Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Leaving, left and gone.

What could break your heart more intensely? When you know that a storm is approaching, that it is going to be a bad one and you better prepare for it or when you are looking up at the clouds and they conspire to suddenly separate, to expose the harsh sunlight to your unsuspecting eyes? Does the anticipation of pain make it more bearable? It is like when the surgeon comes out of the operating room and tells you that you shouldn't be hopeful. You prepare yourself, there might be a splinter that would start to break your heart, vein by vein, artery by artery, until all that is left is a mess of blood and oxygen. Would it be less painful if you never knew that there would be a splinter someday?

I wouldn't have time
To prepare for goodbyes
The thought is too painful
To get over with laments and sighs,
Come tomorrow,
When I wait for a smile,
Knock on my door,
And tell me it is futile,
Tell me you intended to let me know
As I cry over the abrupt adieu,
Tell me it was a last moment call,
Ask me to think about it from your point of view,
Maybe I'll hate you for it,
I'll always believe that you lied,
Maybe I wouldn't know what to say,
Maybe I'd be happy to be deprived,
Of awkward pauses and clumsy farewells,
Declaration of promises neither will keep,
Happy to be woken up sharply,
From a nightmare ridden sleep...

P.S - I can't begin to comprehend how bad that is but somehow had to write something. This made me feel good. I really wanted to rhyme.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Lovers, they try...

...try to whip the stars into compliance. I am thinking about Clive Owen's character's line in 'Closer' (which I liked for some reason. Also made me fall in love with Natalie Portman). He says something about how depressives don't want to be happy. Because then they'd have to start living their lives. Which can be quite depressing.

I wonder if what we perceive as happiness is unique. Happy people almost seem smug to me. They go around thinking that no one could possibly feel as happy as they do. They believe they have a right to comfort others who aren't happy, with empty words. Everything will be fine, trust me. They have the credentials to say so because they are uniquely happy. They think they're the only ones who look at little kids smiling and smile to themselves. They think they're the only ones to understand how beautiful life really is. More importantly, they laugh at their former selves who thought there was a subtlety to melancholy and a charm to sadness.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not considering being content here. Nor am I considering being satisfied. Because you can be happy even if you are thinking about how you'd never be satisfied with anything other than critical appreciation for your hypothetical debut novel. You can be happy even when you aren't satisfied with the way things are going, there's always room for improvement isn't there? You can be happy to a point of being discontent with trivial details. You can be happy with mediocre words, nowhere close to accurately describing your present state. This feeling of happiness is unique. Only because it is so simple.

P.S- Watched 'A bout de souffle' ('Breathless' in English) directed by Jean-Luc Godard. I couldn't really understand what the big deal was. Some very beautiful lines in the movie though. An instance: " It's sad to fall asleep. It separates people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone. " by Patricia Franchini (portrayed by Jean Seberg. She is exquisitely charming.)

P.P.S- I am very happy right now :)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Lost Mojo

When I'm too bored(read open to the realization that I can't really write well), I read my previous blog posts and try to remember what I was thinking as I wrote them. I did the same, unsurprisingly, today and realized how very lame I have been. It all comes to a point where every week, my blog has one draft and no post. I'm tired of half written truisms pointlessly butchered and covered in macabre gloss and shine, tired of meandering sentences with absolutely nothing new to express and tired of words that lead nowhere and make me forget the whole...I forget what I really wanted to say.Anyhoo, I've lost count of the number of days it has been since I last read a book or last watched a movie. It feels like I have no patience to read or watch anything anymore(well except 'Arrested Development'. It's a shame they ended the series) I have been too busy trying to and mostly failing to care about something I really wouldn't dream caring about. You know that concept of user transparency in Distributed Systems? You don't?! *Horror* You are that user! Anyway, I do and I wish I were the user who was the one not bothered about implementation level details, hidden from the working and functioning of a Distributed System. But no, I have to worry about random trivia that I could have lived without. By the way, did you know that the name 'Phoebe' of the character Phoebe Buffay in Friends might have been inspired by Holden Caulfield's sister, Phoebe, in Catcher in the Rye?

P.S- This was cathartic to a point that it made me happy. Well, almost as happy as seeing that green statement on the console that says 'Build successful'.

Friday, August 27, 2010

"Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Holding a flashlight, up to the sky, to look for the stars...

Sometimes it feels like we're doomed for sadness. That the dry river bed of tears is not barren yet. The dark we hide under, the shadows of the past, of regrets and old habits, shielding us from the light. Would we go blind if we stare at it for too long? Something so beautiful and life giving that we're terrified of what it might bring, what it might nurture from years of wasted presence, the microbial dreams it might destroy. Sometimes it is just fear cloaked under more courageous virtues of boredom and laziness that prevents us from walking out into the light. One new day, when we are too lost in the darkness to realize, the light will creep in and illuminate us, toe by toe, finger by finger. When the clouds above rumble and threaten to flood the rivers, when the wall we lean against seems farther and farther, the light will rush to us and slowly whisper "Wake up, it's time to go."

Friday, March 19, 2010

The tiny explosion of dust
As a rain drop hits the earth
The distant rumble
Of approach, anticipation
Runs through my veins
As premature release
Lets my restraint
Evaporate like virga.
The coolness of the blade
Against my wrist
Tiny puncture wounds
Discrete, slow, methodical
Unfasten me.
Waves of consciousness
Crash against the surreality of my brain,
You are the only universe
Visible, probable, possible
The breath caught in my ribs
Releases in your tight embrace
And falls short
Of a few inches
To touch your hollow heart...

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Be kind, rewind

I walked alone on the long winding road when you came along and offered me a ride. I should have refused. But it was a hot day and I was tired walking all by myself. So I accepted the offer and you got me closer to my destination, on my path towards self destruction.I'm not out of breath at the very least. The journey seems shorter now.

P.S-It doesn't make sense to me either. Love this song by the way.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Your name is the splinter.

He adjusts the wick with careful fingers and reaches over for the canister of palm oil.He lights the lamp and joins hands in prayer.Outside it grows colder as the oil gradually solidifies.

The crow has flown

The past few days have been going so well, with every little event making me go "I'm so going to write about this!" and then promptly letting it slip my mind.There used to be a time when there were so many words and phrases going through my head that I just had to pen them down.I miss those days.Sure I wrote a lot of stuff that was silly, unoriginal and hackneyed but I did write, dint I?Maybe I'm just too, un-feeling, these days.You know, I write when I'm either too depressed or too high(hyper excited, hard to settle down type).Lately I have been happier, and not just sporadically.The graph is going constant and that bugs me a little.I have been reading Murakami and I'm still too speechless to write anything about him or the book('Kafka on the Shore'). I will write something about him, he's too much on my mind to let go that easily.Let me get my thoughts back.Right now they are off tracking cats with Nakata.

P.S- It is sad that the first few searches that come up on Google when you type 'palm' are something to do with Personal Digital Assistants and Operating Systems.Palm is so much more.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

She looked at the air conditioner with disdain. Just a few minutes ago, as little drops of sweat rolled down her back, the spoiled brat, her employer's son, had turned off the AC muttering something about a bai not needing it.She swept the dust off the floor in precise movements so that little specks of it would not remain behind.The brat had now moved to his room, after trying to avoid stepping on the dirt and making an even bigger mess.She sighed.Kids were so clumsy nowadays.She remembered how she'd had such a graceful gait growing up that everybody thought she'd make a great dancer.Even now, men looked at her retreating figure with appreciation and women with envy as she strolled past the Saturday market, picking up tamatar and methi, never bhindi(Rs.12 per kilo!). She sighed, dreading the prices that'd be put up this week. She continued sweeping, beneath the couch, behind the bookshelf, stray strands of dog fur(they had a big dog with long golden fur, it was quite ugly) kept entangling in the broom. She stopped for a few minutes and looked outside the window.Her eyes automatically searched for the wall clock on the wrong wall and then rested upon it finally and she registered the time.Rich people and their tinted glass windows, no sense of what time it was and how the day would be. She remembered how cloudy it was that morning.Maybe the same weather had continued.After all, she'd already spent three hours on the twelfth floor.So many things could have changed outside.She took a few steps towards the window.She had the strong urge to push it open and let the fresh air in(it was a sliding window, she instantly realised a second later).There were little droplets of sweat on her upper lip and her scalp felt wet with perspiration.Her breathing was heavy.Somehow, with the subtle, invisible beckoning of the window, she felt her day and her life letting go of her.There was nothing to worry about, not the absent husband, not the son's education, not the dwindling currency in the small, metal box she hid under her bed, not the past which she rued so often, the longing for days in school before she left to join her mother to see the inside of people's dirty laundry and hear the scrape of steel wool against aluminium.Life would all be good if only she opened the window.She felt light and easy as she slid the frame and let the air in.Behind her, the gathered dust particles scattered and settled into positions they were looking for.

P.S-No title yet, if you can think of a good one, please do.
P.P.S-If you relate the Rs.12 per kilo bhindi thing to 3 idiots, you have serious issues.However if you do realize that tamatar was once Rs.40 per kilo, you've my blessings!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Resolutely irresolute!

Yeah, I tried to resist this whole new year affair, you know, wondering how freaking quickly 2009 passed(it so did, I swear!) and looking back on what was good and what was bad and the usual attachment of great importance to such a trivial event.I did not wish anyone voluntarily, just managed to say 'Same to you' to anyone who believed that a year that started with an examination(O.S exam at that) can be happy.Uber-optimistic.Whatever.

I make resolutions every year, announce it to whoever will listen like a classic jackass and then get laughed at when I break each one of my resolutions the very next day(I think the shortest span has been two hours, when I promised myself I wouldn't eat any cakes and assorted high calorie junk and ended up gorging on three pieces of horrible, chocolate cake, not that it being chocolate had anything to do with it being horrible, I think the eggs were bad or something) But this year, I somehow have a stronger resolve to keep up at least few of the resolutions I make. Here's a list of things I plan to achieve by the end of 2010(Brain says "Achieve?Yeah right!"):

1)Read at least 50 books.
Which implies at least one book per week.It is not a very big number but inspired by Falstaff (who happens to be someone I sort of worship), I'll keep a count this year.Started off with 'The Motorcycle Diaries' by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. It was a delightful read, some larger-than-life phrases strewn around unnecessarily and surprisingly not very descriptive of the natural beauty of Latin America.I took three days to complete it, which is terrible by the way.But hey, I had an exam to write!(I hear laughter in my head.) Started with 'The Trial' by Franz Kafka today.Will complete it by tomorrow hopefully.I plan to read all the novels written by:
i) Jane Austen.
ii) Virginia Woolf
iii) E.M Forster
and also any novel(at least one novel) written by Roberto Bolano, Philip Roth, John Updike and Ernest Hemingway. I hope to read more of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ian McEwan. Anybody interested, my birthday is on the third of February and I celebrate most of the national holidays.


2) Do something about my *ahem*
Well if you dint get that, I plan to somehow do something about my(in hushed tones) weight. I usually never keep up any sort of a regime when it comes to diet and exercise.2010 might be different.Fingers crossed.


3)Learn a new language.
I want to say a foreign language but I'm open to any right now.


4)Try to be a 9 point someone.
Yes, I actually typed that.This semester was spent being over confident and dusting textbooks a day prior to my exams which led to quite an average performance(decent in fact) but it was abysmally disappointing to me. I'm hoping to take more of an(a long pause) interest in my present domain.Who knows, might turn out to be fun.


5)Try and be good.
It isn't all that hard.This includes fighting less with Amma, being punctual, helping out Amma at home, hanging out with my friends more often, keeping to myself, trying to be not depressed or apathetic all the time.It can't be that hard, can it?


6)Be less self-involved.
Wait a second.What do you know?This is the fastest I've ever broken any of my resolutions! :)


Have a good year!

P.S-I really must come up with better titles.