Walk in the park

So I was the youngest kid in the family of seven--dad, mum, brother, grand parents and dog.
Grew up with my tying my pig-tails with pink ribbons, wearing pink shirts, and devouring on gems packets. Barbie dolls became my plastic room-mates. Thought make-up was the best way of 'looking good', so tried convincing my ma to purchase a box of cosmetics, along with a new pair of pink high-heels ever year. Of course these demands were conveniently ignored. 

Evidently, I was the child of the commercial age. Mind you, my parents never encouraged any of it, but what did weave my notion of conventional good-looks and cosmetics, was the pure and simple lineage of advertising.

I brought myself up on a strict diet of television entertainment--obsessed with watching Bollywood songs and Khiladi dance numbers. At the age of four, I would sit cross-legged in front of the television, eyes glued on to everything that encapsulated within the four corners of the television screen, showing off my polka-dot panties off to the world with little care, and sucking on two thumbs. I was the zombie-kid.

Modelling became my ultimate goal in life (yes, I was sincerely very naive), since I thought that was all there was to life. Acting was my second option. Or reverse--either which way, you get the point. Of course all these goals soon were deconstructed, underwent a harsh series of experiments, and eventually (and thankfully) changed--but that's for later. 

Television constructed an ambiguous, ill-defined and unreal perception of reality in my mind, and I grew up ignoring and detesting news channels, being completely disengaged with other crucial issues which plagued the world. I was the anonymous product of the dumbed down era.

Up until the age of 20, I lived in my comfortable bubble--where men, music, poetry, literature, weight, clothes and telephones, superseded other issues in life. Pink however, was no longer my colour. My existence was terribly narcissistic in character, where I was happily disconnected from the world. Elections, politics, covert media messages, natural calamities were not of importance to me. I had poverty in information and knowledge.

Though brought up in a family of scholars, and surrounded by a plethora of books on science and history, I gifted no importance to them. I had intellect, but chose not to practice it. There were times when I brought myself to question certain things, but always suppressed them, thinking that even if I did actually think about them, what good could it bring about? I always thought news was passe (as ironic as it may sound), and an element which formed a dominant part in the lives of those who had passed the age of 40.

Reading the newspapers, I believed, was boring, ineffective and 'oldish' in nature. I was young, I wanted to live young, and thought that drooling over Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise was what was 'hip'.

Mistakes. We all make them.

v. al. r. im-perfect.

Life at 21 changed. I decided to move out of the cocoon of my home and create my own nest elsewhere. Mumbai, I thought, was the best place to do that. I wanted to be independent. I was sick of parents literally breathing down my neck and controlling everything I did or say. I was a rebel (evidently inspired by James Dean). I wanted to break-away, thinking it was 'cool'.

What I got, was a kick-in-the-butt.

I reached Mumbai to do a post-graduation course in Mass communications, where pink transformed to black and white. I was forced to open the newspapers (much to my disinterest) and reality, not milkshake, was literally forced down my throat. I was given a different perspective to life. Films, theories, news reports, books dominated my life. I was forced to think. Forced to practice my brain, forced to question and challenge theories, concepts, norms, notions.

It was a good kick-in-the-butt.

Men lost their importance (not that I've changed my sexual orientations or anything, but love-affairs just didn't seem to matter so much anymore), my tastes in television viewing changed, I began taking interest in politics and issues that concerned the world. I became more passionate about films, and my ideologies steered towards the left.

Change is the only constant. Bring it on.

Senselessness in Sensibility

Inkstains creep on the paper:
Blots of imagination,
and wreathes of scribbled emotions,
Speak in curves and motions,
Of fictional characters that chatter in my head.

The windows clatter,
Reality shatters,
Idealism bleeds,
Words become avant-garde.

*

Voices. voice. vice. ice.

Lost. Losing. Letting go.

I sip my wine, unwind on the bed:
Lie on the bed. Lie on you. Lie to you.
Lovers lie. Liars lie.

I am one of them.

*

The Legacy of Malthus and Something Like a War

Man’s vocation, according to the essay, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, has two real alternatives—humanization and dehumanization. However, while humanization is an ‘inescapable concern’, those who are economically and socially powerful, usually take to exploiting, oppressing and debasing those who are in a weaker position. Dehumanization therefore, manifests itself in an oppressor-oppressed equation, where the oppressed seldom speak out or voice against their ruthless abuse.

The relationship of the oppressed-oppressor can be identified between the first-world countries to the third-world countries (America waging a war with Iraq, purely for the greed of oil), master-servant, and employee-employer, of man-woman, student-teacher and landlord-peasant.

Deepa Dhanraj in her film, The Legacy of Malthus depicts how the landlords (rich) victimize the meager-waged farmers of Rajasthan. She draws parallels of their predicament, with the ruthless exploitation of the peasants in Scotland, by the landowners during the 1800s.

The film is woven by narrative voices of women peasants, narrating how through ages, the rich Jats and Thakurs have lived on the grains produced by the farmers, while the farmers themselves, have starved. In the entire village, there are 20 rich houses belonging to the landlords, while 400 huts are below poverty-line—their wells remain dry throughout the year.

  The system of oppression becomes more haunting when Gora Bai (peasant), describes how the landlord pulled out the seeds the government gave her, from the land and forcibly argued that it was his land. When she revolted, he threatened to shove her head into the ground. Two levels of oppression come into being here, first, of the master and servant (due to economical disparity) and the second, of man and woman.

Gora Bai however, introduces a new element to the lineage of oppression: “We live in fear of both the shopkeeper and the government.”  Under Indira Gandhi’s government, India accepted a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which demanded, among other things (like increase in exports), control over population. Shortly thereafter, the United States intervened by trying to ‘help’ India reduce her population. The relationship established between America and India then, become one of the oppressor and the oppressed, where the former’s behaviour showed elements of ‘false generosity’.  

In 1974, America relied a lot on the 3^rd World countries’ resources. For this reason, the United States was interested in the social, political and economic stability of these countries, which was invertly related to population. Population stability of countries like India, then became of important concern for the U.S.—it therefore encouraged the Family Planning Program in India.

Something Like A War, a sequel to The Legacy of Malthus, begins with a group of women villagers talking proudly about menstruation and how giving birth empowers them. In the 1980s, the Family Planning Program was implemented with enthusiastic support from the central government, especially in the rural areas. Indira Gandhi’s government undertook strict methods such as withholding salaries and denying ration to villagers who refused to participate in the program.

Oppression intensified through the game of power, when the jobs of Patwaris and ration-shopkeepers were threatened by the State government if they could not bring ‘cases’ for sterilization. The Patwaris then functioned as ‘government officials’ who promised male farmers money (Rs. 500), loans, land, television sets, if they pressurized their women to get sterilized—none of which, as one woman says, “were incentives which actually benefited the woman”.

 These women became the voiceless, anonymous ‘cases’, identified with numbers pasted on their foreheads during operations, where they were operated in the most unhygienic, fly infested conditions, without anesthesia. Many of them even died after the operation. 

A simple pattern in this legacy of oppression and exploitation can be identified—a I^st world country pressurizes a 3^rd world country—the government of the latter pressurizes/oppress the rich landowners, who in turn oppress the male farmers, who oppress their wives—money here, functions as the underlying catalyst to this inhuman domino effect.

 The disconcerting visual and audio elements in the film, jolt the viewers off their seats, since for the first time they are shown the dark side of the Family Planning Program, which was otherwise celebrated by the Indian government as a mark of ‘progress’.

 In The Legacy of Malthus, the underbelly of the Green Revolution is also exposed. While the government corroborated with the U.S. and decided to incorporate chemical fertilizers in its agricultural methods, the only ones who dangled at one end of the rope were the farmers. Gyarsi Bai, a villager states that earlier they were healthier, and now: “we eat vegetables grown from fertilizers, which has made us weak.” The fertilizers destroyed the land and lowered the nutrition value of the crops, adding to the farmers’ plight, since the landowners already gave them arable land.

            Deepa Dhanraj intersperses the film with a scenes from a play enacted by actors who retell the impediment of farmers in Scotland. The ‘commons’ (which was land for all) was infringed upon by proprietors, and arable land was given to the poor peasants. Poverty ensued; the highlanders were starved to submission and forced to immigrate, in hope to find better lands for survival. She does this for two reasons: First, to justify why the poor immigrate to cities, and second, to show that the behaviour of exploitation and oppression is universal and exceeds time and geographical boundaries.

            Something Like A War, throws light on the shocking forcible atrocities the government inflicted on women in order to control the population. The rural women not only boldly discuss how they were forcibly sterilized, but also share how the government, for its selfish interests, was the least concerned for its citizens, especially the women.

National ‘development’ in its most gruesome form is the subject of Dhanraj’s films. Both the documentaries are therefore, told from the perspective of women—one who are the primary victims. Dhanraj gives the women a platform to speak, to voice how they felt during the program and the dilemma they faced between being answerable to their in-laws, who demanded innumerable sons, or to the government, which demanded not to have more than two children. Their own demands however, were never taken into consideration.

            One of the most haunting scenes in the film is that of a woman held down on a bed, while the doctor (with half-concentration) operates on her, while he speaks to the camera. Her mouth is clamped shut and her face contorts with pain and anger as she tries to beg for mercy. Gyarsi Bai leaves us with the most potent message—the government is mercilessly eradicating the poor, not the poverty.

The Legacy of Malthus ends with a teacher in a municipal school making his students repeat the ‘benefits’ of the Family Planning Program: “The country’s population should be reduced so that people can live comfortably and the daily needs of the people are met.”—illustrating how through education alone, the mind of a child is indoctrinated with false ‘truths’. The scene in interposed with a woman villager confessing that she too has begun to believe and internalize what the landlord taunts her with: the villagers are poor because they are illiterate, idiotic and senseless.

The last shot of this film, is the view of the slums from a moving train—it is Dhanraj’s way of stating, that we have become so immune to poverty, that though we see the sight everyday, we remain unaffected. Through this film, Dhanraj successfully counter-argues Thomas Malthus’ Legacy, proving through the exploration of the rituals of the landlords and the government, that the principle reason for poverty is not overpopulation, but the inequitable sharing of land and the ghastly economic disparity between the rich and the poor.

*

Documentaries by: Deepa Dhanraj

FOUR CORNERS

You stand within the four corners, with your head bowed down, naked. And you think. It’s not a new feeling, this nakedness. You squat on the orange tiles, thinking, staring at the empty bucket: wishing, waiting, wanting to be filled, completely. And you wonder why you’re referring to yourself in second person—perhaps because, you’re your story yourself. The tiles turn yellow, to green, to maroon... and you swoon in your own emptiness, in that void of absolute nirvana, where you belong to your own nothingness; you smoke it in, swirl in it and tap your feet against that wet floor overflowing with the water that has filled that once empty bucket. Sufism, of the mind, really. My god? The nothingness I find in blank sheets of paper; on streets lit with lonely street-lights; in moths who find a purpose to their lives in those very lights; in my hands, confused with lines, speaking of nothing but age.

Here. This. This is your world; anything can be your truth. You create your truth, you believe your truth. Question is, do you believe in your own existence?
*
I exist in the city of Mumbai, within the boundaries of India, where almost every third girl in my class (as elite an economic bracket my class may belong to) has found her life partner at the age of 21, or has intentions of finding him soon. I, on the other hand, am single, which by Indian standards, is something to be worried about. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether my mum is concerned that I find a boy or not, but for the neighbours, the matter is gravely important.

What they don’t know is that I intend on having lustful, dark, secret affairs with Bergman, Kurusawa, Godard and the likes. Even though they won’t probably look at me, or be interested in having conversations over smokes and coffee. I don’t smoke, so coffee maybe. I wonder what they’d think....

Here. This. This is your world; anything can be your truth. You create your truth, you believe your truth. Question is, do you believe in your own existence?

SUPER-SIZE ME

Written and Directed by Morgan Spurlock
Genre: Documentary/ Non-fiction

The documentary opens with a bunch of children happily chanting, “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut! I like food, you like food, Kentucky Fried Chicken and A Pizza Hut!”

No prizes for guessing what this film is all about.

This documentary is a shocker. If you want to know how ‘happy’ you can get with a McDonald’s 'Happy Meal', this film is a must watch! The documentary is a journey of a man, to prove to the world that eating high-cholesterol food products almost every day, is indeed injurious to health. He takes it upon himself to completely detract from his healthy Vegan lifestyle, and take a detour to the big bad world of McDonald’s.

Set in New York, Morgan Spurlock explains how obesity in America, is second to smoking as one of the major causes to preventable death and innumerable illnesses. In 2002, a bunch of Americans sued all the fast-food companies, blaming them for their obesity and related illnesses. This film is Spurlock’s experiment to find out how much role do fast-food joints (like McDonald’s) play in contributing to an individual’s body weight (and size).

Spread over a period of 30 days, the camera tracks Spurlock’s fatalistic plunge into a strictly high-cholesterol diet (eating Mc onald’s products three times a day), with absolutely no amount of exercising. It investigates how this approach to life adversely affects an individual’s work progress, his mental frame of mind, including the physical relationship with his partner.

The documentary functions as a proof to how unhealthy-eating, does (surprisingly!) ruin your body, increasing your chances of diabetes, heart attacks, liver failure, and other fatal diseases. In under a month’s duration, Spurlock had actually put on a horrifying 20 pounds, proving to the world (and to McDonald’s food joints), that their food products are not human friendly at all!

I rate this film 8/10. It is DEFINITELY, one heck of a film to see.

So we all were 'troubled' by what happened in Ahmadabad and Bangalore. We all were extremely disturbed, and we all wished for peace. On the 6th of August, there was a peace gathering that was held by an NGO (Citizens For Peace) in South Mumbai.

Personally, I felt the entire event to be very 'unnecessary', for there were many who just spoke, lamented, cried--but no one really discussed how a change or a solution could be brought about. It was the same old sob story, where people assembled, quoted, dispersed and forgot.

Two weeks after the blasts in Ahmedabad, who talks about it now? Everyone is back to living their own lives. During the blasts, the media covered all the amputated corpses it could find, weeped with infants who were to grow up having no 'saaya' of their pitas (fathers), showed innumerable women crying hysterically beating their chests, and now, two weeks after, the media has moved onto covering other 'important' issues, such as Abhinav Bindra winning one bloody gold medal in rifle shooting. Now, isn't India is really 'shining'?

*

Below is an article I had written right after the 'Peace Talk' gathering held on the 6th. It details what all happened at the gathering:

“We can and will triumph if we all stand together, with two powerful weapons: great pride in our rich diversity and unflinching unity at all times.”

--The Declaration for Peace

Prompted by the gruesome bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad that have once again disturbed the peace of the nation, the Citizens For Peace, in support with other NGOs, held a gathering on the 6th August 2008, the 63rd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. This gathering was held at Churchgate’s Patkar Hall, as a desperate call for peace.

Using Gandhi’s quote, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind,” as their slogan, the evening’s compere, Rajni Bakshi, siad that the gathering was a result of the “sadness and fear and also the helplessness we all feel when such bomb blasts happen.” The assembly was attended by several well-known personalities like Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and Ameen Sayani.

Javed Akhtar spoke of the grim contrast that existed in the country. While on one side, “the IT industry is booming,” he said, “on the other side, India has the most illiterate people and poor labourers...” He said that India had not left a single ‘type’ of terrorism alone. He was sad that before considering the existing problems at hand, the first thought that worried him was, “whether we’ll be able to exist at all.”

While the poet read out a few of his most thought-provoking poems, Shabana Azmi read out their English translations. Overwhelmed by the atrocities, she broke down into tears at the podium, saying how helpless and weak she felt, and how “some serious steps had to be taken, and not only symbolic gestures,” to regain the country’s peace. Anita Deshmukh recited Vasant Bapat’s Marathi poem, ‘Deh Mandir Chitta Mandir’. Ameen Sayani remembered how the current situation reminded him of Gulzar’s line—“Roz subah mere ghar akhbaar khoon mein lath-path aata hai.” Actor Nandita Das quoted Martin Luther King, “In our times, we will repent not for the evil deeds of the bad, but for the silences of the good.”

The event came to a full circle, when the Children of the Happy Home—School for the Blind, moved the crowd by singing some of Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite songs, including, ‘Vaishnav Jan To’ and ‘Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram’. Gerson Da Cunha read out the Declaration, which was required to be signed by all those who were present. The assembly ended on a peaceful note with the lighting of the lamp and the singing of the National Anthem by the people in chorus, giving us a sense of Indian solidarity.

The event was rather hollow, a superficial attempt at highlighting what already exists in our country, for no one discussed the issues or how they could be ‘resolved’. Those who spoke, merely quoted others, sang or recited poetry. At the same time, at least such attempts by the ‘literate and aware’ and their public expression of thoughts increases within each one of us the desire to move towards a peaceful India , contributing in our individual capacities to build a nation of empathy and love.

*

POSTBLUE

Currently singing: Close my Eyes Forever, Ozzy feat. Lita Ford
*
Right, so I haven't visited this space for quite sometime--my sincere apologies to all. For the past one month, I had been running up and down the Capital, giving entrance tests and what not. And now I'm happily settled Mumbai. Ironic, isn't it?
*
Recently, I visited the National Art Gallery in Mumbai. So this is my take on Raghu Rai pictures: thought-provoking, and extremely trippy. If any of you ever have a chance to take a look at his pictures, go for it, I say. Truthfully, I've never really appreciated the art of photography, until now.
*
For decades Raghu Rai’s pictures have spoken to us—each one having its own voice and its own story to tell. Though set in India, Rai’s photographs have had universal impact, evoking varied emotions in the hearts of those who’ve come across them. Using a mesmeric interplay of light and dark, Rai’s works celebrate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Whether his subject is a ‘baby donkey’, or women thrashing wheat grains with the sombre Humayun’s tomb in the distant background—his pictures portray life with compelling simplicity.

In 1965, Rai’s photo Baby Donkey, catapulted him into prominence as a photographer. For more than two decades, he experimented with the elements of black and white, and coloured his photographs with different intensities of these elements. His photograph, Among the Sparrows (1968), for example, touches upon the themes of racism and alienation, by depicting a lone raven, surrounded by a threatening wall of innumerable sparrows. This is probably why Hoffman felt that Rai’s work dealt with the “subject of humanity on a universal scale.” Another picture, the Two Old Men (1970) articulates the economic disparity intrinsic in society. Rai depicts this through the posture of the two men while walking. While the man in a suit walks upright, his counterpart, wearing a ‘dhoti’, walks with a stick in hand, hunched. The posture of the latter speaks volumes about the oppressiveness burdening the poor. Moreover, an Indian wearing an Englishman’s suit testifies that imperialism continues to exist in India.

For a considerable period of time, Rai’s photographs involved minimal entities (Sensuous Baby, My Father My Son, and A Train to Darjeeling). However, post 2001, Rai began to capture more elements of life, playing with more colours, thanks to modern technology. Pilgrims after a Holy Bath (2005) is one such picture. Taken at Varanasi, the picture details numerous pilgrims performing different rites and actions—each pilgrim is distinctive from the other, yet all belong to one frame and—one existence.

One of Rai’s most striking images is of the Sensuous Baby. In India, the picture has the propensity to trigger off several debates. It shows an infant suckling his mother’s breast, playing with one of her nipples. The nakedness of the mother and child is symbolical of naked truth: sensuality and sexuality are all basic to mankind and there should be no room for hypocrisy. For Rai, photography is to celebrate life in every form, including, “capturing the rhythm and music in a human body.”

Rai has dedicated himself to capturing the life of India and her people, gifting insightful glimpses of her ‘being’. His contribution to photography as an art form, as a study of life in black and white, as well as in colour, and to the understanding of India, are beyond comparison.

***

SUNDAY LETTERS

Recently, I wrote a letter to the Editor of Hindustan Times regarding Anbumani Ramadoss's delightfully entertaining statements concerning the Indian film industry and the adverse influence it has on the health of the Indian audience.

____

Vir Sanghvi's The Publicity Hound article (May 4th) gives a penetrating insight into the psyche of our illustrious Union Health Minister. Anbumani Ramadoss's fifth-grade arguments as to why Indian cinema should not portray actors who smoke, drink or even eat potato chips for that matter, are stupid in their entirety.

It is silly to believe that the audience would blindly mimic everything that the actors do in movies. We are sensible, capable, thinking individuals—the actors puffing cigarettes on screen definitely cannot have a drastic affect on our so-called 'impressionable' minds.

It seems attacking the movie icons is Ramadoss’s only passport to making it to the headlines, and unequivocally he has been successful. Our Health Minister should focus on more crucial concerns such as drug abuse, providing hygienic conditions in government hospitals and ensuring proper availability of medicines, and leave us to decide whether or not we should buy the next packet of chips.

*

I do intend on writing more on this topic, and shall return once I'm done tackling my entrance exams.

She

I wish I could eat a peach. Or a strawberry. Or buy a prickly pear from a man who goes by the name, Empti.

I wish to wish, to have, to lust, to crave, to drink, to dream, to seduce, to play, to amuse. But alas, my graceful locks swaddle me in my own darkness, and my mother teaches me to plait them everyday.

And as I grow, they grow viciously around me, until one day, they offer me a fruit. Now, I'm not Pope's Belinda, so why can't I eat a slice? Nibble on it a bit perhaps, and wear the dress of a Maenad? Why can't I make you ashamed of your nakedness, your own truth?

I wish I could eat an apple. Or a strawberry. Hmmm.... I wonder if raspberries are in season.

*

Prickly pear: From Eliot's The Hollow Men. 'Empti' (Empty) is an allusion to the hollowness of man; spiritual sterility.

Pope's Belinda: Reference to Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock. Lock/hair symbolized a woman's chastity in the early 18th century English society.
Maenad: Devotees of Greek god, Bacchus. These were wild women with unkempt hair who celebrated sexuality and self-intoxication.

*

Conversations of the Mind

Thought I'd share this with you:

One day you'll be blind like me. You'll be sitting here, a speck in the void, in the dark, forever, like me. One day you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down. Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up and you won't get anything to eat. You'll look at the wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you open them again there'll be no wall any more. Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.

*
Extract from Samuel Beckett's Endgame

Limbo-Bimbo

Currently singing: Zephyr Song, RHCP
*
I am supposed to be studying, unfortunately however, I cannot pull all my will and want together in order to bring myself to do so. I find myself dwelling upon thoughts that had been craftily wrapped in a muslin cloth and buried underneath all the other concerns that stand to be of higher importance to my life. Distractions, I tell you. For one thing, I keep mulling over what I would plan to pursue in the coming years of my life--whether I should deviate from the mainstream and completely push myself into media (a subject I've had my eyes on for quite sometime), or whether I should probably take up a course abroad on dance and theatre.

I've always found my life gravitating towards the creative field. My mind is imaginative, I love movement--facial and bodily expressions, and since childhood I have had the inborn inclination to write and express. However, as honest and surprising as this may sound, even if I do take up English at a post-graduation level, where will I go with it? I do not see myself becoming an English professor, standing in front of a large army of moronic teenagers and trying to work with them. Even the mere imagination of such a situation seems humourous. I for one, cannot be strict--and though I am aware that there are teachers who are not strict and are still capable of teaching, it is something I cannot fashion myself into doing.

Moreover, a three years course in English Literature has taught me that though I love the subject, I absolutely cannot learn the texts, quotes and what have you not--it's simply unacceptable by my character and my intellect dissuades me from enjoying such liberties.

So the question thus proposed is, what next? Though I do continue to ponder on such matters, I am also conscious of my responsibilties towards my immediate present: studies. I must therefore, do nothing whatsoever in order to disrupt my concentration.

Must. study. Must.

*

Confidently, Indian

Currently singing: Don't Cry, Guns and Roses
*
Today, my mom sat down with me (you know, those mother-daughter conversations one indulges in every now and then) and gave a detailed experience of her ride in those new, perfectly painted 'green' buses that have been transporting Delhites all over the City.
The description was hilarious, considering she mimicked those individuals who accompanied her on a ride to CP--I couldn't take her personally, since my mother decided to visit her mum unexpectedly, and without a forewarning walked out of the house in complete enthusiasm while I was lost in my yoga session..

So anyway, the women on the bus were apparently comical creatures, really--my mother described one scene where one woman confidently went and sat on the bus' gear box (as many usually do on the normal DTC buses), and when the driver asked her to move, she refused to budge and replied in a rather crude fashion:

tu bas apni bus chala, mera khayal mat kar'
(You just drive the bus, don't worry about me).

Next, my mother lamented on the fact that though the DTC bus drivers have been given fashionable new buses to drive, with commendable state-of-the-art facilities, the poor chaps are oblivious as to how to work with these technologically advanced buses... The driver of the bus mum was travelling in had no idea as to when to open and close the doors in time... While ascending the stairs of the bus in order to get down, a lady's saari got stuck in between the doors due to the untimely act performed by the driver who abruptly closed the doors. What ensued was an unpleasant exchange of dialogues between the two, punctuated with a few 'rude' remarks here and there...

Entertaining? O boy, yes! The way my mom was narrating the entire episode threw me in fits of laughter, and considering she writes and is a story-teller, she did a brilliant job of communicating the events of her day to me, leaving me absolutely impressed.

I am yet to travel in these buses, but rest assured, I am honestly well-prepared for them. Let's see, next trip to college--I am definitely counting on public transport!

*

Full Circle

Currently Singing: Kiss From A Rose, Seal

Right..

Honestly, I really don't know how to begin this post.. Was on the phone with a friend today.. We just realized (moment of epiphany) that we will be going to our college for classes for the last time on Monday, and the knowledge of this completely threw us into a fit of hysteria. Now, I am an emotional freak, so it's understandable if I find myself falling back on memories and remembering the past three f-ing brilliant years of my life... My friend on the other hand, is one who barely gets attached to anything and hearing her feeling low about leaving college was something I was completely not prepared for...

People enter your life for a reason... They have a purpose, a role to play to your existence... once that purpose is achieved, they head out... either abruptly, or the process is extremely slow... It depends on how you want them to leave... Some, however just stay..

Honestly, I adore my friends, and knowing that I wouldn't be seeing them everyday from Monday onwards, wouldn't be famously standing under the sun at Sat. Nik desperately waiting for chicken rolls, or wouldn't be making spontaneous plans to travel off to random places with absolutely no money in our pockets--overwhelms me with a feeling of discomfort.

It's disconcerting, really.. Somehow, everything that was constant and stable in my life seems to be dismantling itself... Now I can't say I wasn't prepared for it, I mean, I knew that this phase in my life was going to come--just didn't know it would come so early. Hmm.. sounds cliched, doesn't it?

I see the books gathering dust on my shelve, and I have lines to read before I sleep... Memories creep into the present and I sit starring into the green wall, enraptured by my past.

Honestly, I feel sad that my college life has finally come to an end... but then again, something needs to end in order for new things to begin... that's what life is about, until it completes a full circle.

College ends here R, grow up love.

Bumping My Way Through

Currently Singing: Baby's Got A Secret, Madonna

*
Let's see now... the other day a few of my friends came up to me and enquired why I hadn't written anything recently? Hmm.. good question. Honestly, I have nothing to write upon. No, no, don't give me that grin now, it's true.

Wonder if this may suffice--
The other day, I encountered a driving disaster: Now I know that on speed-breakers, one must slow down. I did... however, I wasn't slow enough for the speed-breaker to grant mercy and allow me to pass in a respectable fashion. I was at 35 kms/hr, and this baby was huge--you can let your imagination play for the rest of the events that ensued.

I was extremely slow thereafter at every speed-bumper, driving my car carefully. However, even after such an event, I still stand to say that I am improving and turning out to be a pretty decent driver. In fact the other day, my brother, who usually doesn't compliment me on anything, gave me a thumbs up for my performing skills in the driving arena.

Well, what can I say? Live and learn my friend, live and learn.

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Yesterday however, I did enjoy a good home-cooked meal of chicken drumsticks immersed in gravy, baby corn-broccoli (stir-fried) vegetable mix along with some deliciously and geometrically circled (mind you) rotis. Yes, an interesting combination I must add. This treat was made by my friend as a token of admiration and portrayal of deep respect and immense gratitude towards me... In other words, the meal was made in my honour. Naah, not really. That woman doesn't even give a damn, I just wrote all this to massage my ego and feel happy about myself.

However, my friend loves to cook and it was indeed a delicious meal, at the end of which, I did promise her that she'll be the official caterer for my marriage (irrespective of the fact that I do not intend on marrying in the next seven to eight years! Yes, disheartening, isn't it?)

After the lunch we watched Russell Peters on Utube--an absolutely adorable and amusing fellow, who has the potential to throw anyone off their chairs in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. For those of you who haven't see him perform--honestly, you are missing out on something. I have always been a Peters fan, and yesterday was one of those days that made me adore him even more!

It was a good day indeed, two thumbs up to the girl with the curly hair!

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P.S. Just so you know, the site is: www.youtube.com--in case you visited the wrong site. And this is where you need to go :)

Hit Me With Another

Currently Singing: Follow Me, Uncle Kracker

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I should stop eating ice.

If one is high, water stabilizes you. Now, I am aware of that fact. However, it is highly likely that when one is high, one must muster up all the sense he or she has left in one's head to realize that ice is water as well. My point being, here I was letting my hair down, swaying my head to the music, voicing inane lyrics which didn't even correspond to those which were playing, was down two Screwdrivers and two Long Islands, when suddenly I had the habitual urge to munch on ice. Corollary to that, the drinks began to betray me, the tipsy-ness began wearing off, and my senses began to regain their strength. Not fair, I say.

I should stop eating ice.

Did you know though, that at Pebble Street, the buggers have started playing 'mast' hindi songs as well? Though earlier I protested, I realized that this New Friend's Colony pub hits the perfect note when it comes to blending Hindi mu-gik with the Angrezi. Well, needless to say, I enjoyed. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the booze... Or maybe honey, it was just me ;)

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Soul Speakth

Currently singing: Dark child, Toni Braxton
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An image of a forgotten reflection which earlier sparkled through my kohl-lined dark eyes. The girl who would swing her arms merrily in the gardens which embraced The Habitat Centre, or the one who would not think twice before munching on those road-side bhel puris at CP, or even gol-gappas for that matter; who would sit at any cafe and just smile to herself at the very thought of a Latte or a Cappuccino; who would dream of plays and consider them to be better than life, or the one who would love to sing, even though she knew she wasn't good at it, but still hit the wrong notes because she didn't give a damn.

The girl who walked the roads of Delhi nonchalantly in her chappals with and her famously loved jhola placed daringly on her shoulder; who smirked sheepishly everytime the wind whispered in her hair--Me, a girl who just didn't give a damn. Just didn't.

One can be happy within oneself, you say. It is true. I am a better person now :)

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I am reading Walcott. Flirting with Neruda. Indulging in secret affairs with Eliot. My imagination finds me in better spirits. I doodle when lost in thoughts, scribbling poetry on abandoned sheets of yesterday.

I make tea for mom, coffee for my soul, make conversations for relaxation, and study for....? sigh, numbers, marks, a f-ing first division?

Answers, anyone?

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P.S. It is 1 in the morning. I am terribly sleepy. If, pray you, you do notice certain grammatical errors, do ignore--they are errors exisiting only to remind us that we humans are immensely flawed. Oh, and good morning.

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Category: Personal

Simple Words

Read something about me today: This made me reconsider who I am.

I am loved, and now I know.

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"... it is possible to live within one's own self."

--Aaki

Three Years of Living

College shall end, soon.

It's funny, my past three years have been a dream, really. You know that phrase right? Living in a bubble... Well, I suddenly realized, it's all true. Never thought college would end, never felt life to be so unstable, so uncertain. Never.

My final year has been.. well... I have ambiguous emotions towards describing it.

Honestly, I completely ignored my friends during my third year... as a result, they distanced away from me--it was my fault, and I am not shying away from admitting it. Although, recently when I began hanging out with them again, I realized what I was missing out on. Fuck, these guys are brilliant, beautiful people--people whom I absolutely adore, and I missed one entire year out without them. I am repenting being without them for so long. And I shall repent, for the rest of my life.

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The other day my dramatics society, Verbum, gave us seniors our final farewell. They sent us custom-made invitation cards, indulged us to delicious chocolate cakes,made a movie on our memories in Verbum through a string of photographs with music in the background, and made sure we felt loved, wanted, and terribly missed. Verbum is a family, and will always be one.

Sigh.

Memories remind you of the good times, yet weaken you at the same time. My college: I have lots of memories attached to that yellow-red educational structure. Honestly, coming from a girls school and entering the grounds of my college, made me realize that I had the capacity of making loads of friends. So, I made lots of friends; lost many too, but what makes me happy is that, they were there at some point or another, to make me feel special. Wanted.

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This is indeed one of my most emotionally charged posts.

College has ended.

End. Finis.

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Blabber-Talkie

The other day we visited the Vasant Vihar market, a.k.a the famous Priya joint. It has become our second home, literally. There was a point in time when I had absolutely no idea as to where Priya really was--me, a being living in another part of the world!

Another place I frequent a lot is Khan market. But then again, who doesn't like going over there, enjoying the view of populated India and it's tiny cars from a second-floor view at Barista while sipping on hot cocoa or coffee? Or going over to Big Chill and indulging in that delicious Chocolate Oreo ice-cream? Or even visiting those knowledgeable bookstores and feasting on those alluring book covers--Or just, basking in the sun, walking, gibber-jabbering with your friend.

By the way, did you know that the word 'Oreo' is actually a racist, derogatory term associated with those who have black skin, who wish to have a white man's way of thinking? Oreo: Black choco biscuit on the outside, white cream on the inside. Consider yourself educated. One up on your IQ level.

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The architectural structure of my institution is built in such a manner, that it seems that the sun deliberately tries to evade it. Class-rooms are mercilessly cold, and we all sit close together in order to generate some warmth. There is ample amount of sunlight at my college gate though, so after the classes we all sit at our college gate, devouring oranges or gulping down on some sweet coffee.

Then comes the time to leave.

Driving is tiring: one has to literally inch on the Delhi roads which are consumed by more than ten thousand vehicles everyday. It's so painful that I have to concentrate more on the traffic and bitch about those who are hogging the road, rather than enjoying Jim aptly singing to me:

"Keep your eyes on the road

And your hands upon the wheel

And then roll baby, roll"

Well, I am rolling!--but somebody is gonna get hurt real baad, if people do not stop driving like pathological maniacs on the road! Ugh. Delhi traffic. Ugh.

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My mother read out a piece written by Rumi to me the other day. He said (very poetically, of course), that if one keeps moving, swirling and doing things in life--then, one is centred: paradoxical images beautifully placed together, to bring forth a very important aspect of life.

SiGh. Some people are born profound. Others become. Make it happen, R.

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The Open Baithak @ The Attic

Attended the Open Baithak today at The Attic. It was a relatively cold day, the streets of CP were tremendously crowded with people buzzing and passing by, as I scurried from DV8 to People Tree on my two feet, humming the tune of a song I don't remember now.

The door of the Attic opened into a warm and cozy room, brightly lit, accessorized with antique furniture--a space I would love to rent as an apartment, but alas, the space is not for sale. I was greeted by known and unknown faces, all smiling, happy to be there, waiting for the poetry session to begin: An evening with the performance poet, Bob Holman.

The thing that I have always loved about performance poetry, is the performing bit. I cannot endure people just standing in one place and reading out their poems which, mind you, are brilliant pieces left unanimated due to the lack of display of emotions, correct articulation of words, blah. Thus, to perform one's poetry is very essential, for it gives life to the piece and also leaves the audience enraptured, wanting for more.

Of course, one has to have the art of performing, and that is achieved through experience. I, for one, have done so at a college poetry recitation competition, but still do have a long way to go. Perhaps in the next Open Baithak session, I will be enthusiastic enough to read out my poems. Perhaps.

Today, a few read or rather, performed well. A few. One of the poems read was despicably atrocious, and I was confident that I could do better than the gentleman on stage. Over-confident? Noo. Just sure.

At the same session, I also met a deliciously handsome guy, whose name I shall not disclose, for the sheer fact of knowing that he might come across this page. Though extremely talented, I could not stay back for his performance. Did I mention that I like men who rap, by the way? :P

There is so much potential in me, potential I wasn't even aware of. Certain things happen in your life, and though initially you feel that they shouldn't have happened, when you see life from a broader perspective, you know that it was the best thing and that you are so much better off...

Ah well, you live and you learn. This is ME at twenty, and still going strong.

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