What do I write?

Free writing- without which I feel incomplete, might not have any value but I will still try and give it a structure. Because a structure makes me feel safe and look at that which I will be unable to look at if it is let loose and allowed to be beheld in a loose way. It seems like I am looking inside my brain and the biological details turn into labyrinths of lava. Could be just a stereotype of a scary place imagined on the lines of hellish fires.
I hate my inability, I hate this stasis and I hate to have to think. Some moments I feel like the thoughts will burst through my ears and letters will come out singing and skipping like in an animated story intended to teach children- ‘learning can be fun’.
And I feel the vomit welling up inside me, and I want to start a scentence with an and, I want to. And the computer this word doc. Reigns in the errors to a large extent, and then makes errors of its own but I want to drum out words like a sexual experience- violent and brutal. Just the drumming and the loss of cramping structures and these letters itself control and bind and cramp- just as desire itself controls and cramps and makes you want to vomit.- its sick when I think I punch in something which I might think is wise. The philosophy. My head would explode with the disgust I feel for all acts of language. There is a freedom I want from language language language language, and still need to express… I clench my fists and wonder- why cant vomit be the more accepted form of self expression.

sneak peak to check if i still got any readers

Its been long. Now that I am quite sure that nobody reads this blog I am finally comfortable enough to blog again. So, an incomplete post, i dont know why i was thinking like this on Feb 19th, but well i was...Some lines have been duly censored much like war communication...

February 19th
Crazy crazy day. So I did what I am best at…making a complete fool out of myself. I think I’d truly wither away and cease to exist if I don’t do something stupid for a while. Alcohol is an evil vile thing. I think I am going to giveup this satanic spirit, because ofcourse the concept of moderation is completely and totally alien to me. So lets see where that takes us- I have almost given up smoking, I am planning on giving up alcohol, I have actually -------------------------------------------------------------------------*censored*. I am heading towards sainthood.

Firstly, why is alcohol a vile thing. Okay, this might take some time, lets start with why and how I have almost givenup smoking…
There was this stage when all of us were trying it, coughing, getting used to the nicotine hit, feeling cool about ourselves because we smoked (I always had some self esteem issues!), and well being a woman smoker made me feel so liberated. Going and buying a cigarette while the men gaped and looked on disapprovingly made me feel like I was contributing to the feminist movement in such a big way…paving the way for future women smokers, who’d find it not embarrassing to go and buy cigarettes because there sisters before them had the guts to look up at the patriarchal pricks and blow the smoke into their faces. (aside- I am convinced that if I am not dramatic, I will die.) those were the days of sitting outside college and smoking, smoking inside college coz life is all about cheap thrills, smoking in shady corners in the colony, and looking down on moralistic aunties who told us very candidly that ‘girls from good families shouldn’t smoke’, to which I said- what the fuck is a good family and how the hell do you know that I am from one.

The friends I made over cigarettes are going to last me forever. One of the best ice breakers ever. Recently I was spending time with Nandi and her cousin. These two hadn’t seen each other in some time, didn’t know much about each other, as the cousin had moved to Canada when she was about ten. So Nandi was being all goody two shoes in front of the cousin, and cousin was also all polite friendly but wary of talking too much. All it took was me asking if anyone was interested in a smoke, and we three soon endedup sitting on my balcony, guzzling beer, smoking a whole pack and talking about boys, excuses made to the family to go to Cuba with boy, sex-and how its so much better when you are stoned, coz apparently the guy can go for hours- of course, a claim made by the cousin which just begs verification. I’ll just have to find out on my own, all for the sake of knowledge.
Smoking is an institution which evokes trust. If I can lightup in fromt of a person without feeling like he or she is judging me, then I can tell them about some other things in my life and more often than not, find a shared understanding.

My smoking memorabilia includes a photograph of a much rubbed on my face birthday cake, shape of a cigarette with gold flake written across it, and a lit gold flake on it instead of candles; two cigarette holders which I thought were so la-di-da; an ashtray, supposedly a candle stand of some sort, a gift from nanka, but was just always used as an ashtray n I refuse to throw away the last buds that lie in it; a packet(empty now) of Peter Stuyvesant, a gift from a much loved friend; a tacky orange lighter with a bright blue light at the bottom; a bag which will forever smell of smokes… and so many memories of udhaar from panvaris, how a cigarette crackles when its drizzling and the smell of wet earth is mixed with the smooth smoky classic regular, how chai tastes with gold flake, of winter mornings that were warmed by a cigarette, of smoking in a loo in ludhiana and loving the shared complicity in all the sneaking, of the wonders of sitting on the john in the mornings with a lit cigarette, of bad throats from India Kings, of smacking my lips after Gudang Garam, of a father who got mad because his daughter’s friends could smoke inside the house whereas he had to go out on the balcony, cocktail cigs and More, sutta buddies, an eerie park known as the ‘adda’, disapproving glances, lecherous stares, boys wondering how a girl could smoke Regular. Bidi, Davidoff, Marlborough, Goldflake choti and badi, and mine with much love…Classic Regular!!
Now are the days when the same friends, all talk about how they want to quit…earlier the conversation would start with how long have you been smoking, now everyone just seems to ask- so for how long have you been trying to quit?
With me its simple. I had ...


*I dont know what i wanted to say after this, well, it was sometime ago...so there.

To...

Me lying in his bed, his arms around me,
His hands caressing the curve of my waist, first slowly
Then with an urgency to which my body responds.

The pile of clothes on the floor,
The moving up by bases
Derogatory both to the act of love and to the game.

So, we stop at second and I ask him if he thinks I am fast.
He replies that he’s ready to wait, we do whatever, whenever I decide.
Nestling warm in the cliché of his own decency

I do the mating dance of being hesitant,
he on his part, pretends to understand.
But all I can think is-
sooner murder a child in the cradle , than nurse unacted desires.

I think I am quoting Blake to him, he looks at me askance.
A touch, a shrug, can say much more, than these words ever can.

Tomorrow I’ll get a sepia toned copy of Garden of Love
And hang it on his wall.
Maybe he will understand the joy of my need for him,
and leave it at that.

drive with pompous

Fridays is the day to travel to the other end of this city. A day for paintings, films, u specials, sexy professors with gravelly voices, sitting in class with boys and a spic macay café.
Friday was a long day. Long classes, new faces and a documentary on Vermeer later, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I decided to hitch a ride with a classmate whom I had met a few times before during conferences and recalled that he stayed in South Delhi too. ‘Pomposh’ as I shall call him henceforth was nice enough about it and said that we had to take the metro till central secretariat as that’s where his car was parked. Maya and I had no clue as to how far the station was, so we took pompy’s word that it was walking distance. We started, with P running in front of us, n breathless maya n I trying to keep up with him. Twenty minutes and a very angry maaya later we reached, and were told by a gleeful pomp that we took a much longer and circuitous route. I had a flitting vision of pompy as a child, lighting crackers tied to the tails of little puppies and grinning while the poor thing jumped about yelping.

On the metro he kept listening to his ‘classical’ music on his ipod nano. Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart; and I thought about my mp3 player with its assorted collection of soft rock, Sufi and down right popular music. While I was musing on my plebian tastes we reached our stop, and before he could introduce an ignorant me to the magic of Chopin, we had to get off. Once in the car the conversation became more general and as we crossed Khan market I told him about this café that I really liked. Not many people knew about it, and so it was mostly empty, situated as it was in an innocuous corner. He mused and said- “—arcadia …wasn’t that the story that spoke about this idea of exclusivety.”
I didn’t have a clue. “O Henry!” he said. I didn’t miss the supercilious note in his voice but usually late to take offence I ignored it. The only O henry I had read were The Last Leaf and The Gift of the Magi. “that’s children’s stuff.”he said. Then he went on to compare him to Saki, and how his style was not quite so great as ‘Mopasha’s’. Mopasha??? After being dismissed once already as being under read, I did not want to sound like a fool by asking him who the hell was mopasha. Assuming that maybe he was a bangoli writer or some such thing, I kept my peace. He went on about how he read Camus when he was 10 and all the while I kept looking at him speechless while feeling extremely stupid.
Then I thought about the book in my bag on faiz’s poetry. Assuming someone so erudite would be interested in one of my favourite poets, asked if he had read any of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s works. Looking down on me as an impertinent thing, he declared that he had no interest what so ever in Indian literature.
Not even Pakistani? I ventured to ask, but the humour was completely lost on him.
Indian literature is something I feel quite strongly about so I persevered. “Agreed that a lot is lost in translation, but don’t you sometimes feel that Indian writing is closer to our immediate context and the connection is less mediated through secondary reading, and more through direct experience?”
Pompy brooded and said-“well I do read some Bengali literature, but I cant stand translations”
Fair enough. But what then of Indian writing in English? I had just finished reading Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel, and hadn’t been able to stop raving about it. It is so amazing to read a satirical allegory and understand almost all the references without footnotes. The only referencing was nagging older people for explanations of names like ‘priyaduryodhani’. A book that is based on a very popular literary piece- the Mahabharat, but discusses the nitty-gritty of the independence movement and the political situation in India was quite an experience.

After my impassioned speech about Indian literature, all pompy could do was smile at me. He gave me the most condescending look ever and snorted a short laugh.
All this while I was wondering as to what good is so much learning if the other person has a closed mind, and so insecure about his achievements that he would denigrate a whole country’s literature or 'literatures', because he doesn’t know anything about it.

Short ride, he dropped me at Nehru place, I took an auto home. Well, at least he knows about Bengali literature, that’s something, and maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe I’ll go home and Google who mopasha is. Wait a minute! ‘mopasha’, short story writer?! Could he have possibly meant Maupassant ?
Breaking into a smile I mused, that maybe after all I wasn’t that ignorant. And even though there was this person trying to break free from all things Indian his pronunciation was still as desi as it got.

--‘oh, gulab jamun,’ she said, imitating Biswas Babu, ‘and the chumchum! And mishti doi. Oh- the bhery mhemory makesh my shallybhery juishes to phlow.’
-Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

drive with pompous

Fridays is the day to travel to the other end of this city. A day for paintings, films, u specials, sexy professors with gravelly voices, sitting in class with boys and a spic macay café.
Friday was a long day. Long classes, new faces and a documentary on Vermeer later, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I decided to hitch a ride with a classmate whom I had met a few times before during conferences and recalled that he stayed in South Delhi too. ‘Pomposh’ as I shall call him henceforth was nice enough about it and said that we had to take the metro till central secretariat as that’s where his car was parked. Maya and I had no clue as to how far the station was, so we took pompy’s word that it was walking distance. We started, with P running in front of us, n breathless maya n I trying to keep up with him. Twenty minutes and a very angry maaya later we reached, and were told by a gleeful pomp that we took a much longer and circuitous route. I had a flitting vision of pompy as a child, lighting crackers tied to the tails of little puppies and grinning while the poor thing jumped about yelping.

On the metro he kept listening to his ‘classical’ music on his ipod nano. Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart; and I thought about my mp3 player with its assorted collection of soft rock, Sufi and down right popular music. While I was musing on my plebian tastes we reached our stop, and before he could introduce an ignorant me to the magic of Chopin, we had to get off. Once in the car the conversation became more general and as we crossed Khan market I told him about this café that I really liked. Not many people knew about it, and so it was mostly empty, situated as it was in an innocuous corner. He mused and said- “—arcadia …wasn’t that the story that spoke about this idea of exclusivety.”
I didn’t have a clue. “O Henry!” he said. I didn’t miss the supercilious note in his voice but usually late to take offence I ignored it. The only O henry I had read were The Last Leaf and The Gift of the Magi. “that’s children’s stuff.”he said. Then he went on to compare him to Saki, and how his style was not quite so great as ‘Mopasha’s’. Mopasha??? After being dismissed once already as being under read, I did not want to sound like a fool by asking him who the hell was mopasha. Assuming that maybe he was a bangoli writer or some such thing, I kept my peace. He went on about how he read Camus when he was 10 and all the while I kept looking at him speechless while feeling extremely stupid.
Then I thought about the book in my bag on faiz’s poetry. Assuming someone so erudite would be interested in one of my favourite poets, asked if he had read any of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s works. Looking down on me as an impertinent thing, he declared that he had no interest what so ever in Indian literature.
Not even Pakistani? I ventured to ask, but the humour was completely lost on him.
Indian literature is something I feel quite strongly about so I persevered. “Agreed that a lot is lost in translation, but don’t you sometimes feel that Indian writing is closer to our immediate context and the connection is less mediated through secondary reading, and more through direct experience?”
Pompy brooded and said-“well I do read some Bengali literature, but I cant stand translations”
Fair enough. But what then of Indian writing in English? I had just finished reading Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel, and hadn’t been able to stop raving about it. It is so amazing to read a satirical allegory and understand almost all the references without footnotes. The only referencing was nagging older people for explanations of names like ‘priyaduryodhani’. A book that is based on a very popular literary piece- the Mahabharat, but discusses the nitty-gritty of the independence movement and the political situation in India was quite an experience.

After my impassioned speech about Indian literature, all pompy could do was smile at me. He gave me the most condescending look ever and snorted a short laugh.
All this while I was wondering as to what good is so much learning if the other person has a closed mind, and so insecure about his achievements that he would denigrate a whole country’s literature or 'literatures', because he doesn’t know anything about it.

Short ride, he dropped me at Nehru place, I took an auto home. Well, at least he knows about Bengali literature, that’s something, and maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe I’ll go home and Google who mopasha is. Wait a minute! ‘mopasha’, short story writer?! Could he have possibly meant Maupassant ?
Breaking into a smile I mused, that maybe after all I wasn’t that ignorant. And even though there was this person trying to break free from all things Indian his pronunciation was still as desi as it got.

--‘oh, gulab jamun,’ she said, imitating Biswas Babu, ‘and the chumchum! And mishti doi. Oh- the bhery mhemory makesh my shallybhery juishes to phlow.’
-Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

pointless!!

There are so many incomplete posts that i never bothered to finish or post. what do i do with them?
while i was writing these posts either there was a powercut, or i was called away by someone, or i ran out of ideas. the stream of thought once broken, and i lost all interest in completing them. now that i am too lazy to write a new post today, how about a series of incomplete posts.

last i was working on a post to be titled- 'Things that i love to hate.' here are bits of it-

"Chino- he absolutely takes the cake, as the topmost ‘thing’ that I love to hate. If I had psychic powers, he’d be dead by now. Now that he has already been hacked, guillotined, scalped by Indians, raped by neo nazis, stoned to death, tortured and made to live with cats, I feel better. NO! I wish. But there is still hope. The last time we brokeup, oh no, the last to last, wait the time before that or was it….grrr…he’s like a chronic ailment, like a sty. Why couldn’t he have been more like chicken pox, or the mumps. Worry not, there is still hope…once when we had brokenup, I came across this email about how a large percentage of left handed people die trying to use things invented for right handed people. Hallelujah!
Online communities- oh my god! Whats wrong with people these days
Sappy movies with meg ryan n Julia Roberts
Ppl who come to my gym
My class in south campus
Ugly love stuff
Women sexier than me….oh wait…I dnt love to hate them…I just hate them
Kids…."

make of it what you will. i am just too lazy...

VARUN

After watching the Da Vinci code at spice, ma, papa n I got delicious dinner packed for an evening of kebabs n beer. Didi was waiting for us at home. All of us were arguing about what music to listen to. Papa and I wanted Abida and mum absolutely insisted on Kenny g., and the only consensus was on how sucky fm is.

Then we stopped at a red light and an old beggar, with no clothes on his back, and a tattered dhoti around his waist knocked on our car window. He was bent, one could not say whether from age or poverty. Of course this sight made us feel completely guilty for leading the life that we do, and call it pity if u may, papa gave him a five-rupees coin. Just then a guy on a scooter came n hit the beggar on his arm. (I cant keep calling him the beggar, and I don’t know anything more about him, so I shall give him a name, Varun.). Varun staggered a little, and then started walking, but the obscene man on the scooter grabbed him by his spindly arm and slapped him across his face. Varun still didn’t react, he took it as if it’s his lot to be slapped around, n started walking away, without the least retaliation, and it was as if he hadn’t even registered what had just happened. And then the man (who I have no qualms in calling the obnoxious scooter guy) hit him again. Shocked I rolled down my window and yelled at him- “ kyun maar rahe ho use, who toh bechara garib hai, aur galti toh tumhari this.” Immediately papa rolled down his window and shouted at the obnoxious guy to let go of Varun. Mum said- “dekho uske paise bhi gir gaye”.

Three of us were screaming at obnoxious, and Varun just walked away, as if four people fighting would not change his lot. Then obnoxious turned towards us and asked my father to stay out of this, and then asked him to park his car a little ahead so that he could teach us what a mistake it was to standup for a defenseless guy. When he saw that his lame threats weren’t bothering us, he took out his cell phone, and noted the car number.

All this while there were people all around us who saw, but never said a word. The guy on the bike behind obnoxious just signaled to papa that obnoxious was drunk so we should just let things be.

The signal turned to green and all of us drove off. Varun had moved to the other side of the road and was hobbling along as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I felt hot tears sting my cheeks, and a huge sense of shame that crying was all I could do. I stood up for someone, but was it enough?

Here is Varun, who I know nothing about. Who probably is a junkie, sleeps on the streets, is harassed by cops, ill-treated by people, and has become completely numb. People don’t see him anymore. Maybe he doesn’t see himself either. He’s lost himself in the thousands of Varuns who like him sleep on the streets and are like dogs who children pick on for their amusement. He is as speechless as an animal, coz there is no system, no government protecting him, and if someone beats him or even runs him over, the mcd would just put the carcass away . But the fact that we don’t see him, or that he doesn’t see himself either, does that mean he doesn’t exist?

And writing this blog, does it free me from the guilt I feel at living the way I do. At being privileged. The biggest problems in my life, like guys and friends and a career pale…I feel foolish. I have no right to call him Varun. Maybe I should have gotten out of the car and asked him if he was ok, asked him if there was anything I could do apart from giving him money, given him a hug, some sign of acceptance…asked him his name. Do you think he knows what his name is?

i could have danced all night...

The other day Maya and I were lunching at the Big Chill, one of those hot tired days when we were too pooped out to talk and were just sitting silently and picking on our salad and bread, and you know how Big Chill is full of these movie posters, so all of a sudden, I go like-It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk… and that started a volley of movie quotes- which quikly degenerated in to movie songs…and with my singing that’s never a good idea.

So here I am listing a few of my favourite movie quotes--- lets see how good you guys are---
(btw no quotes from The Godfather-though absolutely want to-but wud be too easy-
urrgh, lemme just get it out of my system- aa aaa AAAAA!! Ok then!!)

1.girl- Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.
Boy-Ehhhh. I'm sorry. I need the judges ruling on this. "Days of the weeks underpants"?
Girl-Yes. They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, "You never wear Sunday." It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? Where had I left Sunday? And I told him, and he didn't believe me.
Boy-what?
Girl-They don't make Sunday
Boy-Why not?
Girl-Because of God.

2. …oh Rick,you have to think for the both of us, you have to think for all of us

3. She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty.

(Another one frum the same, this is too easy…)

The rine in spine sties minely in the pline.

4.
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

5. Why don't you love me, Jenny? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.

6. Dances With Wolves. I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?

7.girl- bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession. Priest-What sins have you to confess? Girl-Twice I took the name of the Lord in vain, once I slept with the brother of my fiancé, and once I bounced a check at the liquor store, but that was really an accident. Priest -Then it's not a sin. But... what was that second thing you said, Loretta?

8.- And then? -No "and then"! -And then!

9.- I'm Cammie, the Russian tease. - Violet, the Jersey nun. - We all play our little parts. That one's Rachel, the New York bitch. Only Rachel really is a bitch, and I really am a tease. - Cammie, you can only be a tease if you stop sleepin' around, babe. - Yeah, I keep forgetting that part!

10. I'm poor, black, I may even be ugly, but dear God I'm here, I'm here!

Leave your answers…love ya!!