42 things you always wanted to know

BUT WERE TOO AFRAID TO ASK

1) If i have to die young, i want to die at 27.
2)I'm in love with Kate Hudson.
3)I'm a virgin
4)Orkut depresses the hell out of me. I hate it when i see hundreds of friends and a gazillion scraps on anyone's profile.
5)I can't stand mobile phones. Especially the really trendy new ones with polyphonic ringtones or whatever.
6)I'm beautifully ugly.
7)I want to be buried wearing a Manchester United jersey.
8)I'm a sucker for young female writers.
9) I'm addicted to Yahoo and MSN messengers. MSN's nicer.
10)Holden Caulfield is my hero; a position earlier occupied by a Howard Roark.
11)The fact that I was born on July 22, which is of course 22/7 , rather marked me out for maths from birth. This one thing i will say unabashedly, i am a MATHS GOD.
12)I'm lonely
13)I scored 26% in the 'Social Assertiveness' category of the Cattel-16-factor test. I must be a wimp/anarchist/whatever
14)I'm not.
15)I would die without my music.
16)Its my life's ambition to go to Vietnam and live my own 'Apocalypse Now'.
17)I'm a good listener.
18)Very poor talker.
19)I hit my head somewhere when i was 5 years old. That incident left me with a lightning shaped scar on my forehead. Now who does that remind you of?
20)After much deliberation, i've decided that either Guy Pearce or Ed Norton will play me in a biopic of me. It'll be called "The Writer " . Heh.
21)I'm very much a momma's boy. And whats more, i'm proud of it.
22)I'm very superstitious.
23)I've never been outside my country
24)I don't know to swim. Water scares me.
25)My favourite TV show will always be 'The Wonder Years' , saw a few episodes again recently and it felt like the good old days.
26)Most people seem to take an instant dislike to me.
27)I wish i had teeth like Alanis Morissette.
28)I hate politics.Politicians are evil people who make millions at the expense of the poor.
29)But i have to admit that at heart, I'm a socialist.
30)Staying on the topic, i want to ride a motorcyle across South America, and write a diary about it, like old Che Guevara.
31)I don't do drugs.
32)Other than 'Dune', i hate all science-fiction.
33)I used to be obsessed with pornography, it disgusts me now
34)I'm getting to be a bit anorexic. Blame it on the 'metrosexual' fad.
35)I don't know why, but i think most women look better in traditional clothes.
36)Hip-hop makes me sick.
37)I have been on TV six times. None the better for it.
38)I am cold and mean to people i don't like.
39)If there is one religion i really want to follow, its Zen.
40)I'm waiting for the one moment that will change my life.
41)I'm waiting for you.
42)Your parents would approve.

koan 1

This one simply has to be the first.

"
You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together. Now show me the sound of one hand.

"

Nice link.

THAT scene

the best scene ever

"
Ricky Fitts : It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

"

In my next life, i want to be a paper bag

thought for the day

Looking for faces
which return
lonely glares,
searching stares

as Emptiness
eats away inside


You pay for every happiness in life with twice its price in sorrow.

chrysalis

If i remember correctly, today exactly marks two years to the day i graduated from high school.
That evening is still crystal-clear in my memory, there we were - all blue-eyed, idealistic, stepping out into the big bad world with all the swagger of birds that had just learnt to fly.
All we could perceive was the sweet smell of freedom, and none of the surrounding muck.

And here i am today - a withering flower.

For what is freedom i ask ? It is but another form of enslavement, just another word corrupted by the abuse of language.

Just ask Tyler Durden.

" We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly waking up to that fact, people. And we're very, very pissed off. "

my bloody valentine

For everyone who deplores everything that this day stands for.

Neil Gaiman from "The Sandman : The Kindly ones"

"Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

Have a quiz on quantum mechanics tomorrow, else i would have had more to say....

The genius of Stanley Kubrick

There's this famous quote which goes something like , the Americans make movies, the Italians 'films', and the French 'cinema'. And maybe you can add one more to that - Stanley Kubrick simply makes classics.

As part of an ongoing Kubrick festival in college, 'Lolita' was screened yesterday. And like all his other works, it was one helluva good ride, with all his trademark black humour and brilliant individual performances - none more so than the amazing Peter Sellers, who after his quite sensational triple-role in Dr Strangelove, puts in another career defining act. Not to forget the bewitchingly beautiful Sue Lyon , as Dolores 'Lolita' Haze, the object of the lustful attention of Humbert Humbert .

What makes the film all the more remarkable is that Vladimir Nabokov's classic book is one that greatly challenges adaptation to the big screen, with its long drawn style and lyrical nature. However, despite marked differences in movie and book, the transiton is seamless, as was the case with 'A Clockwork Orange', '2001:A Space Odyssey' and 'The Shining'.

Every Kubrick movie leaves one particular scene imprinted in the mind - i remember '2001 ' had 'Also Sprach Zarathushtra' and ' The Blue Danube' reverberating in my ears,even though the movie itself i found difficult to understand ; the scary-as-hell 'All work and no play' scene from 'The Shining' ; Alex singing 'Singin in the Rain' as he assaults the old author and his wife in '..Clockwork..' ; the training officer's monologue in 'Full Metal Jacket' ; and of course, the infamous orgy in 'Eyes Wide Shut'

It is an absolute travesty that despite 4 Best Director nominations, Kubrick does not have an Oscar, but I guess when Oscars are given out these days to just about anyone who lobbies hard enough, that is not an entirely bad thing....

year of yiyou

Yesterday was the Chinese New Year's Day, the first day of the Year of the Rooster(Yiyou).

It is believed that the year a person is born in plays no small role in determing his traits and identity as an individual. While I've never been one for astrology and the like, I decided to have a look at my Chinese horoscope and this is what i found.....

I am , ladies and gentlemen , an Ox.

" The Ox/buffalo is the hard working, serious loner of the family whose essence is 'endurance.' The opinionated Ox is determined, strong, and conservative, with a notable gift for manual dexterity and working with their hands. Family and duty are of the utmost importance to the home-spun Ox. Souls born under this 2nd sign of the zodiac are capable of leading nations, not to mention running a most efficient household. Oxen are powerful individuals with stubborn, reliable personalities. Whether at home or at work these souls need to be captain of their ship and are dependable, honest, and stable. The quiet, yet firm Ox is easy-going, but possesses intense passion beneath their calm exterior. The industrious Ox needs a partner of substance and loyalty. Oxen gather strength during the quiet post-midnight hours they rule, between 1:00am - 3:00am. "

Hehe :)
I especially like the 'intense passion beneath the calm exterior' line.

Wanted: A partner of substance and loyalty. All those interested may comment on this blog( God i have a bad feeling about that already).


To check your Chinese horoscope, click here.

Way to Go !

Horror of Horrors
Old Prof M has apparently asked the class to write a paragraph of about 150 words following all the norms of 'good writing' laid out by him. We are to read them aloud tomorrow, the first English class I'll be attending after a week.

The good news is that he has left the topic open, which allows me to make it as shocking as I like , and ensure that he never makes me read out anything again. Never Ever.

And so after much deliberation, sifting through the likes of ' Of Attendance and other Inanities ' and 'REM : Rapid English Massacre', I have settled upon ' Way to Go !' - a short compendium of bizarre celebrity suicides.

"
Celebrities have a unique way of capturing public imagination, be it in life or in death. As cynics would have it,a fancy suicide is the ultimate publicity stunt. Let us consider the efforts of our ladies first. Poetess Sylvia Plath, always one for the unconventional, decided to discard the tried and tested methods of slashing a wrist or shooting a temple and instead put her head into a heated oven. Peggy Entwistle, an upcoming actress, jumped off the H of the Hollywood sign, exactly one day before she would have received an offer to star in a movie about a girl who commits suicide.If this appears much too trite, reflect on the celebrated Japanese author Mishima, who took his Samurai fanaticism a bit too far and sliced upon his intestines with a sword in front of his students. Since it is unlikely that you will ever be capable of rising to these high standards, you are whole-heartedly advised to not burnt out but to fade away with grace and a little dignity.

"
You of course understand that I do not subscribe to this romanticization of unhappy lives, though it does appear to me that to be really creative, it is almost necessary that you take drugs or lead a wretched life.

That's just so sad.

somebody to love

There's no point in saying something what somebody else before you has already said in a manner that is more succinct than you are capable of.

When the truth is found to be lies
and the joy within you dies
don't you want somebody to love
don't you need somebody to love
wouldn't you love somebody to love
you better find somebody to love


I hate it when the V day is less than a week away and I'm singing love songs to a computer screen.

Sigh.

how not to teach english

Owing to the considerable ineptitude displayed by students of my college towards anything remotely related to the English language (apart from the odd pornographic paperback), the Academic Council, in another glorious demonstration of its infinite wisdom, decided to create a compulsory course titled , ahem ,' English for Communication '.

You could almost hear all those multi-national companies, some of whose job interviews were apparently akin to listening to a noisy foreign radio channel , breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Fast Forward to the present : Prof M walks into class, bowler hat and all, the quintessential relic of colonialism. "Good Morning gentlemen", he booms, with a look around to check whether there may not be a petite young thing slinking somewhere in the background. After the traditional roll-call ( we may as well be in the goddamn army) , we settle into the usual rigmarole, ".....and today we shall see what a topic sentence is ...... "

If I write my end semester the way I've written the first three paragraphs, I'll probably fail the course. a) lack of a 'topic sentence' (he also has a special name for it , the 'umbrella' sentence , talk about metaphors) b) no concrete 'controlling ideas ' ( whatever those may be) c) sentences which more than double the 'average sentence length' (that sacrosanct constant , the English equivalent of the speed of light)

As I was sitting in class, i was repeatedly reminded of the scene in Dead Poets Society, when Robin Williams instructs his students to tear up pages which describe how the greatness of works of literature can be ascertained by plotting a graph and finding the area under the curve(and by the way, can you do that, saba ?) . Hello, Prof M, " We're not laying pipes, we're talking about poetry "

And though this course is merely meant to equip everyone with the barest essentials, it would greatly help if it is treated with a little less rigidity, because English can be fun, even without resorting to cheap imitations of British accents, or jokes of a scatological nature(oh yes, old Prof M is quite the dirty old man)

This is not meant to be some kind of polemic, and Prof M, though hardly one to inspire me to stand atop my desk and quote 'Oh Captain, My Captain' , does know his stuff. If only he was a little less phoney......

sounds of silence

I just realized that its more than a week since i actually began a conversation. A real person-to-person one , online encounters and perfunctory hello-how-are-you-i'm-so-hunky-dory dialogues not included.

It is also just dawning on me that I really don't have anything to say to anybody anymore. My interactions with others merely centre around academic discussions, rare as they may be, and I have an obscene amount of talk-time remaining on my cell.

And you know that there's something wrong when the guy who's been living next door to you in your hostel for some 4 months , informs you in the midst of your frenzied tooth-brushing routine that he would like to know your name.

Maybe I should throw away the phone and live in a forest, a modern day Seymour, and spout Hindu and Buddhist philosophy at anyone who drops in, with a wise nod and a twinkling eye. Atleast then I wouldn't have to pretend that I was having the time of my life with people whose company I don't enjoy, and wouldn't have to feel guilty about faking anything.

And of course, there is the added luxury of being able to make enigmatic statements and get away with them, as most philosophers seem to do. This i discovered, much to my dismay, when I took a course on European philosophy last semester. "..If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those in the present " being a classic example, even though i have to admit that Ludwig was one of my favourites....

So Sweet !!

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, gives me more pleasure than watching Manchester United beat Arsenal. I would have gladly taken a scrappy 1-0, but 4-2 is just too good to be true!!!

Chelsea, you have been warned.