these amiable drifters

2012-01-27T02:50:00.000-08:00

I am bored, but I can't remember being bored in the last one year, so I suppose its a good thing. Woke up early-ish (by my standards, of course) and spent the day lounging in bed under my quilt. I have things to do; reading for class next week, wirk to complete for work, an opening I should go to, a party I want to go to. Tuesday is too early to read for today, work is boring so I'm doing it in bits and pieces spread out over the day, opening is far and party begins at nine so I think I'll ditch.

Meanwhile, books to read, Arrested Developement to watch.

2012-01-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

Drawing chevrons freehand is difficult. I'm making a frame for my mirror with drawing paper (because its stuck to the wall with scotch tape and it looks ugly and its FINALLY sunny today and I feel like some nice non-studying activity) and I love chevrons.

Lovely sunny day today, went on a long walk, well, I had to, otherwise I would still be in bed. Bed clothes, cigarettes, ipod. I love days when it shuffles intelligently to songs that are happy and smile inducing.

2012-01-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

Why is it raining so much in Calcutta? As much as it does in the monsoons and in the same pattern; in torrents very late at night (or very early in the morning), a short burst of hard rain late in the afternoon, drizzle at intervals throughout the day. I have no real understanding of the effect of global warming on the weather except what I'm told, that global warming affects the seasons in extremes; hotter summers
and colder winters. Where does unseasonal rain fit in?

I downloaded four episodes of New Girl because I really like Zooey Deschanel but it sucks. I hate "quirky" characters.

So much smile

2012-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

In Qatar

2012-01-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

Khare hain hum bhi raahon mein

Top 16

2011-12-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

Crossposted from Facebook, more than a year late, because I'm really proud (belatedly) that I could commit myself to a list that I still agree with (more or less) a year later. 

I don't deal in favourites usually but then I don't listen to whole albums much. So this wasn't very hard. Have only included albums I have listened to over a sustained period of time, there have been more favourites but I don't listen to them any more. In rough chronological order. 

1. Sumon Chattopadhyay, Rabindrasangeet. I don't remember the name of the album, could be Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala. Baba used to listen to this on loop. Reminds me of Puri. I think Sumon sings Rabindrasangeet with more feeling than anybody else (not up for debate, just my opinion).

2. Simon & Garfunkel, The Concert in Central Park. My mother is a big fan and this particular cassette used to get played a lot. I never thought these people were on drugs, haha.

3. Chumbawamba, Tubthumping. This album deserves a mention because I scoured Calcutta for a copy of the album, without success. But my mother ordered it online. I used to obsess over this album more than I've ever obsessed over any music.

4. Bhoomi, Jatra Shuru. This album came out around Pujo in 2000. Quiz Club juniors used to sing Baranday Roddur all the bloody time. All of the songs on this album remind me of Pujo. 

5. Nitin Sawhney, Prophesy. Got this album free with Shakira's Laundry Service sometime in 2003. Never ended up listening to the Shakira album. This album reeeally blew my mind because I'd never heard anything like it before.

6. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood To the Head. Heard this before Parachutes, had a cassette, listened to it all the time. 

7. The Strokes, Room on Fire. Found a link to Reptilia somewhere online, haven't listened to anything else by them since (except a couple of songs from Is This It) because I love this one album so much.

8. Air, Talkie Walkie. Alpha Beta Gaga was the song VH1 used in their virals when it was launched in 2004. Did some frantic googling, found the song and some more. Have distinct and nice memories of almost every song on this album. :)

9. Rabbi Shergill, Rabbi. Nothing got as much airplay as Bulla Ki Jaana (and much later, Tere Bin because it was on the soundtrack of some film) but every song on this album is stellar. 

10. Paban Das Baul, Ashol Chini/ Real Sugar. Sometime in 2nd year (2006), Kanti gave me his music collection to copy (with strict instructions to never ever pass on the stuff to anybody else), got a lot of cool music from that collection but this is the only love that grew. 

11. Kings of Convenience, Riot On An Empty Street. No story, only love. Especially Sorry or Please. 

12. Bangla, Kingkortobbobimuro. Can't remember who put me on to Bangla but I used to listen to this album on loop. Still do sometimes.

13. The Thrills, Let's Bottle Bohemia. From Kanti, again. Not an album I love per se, but I ended up listening to it a lot somehow and I've ended up really liking it though it's really not my type of music.

14. The Almost Famous soundtrack. This album has at least four of my all time favourite songs (America, Rain Song, that's The Way, Tiny Dancer) and several others I love very much plus it's like, my all time favourite film.

15. Sahana Bajpei, Notun Kore Paabo Bole. I accidentally erased all the music from my iPod the day I moved into J.N.U. and had to copy music from Parni, most of which I didn't like. I used to listen to this album on loop, more out of necessity than anything else. And I've fallen asleep (and woken up) to this album more times than I can count.

16. Lou Reed, Transformers. The only Lou Reed songs I have heard (not counting Velvet Underground. Haven't been able to move beyond it to listen to anything else by him. 

2011-12-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

Spring and Fall

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

G.M. Hopkins

2011-12-19T02:18:00.000-08:00

I am going to stop drinking beyond polite, social drinking. Polite is the keyword here. I don't drink much but I'm a horror when I do. People do worse than I do when I'm drunk; I don't throw up all over the place (I do it discreetly in bathrooms and I clean up after myself), I don't make out with random people but I do hit people (not unprovoked, ever) and I say mean things that I've been thinking about them. I told this friend of a friend who I'd only met once before that his hair sucked. When I write it down it doesnt sound too bad and it isnt, like I said, people do worse but I've really worked on being a polite person and I don't want to ruin it with drunkenness. That said, there are always exceptions to this rule, 25th birthday I'm going all out and I don't care; I don't want to turn 25 and so I'll do it while making a disgrace of myself. But no shots ever again! I hate you, tequila. I ate my slice of lemon whole.

Edit: My blog looks anything but amiable.

2011-12-18T12:36:00.001-08:00

Trend: Falling Slowly 

weather poetry 

http://gis.jnu.ac.in/aws/jnuweather.htm

2011-12-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

I finally downloaded Soulseek on my laptop. I tried installing it on my Acer but it never worked there, resisted installing it on the Mac because I was scared of viruses but I went ahead and did it anyway today. The thing is, I listen to songs, not artists or albums. I've never downloaded an entire album, I hate discographies. I've been given two by friends, The National and Fleetwood Mac, both bands I like very much but with discographies or even whole albums I never end up listening to any of the songs. It was different with tapes, just doesn't work on itunes for me and I don't have the patience to make playlists which is why I don't use winamp like most of my friends do. Grooveshark would be ideal but one needs fast internet for that. Anyway, I love soulseek.

On protest

2011-12-09T22:42:00.001-08:00

Post the AMRI hospital incident, I've been noticing a lot of disparaging remarks on Facebook from people who think protesting on social media networking sites is useless and that people should get off their computers, go out and do something. Here are some thoughts on that.Symbolic protests are also affirmative action. I once asked a friend what the point of going on a march to protest against Operation Green Hunt in JNU was. What he said to me was that symbolic protests such as the one we had just been on was a way of showing solidarity not to the people concerned or the victims but to the authorities, to the government. The Maoists wouuld not hear of it but the government definitely would because JNU is a politically charged campus and the government does keep tabs on whats happening inside. For example, there was a united general body meeting some months ago which was to form a consensus on student union election procedures, whichever way the votes went, it was clear from the outset that elections would be forced, Lyndgoh directives would be flouted. Within two hours of the UGBM starting, the Supreme Court put pressure on the lawyer who was representing JNU at court to get back on the case and reach an amicable decision. In the same way, the government also keeps tabs on popular opinion through Facebook and Twitter, as does the media. Therefore, registering protest through a status message, a note, a comment or a group is not aimed at expressing sympathy for those who have suffered but a form of registering your protest with the authorities, letting them know that you are aware and that you are displeased. In cases like this one very few of us have agency enough to do anything. A former classmate works for a hospital (I think her father owns it), she is one of the few ones who actually managed to be part of help/ rescue operations. The rest of us have no means more than protesting. Society evolves with technology, in our time, I think that posting on Facebook/ Twitter/ Blogger is as useful as going on a protest march.In the year of Arab Spring, how can one dismiss the power of social media?

2011-12-08T23:04:00.001-08:00

The police will lathi-charge everybody it is asked to lathi-charge. We will read about it in the newspaper the next day and think, wow they did a good job putting down those troublemakers, thank god for the police. The armed forces will kill people with encounters and we will read about it in the newspapers and think, WOW, thank god for the police otherwise we would all be dead in our beds, murdered by the maoists. Ministers will behave like my university's dean of students (no longer dean of students' welfare) and think that they have a right to control our lives, our thoughts, our speech, OUR rights because we are lesser people with no power, no agency, nothing for us except protest. Our fathers will sit at home and ignore all this because they are afraid. We, us on the internet, us writing blog posts and tweets, we have so much power, we have the power of dissent, of argument, of protest. No fuck that, thats not "so much power" at all, thats so little but in the context of what we can, I guess its so much. But then think of those who cant. What do they have? Not even our support, not even that.

Annual stock taking 2011

2011-12-08T13:40:00.001-08:00

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before? Worked nine-to-five and earned a substantial amount of money, wrote a ten thousand word paper, worked hard enough (lucked out with slacker classmates) and was not one of the worst students in class.2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I really did and I'm so proud of myself for that. Next year, more of the same.3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My sister-in-law, to a boy, ten days ago.4. Did anyone close to you die? No.5. What countries did you visit? None.6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? I truly did not lack anything this year.7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Terrible with dates.8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Landing a good job and actually learning things from it, successfully defending myself, my thesis proposal and myself before a panel that had a poor opinion of me as a student, managing to not disappoint said panel later in the year. most of all, going back to JNU and studying and not having to have a job.9. What was your biggest failure? I still can't type with more than two fingers of my right hand though I've tried practicing how to type with both hands.10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I ripped out a nail. Good story, I slammed a car door shut on my finger and then pulled it out instead of opening the door.11. What was the best thing you bought? Macbook, super-convenient and super-efficient computer.12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Mine. =)13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Mine. =( 14. Where did most of your money go? McDonalds, wtf?15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Jnuuuuuuuuuu!16. What song will always remind you of 2011? Bonobo/ If You Came Over, Sara Bareilles/ Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, Gorillaz/ Plastic Beach (the whole album), The National/ Bloodbuzz Ohio, Suman Shridhar/ Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho.17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder? Same. I was sorted in December 2010 and I'm sorted in December 2011.18. Thinner or fatter? Same. 19. What do you wish you'd done more of? Reading fiction, I read one book between August and early December, one thin book (which I really liked). Insects are just like us only some of them have wings. 20. What do you wish you'd done less of? Worrying.21. How will you be spending Christmas? I did nothing.22. Did you fall in love in 2011? Slipped back into it, slipped out again.23. How many one night stands? I hate this question.24. What was your favourite TV programme? Sherlock, Gossip Girl, How To Make It In America.25. Do you hate anyone now that you didnt hate this time last year? Only myself. 26. What was the best book you read? The Virgin Suicides/ Jeffrey Eugenides. Can't remember what else I've read this year apart from acad stuff. I love Eugenides, read Middlesex two years ago, the anthology before that and bought a copy of The Marriage Plot to read next.27. What was your greatest musical discovery? The National.28. What did you want and get? Everything.29. What did you want and not get? Got everything I wanted.30. What was your favourite film of this year? Nothing stuck enough for me to put it down here.31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 24, went to work at the Art Summit, came back to Thup's where Kar made us chicken dinner, spent it with Kar, Tintin, Thup, Nick and Matt. Ignored my birthday for the first time and I loved doing it.32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Less slack.33. What kept you sane? Mother.34. Who did you miss? This would be a long list were I to make one. Most of my friends live away from me and I have missed everyone at some point in the year.38. Who was the best new person you met? My room mate.39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. Hard work pays, slack kills. Too much coffee is bad for you. Pot really does erode brain cells. 40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Noo.

2011-11-24T22:46:00.001-08:00

I had a long discussion with my father about the day my grandfather passed away, in 2007. He was ill all day but he never told us, he wanted to go and he did not want to go in a hospital. I exchanged two sentences with him that day, I asked him how he was and he said he was all right. He did not look me in the eye in his last moments and that single thing has obliterated all my other memories of him. I remember giving him his nebuliser and sitting by him while he slept but when was that? He had been very ill the year before and we had thought he would go but he didn't, he lived through it for one more year. Maybe that memory is from that time, I can't remember and it doesn't matter. He was tired of being alive, he missed too many people; his friends, his siblings and we, the living, were no replacement for that. These are just things I say to myself to not feel guilty but I will never get over the last time my grandfather looked at me. He was sitting up with his head bowed, I raised his head to look him in the eye, I knew he was going and I wanted to see something in his eyes, I don;t know what, but he shook his head free and he looked away. He really wanted to go.

I am growing up and so many people I love are growing older and frailer, its just a lust for life that are keeping some with me; my grandmother, her brothers. They will go, my parents will go, my friends will go. One day I will be old too and I will sit in the same balcony that he used to sit in and look at the road, wishing everybody around me away and wishing I were gone too. Growing up is really not worth it. I suppose this is why I feel so bad about turning 25 because I know the older I get the more people will leave. It is not easy to theorise on death and the afterlife with these thoughts in my head because its pointless pointless pointless to write about these things.

My best friend's dog passed away this morning, I am feeling more heart wrenching eye squeezing sadness than I have felt in a long time. Because I guess this is a reminder, a sign of things to come, that the rest of my new adult life will be spent crying and grieving and yearning constantly and seeing shadows.

Here is the only thing that has ever made sense in times like this.
http://www.bigeye.com/donotgo.htm

2011-11-23T02:50:00.001-08:00

Bawaal music for efficient term paper writing. Feel free to leave song suggestions.

http://grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Music+To+Write+To/63787305

Two songs

2011-11-22T03:46:00.001-08:00

I used to feel like this a long time ago. I guess I did get used to these streets but I wish I still had the time or the peace of mind to wander around aimlessly with a half pack of cigarettes.

And this one, I can't explain, its not what the song says but what it feels like that is making me listen to it on loop.

2011-11-21T10:53:00.001-08:00

I could read Memorial Stones: a study of their origin, variety and significance or Megalithic Culture of South India but I think I'll settle for Brideshead Revisited tonight. Its been a while.

2011-11-12T10:38:00.001-08:00

I used to know three poems by heart; in chronological order (ie, how early I fell in love with each one), Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (Frost), Ode to a Nightingale (Keats) and The Love Song of T.S. Eliot. This was all in school, I didn't like people and I didn't have friends, so I spent a lot of time by myself. My house was and is full of books; all kinds of books, no discrimination. My mother has a Faber copy of Eliot's collected works and I used to pore over that on bored mornings, afternoons, evenings. So much of it I read without understanding but the need to understand poetry came much later, in undergrad.

I've lost my soul.

2011-11-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

there was a time when

but it hurts my head to think about it.

there were these people

and they were furniture

or trees

or icarus falling discreetly from the sky

just a small detail in a crowded landscape. 

2011-10-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Everything seems like a chore because everything is a chore. I'm afraid my waster years are drawing to a close. I actually feel guilty because I haven't worked in two weeks and I'm stressing over a paper thats due a month away. Am I the 99 percent?

2011-10-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Rewatching La Jetee, spurred by a lecture I attended today. I can't tell you what it was about because its complicated and beyond my capabilities of articulation but the lecturer spoke at length about Night and Fog, a film that was given to me on a dvd that had skulls drawn on it. This is a film that I have been made to return to after that initial unaware viewing, and it hits harder every time. Here is the last bit of the script, adapted from a poem by Jean Cayrol, a survivor of the Nacht und Nebel programme.

Who is on the look-out from this strange watch-tower to warn us of our new executioners' arrival? Are their faces really different from ours? Somewhere in our midst lucky Kapos survive. Reinstated officers and anonymous informers. There are those reluctant to believe or believing from time to time. There are those who look at these ruins today as though the monster were dead and buried beneath them. Those who take hope again as the image fades as though there were a cure for the scourge of these camps. Those who pretend all this happened only once, at a certain time and in a certain place. Those who refuse to look around them, deaf to the endless cry.

La Jetee, Chris Marker.

Bujhe nao, chepe jao.

2011-10-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

Proti bochorer moton ei bochoro
Dadara ajke bhashane hebbi naach dekhalo
Para kapie dilo
Tar aage iskool-er ghorey boshe ektu drinks
Kintu no bhang, ekhon ora shobai baba-kaka.

Ek kale tumio handsome chhile
Tomar shate rehearsal ey meyera flirt korto
Ar baap re, kaki-r ki raag.
Ekhon tomar byapok bhuri
Ar modh kheye gaan er gola tao kharap kore diyecho.

Subir jethu roomal niye nachto
Tar cheharay shekal ar ekaler modhe bishesh parthhokko dekhi nani tar
Chirodini tar chehara chhip chhipe
Tobe kichu ta toh bhengechhe
Beshi cigarette khele ki hoy dekhe niyechi
Madhuri, Katrina, Sridevi, Drew Barrymore, ar konodin phone korbe na

Ei toh kichui bochor aagey
Shamanno kichu bochor aagey,
Arati-r shomoy Babu ar Chatterji dadu kasha bajaten.
Tarpor ek bochor Chatterjee dadu-r khoob oshukh holo
Shobai mone korechilo eibarey tini gone.
But no, Ashtami bhog khete giye dekhi tini dorgoraay chair pete bhog bitoron dekhchen
Shei eki bochor Babu kono karone abhimaan kore Dashami te thakur biday korte elo na.
Next year Babu gone.

Ek kale Manuma kolop diye chool ekta bidhghute kaalo rong korto
Kaalo choshma ar prochondo bok bok shobhab
Kintu ajke tumi bhashane ele na.
Chhotobelay jokhon bhabtam boro hole ki moja hobe,
Tokhon konodin bhabini je
Ami boro hole tumi buro hobe.

2011-09-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

I thought today that if I made myself lonely I would bump into you on the road and you would save me again. My happiness an offering to invoke you, a multitude of yous; new to me again, strange to me again.

On a bench by the side of the road half obscured by darkness half illuminated by the street light. Under a tree drinking tea and on the basketball court at four in the morning drinking shandy. Watching the moon rise under the arch on the steps of the school and planning to steal chairs from atop a stone table. On a balcony bent double over the railing, the blood rushed to my head and I blacked out for a second, before that I think we watched Dr. No. That day we drew on the road with chalk, that day we drove to that bend in the road and flashed the void. That day you came to my room with the biggest bar of chocolate possible and I cried to you while I finished the bar. Winter and how you gave me your cool black sweatshirt because you were sick of my lame purple one. The first time we spoke you must have thought I was a stalker because I saw you and I knew you were you. Sharing my ipod on one of our long walks back home and sitting down to listen to that song you loved. I went somewhere the other day that reminded me of the view from your balcony, so much of our friendship is based on rum; so much of our friendship is based on pot. You refused to come into my room because there was so much smoke in it but you got me pakoras, I never ended up meeting you in your city.

You and your long curly hair, you and your short curly hair, your bushy beard and your prophet eyes, your red shorts that I tore, you in your new jeans and second hand flannel shirt, your earrings that you left with me, those beige trousers and that blue scarf, your hot pants and your malfunctioning table lamp. Your eyes they make you look like you're always high but I love how your voice always got so Billie Holiday.

2011-09-08T02:16:00.000-07:00

There is always a scene, if you know where to find one. Listing scenes but too lazy to even go eat lunch. My room has a big balcony with a lovely view of the jungle and the two tanks. But at the moment it has the carcass of a hornet's nest and dead hornets and ants and a burnt corner and if you were to look out of the window at dawn you'd see at least ten people defecating in a row on the edge of the jungle. Incentive to go to sleep early, I suppose.

2011-08-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

fiveforty in the morning feels like years ago.

2011-08-12T12:53:00.001-07:00

the problem with trying to be good is that the most you are capable of is trying
compare that, the value of you yourself, with this big golden badge of effort pinned to your chest, against that of those to whom goodness comes naturally
who know that the only reward for being good is that you are able to be good
compare that again to those who are not good, who do not think much about the import of what they say or do but do it impelled by the sort of genuine feeling which you with the golden badge are incapable of.

it makes me sad to be stuck in the middle like this. i have tried to be good since i was old enough to think but i cannot say with any assurance that i have actually been good. im trying to remember why i ever started trying to be good.

2011-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

An incidental favourite. Don't know the words (I always know the words), couldn't have told you what it was called if you'd asked me two months ago, landed in my iTunes via Kanti way back in second year undergrad, shuffled to it once in a while.

Neil Young, Ambulance Blues.

Listening to music on iTunes on my home computer after a w-h-i-l-e, bumping into some old beloveds. Here is another one.

Richard Bona, Dipita.

And another one, this one courtesy Srinjay.

Umphrey's McGee, All In Time.

I haven't heard a beat like this in ages

2011-07-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

Sweeney jumps for fun. On the move, in a crowded train compartment, he jumps lightly on his toes, with all the jostling, nobody notices. At home he has a trampoline he's never tried but he jumps off the window sill every once in a while. Sweeney will never go bungee jumping, he's too afraid of heights (I bet you didn't know that about him). He likes it when his heart skips a beat though he goes to the doctor once every six months to make sure it doesn't skip two beats at a time.

2011-07-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

No depth, no difficult emotions, no poetic sentiment, no beautiful prose, no excruciating experiences, no doubt, no trepidation, no anxiety, no nail biting suspense, nothing wrenching my gut.

I'm no drifter, I'm not free falling or free wheeling, I'm neither down nor out (though I wouldn't mind being either were it to be in Paris or London), I don't miss anything or anybody.

I think all of this amounts to nothing more than the fact that I'm finally rid of teenage angst. But don't worry, I'm still inept and a whiner.

2011-07-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have a ticket and a date. I have a definite short term plan and a provisional long term plan. Typically, I'm not as overjoyed by it as I was by the very thought of it, even a month ago. I'm not very good at being on my own but since I spent at least 6 months craving it, I think I won't be that bad at it either.

2011-06-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

He is a man about whom there are a lot of apocryphal stories, I perpetrated a few of them myself. He wears sunglasses in a well lit room, his shirt unbuttoned to show his chest hair, drinking rum and coca cola. The photo he removed once I asked him who it was is still gone, I did not think a gentle question could do that, I wonder if those are the same fairy lights. The air conditioning is on full blast, the smoke is giving me a headache. I'm done with this call, this hand, this job, this week, this city. I try to act cool, pretend that I too, like everybody else there, am a grownup, I'm over it, it's buried. There were other rooms, other wonders, other people, old loves, new cigarettes, old music, new computers. I am thinking of the time we had the umbrella duel and we made prophylactic balloons but that was in another country, and besides, the wench is now dead.

Unfinished Diaries

2011-06-22T02:17:00.000-07:00

This is a diary of sorts that I wrote sporadically between 2008-2010. II and VI were in Webdings and therefore, not retrievable.

I
August

Today I feel like being outside. Walking around somewhere or sitting outside the school or opposite Jawaharlal Nehru but one feels conspicuous on one’s own. One lights a smoke out of sheer nervousness and after I’m drugged on a quick succession of cigarettes, sometimes I switch on my iPod and listen to the same five songs on loop.

I’m lonely but I’m not friendless. This is a distinction I feel compelled to make before anybody accuses me of being Sylvia Plath. I wish for companionable silence in weather like this. I don’t want conversation, only company, peaceful, silent company. I feel disjointed sometimes around people. Like today. I sometimes think JNU is going to mutate everything bad in me; everything that seems like an affectation at home is being solidified and cemented. I will turn into the Ancient Mariner in time. As it is I tend to overwhelm people with conversation, I talk and talk and talk about random things. Most of all I talk about my friends.

My hair hosts a colony of big, black ants.

III
Quickie

The story of you and I is a story nobody will believe and they don’t already.

IV
Obsession

As the night wears on I check my phone with increasing frequency.

00:00, too early, you are maybe thinking of wrapping up your evening and taking a cab home.

00:35, are you passing my house now? My hiccoughs make me think you’re thinking of me as you go by my darkened house.

00:35, home maybe, up on the roof smoking. Or not, if today is a late shift day you’re nowhere close to being done.

01:04, maybe you will not call tonight.

01:15 and I am ugly.

01:24, I fiddle with my phone checking what time you had called last, then I abandon it and look up hopefully as the screen lights up as it locks the keypad. You will not call. But I’m still waiting.

V
Learning to be still.

So I was walking down the street at I don’t know, half a mile per hour and stopping every five metres to chill in some spot that looked like it needed some loving when I came upon this boy. It was on a dark deserted stretch of road and I was sitting by the side on a rather pointless ledge with my back to the road and there were these pretty houses in front of me. So this kid probably lived in one of these houses, he was standing right outside one. I couldn’t see him exactly, he was half hidden by these little scrubby bushes and he was wheeling his arms around in circles. At that point of time I can’t say that I was overtly concerned with him. After a debilitating attack of the blues I was riding the wave again, completely in love with the cold air and the solitude, hyperactive but still not ready for company. But the circle he drew grew wider and wider till I could see him clearly illuminated in the half light that spilled out of tightly shuttered windows. And then I got up and left.

VII
Time traveler

I remember like it was last night sitting on the bed of an anonymous flat watching him kiss her. She seemed a little surprised and responded with ardour much less than his. I had not thought then but I think I know now that that little public display was his way of defending himself from himself, from the knowledge that the roads to his house pass inevitably through mine.

VIII
Vanish

My lovely one in his cold film theatre, how can I show him my sights? Walking on your small goddamed streets how can you contemplate mine that are so wide and so empty? You whose vista contains rooftops and smog, a rare murder of crows or the wet pennants of a hundred daily lives flying on rooftops how can you ever know these dark deserted streets?

IX
Retrospect

When I came here first it was the end of summer and Delhi was having an unseasonal spate of rainfall. In the park at midnight I could have taken to the air with this my first taste of freedom. That time is characterized by this one ill fated romance when my days and nights ran on a complicated clock. Now is different, I’ve settled in, in a way and not at all, in several other ways but this, yes, this is home for now, home that I will never pine for when I’m away. Just the freedom, just the freedom.

X
Minor Swing on the mandolin

The first time I identified Minor Swing as a piece unique from the rest of the Django discography was after I listened my way through the entire playlist trying to locate the piece that I heard being played earlier that evening by a gentleman on a mandolin accompanied by another on a guitar. I fell in love with it in that little room we called the AV room in College even though I’d heard it unthinkingly a hundred times before. I loved it so much that I made it my phone ring tone. Now I can’t hear the piece without feeling an immediate urge to scrabble around for my phone to see whos calling.

XI
Melon Collie

I have never failed as spectacularly at being a person as I have here. This place makes me feel desperate.

XII
Madness

I know what drives people mad, the idea that if you try a little harder you’ll be able to make everything be alright. Better to give up and make your peace with a fucked up situation, or a combination of fucked up situations.

XIII
Quest Perilous or The End

Tonight seems an appropriate night for ending this sporadic account of two years. So much has happened to me here, one might say to that, "but so much happens to everybody everywhere", but the difference is that so much has happened in so little time and telescoped into one small space. I am grateful for everything that broke me down because it tested my strength and I have realized that strength does not lie in being unaffected by things but in accepting things and being open to sadness and despair, in knowing that things will get better and having the ability to go through things when they come to you. I will not say I have become human but I know that I am on my way to becoming.

2011-06-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

This is music weather. This is bed weather. This is warm quilt window open weather. I have the music and I have the quilts. Lovely quilts. But I'm measuring them and tagging them and describing them. The windows are closed so that the rain doesn't ruin the quilts. It's sad.

This is what my phone has shuffled for me so far:

Back In The U.S.S.R- The Beatles
On Green Dolphin Street - Ella Fitzgerald
Dance Me To The End Of Love- Madeline Peyroux
Time To Pretend - MGMT
Chelsea Hotel No.2- Rufus Wainwright
Layla (live)- Eric Clapton

2011-06-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

Here are two nice songs two friends sent me.

Nerdia, thanks man, new favourite song, like I said. I don't feel this song. I love parties, I love concerts, I fucking love people, new people, familiar people, freaky people, boring people, all people. I want to dance to this song, with my dancing people.

Pami sent me this one. Sufjan Stevens is an old favourite but as always, I've stuck to a few songs I love instead of looking for new songs. This song is beautiful peaceful.

2011-06-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

There is this litle spark of disquiet that invaded my Sunday. It was a book, nothing remarkable, a good read, well paced, self sufficient, about a child who has a past life regression, a Mukul. I don't understand what it did but today turned into one of those Sundays. The kind where I woke up late and had nothing to do and I settled into a gloomy Sunday and nothing could comfort me and there was nothing to be comforted about. It's the rain and the lack of light.

Sunday is something else now. Something to wait for. Today alas, I have to work.

2011-06-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

I am coming down slowly from the fine frenzy of these last few months. I am emerging slowly from the opium heaviness of these last few months. I thought and thought about this phrase, "opium heaviness". I argued with myself. It seemed at first like one of those pretty but pretentious phrases that I used to be so fond of, then I was thinking of how it would have been had I actually been on opium these last few months and now it makes sense. I'm working on an assumption here, having never done opium, but I'd say its a fairly educated assumption. What happens is that your brain moves too fast for your body to keep up, in loops, it rewinds, accelerates, retards, you know, it moves like a piece of classical music. It only looks slow to other people. Which doesn't make it a good analogy at all, come to think of it, because the pace of it was no faster or slower than it seemed. I can imagine what it will be like to emerge from it, to be uprooted and set loose again. I will pine as I have always pined. Nothing is good if there is no longing.

2011-06-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

When you got there you saw I had planted my flag already. My boat had long since sailed into the horizon but I had left behind, as smaller tokens of my presence, cigarette butts and some spare change. What sort of a person is this, you must have wondered, vile litterer! But the cigarettes were for later, no, I don't mind months old cigarette butts when I have nothing else to smoke. Spare change is always good for buying matches and one rupee glasses of cold water that will give you, more often than not, a stomach ache. But in circumstances as impoverished as I imagined my hypothetical return to be, who cares, really, who cares; wheezing lungs and aching stomach would have been the least of my concern. About the flag, I'm careless like that, this was not the first place I staked my claim on only to forget it later, travelling around the map you and more intrepid others would come upon other flags later (though the cigarettes and spare change were to become a rarity). My return was not impoverished, I did not need those cigarette butts but small change is always welcome.

2011-06-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

One minor self inflicted injury a year seems to be the trend. March 2010, I cut the back of my head open, nothing major, small cut. I was stoned and I wanted to lie down (we were on a lawn). So I fell back and instead of grass I hit the corner of a brick. Much drama, this was late at night, helpful friends took me to the medical Centre but since they too were stoned they couldn't find the right entrance, so we went back. I went there sober the next day, to get it looked at, the doctor said it was nothing much and sent me to get a tetanus injection. Meanwhile my friend M Singh had appeared on campus and was waiting to meet me, so he came over to the medical centre. The shot guy got very suspicious and wouldn't buy the reason I gave him for the cut, he thought M Singh was my boyfriend and had hit me. That was funny.

Yesterday I ripped the nail off a finger when I shut a car door on my hand. Again drama happened. I almost passed out and more helpful friends took me to a hospital to get it tended to. I'm rather good with this shit and i don't cry or anything. I can take pain mentally but my brain shuts down. Today I'm going to to a doctor to get the nail removed. The idea of half a nail sticking to my finger is freaking me out no end.

2011-06-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

Last year yesterday I was in Guwahati with Mehdi and Pami. We had gone to watch Rajneeti because stupid Mehdi really wanted to watch it because the plot was loosely based on the lives of the Gandhis. As it turned out it was a hash of the Mahabharat and the Gandhis. It was a stupid fucking waste of time film. I think we ate at Delicacy before that. Again, I am surprised at how well I remember this shit even though I didn't write it down.

minu ka tia

2011-05-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Good day. All day together day. Different places, different things day. No 29 day. Cut-Throat day. Rainy day. Good day. :)

I did a lot of things today.

Hangover 2 (loved)-Air hockey (a very disappointing Bronze after the iPhone Gold)-Nafeel biryani (good and cheap, like Kerala Hotel)-Cut Throat (Cumulative score of -950 but I won a game)- Fabindia (sucks)-Anokhi(doesn't suck but didn't have the pants I wanted in my size)-Cottonworld (iLike)-Crossword(shut shop 15 minutes after we got there).

Oi holo, kalke robibaar mane porshu abar kaaj. =(

Hahaha

2011-05-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

Boss, angle tai shekha holo na. Mukhta ektu edik-odik byakate parle hebbi shundor photograph-er ekta collection banate partam, kintu kichutei hoy na. Practise korte hoy bujhi? Oi dekho romoni-ra aaynar shamne dariye bhabche, prothome ok full 180, tarpor aaaste kore 165, bah! Ekta gaal dheke gelo, thhutni ta besh shundor sharp lagche, nakhtao beriye elo. Tappor dekhi tohh, camera ta ektu low angle shot mari, oof darooon dekhachhe, double chin ta toh dekhaii jache na! Mukh ta je gol shetao bojha jachhe na, ki shundor ekta paan pata-r moton mukher goron.

Chhotobelay eirokom er scamjob expose kora amar khoob priyo hobby chhilo. Ekhon ar kori na, bujhe gechi eto diney, je eitar root amar HINGSHE, je ami boss, angle tai shikhte parlam na.

(edited to make it a little clearer that this is not what I do but is what I'm making fun of people for doing. my sentence construction makes sense to nobody else but myself sometimes, in both english and bengali)

Inspector Vinay, main apna bayaan dena chahti hoon.

2011-05-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

Salim langde pe mat ro. Woh langda sirf dimaag mein hain jaise ki hum sab thhoda bahut dimaag ke langde hain. Aap ki badi meherbani aap meri iss gareebkhane mein aaye, kursi ek bhi majboot nahin hain, aap mere sar pe hi baht jaiye.

But yea, watch Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro if you can, Saeed Mirza, who also made that film whose name won you every game of Dumb Charades, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hain and the very sublime Naseem, a poem of a film I once bumped into on the Lok Sabha channel. I really hate Bollywood, all ages of it, past, present, future but there are these offshoots like the NFDC guys, the "Bombay New Wave" and that makes it bearable. I'm going to accept nonetheless that Bollywood is great for comedy (intended or unintended).

I've been thinking of film a bit lately, not films in particular but film as a discipline, I don't get it as well as I get fine art (which in turn I don't get half as well as I get literature) but I've finally managed to look a different way and I'm slowly getting over my horror of watching films.

I don't feel like deleting the first paragraph.

Edit:

Since I'm talking about film, heres a scene from a film that I have made endless fun of (especially parts of this particular scene). It's Bangla Melodrama at it's best; Supriya Debi playing the holier than thou protagonist, pathetic fallacy, a subtly allusive background track, the circular pan and "dada ami bachbo", it's poignant, really poignant (also very funny, though I think arises more out of a specific context than anything else) and most importantly, a scene I can't forget.

Also, a scene from Komal Gandhar, a happier film overall, ends well but Supriya Debi sort of ruins emotional moments here too. Specifically, the Dohai Ali scene, watch it for nothing but the technicalities, the camera work, the background track and some beautiful, memorable lines. I wish I could quote it here but I can't remember it verbatim (and I hate inaccurate quotes). i'll link to it later.

More cheating

2011-05-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

A song that reminds me of someone.

This one is difficult, all songs remind me of something; of people and places and times of year of things to eat, drink, smoke, of clothes. Hard to pick.

Here's one, Ranja, mid-2006, one day in particular, Adhiraj was there too and maybe Satra or Tinie. There was a reason why she kept playing this but I'm not telling.

Daft Punk - Something About Us

And another, Raj round about when we first started hanging out, first person I met who had heard Chris and the other girls, he plays this song really well. He'll make fun of me for this but look man, we did become friends.

White Stripes - We Are Going To Be Friends

And another, two people at one go here. Azeem & Tinie, Az used to play this full blast on his car speakers & Tinie & I used to have an epic dance move to this.

Teriyaki Boyz - Fast & Furious

A song that reminds me of somewhere.

Uttaranchal, late-2009, with Tanmay & Sumeet, not that we listened to this song a lot or something on that trip but the album of photos from this trip was called that and I've associated the trip with this song ever since. It was a great trip, we mostly drove up and down the mountains looking for a place to land, smoked copious amounts, Tanmay told me a hundred stories beginning with "This one time in..." and I read A Movable Feast every night before I went to sleep.

Strings - Sar Kiye Yeh Pahaar

Sabarmati extension 007, mid-2008, a song I listened to on loop in this room, also, early days in jnu, killed the song for my poor roommate. Heres a fun video of Sapna Bhavnani pretending to sing it.

Susheela Raman - Ye Mera Deewanapan Hai

Another jnu song, also another Raj song, love song for a city.

Rabbi Shergill - Dilli

And bonus points for Someone+Somewhere, one of many songs that remind me of Peter Parker, McDowell, Nemom & some other people, 3d trees, Monkey Dust, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Mahi, Kaveri, the tank, warm beer etc etc.

Bob Dylan- Shelter From The Storm (cover)

2011-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have an interesting, shocking & fascinating denouement to a little piece of news that is not new anymore. I'm dying to tell someone but I can't remember who I told the first part to. It is imperative that I reveal this twist in the plot only to those who I told the first part, it's really not interesting, shocking or fascinating otherwise and man, this is big news. It's killing me, not being able to tell the right persons.

Most of my friendships before 2005 were non intense and not invested in. I have no significant friends from school (R, you don't count, in case you read this) but since then I've built an overwhelmingly large network of people I am interested in. The weight of this history hurts me sometimes; to trace a friendship, no matter how insignificant, from good to indifferent to sour makes me sad.

A girl I went to college with, on two separate occassions said two very startling things to me. The first time around, she was high and sad and I was trying to convince her it was not difficult to be happy (two minor digressions: she was not a close friend or a good friend, just somebody I was interested in and to some extent, felt sorry for. Second, this is from before I gazed into the abyss, so forgive my naivete). To this, all she had to say was, "it's easy for you, you're pretty and you're popular, everybody likes you". It had never occurred to me that I was either or that even if I was, it was significant in any way and I thought she was silly for attaching significance to such stupid things. Nevertheless, it made me happy to be thought of in those terms and it made me feel a lot better about myself than I usually did. A year or so later, I rubbed her the wrong way and she told me I was only nice to people because I wanted everybody to like me and think well of me. Again, it had never occurred to me to introspect into my motives for being nice and once I did, I began to suspect she was right. I don't understand people who take a dislike to me but now I can let it go but once upon a more innocent time I couldn't. Some vestiges of that remain in the way that I want things to go back to good from sour in certain once-friends and once-interests but I suppose I have to live with it. The burden of history hangs heavy on others too, you know?

2011-05-21T02:59:00.000-07:00

This time last year I think I was stoned all the time, it kept me happy. it was a brief two-three weeks of happiness, I assume. The month before had been awful and the months to follow were worse. This year has been super good so far and its only get better and better and better. My year of exile is drawing to a close, it was much better than I'd thought it would be.

Heres the thing, I wrote beautifully at one point of time because my heart was filled with an excess of everything, the weight of making memories and the only way out of it was by writing. Now I'm nothing much, biding my time actually, waiting to resume. This was a nice interval, working, chilling, random people, old friends, 29, etc. I feel like Lou Reed again.

Cheating.

2011-05-21T02:06:00.000-07:00

I like most songs. The ones I don't like are the overplayed ones. The biggest contender for this title was Pink Floyd & Wish You Were Here but I don't want to be lynched. I love almost everything I've heard by Led Zep and a lot of their songs are in my list of favourite songs (Tangerine, Thats The Way, Going To California, Since I've Been Loving You). But this song makes me want to tear my hair out. I don't know why exactly. Something about the opening chords, all that shit about the Piper. So here goes, My least favourite song is Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin. I'm not linking to it. Everybody has heard it and if you haven't then lucky you.

Moving on to better things, A song that makes me happy.

Dean Martin - Thats Amore

I know all the words to this and I sing it really well, too.

A song that makes me sad

Lisa Hannigan/Damien Rice - Your Ghost (cover. original by Kirstin Hersh)

30 day song challenge

2011-05-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

A song I love.
Akash Bhora - Debabrata Biswas.

I love this specific version
I love how he sings it with so much feeling.
I love this scene from Komol Gandhar.
This is a song I really understand and completely agree with.

2011-05-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

I don't like cutting my hair. I like it long and unkempt. It's not fantastic long hair, it's thin and has much less volume than it should, so its not like, poetic and long. It quite sucks but I really hate cutting my hair. Except when I cut it myself. I cut it from almost lower back length to chin length once and I cut it myself, it was (and I'm sure I've written this here before) uneven and altogether ghastly but I loved it.

2011-05-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

Arziyaan sari main chehre pe likh ke laya hoon,
Tumse kya maangun main tum khud hi samajh lo.

2011-04-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

Reiterating something I have gone on and on about here in the past, I have nothing to write about, I have nothing beautiful or poetic to say. I'm done writing pretty things, I'm done writing clever nonsense things and I can't write sensible things. I don't feel like writing about everyday things, I don't like writing about private things any more, I haven't smoked since January so I can't give you stoner things either. Just, nothing. And oh yes, the hours I keep, 10 to 5 at work, 5 to 10 hanging out, 12 to 9 sleeping (10-12 dinner, family; 9-10 waking up etc) are not conducive to blogging. I think of things but I just think of them, I don't write them down. I'm divorcing myself from the compulsion to write things down like I once divorced myself from the compulsion to photograph everything. I'm happy forgetting things, letting things slip into gaps (but I haven't managed to let myself throw away scraps of paper, old notebooks, old question papers, doodles scribbles yet. another story there but let me not digress), forgetting people, names, places because as I saw yesterday looking out of the cab window I could see myself last year this time, just done with some exam, walking home, almost falling asleep post bath, drinking cold coffee etc. you get the drift (it was a significant day, another one I didn't write about and look here, I didn't even need to).
Anyway, we're having good weather here these days.

2011-04-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

See, I don't know why you never thought of this but that kind of obsession was bound to have awful repercussions sooner or later. Awful for you, ie. The reasons are nothing, just something fed and stoked, your imagination fed and stroked. I'm something amazing but not that amazing either.

2011-04-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Oh what a world.

Getz & Gilberto.
Mariza singing Fado.
Saudade.
TRUE GRIT!
Film classes I ignored but remember full well.
Shakesperean insults.
The Victorians.
Unassuming chaps like Neil Gaiman (fuck off, don't tell me you love him, I know you do).
Eric Newby.
Boys with guitars who love the way my voice sounds.
People, just people. All my people.

2011-04-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ami ulto palta golpo likhi. Tader kono mane nei, mane chai-o na. Ei kabbik byaparta ta theke ami mukti chai. Dui ekjon achen jenara mukti peye gechen, jamon ki Ahona, Priyanka, Nandini. Daroon ek ekta tomra, shotti bolchi. Ki honest! Constantly self depreciating! Witty! And way cooler than most people I know and I know a lot of people.

I feel like a rant tonight. A long chain smoking rant. I am obstructing people. Putting doubt in their path. Taking my big mass of self assuredness into their lives. Put me down? Nowayyy. No fucking way. You couldn't if you tried. You're shit anyway.

2011-03-31T22:22:00.000-07:00

It appears I am allergic to my job. Gory details, feel free to skip, but I've been breaking out in these itchy rashes that dry out into scabs. I finally went to the doctor yesterday and he says it's an air-borne allergy. Seeing as how I work with old textiles (some of them fresh off the field with burrs stuck to them), I don't think he's far off the mark. So he's given me this antibiotic called Allegra which should make it better or arrest it, which I think I have to take till I'm done with this job, ie, till July. Problem solved. BUT I have a really low tolerance for antibiotics. I took a tab of Cetzine one month ago and it knocked me out for a full day. I woke up today with some difficulty and I still feel like a zombie.

2011-03-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Heres a video. I'm sure most of you have seen it already, it was in Monsoon Wedding. Watch the video, the first one minute or so. Delhi in the rain, beautiful shots. It's a great video for the song, if you can try to forget the context of the film. The song is in Punjabi it says, very simply, "god, make it rain, fill my granary with grain/ today my heart wants to fly with the wind" and the video says just that.

2011-03-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

It takes me effort these days to compose a grammatically correct sentence. Life is good, now that I've said it I'm going to wait for the axe to fall because the axe always falls when I make these statements.

I was speaking to a friend today about travelling. N is a well travelled boy, I am an ill travelled girl. I told him that I think it takes a lot of courage to travel. To go out of a context you understand, outside a language system you comprehed and roads you know like the back of the hand. He said he found the courage because he wanted to understand people around the world, to form some larger understanding of humanity in general (this is partly the reason I am friends with N even though I've only met him over the span of two longish vacations because that is perhaps the only thing I hope to "achieve", a larger understanding of humanity in general). I get these immense pangs of sadness sometimes because I can't be anybody else but me. I can go places, read things, experience things but I, or rather, One can never dissolve one's context completely and be somebody else all together, so I think he made a really good point. But for me travel is more about images. Pictures I freeze in my head, I hate taking photographs

Life is good. I'm in a disciplined routine for the first time after early 2005. Up at 830, to bed by 1230. No pot (though thats just chance and not by a fixed decision per se), little alcohol but more junk food than I usually eat, lots of money that I have earned that I'm not going to spend before June, good music, a regular hang out and regular people.

I love it but I can't wait to get back to that drifting-floating-everything by chance-dissolute-largely aimless struggle that comes with being in University. I can feel my roots growing here, I can feel myself growing up and I really, really want to take this self back o Delhi and throw it back in the mix to see what stays behind.

Heres a song. It's a peaceful, gentle song that I want to fall asleep to.
http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Shed+Your+Love/1iHxhT?src=5

2011-03-02T22:31:00.001-08:00

What have we got to revolt against except our own upbringings and backgrounds? you know who "we" is? "we" is urban, educated, generally middle class fed on corporate benefits or government benefits and mostly always high caste. caste is important. "we" dont see the importance of it because "we" are unaffected by the ramifications of the system. caste has become an ugly word, a topic "we" with our liberal values and politically correct mindsets do not discuss.

What have we got to revolt against except our own histories? there is little in our own lives, our situations that require a revolution. the revolution is elsewhere. in other lives, in villages and hamlets and among those who eat rats for lunch. i am not the only one who has realised one has some agency in their own lives. i am only one out of millions who tuned into something the universe has been quietly broadcasting. an insidious message transmitted directly to your brain when suddenly one day your head was in the right bandwidth. a message written in plastic and polymer, colour and print, tree and stone and bird and sky, written in ink, in blood, in phlegm and sweat, in the dust, with a stick, with a million dollar pen. she who chooses reads it, he who chooses reads it, to all else it is obscured, nothing but advertisements, streets signs, the scratchings of monkeys and little children, superstition, coincidence, nothing, silence, who is the universe. the end is nigh, repent all your sins.

2011-02-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

I moved into Sola Sabarmati abruptly. At that point I had no real right to Extension 007 but was living there anyway because I didn't want to leave. My roommate had moved out without notice a couple of weeks ago, leaving the room covered in an inch of dust collected over two months of winter break. The day I finally had to move was the day I accidentally broke a bottle of beer while trying o move the bed so that I could clean behind it. The girl who was moving in next came that day and I moved out, one pile of clothing at a time, transported in armfuls across two small courtyards to my new room.

My roommate was not in residence but there was Kriti, tall, thin and ethereal, she used to camp out in the room sometimes. I hated the room like I hate all new things and I hated my as yet anonymous roommate and her friend. I missed the view from my window (I still do). There was an old duffel bag in the recess built into the wall above my built in cupboard. At night, lying awake straight on my back in bed, eyeing alternately the window behind me and the door ahead of me I would think of the things that might come out of that bag. Mostly small Asian children. Checking under the bed for small Asian children was a regular routine.

I spent many sleepless nights in that room with my meagre lighting (two desk lights and one table lamp at the best of times but mostly just one desk light). Outside the window was darkness and jungle, sometimes light spilling out from windows around and above me but mostly just dark. Or worse, lit by a solitary lamp-post right outside my window. I remember two nights in particular. The first was Holi night. I was in a post bhang paranoid funk and my internet wasn't working and there was nobody I could call and nothing I wanted to read. I scored 60,000 points in a game of Tetris on my phone that night. The second was one random night that was the culmination of horrible ghost stories and a horror film festival. There was somebody to call that night but I spent most of it sitting outside alone on the hostel steps with the guard. The room gave me some serious evil vibes that week.

I almost died in winter it was so cold. but then my roommate arrived and brought her heater. Monica lent me a pair of socks and I gave Manu Singh my red crochet shawl.

The day before I vacated the room I discovered the perfect position for my bed. When I woke up there was the smell of rain in the air and sunlight as if through tracing paper. The tree outside was rustling and the cat was missing.

2011-02-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

I believe it is my inalienable right to do what I want with my own time. That people take offense at the resultant lack of constant attention is something I am having to reconcile myself to. This is a bit much, though.

2011-02-20T03:00:00.000-08:00

Stop looking back, I was told recently by the high priest of the cult I follow. No doubt. Discard yer past is what all the signs seem to say. All those people yeah, just because they played cards with you and smoked with you does not mean they liked you per se. Also yes, if we're being objective here and indulging in some nitpicking, I was not entirely without blame, however insignificant an incident it may have been, but everybody involved in October 2006 to January 2007 has since forgiven, forgotten and moved on, the principals, the bystanders etc. but I guess some people carry that residual feeling of some sort of old indirect wound. Nothing I can do about it.

Second chapter closed. Thank you and goodbye.

tick fucking tock

2011-02-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

afternoon spring south calcutta in
safety pin moss green
loimi akha woman's hat dekhecho? google please
what is this we live in this age of no beauty nothing unique everything massproduced no LOVE basically for ourselves or our people
summertime coming soon byebye good hair. i want a fringe very badly but nobody will let me get one. why is my face so round :(
oh yeah. safety pin jewellery, nice seamless safety pins not your regular ugg job, nice ones. acrylic paint, midnight blue, indigo blue.
so this time of day, this last one hour of drudgery. but it is not. big well lit room, lovely textiles, internettt, no boss. best. but i am still a slave. and in this last hour please i cant write sentences. i whine here, i rant here, once in a blue moon i actually make something here, something beautiful, i unravel my brain here and once i am done tip top typing i am legible once again in speech and thought. so ya. that only.
also google tom binns.

Dance With Me - Nouvelle Vague

2011-01-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

This song fills me with dread. It used to be my ringtone for my exboyfriend at a really bad point. I used to waittt to hear it emanate from my phone and man did that keep me on edge or what? Its a song I liked a lot before that, pity it went the way of Don't Bogart That Joint.

2011-01-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

Poor Rani Mukherji. Her face is so round no amount of losing weight will help. It is just round. High forehead too. Damn, that sounds like my face. Poor me.

Work In Progress

2010-12-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

To buy in 2011:

Mocassins.
Emroidered camel leather bag.
A properly fitted pair of jeans.

To visit in 2011:

Nagaland for Hornbill Festival.
Goa/Gokarna (sort of planned already).
Sri Lanka (ditto).

To do in 2011:

Keep a record of what I'm reading.
Study.
Move.
Decoupage.

2010-12-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ekbar mone achhe Chhuti Chhuti te Podi Pishir Bormi Byaksho dekhiyechilo. Chhutir por thik jedin school khullo, shei din. Khoob dukkho hoyechilo, cinema-ta dekhar ichhe chhilo kintu tar theke beshi kharap legechilo karon Doordarshan ey Chhuti Chhuti chola kalin amar school khule gechilo bole. Byaparta ekdom thik lage ni, ami dhore niyechilam tar mane shohorey hoyto onek bachha chhilo jader school khole ni.

From this I am led me a memory of myself, its like a photo. Its winter in Santiniketan, I am standing outside my grandmother's house, reaching up to a tree. I am being watched, by my parents from upstairs and by these two girls my age from the steps of the house opposite, across our garden and theirs. They didn't want to play with me for some reason and had managed to communicate it quite explicitly, or maybe their mother didn't want them to play with me. I remember being told that it should not matter and friends who behaved that way didn't deserve to be friends with me, at all. It was a four day vacation friendship anyway. I haven't thought about Santiniketan, my grandmother and her house in a long time, if I go through the archives here I could tell you exactly how long. Childhood was not a simpler time, I was forming something all the time, thinking too much as I am wont to do. I have it formed now, thank you childhood for all your little heartbreaks.

2010-12-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

I did some random hanging out the other day. Work finished early and I really wanted to do something. In every group of friends there is one with a guitar who murders the lyrics of every song except the cheesy jokey ones. I felt oddly at home in that circus, I wonder why. My circus is either smaller or outdoors, can't recall a circus that was big and indoors. But at one point I started missing mine, all my mine-s, all my various mine-s over time and space. Then of course I had that moment of disenchantment where I saw exactly how random I was in that little gathering. But randoms are everywhere. I befriended a lot of randoms this time in Delhi and after a point they weren't randoms anymore, they were homies (because we smoked together, of course) but that is far now and homie love depends majorly on the jay being passed around and the next one and the next and plotting and planning for procuring more and munchie hits. Long distance homie bonding is a failure. So yeah, back to what I was thinking of when I started writing this. That other day I felt like that other time last year when I would go chill with random people everyday, friends of whichever friend I met on a given day. It was weird but fun. There was a girl there who reminded me of somebody I had been friends with once. I heard her talking in the next room and I thought it was that other one and then once I saw that one similarity I saw all the other ones too. That reminded me of something else too. Ok I cant write this here.

On re-reading Norwegian Wood; and Annus Horribilis

2010-12-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

I

I was not as devastated by Norwegian Wood this time as I was the first time I read it. I held myself back from re-reading this beautiful book for three years or so because I remembered it as having sent me into blackness for two weeks the first time I read it. This time it didn't break my heart though I don't feel like moving on from it and reading something else right now (I finished reading it three hours ago) but I think that is the general post-Murakami feeling. I think the difference is that last time I identified with it, in he moment. I was feeling like Toru then, in my blackest moods, like Naoko, sometimes I was Midori too. This time I am none of them, maybe a bit like Reiko but I am not resigned.

II

I am happy to see December this year. 2010 has been my year of failures. Nothing worked out how I wanted it to, which is not to say that nothing worked out. The things I had started the year with wanting to happen, did not happen. This year I lost things I held very close to me, in more than one way. I got dumped and cheated on, I had to leave the place that had become home, my best friends left for far off places. I used to depend on these three things a lot for my happiness. Now at the end of the year, when I have none of these, I am surprised, amazed and very proud to see that I am happy. I am content and positive and looking forward to next year. This time I'm not wishing for the new year to be better than the last, I know it will be. I have discovered, and you may have discovered this already but I'm slow with these things, that I have a certain agency in my own life. I have remembered how I always got what I wanted, it's because I tried with everything I could muster. I am mustering again. This year I have counted my blessings and I have learned that all I ever need to do is ask and I have realised that there are a fair number of people I can ask from. I am not where I want to be, most of the people closest to me are far away but I am happy because I know that if I try hard enough I will be where I want to be and some, if not most will be nearer to me. I know what I need to be happy and I know where to find it and I know how to get there. I am again, happy in myself. I am proud of myself, actually. I pulled myself through some rough patches this year and this time I'm not afraid to say that they will never touch me in the same way again. I have learned how to accept sadness and how to be happy.

This is a sappy post but it is the clearest thing I have written in a long time because my head is clear after a long, long time. I'm me again and I'm more me than I've ever been. It's hard to say if this was my Annus Horribilis or my Annus Mirabilis. In the microcosm of these twelve months, definitely the former but in the macrocosm of me, my life and growing up, definitely the latter. I can't believe I used those words. You know which ones.

2010-11-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

Just thinking about the long, redundant work day ahead is tiring me. Nothing to do at work. It's not far but I'll probably have to walk back. Fuck this.

Edit: I went to work, my bosses weren't there. I left. Got stoned with a friend. Came home and read two books. Not a terrible day. And I didn't walk back either. Ok, I walked 3/4ths but not the main bit over the bridge so it's ok.

I never ever thought I would whine about not being heartbroken but here it is. Now I have whined about everything.

2010-11-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Looking back at this year, I spent most of it consumed with longing for something or the other. Most of it was for peace of mind, some for permanence and all that was left concentrated itself on a different person every month. This last bit was new. It was intoxicating at first, that brief dazzle, followed by obsession, followed by pining and then a quick burn out before moving on to the next. It was nice to see that the shortness of my attention span extended to something else besides films. Now I'm just tired of it. I wish my heart wasn't so fickle. I remember telling Ranja that I would rather spend two whole year grieving over lost love than get over in four months. I didn't get over it in four months but I did get over it in seven. It does not make me feel invincible or indomitable, it just makes me feel fickle and heartless.

I came back today from the best holiday ever. It wasn't a holiday per se, I spent the first one and a half weeks of it trying to get work done but then I just gave up. I don't like travelling much so I don't go to too many new places. In fact, the only places I have been to since 2008 are Delhi and Calcutta, back and forth (except for that one time I went to Uttaranchal for five days, that was pretty good). So this time I was in JNU again, only this time it wasn't my life, it was just a holiday. It was perfect. Old junkies and new, thank you.

2010-11-04T15:40:00.001-07:00

the buzz in my ear reminds me of the bsnl dialup tone. so much depended upon. some crazy people are setting of ladi bombs at 420 in the morning. somebody promised me a shot of happiness everyday. :)

this reads really retarded. i know.

2010-11-04T00:58:00.001-07:00

Today I want some action, liike, set something on fire or break something or something, I dunno. Something to keep the cold at bay, ie.

2010-10-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Je ne veux pas travailler
Je ne veux pas déjeuner
Je veux seulement oublier
Et puis je fume

I don't want to work
I don't want lunch
I just want to forget
And then I smoke

I was listening to this and singing along (or trying to, at least) all afternoon and I didn't know what the words meant but it pretty much sums up my afternoon.

reminder?

2010-10-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

If it breaks (as it will), to fight is useless. Sticking it out, this too shall pass, to everything there is a season, all useless. Just, let it not become a habit. One of these mornings, rise up singing.

2010-10-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have outdone myself today. I have smoked myself into a hoarse voice and a sore throat after a gap of (quick calculation) 4 months. Wheeeeeee! Oh wait, that is not how I outdid myself. I woke up early and went to meet my friend Loopy, then I went to work, then I went to meet my friend Vivek and his friend Ankit (before which I hung around Dover Road for half an hour without getting fried) then I met my friend Tinie's brother Titoo, then we (not Titoo who was busy working and had only made a detour to Dover Road Barista to make faces at me through the glass, no, I lie, he wanted a double espresso) went to Big Ben to her my friend Srinjay and his friends Something and Something play some nice music. Their friend and my acquaintance Devika also met us there. I also spoke to Tinie for two hours on the phone. It was a nice.

2010-10-07T05:10:00.000-07:00

I love Bombay, but only in theory. Delhi has my heart, forever and ever.

2010-10-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

I never thought of myself as bitter but I am. Never thought much about anything, actually. What a doofus. But I thought growing up meant accepting that other people had a right to their own opinions, however "wrong" those opinions might be and having thought of it long and hard, I think I'm right. :)

2010-09-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

what hath night to do with sleep? no, i haven't read comus. i didn't know it was by milton before i googled it. but, what hath night to do with sleep?

i finally have nothing to say. five years, i did this for five years. i used to write about everything that happened to me. i don't feel sad about anything anymore, i guess thats why. but i'm holding on to punctuation.

i had thought at the beginning of the year that i would have some agency in deciding where i would be at the end of the year. this is the fall.

so many people live and die in despair, all i want to be is happy.

2010-09-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Paban, so much loses it's charm because it is overplayed.
But it's good to come back and revisit even if one speaker has stopped working.
(I miss my ipod)
It's three to two, I flip my cigarette out of the window and wonder if the neighbours will complain again.
They probably won't, everybody knows it's me.
I'm feeling generally wonderful. Really wonderful.

:)

Fuck this long tag.

2010-09-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

1. If you married the last person you texted, what would your last name be?
Banerjee.

2. Were you happy when you woke up today?
Not unhappy.

3. What’s something that can always make you feel better? When did you need it last?
Can't think of anything absolute like that. But yea, two things that mostly make me feel better I got this week.

4. What are you excited for?
Wow, nothing, sorry.

5. What were you doing yesterday?
Met someone for work. Lost my wallet. Met some other people for work, smoked a joint. Discovered loss of wallet. Went to look for wallet. Went to a friend's house. Smoked a joint, drank some rum. Tore my pants, went home, went to another friend's house. Smoked a joint. Went to a party. Smoked a joint, played Mafia, watched Beverley Hills 90210, bullied Loopy. Goodnight.

6. What's the last thing you put in your mouth?
A cigarette.

7. Have a best friend(s)?
Yes, some.

8. Are you scared to fall in love?
LOL. Yes I am scarred and sad, I have walls you need to break. Sob sob.

9. Do you think teenagers can be in love?
Haha, first it was "do you support gay marriage?" and now this. Tsk tsk.

10. Last person you wanted to punch in the face?
Can't remember. Oh wait, of course, Sumeet! :)

11.What do you want right now?
I can't tell you.

12. Who was the last person you took a picture with?
Can't remember.

13. Are you single/taken/heartbroken/or confused?
Single!

14. When was the last time you cried?
Last week. PMS, Delhi weather, rejection etc.

15. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?
Duh.

16. Do you find it hard to trust others?
Quite.

17. I bet you miss somebody right now..
You lose. :)

18. Can you honestly say you're okay right now?
Honestly.

19. Tell me what's on your mind.
Flustered mice are cute.

20. What are you looking forward to in the next three months?
Can't think of anything.

21. Have you ever worn the opposite sex's clothing?
Haan.

22. When did you last talk to your number 1 top friend?
My Number One Top Friend! I spoke to all three of them last night.

23. Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell anything to?
Yes, several.

24. How's your heart?
Ticking along, ticking along.

25. Have you ever felt like you weren't important?
Yes. How unique am I? =D

26. Do you think somebody's in love with you?
Obviously.

27. What are you planning on doing after this?
Download photos from camera, collate them, burn them.

28. When will your next kiss take place?
Who knows...

29. Have you told anybody you loved them today?
Yes. Two people.

30. Who do you not get along with?
Can't think of anybody.

31. What are you wearing right now?
Shorts tshirt.

32. Are you wasting your time on the person you like?
No no.

33. How did you feel when you woke up?
I felt nothing much.

34. Do you wish someone would call or text you right now?
No. But secretly, yes. :)

35. Do you crack your knuckles?
I try.

36. What were you doing yesterday at midnight?
Trying to pass out on a friend's roof.

37. Who's the first B in your contacts?
BABLAAA!

38. When was the last time you laughed really hard?
Yesterday, I bet.

39. Last awkward moment?
Haha, there was scope but I didn't cave. I'm cool like that.

40. Are you afraid of the dark?
YES. :(

41. Do you have good vision?
Haha, no.

42. Have you ever tripped someone?
I have tripped...everywhere.

43. Have you ever slapped someone?
Haan.

44. Do you laugh off embarrassing moments?
Yes.

45. Can you go out in public looking like you do?
Haanji. Might need to wear a bra, though.

46. Is it easy for someone to make you smile?
Maybe. Depends.

47. Has anyone put their arms around you in the past 5 days?
Ya man.

48.Do you miss the way things used to be?
Not right now.

49. How often do you hold back from saying what you are thinking?
Often.

50. Want someone back in your life?
Romantically, no. Otherwise, yes. Come back, you drifters!.

51. Will tomorrow be better than today?
Could be.

52.Does it bother you when someone lies to you?
Obviously.

53. Is there anyone who understands your relationship status?
Nobody understand me. :(

54. Are you a naturally happy person? Or is your happiness forced?
Ohh, this is a HARDCORE quiz. Obviously forced, like duh.

55. Is there anyone you wish would fall in love with you?
Yes. They will too. wait and watch.

Rubber Dinghy Rapids!

2010-09-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

Late...night...songs...what was that song that played on loop? I never said I never done it (except those fifty odd times when thatguy kept poking me on a long long walk at the end of a long long night only that time I really done it, I was lying). I'm done figgering it out in the Nat Cap Reg. But only for this month. This time I'm going to say I never done it. What was that you saw when you were frowning at the street? Not me, not me. In their photos side by side they look at each other. The one to the right looks defensive and smug and the one to the left has his mouth open and his eyes scrunched up. All is as should be.

2010-08-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

The Strokes at 3 am reminds me. This has been the best summer in two years. But NOW I am unemployed. Once Upon A Summertime. 500 Days of Summer. Ok, half of everyday is ok at least it's not all of everyday. I'm getting used to it. I'm stoic like that. Whatever it is can't be worse than last year. Actually, I can see the next two years being worse than last year. Of course, how appropriate, Paul Weller singing You Do Something To Me, yeah, the last time with The Strokes. Fantastic. So it rained so consistently a couple of nights ago that The Office flooded. The Office is actually the site of nefarious activities despite it's title. So yeah, it flooded. It was funny and tragic, so many insects flushed out. So then I was sitting on a fourth floor windowsill watching the poached egg reflection of the streetlight on the water and then I watched these men push cars around at 430 in the morning. Why I remembered this was because of the playlist. See, this particular room owns a couple of songs, like hmm, anyway fuck this.

2010-07-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

I am feeling increasingly ill-at-ease everywhere. Uncomfortable, everywhere. I am ill-at-ease in my own body. I am ill-at-ease in clothes. I am ill-at-ease in social situations, all of them. I stopped using ocular support some time back. It was not a decision made consciously, contact lenses were irritating my eyes, spectacles irritated the bridge of my nose and then I lost them. I am now acutely conscious of how ill-at-ease I feel. This may or may not have something to do with myopia. I have strived to be in-between, always. Now for some extremities. It will not be possible but I should try.

This is not a love letter.

2010-07-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

This is not a love letter but a letter written with a lot of love. One of the first few times I met you I remember I said, "Dilli is a city of chutiyas" and you turned to me immediately (with your eyebrows raised and your nostrils flared) and asked me to explain myself. So I squared my shoulders and prepared myself for an argument and stated my case. At the end of it you just said, "okay, yes, that makes sense" and I was amazed at how level headed and non belligerent you were. Then some months later, it was at the time of my lowest ever low, I remember I made plans to chill with you at 24/7. I didn't know you too well then and I thought it would be awkward maybe but I needed some sort of human contact. I met you and I told you that I thought I was going mad, to which you said, "Me too" and then we had a long conversation about madness and that was such a comfort, to know that somebody else felt something similar (it sounds cheesy, I know. What the hell, this whole thing sounds cheesy. I'm thinking of this one brilliant afternoon we sat on the KV steps (under that trippyyy arch, smoked, talked books and watch the light change, the sun set and the dust rise on the KV field. And that party we went to haha, where we got stoned and made fun of those girls and all those other times here and there (but mostly at KV). You have this incredible aura of serenity around you, you are gentle and you are kind. I don't know when I'll see you next and I'll miss you terribly. I thank the Lord there are people out there like you. :)

Tag stolen from Chinky.

2010-07-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

1. What curse word do you use the most?
Ffaack.

2. Do you own an iPod?
Yes but the display doesn't work.

3. What person do you talk to on the phone the most?
Nobody much.

4. Do you still remember the first person you kissed?
Haan.

5. Do you remember where you were on 9/11/2001?
School, home.

6. What was the last movie you watched?
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.

7. What is your all time favorite comedy movie?
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron or Half Ticket.

8. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep?
Never.

9. Has anyone told you a secret this week?
No.

10. What did you call your grandparents?
Dimdima, Babu and I call my thakuma Manu.

11. What are you looking forward to?
December 2010.

12. What music are you listening to right now?
Nothing.

13. What will you be doing in one hour?
Watching How I Met Your Mother.

14. Is anyone in love with you?
No.

15. Last time you cried?
10th night. My mother said something AWFUL to me.

16. Are you on a desktop computer or a laptop?
My friend's laptop.

17. What is on your bedside table?
Don't have one.

20. When was the last time you slept on the floor?
A long time ago.

21. How many hours of sleep do you need to function?
I can get by on as little as 2 when the need arises but ideally 12.

22. Do you eat breakfast daily?
No.

23. If you could go to any place right now, where would you go?
Confluence Festival at Ladakh but it's been cancelled.

24. What's a subject you wish you knew more about?
Everything.

25. What was the last restaurant you went to?
Delicacy, in Guwahati.

26. Do you believe in Karma?
No.

27. How many pillows do you sleep with?
One.

28. How many pairs of jeans do you own?
Two.

29. Do you snore? Steal the covers? Roll around in your sleep?
No, no and no.

30. What perfume are you currently wearing?
Body Shop something. It's a spray.

31. What brand of shampoo and conditioner do you use?
Anything, really. But theres this awesome L'Oreal serum that I can't do without.

32. When was the last time you recieved mail other than junk mail and bills?
A couple of weeks ago. A letter, post card and some photos. :)

33. How many different beverages have you had today?
One. Water.

34. How many cities have you lived in?
Two.

2010-07-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

My mother recently wrote a tagged post on how she defies gender stereotypes, at the end of which she wrote that she was sorry she did not have a son because if she had had one she would have ensured that he knew how to "cook, serve, sew a button, wash the dishes". Bit rich considering that I don't do any of these, except serve and wash the dishes (that too very very rarely) and I can't cook or sew. I also don't know how to change lightbulbs because of which I spent days on end with my room illuminated by one desk light. I can't drive, I can't ride a bicycle and I don't play sports. Also, I can't dance or sing (well, ie, everybody can do both, just not as well as Other People). I'm not particularly "feminine" in the way I dress, in the sense that I'm mostly scruffy but I'm not a tomboy either. I think I've been brought up in a way that has made sure that to think of certain things as being gender specific does not occur to me. My male cousins are more helpful around their house than I am. My ineptitude atleast, is gender neutral. I can't do anything, basically. I don't mind much, Other People do things, I watch, read and admire. =)

(My writing has derailed horribly. I can't form coherent sentences with ease and I'm messing up my grammar. I can't finish sentences I begin and I'm finding myself unable to express myself in writing. If I can't write, I shall have nothing.)

2010-07-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Man, that Waka-Waka song is in my head. My niece dances to it so people keep singing it around her. Now she's a smart kid who responds to adult silliness (like baby talk and dumb questions) with patience and grace but she IS one and a half years old. I had a long nonsense conversation with her, first she was amused that I was playing along, then impressed that I knew the language.

I'm reading this book called The Secret Agent by this gent called Timeri N.Murari. It's a sequel of sorts to Kim and it just does not work. The book does not manage at all to evoke the time and space it's set in. Colonial India has never seemed so colourless and dislocated in time to me before. And Kim, it's like Mr. M just borrowed the name, it could be anybody, the character has no base and does not evolve as a character in his own right moving on from Kipling. Compare it to books like The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (Jamyang Norbu) or Flashman in the Great Game (George McDonald Fraser), both of which take over characters created by other people (Kipling's Hurree Babu and Sherlock Holmes for Norbu and Thomas Hughes' Flashman for Frasser) and the books falls disgustingly flat. The plot is transparent. Kim has this recurring dream where he is in a garden of smoke and his loved ones are dying, there is also a well from which a bloody hand emerges, this dream is his destiny, apparently. Oh no, what could it be? I can't think of ANY catastrophic incidents in Indian colonial history involving gardens and wells AT ALL.

2010-05-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

So much is funny right now! A book bed! Haha! The awkwardness that happens when Osama Bin Laden asks you the time and it's 9:11! And of course, VICTORY! :D

2010-05-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

Ebar bhabchi paagol hoye jai. Make a concentrated effort, that is. Matha toh emnitei bhorti dhulo, it flew in waves with the rain last night. Ar mon emniteo gholate, theek bujhte parchi na kichu. Chestao korchi na, no will power and what good will understanding anything do? Shesh meshey erom kore chole gelam? Khap chhara ambiguous neither here nor there majh pothe HOTHAT eka. Ohhh shit. Bhebe laabh nei, tai hoto.
He broke my heart and he broke my earphones. Ofcourse, he apologised for both profusely, profusely. Heart is resilient like plastic (haha), so that's covered. But my earphones! They're dying underneath my bed.

So much scope for misinterpretation here. Mool kotha ei, ami ekhan theke jete chai na.

2010-04-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've smoked so much my throat is peeling off inside. I can't eat and I can't work. This last is making me sadder than anything else.

Deadlines

2010-04-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

12th - Mughal Art paper topic discussion.
13th - Mughal Art midterm.
15th - Music and Modernity paper (Bhatkhande).
16th - Art Theory presentation (undecided).
21st - Modernism presentation.
30th - Art Theory paper.

Exams, TBA.
Mughal Art paper, TBA.

2010-04-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

How little you know of me, of who I used to be and who I once wanted to be. How can I love you the best when there are so many Insignificant Others who know me better? I don't, I suppose. And this applies to you too, how little I know of you, of your thrice broken heart, of how you felt when you saw the sea for the second time (I bet you were disappointed), of what made you or broke you, of what you think inside your always changing head. But I have this, at least, a map of me floating around for everybody to read.

2010-03-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today in class, slumped on my chair, I took a nice, clean look at myself and thought, "why the fuck am I stoned so early in the morning?" before disoriented, I realised I wasn't stoned, just sleepy and sunbaked. The night before I wrote my presentation in three hours from 1 to 4, stoned enough to be severely confused by four browser tabs and Ras Ke Bhare Tore Nain playing on loop. But it was fantastic. I don't think I've ever listened to anything with so much care. So I wrote a short textual analysis of the song, went to sleep and almost didn't wake up in time for class. I presented like I always present. Each sentence trailing into a question mark, horribly brief and with interjections to myself like "I should stop saying "this bit" now". But I answered the questions well. Well enough to get a "good" from Urmila. Came back, ate roti and dahi, had a bath, watched Little Zizou again, met a girl, made some strained conversation, got severely stoned, watched this band called Advaita, they were quite bad. Got kissed on both cheeks twice (I can't figure out how to respond to this), almost fell asleep at the table. Wandered back to the room, tried to sleep atleast four times, giving up each time because of the silence. Ok whatever, I'm bored of writing.

Yesterday

2010-03-03T04:26:00.000-08:00

I woke up yesterday after a long night of playing tetris on my phone till dawn. It was an early day for peoplemeeting. PeopleImeets sat around at a table in 247 being depressed, then on the grass being depressed then they left, leaving the only non depressed one behind. So we watched Garden State and Almost Famous with a short interval of Travis in the middle. I must've said "I LOVE this song" atleast 20 times. What brilliant soundtracks. So yea, I felt a hundred times better after that and I'll tell you something I told somebody else a couple of days ago, no point thinking about the future, it'll happen regardless.
Tonight, I watch Mean Girls.

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

2010-02-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

I had heard the song a hundred times before. I loved how it sounded, I loved the words. Then one day, it must have been late June two years ago, I went to JU, Oopie was writing a piece on Fauji for T2 and needed to take photos to go with the piece. There was nobody but Sandy and me from the old guard, Sandy had made himself at home with the new lot. There, on the football field, I understood for the first time that I had to move on, that there is a fixed time for love. It runs it's course, it would never be the same again. I will love JU with this intense longing all my life but only in my memories, going back is impossible. It's not just your friends that make a place, it's all those random people on the periphery too, it's the colour of the sky, the smell in the air, the peeling paint, everything. It is 2005 to 2008, or 1989 to 1992, or whatever dates you want. But once love runs it's course, it's over. I am somewhere similiar again, another place I fell in love, perhaps with more intensity than JU and this will be an even more final goodbye than that ever was.
I remember playing the song on the bus that day, leaning my head against the window and crying unashamed for what was gone. But then, all things go and more things come. So it's cool.

Ten reasons to be unhappy.

2010-02-14T02:33:00.000-08:00

1. Both the bulbs in my room have blown their fuses.
2. I have been sleeping in my roommate's bed in her absence and I have had disturbing dreams every night.
3. I lost my phone and almost lost my wallet.
4. I was going to do homework for class tomorrow but both esnips and youtube are running mute for some reason.
5. Blogger is not letting me post comments.
6. My left has swollen up.
7. Toychat missed her flight.
8. I am feeling an intense lack of love.
9. I am not sad and I don't feel like crying. I'm just tired and rootless.
10. Today is a Sunday.

2010-01-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

Eta niye ki likhbo jani na. Jyotibabu was one of the two men I associated very strongly with Comrade KK. His death marks the death of a generation, the struggles of that generation and their dreams. While he was alive something of Comrade K remained. Now there is almost nothing linking me to his time, not him, you must understand, but his generation. Contemporary politics has very little to do with specific political ideologies, I think but in that time I think it did. First and last chapter, Mamata Bannerjee said. Biman Bose said, "Jyoti Basu is no more with us", he left out the Comrade. I think that, more than anything else, shows the change.

I don't have a voters ID but I will make sure that I have one before the elections.

2010-01-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

I wrote this story in 2007, for Writing in Practice. Bit long.

Comrade K sits by the window with his morning mug of Horlicks. He looks out of the window at the little sliver of street that is visible through the bougainvillea creeper and sometimes he turns his head to look at me. I sit with him on the rare mornings that I manage to be awake, I read one section of the newspaper, he reads another, and then we exchange. When he’s in a garrulous mood he tells me stories. Comrade K is my grandfather. He isn’t a member of the Party as his name would imply. It’s just a name my cousins and I thought up to tease him with because of his vehement political opinions. His wife Bakul Rani potters around the apartment supervising the maid who is mopping the floor, talking without pause all the while. “Ahem”, says Comrade K, “your grandmother is absolutely nuts.” I cannot disagree; this is the woman who hides her gold jewellery in matchboxes because she’s afraid the servants will make copies of her cupboard keys if she keeps them there. “It’s not her fault, really”, he continues, “it runs in the family. You should have seen Gourango when he was a boy, how he used to torment me”. I find it very difficult to imagine my grandmother’s youngest brother as a little boy in shorts. “And Dulu, even worse”, now this one is simple. Dulu, Bakul Rani’s older brother, is a little eccentric, as is Ronu, another brother. Mukherjee stories are always funny, “go on Babu, tell me more, please?”

“Ronu, let’s start with Ronu. Ronu used to have these strange fixations. Whenever we went to visit him at their Entally house he used to grab your father and experiment on him. He went through a phase where he became obsessed with wooden combs. Combing meticulously, he used to set each hair on your father’s head into place and woe betide the poor boy if he moved. Ronu would begin all over again”. Oh yes, I’ve heard stories from my father about the Entally house. About the long corridor that ran through the living rooms of all his uncles, a veritable gauntlet one had to run through to reach the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Room One, Ronu Mama combing your hair relentlessly one month, ironing your shirt to perfection another, feeding you endless cucumbers the next and so on. Room Two, Dulu Mama, “Tanuu, come sing a song, Tanu”. Tanu sings, asks if he might leave, no, he can’t. He has to sing another, oh well. Room Three, the most dreaded room, Mejo Mama’s room. Mejo Mama, who takes out his regimental sword and sharpens it every time he hears the little boy approaching. Anyway, Comrade K is also talking about Mejo Mama now. “All through Ronu’s wedding, while I ran around doing all the work, Mejo Da sat in a room and drank glass after glass after glass of sugar water. Whenever one of his sisters would come in to cajole him out he would charge at her with his sword. Lucky man. How I used to wish I had a sword”. He breaks off to glare at my grandmother, who is now standing at the foot of the stairs and screaming up the stairs to the cook, who is probably not listening. “The sanest one is Chhoto but what is she to do, poor thing, absolutely no good in the face of her sisters’ whims. Did you know that when Ronu got married, they made his wife sit on a chair that they stood on top of a bed? Imagine what all the guests must have thought.” Chhoto Dida hardly talks, partition trauma, my grandmother tells me, though she absolutely refuses to elucidate any further.

Comrade K gets up to go to the bathroom. I recall a story my grandmother had told me once about her childhood in Chandpur. About the day a little girl on her way to school heard about an aeroplane that had crashed on a field six miles away. Having never had seen an aeroplane before the little girl trudged her way to that far away field to see what an aeroplane was. Meanwhile her father, worried out of his wits, sent out search parties to look for his daughter who hadn’t come home from school. They found her eventually, asleep by the roadside. Not crazy really, just very curious and equally impulsive.

Bakul Rani comes into the room and rummages in the storage corner behind the cupboard. “What is Babu saying to make you laugh so much?”, she asks me, “oh, stories, random stories”.
“Hmm, I bet he’s talking about my brothers?”
“err, well, ye-es”, “
“Hah! I knew it! You think funny stories only come from the Mukherjee side? Wait till you hear about the women in his family”. Again, Baba has told me some hilarious stories about his aunts and great aunts. Comrade K’s sister Geeta used to live with them after her husband died, in a room on the roof. She was so childlike that she would fight with the children of the house for sweets and she had an immense number of coins stored away in talcum powder tins. A habit my grandmother picked up. She has about a thousand rupees in twenty paise, fifty paise and one rupee coins stacked away in powder tins. Comrade K comes back, “what stories about the women in my family, eh?”, he challenges my grandmother. “Suhasini Debi. Dakkshineshwar. First January 1958. Does that ring a bell?” Comrade K is discomfited, he had not expected her to bring this up. This story I’ve heard before but I want to hear it again. Bakul Rani begins, “In Dakshineshwar, they have this festival called the Kalpataru Utsav on the first of January every year. That year, 1958, we womenfolk decided to go on a day trip to Dakshineshwar. So we set out, us three sister in laws, Shejo Di, No Di and I, with our respective children and their tagalong friends and Suhasini Debi, your grandfather’s aunt. Chini Da and Ninta decided to come along as chaperones.” Chini Da being my grandfather’s brother, Jagadish Ganguly and Ninta a much older nephew. “It was a long bus ride to Dakshineshwar and it was afternoon by the time we got there. We walked around the temple complex, seeing the sights, all the while keeping a close eye on the children; there were tremendous crowds of people there that day. After a bit Pishima got tired of Dakshineshwar and asked Chini Da if they could all take the ferry to Belur Math across the river. Chini Da being a careful man said no, they couldn’t, it was too much of a risk with all the little children. Soon she was nowhere to be found. Ninta ran to the announcement booth to locate her in the crowd. We heard the announcement but then Ninta didn’t come back. So Chini Da went off to look for him. Then Ninta came back and found that both his uncle and his grand aunt were now missing. So he ran back to the announcement booth to let Chini Da know that he was safe while Chini Da came back huffing and puffing with all the exertion. He would have gone off again if Ninta had’nt come back right then. Suhasini Debi, however, was still lost, so we all set out to look for her around the huge temple complex milling with people. We searched and searched till it was time for the last bus home. How crowded it was! I got into the bus last with your father, having seen everybody but Chini da and Dula, one of the tagalong kids get on, Chini Da was hanging off the rear entrance of the bus but Dula was nowhere to be seen. Panic! “Chini Da, Chini Da, where is Dula”, I yelled across the crowded him, he couldn’t hear me. I asked the bus driver to please wait while I located the missing child but to no avail. This was horrible! Not only had we misplaced a grand aunt, we had also lost a child. I was almost in tears, however, Ninta had located Dula. The child had been with Chini Da on the other end of the bus. So that was one problem less. No Di and Shejo Di were heartbroken about our poor pishima, as was I. Who knew where the poor old woman was? Who knew what our husbands would say to us when they found out that we had lost their aunt? Anyway, we got off the bus at Rashbehari and walked home to find your grandfather and his brothers running around like headless chickens. They saw Chini da and ran to him.

‘Jagadish! Are you all right? Why didnt you call us? We were so worried! We called all the hospitals to find out which one you were at! Where were you?’ Hospital? We were all bemused.
Hospital? Said Chini to his brothers, ‘why ever would I be in the hospital?
But but Pishima said you had a heart attack at Dakshineshwar?
What! Pishima? Where is she? She was here?
She came home hours ago, said that you had had a heart attack and that everybody else had taken you to hospital…”

Comrade K chuckled, “she was a woman with spirit. You didn’t let her on the boat so she got bored and came home.”
“You weren’t this amused that day, were you?”, replied my grandmother, “you were ready to kill us all.”
“Arre! What do you expect if you’re that irresponsible?”
“Irresponsible! You’re calling me irresponsible! My God! If it weren’t for me this household would have gone to the dogs years ago.”
“Oh really? Are you implying I’m irresponsible?”

They’re at it again. I leave them to it and come away upstairs. I Have a story to write.

2010-01-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

I've seen a sign. It says Go Home, Party Over. Where "home" is, is the bone of contention here. Sad things are happening in JU but I don't live there anymore, so it's good that the tea is still cheap and Edit-Pub is on and once in a while I see a face from way-back-when. Thinking of going back is despair but thinking of coming back was despair too. So, I'm stuck with despair either way. For my birthday I want a chocolate mousse cake with whiskey sauce from Mammamia, a bucket of chicken from KFC and a copy of Good Omens.

2010-01-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

So, I read a lot. I read indiscriminately, I read everything that attracts me. I read desultorily most of the times because I HAVE to read, it's like smoking. Sometimes I find a book that exhausts me, books that make me feel sad when I'm past the halfway point because I know it's going to end soon, books that I hardly ever read twice because I don't need to, I remember the feeling I don't need to refresh it. Yeah, rereading is another compulsive habit. So yeah, I read this book. It blew my mind. I'm never going to read it again. Alex Garland - The Beach.

2010-01-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Varanasi, December 2007. (I didn't take the photo)

I would like to date falling in love with you to the day I saw this photo but it was probably earlier.