The birds and the bees

It's the old mid-semester phase again, replete with the regular medley of seemingly random events that escape undiscerning eyes, forming labyrinthine webs that are dictated, if a little injudiciously, by the overbearing hands of karma and kismet.

All sure to make sense in the end, no doubt. The scriptwriter upstairs, with his penchant for the neat ending, sees to that.

In other news, women students have now been accorded permission to enter the men's hostel, and vice versa. Whether this means that the powers-that-be are unconsciously echoing the much vaunted sexual revolution touted to be sweeping the country, or are merely demonstrating their (often questioned) sound mental health, is, of course , debatable.

The one certainty of this turn of events, I suppose, is that the chances of me stumbling upon couples coochie-cooing in ostensible privacy have taken a nosedive. Make no mistake about it, my campus is a voyeur's dream, and I have never been shy of cashing in, shameless pervert that I am.

1)The library
How about the air-conditioned reading hall? Always empty, of course. You like it hot and grimy? Please proceed into the magazine section. You want a great view too? Yes, I know just the place. You'd prefer the little cubicles, perfect for two? The ones with the green chairs ? No? You find pink sexier ? This way please.

Oh, you do know that nobody uses the toilets on the fifth floor, don't you? And did i forget to mention the elevator? Passe, you think ? Yes, I agree. Bad music, too.

2)The temple
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

Ah well, you can't blame Einstein for never sitting with a pretty girl in a temple. Places of worship, if nothing else, freeze time. You can, quite simply, go on and on and on. And where better to consummate a relationship than right before the watching eyes of providence ?

What nobody cares about, of course, is what the venerable goddess Durga thinks of it all. Divine interference can meddle with the theory of relativity, but is powerless in the face of animal passion.

Albert, eat your heart out.

3) The stadium
Football pitch sized, floodlit with lights off. Proximity to the girls hostel. Deer grazing by the side. Starry, starry nights. Need I say more?

This list, incidentally, is much longer.
Yes, I know. I am a sick, sick boy.

diamonds and rust

My gift is my song and this one's for you.

****
Uno

Let me sing you a waltz, out of nowhere, out of my thoughts. A long long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. Summer of 69. Anarchy in the UK. Sitting on the dock of the bay, wastin' time. Pretty woman walking down the street. Something in the way she moves. Judy blue eyes. You sexy thing.

"Ooh my little pretty one, pretty one.
When you gonna give me some time, Sharona? "

"Dream on."

"Layla, you've got me on my knees.
Layla, I'm begging, darling please. "

"Save tonight , fight the break of dawn.
Come tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone."

"You can call me Al."

***
Dos

Dancing in the dark. Singin' in the rain. Nights in white satin, never reaching the end. I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

****
Tres

And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid.
Like I love you.

Under pressure. Every rose has its thorn, every night has its dawn.

"I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self satisfied I don’t need you"

"Why do you build me up, buttercup bab-y,
just to let me down, and mess me around ? "

"I hate everything about you ."

" What else should I be, all apologies . "

*****
Quatro

Was I outta my head, was I outta my mind ? How could I've ever been so blind ? No woman, no cry. NO woman, NO cry. Show me the way to the next whiskey bar. Red, red wine. Go to my head. Make me forget that i still need her so.

But it hurts me so just to see you go around with someone new, doin' that thing you do. Oh, bab-y bab-y, it's a wild world and I'll always remember you like a child, girl.

*****
Uno

1979. Motorway to Roswell. Sitting on a park bench, eyeing lil girls with bad intent.

"Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name ?"

The circle of life. Que sera sera , whatever will be, will be.

*****

With permission, of course, from (in this order) Elton John, Julie Delpy, Don McLean, Bryan Adams, The Sex Pistols, Otis Redding, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Hot Chocolate, The Knack, Aerosmith , Eric Clapton, Eagle Eye Cherry, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Gene Kelly, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Poison, Queen , The Foundations, Ugly Kid Joe, Nirvana, Fastball, Bob Marley, The Doors, UB40, The Wonders, Cat Stevens, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Pixies, Jethro Tull, The Doors, Elton John, Doris Day. Phew .

P.S
For a few hours, a couple of days back, I had shut down this blog. Here I am again, for better or worse. Here to stay , hopefully.

joie de vivre

I'm tired of living my life like a wallflower. Dance, anyone?

P.S.
Oh, and this site intrigues me. Do me a favour, will you.

Einmal ist Keinmal

Trips home, (ir)regular these days as drops from a leaky tap, are like riding the rollercoaster in your neighbourhood amusement park. They take you down a familiar path, yet leave little time for nostalgia.

As you will surely admit, your memories are little more than show-pieces of the past, exhibits in the museum of your mind, 'Look; Please don't touch.Thank you' ; and your life is merely the handiwork of some Grand Old Lady, knitting her giant patchwork quilt, a complex, eccentric tapestry defining the fate of every little drop in the ocean of humanity.

Home-coming is a time for reliving the old experiences, without feeling the deja-vu. Like getting drunk the second time. Or falling in love, again. Each time a little different, each time really the same.

It is a time for visiting the flea market, for hunting down the movies you never could find elsewhere. Ozu's Tokyo Story. After all these years .The elusive son of a gun. Discussions on Bergman, no less, with impassioned pirates, eager to unload their booty before you can say 'Wild Strawberries'.

It is a time for used bookshops, the swanky new malls, and all the particles of sand that slipped through your clenched, impatient fist.

It is a time for espying old flames, walking down the streets of your youth, hand in foriegn hand, each step a cold dagger piercing your broken-heart, each unrequited love a flag-bearer of your eternal defeat.

It is a time for your favourite at the restaurant, still crowded after all these years, and the chocolate chip sundae, and the long walk home.

But all in all, deep down, you know that it is a time for all the things money can't buy.Perspective, for one.

.

I sometimes wonder if full stops at the beginning of sentences are rather more apt than at their end.

Not that it makes a difference, of course. What's done is done.

waiting to exhale

As cities across the Islamic world continue to endure the spiteful bites of the Great Dane, I will simply paraphrase the words of Luis Bunuel, and say - ' I'm still an atheist, thank God. '

my bloody valentine

It seems that today, hands have officially been washed off me.

"I wish things could have been different
all i do is miss you and the way we used to be
nothing ventured nothing gained
I ventured all and still I failed.
The test , the mirage,the blue oasis,
I dont really know who fell more,
I hate myself and I hate you more."

Damning evidence, you would agree.

What else can i say?
I'll take all the blame.

And I look back over the past year, and wonder, has anything really changed at all?

Melon C

It is a wintry, cheerless Friday night. I sleep tumultously, tossing, turning, teetering on the brink of another introspective, infinite journey into nothingness.

Sadness, you will agree, is an intensely personal experience. Nobody shares it with you, no matter what they say. Ennui, loneliness and depression make for a heady mocktail. Lap it up while you can.

There is someone at the door.
I ignore, like I do the now incessantly vibrating cell.

The knocks intensify, to raps, rattles, thuds and culminate in a crescendo of thunderous booms, startling me out of my reverie.

I open.
It is A, dapper as ever, with K.

Nobody's ever visited me in my room before. Not for a year atleast. This calls for a minor celebration. I make a mental note.

"Get dressed. Collar shirt. And shoes. They don't let people in without shoes. And ID card, just in case."

The message is clear. I am to be initiated tonight. And I know that in this state, I simply don't have the strength of will to resist.

Orders followed, I trundle down to the car, where we are joined by B, and C. Do remind me to tell you about B sometime. Quite the character.

The place, I'm told later, is called 'Bikes and Barrels'. Whyever, I cannot fathom.

I walk in to the strains of 'Sweet Child of Mine'. As I remember telling B at the time, that is a great song to enter to. In many ways, like 'Summer of 69', 'Sweet Child' is the song of my misplaced, lost, wasted adolescence.

She's got a smile
that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky

Nothing like a familiar song to get you relaxed. Especially a familiar guitar riff. I feel immediately at home, despite the decidedly alien environment.

There is plenty of smoke in the air, and my eyes begin watering. I leave the ordering to B, and let the atmosphere sink in. The music changes to hip-hop, and the wonderfully named Pussycat Dolls begin to pose their intriguing queries.

Don't ya wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Dont ya wish your girlfriend was a freak like me

I contemplate the lyrics, and dig into popcorn and salted peanuts.

The waiter arrives. A pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea is placed on the table. The glasses are filled, with a deep brown, translucent liquid.

I am toasted, and asked to go first.The first sip stops short of spectacular. For a cocktail of rum, gin and vodka, it takes quite a while to make its presence felt. A couple of glasses down the line, however, and I feel my legs separating from the rest of my body.

It feels lovely. The light-headedness, the lack of control, and after such a long time, the happiness. Nothing matters anymore. Not my summer unemployment. Not my rejection. Not how people trample all over you when you are down. Not how people you would have done anything for cannot spare a few minutes for you when you need them. Not the loneliness.

Tonight, I don't care.

I complete the night's bacchanalia with a gin and tonic, and we head back. The afterhours are spent drooling all over Kate Beckinsale in 'Serendipity'
As I walk back to my room, I look up, and see Cassiopeia.

And in my heart, I know I need to do this more often.

What can I say?
Happiness is a warm gun.

eleven and out

1) I have been much too depressed for much too long. Not just depressed, to be honest. Moody is more like it. On top of the world one day, the pits the next, and so on and on in an infintely complicated emotional rollercoaster that refuses to let me get off.

2)I have always kept to myself . How introvertedness turned into excruciating shyness is beyond me. I just can't talk to anyone anymore without being agonizingly self-conscious, and judgemental.

3)There's not one thing I feel really strongly about. I'm absolutely bereft of passion. What I needed, perhaps, was a Muse of some sort, something or someone that could've filled out the emptiness.

4)Everybody I know has the paths of their lives charted out to the smallest detail. I, on the other hand, have never felt more aimless. Ambitions have never been my thing, and deep down, I know that I'm driving down to a dead-end.

5)I always grew up considering myself to be gifted in some manner. You know the standards - math whiz, super writer, star athlete. As each year goes by, you strike one off the list, till one day you wake up to the fact that you might as well have torn off the page when you were ten.

6)The other day, it just struck me that I can't do anything. I can't ride a bike, drive a car, cook, play the guitar, sing, fix the radio, dance, sew, paint.Nothing.

7) I'm fat and ugly. And I'll never forgive You for that.

8)Lately, I've taken to listening to sappy love songs, and watching the most unbelievably mushy candy-floss. I don't know if you do this too, but I seem to have gotten into the habit of imagining myself as the actor on screen, especially during all the making-out. I'm sure it isn't healthy thing to do. Kissing Kate Winslet did feel rather good, though.

9)I tried to make a list of the people who would miss me. Really miss me, truly wish I was still around. Afraid not too many made that list. And I can't blame anyone for that. If I were you, I wouldnt miss me. Eminently forgettable I am, if little else.

10)Spending long hours online is a sign of social dysfunction. Perhaps if i had tried to go out and talk to real people, I wouldn't be as lonely as I am now. Virtual relationships are easy to make, and from personal experience, very convenient for people to walk away from. Use-and-throw has never had more license.

11)I hate my ego. It is just so suffocating.

the amazing race

two rain drops
fall, cheeks apart.
which one first?

survey

Would you rather see me fast unto death or hang by the ceiling fan?

DT

Deutsche Telekom Laboratories do not deem me worthy of a summer internship. What's more, they do not believe that I'm even good enough to make the shortlist.

My dreams of frolicking in the Rhine this summer, during the football World Cup finals, no less, are dashed. Shattered. Beyond repair.

What else can I do now but wistfully paraphrase the immortal words of Amy Sedaris ?

"When shit gets you down, say 'fuck it' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy."
"Bitch. I'm here to tell you that it's going to be all right. We'll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait"

Yeah, DT, you sonofabitch, just you wait.

One

Whilst I find my calling in the City of Joy over the next week or so, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would wish my bloggie a very happy first birthday on the 14th.
A cake would be nice, too. And a candle to blow out .

I wonder what wish my bloggie would make.
A little less neglect, perhaps.

Dazed and Confused

I dig Richard Linklater. I really do. The man gives me perspective.

"I mean, God. Don't you ever feel like everything we do and everything we've been taught is just to service the future."

"Yeah, I know. It's like it's all preparation."

"Right, but what are we preparing ourselves for?"

"Death."

" If we're all going to die anyway shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now as some minor insignificant pre-amble to something else."

In other news, the fork in the road is approaching. My life and career, and the direction of the same.Time to toss the old coin, and ask the question again.

I mean man, whither goest thou?
Whither goest thou, melon collie, in thy shiny car in the night?

the whore of mensa

I find the idea most fascinating. Merely thinking about it gets me dripping wet. (I meant the drool, silly). My hair begins to stand on end. And not only my hair, to tell you the truth.

Consider this for yourself. Call someone over at an odd hour of the night. Someone unknown to you, preferably mid-twenties, reasonably comely. A sweet smile would be a bonus. Proceed to fulfil your deepest, darkest, most deviant fantasies. Succumb to the exhilarating, overpowering ecstasy, leaving you utterly at the stranger's mercy, begging for more more more.

All at a price, you understand.
No touching, of course, though some are known to be accommodating in that respect. Absolutely no fondling allowed, however. The mind is the mind, the body is the body, and never the twain shall meet.

The whores will discuss, at great depth, any intellectual topic of your preference. You name it. The recurrent motifs in the work of D.H Lawrence. The films of David Lynch. Perhaps even an explanation (if such a thing does exist) of 'Lost Highway'. The pointillist art of Georges-Pierre Seurat. Husserl's phenemology of internal time consciousness. The fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach. Freud's stages of development. The influence of bebop on Beat literature. The list is endless.

Trust me. There's nothing sexier than talking high-brow with a well-informed woman. If you feel uncomfortable about this, just look upon it as a cerebral jerking-off. And of course, you don't need a condom either.

You know what they say. The most erotic organ is between the ears.
Yeah, baby. They got that one right.

P.S.
Read the entire Woody Allen short story here.

You say goodbye, and I say hello

2005 was special.
Here's to an even better 2006.

The Curtain

I was ten at the time. Give or take a year. It was the annual inter-class painting competition, that Holy Grail of all things artistic for pre-pubescent kids (atleast the guys, anyway) with little more than starry eyes and an inflated(parent-induced, no doubt) opinion of their own talents.

The teachers, in charge of the organisational aspects of this venture, sprang something of a surprise. 'Free topic - Anything you want', they said, setting off an excited buzz around the rather large drawing hall . 'Unheard of !', whimpered some. 'F***ing brilliant', claimed the rather more wordly wise. What scope this bold, daring step would provide for artistic innovation! What grand, hidden talent this momentous move would unearth !

The dominant subject of choice, for most, seemed to be a landscape of some sort. You know the works - a nice house, preferably with a chimney (a remnant of the Santa Claus delusion, perhaps) , garden, fence, mountains in the background, and the rising sun in the background.
Some others worked on their version of a rainy day, boats on a lake(visions of Monet's 'Impressions of Sunrise', perhaps ?), and other such mundane topics. No nudes though, sadly.

Meanwhile, I drew a curtain.

It was simply called 'The Curtain'. Of course, at the time, I wasn't to know that a title of this sort was very much in the tradition of Camus ('The Plague', 'The Outsider'), and Kafka('The Trial', 'The Castle'), not even to mention Rodin('The Thinker'), the work's quality unquestionable and its metaphysical implications immense.

Of course, I was laughed at. Mocked, even. By all the teachers, no less.

I tell you what, though. It might've been just a reddish brown, plain, frilly curtain covering the entire sheet of drawing paper. It didn't seek to blow in the wind, or anything funny like that. It didn't try to portray any showy light effects. Dammit, it may not even have covered a window.
It was, however, without a shadow of a doubt, the classic minimalist work of its time. And it was all mine.

No wonder I turned out so messed up.

Lady luck has a crush on me

Ok, so the grades are out. Suffices to say that today, I believe in good fortune.

The Honey-Bee has my greatest sympathies. Evidently, Lady Luck isn't a lesbian.

hush puppy

So yesterday, I attended the memorial service, or the final rites of passage, if you like, of my recently deceased grandfather. The atmosphere, expectedly, was decidedly sombre, as hushed voices and tear-streaked countenances paid their last respects to the departed soul.

It's funny how death unites families. Mingling with familiar faces were those of long lost relatives - distant uncles and aunts thought to have been swept away by the hands of time to distant, irredeemable pockets of indifference returned, and presumably, disappeared once again to their own lives, so much separated from ours.

Not before a few gems, by way of conversation(for lack of a better word), from patronising, (but i must mention, not unkindly) aunts who exclaimed, in great surprise, ' How could your features change this much ?', and without the merest hint of a snicker, 'MIT next stop, eh ?' , eliciting little more than mumbles in response.

For one so much given to verbosity in private, I'm sadly tongue-tied in any public gathering. After the perfunctory 'hello's and 'fine , thank you's, I slip easily into my now perfected role of quiet-world-watcher, slinking around on the metaphorial tip-toe, unnoticed, and possibly forgotten. And before you know it, it's time to go.

Maybe that's exactly the way some people lead their entire lives. Gone before they know it's time, after spending innumerable years unnoticed, and forgotten.

What a shame.

home

Is it just me, or does everyone who returns home after a long time get greeted with anguished cries of 'Oh! How could you become this thin ', followed by massive meal after massive meal ?

Going home tonight for the weekend. Promises to be much fun, especially for the tummy.