to-get approach next time, i heard. Some things just dont know when to give up.

Go go go. Shooo! Get a life! Duh! ok bye! Tum ti tum ti tum. TI TUM!

I feel stupidly sentimental.
Held Ribbon on my lap for 30 minutes and he didnt die or cry, instead kept yawning and flashing toothless grins. [Ribbon, by the way, is my nephew and not a dog! He turned 21 days today]
Went to City Centre all by myself. Realized survival isn't as hard as anyone makes it out to be.Refreshed. Rejuvenated. Replenished. Quite like the Dove ad.
Came home really really late. Took a bus, an auto, a tram and a cab. Ate bhutta.
A very very nice phone conversation. Incomplete, but nice. Ancient Scottish tribe comes through. Mmmuuahh!
I will I will I will. I wont I wont I wont.
I feel like being a kid and sticking my thumb out. "kach kola" Only i wont. I never did that ever. Even when it was ok too.
I think Peanuts is the best. Charlie Brown is so cluless. I am a little clueless now. But it feels nice. Clueless is good. knowing too much--now thats the problem.
Okspacebye :)

NOTHING

Nothing must change. Nothing must remain as it is. Nothing is what it was.
'Nothing' says- "Im fucking tired of listening to you. I quit."

A can of dead fish, an ancient Scottish tribe, a flickering light in Southern Europe, a demigod i've never met is all i am left with. Not too sure about the light though. It might go out any time. Not too sure about the others either. They might just pull a 'nothing' .

If only i could get a nose job done, i'd like to think things would be better. But a new nose wouldnt go with the rest of my face. A face lift wouldnt go with the rest of my body. A complete makeover wouldnt go with the soul. And i still havent heard of any place where they do 'souls'.

So I turn back to the nothingness. Only it quit. Leaving this void behind. And what is the value of a space left by what used to be nothing? Will take maths to solve this one.
Like if nothing=X, and we assume an imaginary figure i to be the initial value of the space :
Dont have the brains to proceed though it seems like it would lead somewhere.
Unfortunately, dont know any place where they do 'brains' either.

Too many self-reflective posts in too few days. That cant be good for anyone. Time to go back to the all objective impersonal self again.

Yesterday (that is 29th) was my grandparents 61st marriage anniversary. 61!!! I dont even want to live that long! I cant imagine what it would be like, to live with somebody for that long, day after day, year after year. Granted that they probably got married really early, and all that. But you should see them even today. Every evening after all the soaps have been watched, and eyedrops have been given, and medicines have been taken...they lie down next to each other on the bed and talk and talk and talk. About everything under the sun. Politics, serials, grocery-list, relatives, me, neighbourhood people. Didun cant hear too well and she also keeps forgettin what she said 5 minutes back, but she can remember every birthday and wedding date of every single person that she has known. Dadun used to be this hot blooded young man, and he can still manage to get pretty angry sometimes, but for her, he repeats the same trivial fact over and over again. He is the only one in the family who deals kindly with her forgetfulness, it seems like Alzheimers but we are more or less comforting ourselves with the old-age theory. If that is like not the most dedicated kind of commitment, i dont know what is. Some people would hate it...being helpless, dependant, basically feeling unwanted, unloved...but something tells me these two 'oldies' are enjoying a second round of their twenties, without the least bit of care about all of those above mentioned things. They're happy, carefree, raring to live...
As long as they have each other.