love and squalor

quam minimum credula postero

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:11:00 +0000

I can't help but stop in my tracks once or twice a day when I'm reminded of how much I have changed in the last five years. At 20, I was pretty certain that life will be fabulous. At 25, I'm tired of everything and really don't see where life's going. I'm now more aware of my smallness than ever. I still feel more special than most people I know, but that could just as well be early-onset arrogance as the self-awareness of my greatness. I catch my reflection in the dimmed out screen of my phone and see age and worry. Ten years ago, if someone told me that I'd be friendless and frumpy at 25, I'd have smiled quietly at their absolute lack of understanding of a fairly lively teenager.

Ah, 2001. I had just succeeded at my first big public exam. Entered the world of salwar-suits. Started wearing my hair in a single plait. Got new wheels to zip around my small town on. Drifted away from some good old friends, got some interesting new ones. Dad moved to the big city in the name of upward mobility, and then I joined him in the name of academic advancement. Lost some more friends, but it didn't matter. Because, those were tumultuous but happy times. Hopeful times. I've lost the habit of dreaming incredibly, insanely big like I did when I was a girl. My parents' very unrealistic expectations of me added to the frenzy. They still refuse to see their daughter as one of the millions of people being worn down by life one day at a time.

Yeah, I know, this is all very bleak. But, I can't come to grips with how boring and inconsequential everything I do is. I love my work; it's not my work. But, work was never meant to replace everything else. I wanted a life full of excitement and constantly find myself incapable of being excited by anything. Or anyone. I can't make friends anymore. Or even make friendly small talk. It tires and infuriates me. I resist the urge to pick fights with some 'friends' on facebook everyday. Their ill-informed opinions on a variety of non-issues irk me. Surely, they can't mean what they say and be my friends. How do I even know these people? I can't remember half the time, so I wake up one day and scythe my friends list in half. Feels almost like emptying out precious closet space for new interesting virtual people. And then there are dear friends that I loved and never learned to judge. Can't get myself to call them for months at a time, because I have nothing to say. The distances then simply grow and swallow the time we shared. Much or all is forgotten.

Sigh.

Life labors on and the past melts into nothingness.

the rocks are different

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:48:00 +0000

It's about time we called this blog something else. Probably, something with 'companionship' and 'filter coffee' in it. It's been two years since we last posted and a lot has happened, like it usually does in two years. I am once again in a dark, stark room writing about misery to the sound of alternative rock. He is 90 miles away, in the process of being disappointed by America one more time. We've been together for what seems like forever and like nothing depending on how drunk and in the mood for romance we are. It's hard not to choke up at the memory of sandy feet, wind in our hair, sun in our eyes, the sea inching up towards us as the night rolled in. like I'd said would happen, and like he hadn't believed. I think that was our moment of everlasting contentment. I think we'll remember the sound of that sea forever. It's odd that a memory that peaceful makes me angry. I have unsettled domestic bliss one more time to get to this country. And this time he's followed. I still can't tell if he likes it here. He's playing adult a little too efficiently on his own and it makes me nervous. I've always thought of him as lost without me. I've always thought of him as torn between his innate nature of hating everything and his illogical need to keep me happy always. I ask him what he'd change about me, and any sane man would choose my nose, but he picks my limitless capacity for sadness. I could love him forever just for the answers he comes up with to my many hypothetical questions. I could love him forever, and he could love me back without flinching. And that's what happened in the last two years.

I'm back.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:21:00 +0000

The last post got me thinking. Yeah, that happens rarely these days and is, therefore, worthy of mention. It got me thinking about how I've always sucked at answering hypothetical questions. Would I like to be reborn as myself? Are there ten people who are now dead that I'd like to meet? What was my favorite childhood cartoon? I can never get around to answering these without first asking myself: is rebirth possible, are there even ten living people I truly like to meet and what childhood. Has life ever seemed utterly pointless to you? It did to me yesterday as my ass was settling into premature rigor mortis after riding pillion on an irritatingly slow bike just to get from here to a far away there. We travel all over the world. And answer hypothetical questions every now and then. And then one day we die? That's all? Such a bloody waste of time.

Such a bloody waste of time but then what else could one do with all the time.

Yes, I'm super bored!

An Indian summer is not to be trifled with. It bears down on you till you give in and realize that you against the sun is actually hypodermis against a friggin star. And air-conditioned indoors don't have much to offer especially when the one other person you know in this place is busy getting his act together. So, you eat, spend hours on facebook, eat some more, watch movies and sleep a desultory sleep. If it weren't for Ashok, this would be unbearably similar to my days alone. Of course, there are good parts. I'm just don't write well enough to be able to put the good parts into words. Yeah, if you know anything of me, you'll know that I'll go ahead and try to put the good parts into words anyway and fail. There's tickling, giggling and getting punched in the belly. There's battles over the lone mirror we're both obsessed with. Silly jigs which start off with one of us coming up with a ridiculous dance move and the other picking it up. There's fighting till I sulk in the kitchen and then get magically airlifted back to the living room and peace. There's getting drunk and acting more drunk than we are. There's sleeping under the stars and spotting Venus. There's happiness.

There's all this but nothing to do. So would be writing more often than usual till I find somethin to keep me busy.

remember them slam books?

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:01:00 +0000

dear five-people-who-read-this-blog, please come back, we miss you and promise to write more often. but before we get to writing a *real* post here's something passed onto us from glob blog.

Last Movie Seen In A Theatre?
Tashan.
It sucked so bad that I'm ashamed to admit that we actually rushed to watch it on the day it released. I hate Kareena Kapoor and her pathetic attempt at trying to look hot. I hate aging old Saif Ali Khan trying to sell himself with nothing but a handlebar mustache. I hate the absolute waste of Anil Kapoor. I hate the c-grade climax. the present tense coz I'm yet to get over the ridiculousness of it all.

What Book Are You Reading?
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy.

after lumbering through the collected stories some six months ago, I vowed to not go back to reading this man for at least an year. but a girl needs her bathroom reading material.

Favorite Board Game?
Scrabble. Largely because this is the only board game I remember ever winning and the only one I begin playing with any hope of winning. No, it's not fun just participating, it also helps if one wins occasionally, screw sportsmanship.

Favourite Magazine?
Marie Claire in print and The Slate online.

Favourite Smells?
Petrol. Lime. Ashok.

Favorite Sound?
The Sea.

Worst Feeling In The World?
that of the world having abandoned you when you need it the most.

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake Up?
fuckity fuck fuck.I'm so fucked.

Favorite Fast Food Place?
Don't laugh: Teenage Point, Visakhapatnam, venue of many many birthday parties in my very eventless childhood and hence THE place I loved the most for two years. Mesa Pizza, Minneapolis - Pizza that tastes like manna when drunk and like crap when sober, hence a very deserted place in Dinkytown on a weekday afternoon, silence and spice.

Future Child’s Name?
Asya. Arav. yes, we're prepared for twins. if we have triplets, one of those babies is going to be very very unlucky.

Finish This Statement: If I Had A Lot of Money, I’d...
save.

Do You Drive Fast?
yes but only when I'm in a car. the hair's holy. the hair's not to be ruined just to get somewhere sooner.

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal?
no. I hate sharing my bed with anything/anyone. I don't think he knows this.

Storms– cool or scary?
been subjected to quite a few having grown up in a costa zilla. I love storms.

Do You Eat The Stems on Broccoli?
I eat everything. stems, stalks, shoots, roots. but yeah, yet to graduate to meat. getting there. getting there.

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Colour, What Would Be Your Choice?
I couldn't get myself to stray too far from my basic brown the two times I tried to "make things exciting". I'm pretty sure I'd look stupid with red or magenta on my head. apologies for not being very creative/adventurous in this department: chestnut brown, it is.

Name All The Different Cities/Towns You’ve Lived In.
Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad. ermm, Chennai for a wee bit. Minneapolis. Gandhinagar.

Favorite Sports To Watch:
none.

One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You:
I like her because we have similar stories.

What’s Under Your Bed?
well. there isn't a bed. there's a mattress, that's too small for two. however, I am aware of what's under that mattress coz
a. the floor's infinitely cooler than the mattress and ashok put together
b. I have a habit of dangling off my beds, and
c. ashok's an asshole.

under the bed is a very gross floor.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again?
nope. how can I be born as myself anyway unless the whole world around me decides to repeat itself? even if the whole world cooperates to recreate every circumstance that's shaped me, what's the point, again?

Morning Person or Night Owl?
Night Owl but my regular bed time of 4 am can hardly be called night.

Over Easy or Sunny Side Up?
Over Easy. runny whites maketh a queasy morning.

Favourite Place To Relax?
there's this coconut tree that no one cared about when it was a little coconut plant. so, it grew at an easy incline leaning over my grandma's garden wall. the trick is to scale the wall first and then inch up the tree. then you lean back, trust friction, ignore the harmless black ants, let the breeze dry you off, hum old telugu songs and talk to the old lady sitting in her armchair on the first floor balcony. heaven.

Favourite Pie?
Pecan.

Favourite Ice-Cream Flavour?
Mint Chocolate Chip.

You Pass This Tag To–
nobody. lemme count the number of people who did what they were asked to the last time we tagged them. zero!
as I've just demonstrated, we're friends with some fiercely independent people in blogland and they'll write what they want to, regardless of who tags them, anyway. right, alternative excuse: we don't know nobody and everybody else is friggin' lazy.
alright, would update this part later.

Of All The People You Tagged, Who’s Most Likely To Respond First?
if I did, how about nobody?

Meanwhile, India is freakishly hot and I regret my decision to leave behind my open toe shoes very much. More later.

since we cannot grasp this eternity at once

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:05:00 +0000

we tell each other that this is far less than, say, an year. thirty hours shouldn't be difficult if we can wade through three years. thirty is small. finite. easily countable with the eight limbs we have between us. surmountable. then there is hysterical laughter. sheer terror and unmitigated joy tingling across continents. then the breaking down under the pressure of it all and a calm reassurance that we'll do fine and that I am nuts.

it'd be easier if there was some momentum. things getting taken care of, lists getting crossed out, calls being made. instead I gave myself three days of nothingness. alright, frantic last-minute clubbing isn't nothingness. three days of nothing-important-ness, then. what is to be done with this pile of clothes that I was hoping to grow back into? and this grim reaper coat that'd probably kill me if worn outside of Minnesota? and my resilient pink heart-shaped balloon that's been floatin on since Valentine's day as a symbol of undying roomie love? it's the what-is-not-important-enough question that makes this so irritating. I can see the wisdom in being a monk now. and in not moving away from partners with a more practical outlook towards packing. it's very easy, he says. pick. crush/fold. pack. simple. of course, it's not that simple. every scrap of paper found has to read through and reminisced over. every piece of clothing has to be judged cruelly. in spite of the fact that nothing is gonna get thrown away, anyway.ok. the nearest Goodwill is bound to get a few boxes of blingy indian clothes if I really plan to take a flight home. one more day and so much to throw away. (this is calming me down. I'm actually realizing that I need to throw away stuff.)

Other thoughts? Apollo 13 is not the best movie to watch 30 hours before an international flight. Jus as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn't a nice idea a day before you leave home the first time for Bushland.
I'll miss you, America. You of the many weird people I'll never get to see back home. land of opportunities. that made me realize I wasn't ready for all those opportunities and never might be. I'll miss being exotic. and I'll miss being truly free. You have made me less judgmental, more aware, more concerned, more reckless, more beautiful in the Indian sense of the word beautiful, and less healthy. works for age 22, America, works splendidly. Maybe, I'll come back again and, maybe, you'll have been through a black president and done with silly wars and the brown-people-are-terrorists phase by then. Adiós.

Housekeeping: check out the new colors on this baby. and let me know if it kills your eyes. also, I might have screwed up the blog feed thingie. I don't know yet. Somebody tell me it's working. please.

the future's not a fugitive anymore.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:58:00 +0000

calls herself aishwarya. and aishwarya, won me over. cud have driven by her, made it to nowhere, as ignorant of light and being, as of milan kundera. she could have as easily been just another pretty face, irritatinly nameless, and fleetinly memorable as i could have ended up bein just another asshole, inevitably cynical, and comfortably anonymous. only, she was my angel undercover.after a lifetime of nut-crunchin ball games with malice and the mundane, she blessed me.the bitter sweet symphony of a hard fought victory.she blessed me. had our share of lex luthers and darth vaders. of nightmares and northern stars. she took my arm, held on tight, and refused to give in. to give up. everythin took its toll. there was distance. there was darkness. prophecies of imminent death and parables of starcrossed lovers. all we had was us. and flipbooks of a beautiful future. till death do us apart. we believed. past the haze of unrest and infinite space, gazin into each other, only to stare at ourselves starin back. we knew. to hold on was to make happen. and happen we would. she fought for me, as i took the blow, past her scream. shrill.dry.spellin out my name, in fear and breathin. cud afford to smile through the ride to hell and back. for eventually seemed next door, and life, was on hold. pacin all over, for us to arrive. weak and down on our knees, bled off color and courage, chivalry hangin out to the wind, she still held my arm, as we swam ashore. to the other side. finally, we had each other. and that somehow, explained. everythin and then some more. embalmed in her embrace, liplocked, and open-eyed, breathin warmth into each other, we were plain grateful. that it almost left us spent and senile, that it could so easily not have been, and that we managed to gift us with life. maybe someday, it would really sink in. that it took me bein outrageously blessed to be spendin the rest of my life, with my pretty princess. it took us, every bit of us. the fact that three years later is two weeks from now is testimony, that god after all, isn't busy playin dice with a very dead einstein.

Journeys End in Lovers Meeting.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:08:00 +0000

So, I'm abandoning everything I've ever believed I needed to start over new. Simply because I'm tired or, even worse, lazy. Ever been stretched so bad that you thought you'd snap? Ever hated everything about you so much that you needed to stop, step outta your life and disappear? Well, I've decided to quieten all the sane voices in my head for once and do the craziest thing I could possibly come up with. I've decided to brush off my system the idea that some things/situations are necessary for my happiness and install in its place the idea that most of these things are, at best, desirable. I'm quitting and I'm at peace. I will be with him and all will be well with my world.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

everything has an upside. except teen anorexia.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:58:00 +0000

everything has an upside. everything. war and terrorism. corruption and anarchy. genocide and moral policing. there's nothing that doesn't present an encouraging face to the optimist on dope. except maybe, teen anorexia and exhaust fumes from the vehicle in front of him. what is a cynic but a realist with a warped sense of humor? you've to be a cynic to look at the upside of living in a hostel. a prison cell with roommates far less interesting than child-killers with a cross tattooed across their chest. or gay hustlers with asthma. the hostel. with a crumbling remnant of the forgotten art of brotherhood passing off as an excuse to borrow your soap, its not always the flowerbed where personalities bloom or the shower booth outta where real men with hairy chests walk out. heads held high and diplomas held in their armpit. not always. for me, living here was as fruitful as lookin at the sky with the hope of being blinded by stardust. flightclub warns us against everyday being a copy of a copy of a copy. out here everybody is a copy of a copy of everything you despise about humanity. the nerds and geeks with binoculars for eyeglasses. the professors who keep forgetting they are not life members of the third reich. the food that tastes like baked shit on the better days. and women who were better off being victims of female infanticide. everythin out here was a fucking violation of my rights as a starry eyed 18 year old stepping onto the deceptively manicured lawns of the campus. its true. i did not know what to expect. i remember clutching at the hackneyed imagery of productive college activism, a group of close knit buddies and the possibility of young love. it was not to be. and how! six months into what turned out to be half a decade of solitary confinement, i decided to withdraw. into my own six by four. scrawled from roof to floor with the scribblings of the voluntarily deranged. seeking asylum in my own private nation populated by movie posters and undemanding play lists. and this my frend, was the upside. this and the fact that you aren't required to flush in a hostel. the hostel was blessed with a local area network that in turn blessed me with timely supplies of personal entertainment. the college housed, what was a behemoth peer to peer network with a sharesize running into thousands of gigabytes. cinephilia was my escape. and alternative rock, my cpr. for a long long time, movies were the only audience to my display of any personal emotion. i crackled delightfully as billy wilder herded me through the next plot twist. i stared awe-stuck as bogart wondered if his was the most popular gin-joint in the world. was inconsolable with disappointment at how unremarkable the shining was. while shaking my head in disapproval at the ending of the conversation. movies for me were more important than those petty antics for survival as eating and having a social life. my six by four and an endless supply of cinema were all that i needed to counter the debilitating effects of mind-numbingly inconsequential local mediocrity. i feared conversations with familiar people. shirked away from academic requirements. honed what she calls a fiercely non-conformist point of view into an all-consuming hunger for an alternative reality. where people just don bother you with as much as their sorry existence. spent countless hours in an endless riviera, lamenting, among other things, the progressive loss of style in the cinema of the late 90's and the lack of availability of terribly good indie cinema. the sojourn into alternative rock had equally rewarding consequences. anti-establishment stems, not from the hatred of a machinery that doesn't care but from a state of lovelessness and the threat of dying alone. and the knowledge of having nothing to blame for it. warmed up to anything that sung in praise and proof of the sentiment. loved everything that put protest to tune, that sang my fears, and made music out of melancholy. strove to drive away the discouraging pallor of the sense of unsharing with a blanket of sounds that were supposed to be keeping me company. when you've decided to keep people outta earshot, you tend to take what you are listening to that much more personally. with a seriousness you'd prolly accord being held by a breath that cares or being kissed by the lips that warm. a lack of everything is the freedom to do anything? exactly. a hostel that was supposed to be the end of my human fervor wasn't without this upside. the upside of a meaningful loneliness.

i'd trade the last five years in this shithole for a three minute long freefall. if an instantaneous and painless death came with the package. with freebies like one last cigarette and a scoop of peanut butter thrown in. and here's the irony. this was supposed to be the privilege of higher education. this was my window of promise ( and the other way around ).as i look back now, clouded by the anger at an absent nostalgia and wandering aimlessly across a mind space left barren with the sheer lack of any hint of memorabilia, i don't know what went wrong. i don't know if i am guilty. of closing in on myself far too soon. or if this is just a case of a self-scripted tale of emotional impoverishment and self-styled misanthropy. but am sure of one thing. this wasn't how i saw myself turn into an adult. this was certainly not as seen on t.v. this was harsh reality. more harsher than reality. and i am pretty unsure of its long-term effects. i may not turn into a psychotic doom sayer hoping and prophesising an accelerated demise of humanity due to the exhaust fumes in question. neither would i check myself into an art of living center expecting a spiritual car wash. but i'll certainly live with a silver bullet permanently wedged in my insides with "everything has an upside" inscribed on it. because at the end of the day, all said and most of it leaving me alone, i love myself for having stayed alive. if only to be able to watch vanilla sky for the umpteenth time, fifteen minutes from now.

Why, man of morals, tell me why?

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:07:00 +0000

Minneapolis and its horrendously cold winters don't lend themselves very well to walking while lost in thought. I've noticed lately how difficult it is to avoid those small pools of what looks like water but is, in fact,(oh, it surely is, now that's it spring, oh snap, it's) ice while compulsively making lists of five people whose presence my life could have done without or five creative ways to die. I wonder where this obsession with lists of five began. I always ask people for five good reasons to do something I don't want them to do. Three when I want them to do it and there aren't five good ones. But then it's always seven or a multiple of when asked to pick a random number meant to be manipulated to demonstrate my brother's newly discovered math skills. Maybe it's just about odd numbers,then. Or, perhaps, it's about having some illusion of order to my life which is not all that confusing in the first place. All the minor acts of rebellion against the painful normalcy of my life are in turn so normal and so common that there seems to be no way out. Five years ago, I wouldn't have imagined that I'd feel the need to be someone/something/anything else so desperately. I guess, that's what being with a fiercely nonconformist partner does to a hassle-free existence. I discover new oddities every day and then analyze them and blow them up till they become distinct parts of my identity. Even though making lists of five isn't necessarily a character building activity or really a quirk given the sheer number of people who can think and know how to count, I imagine I'm the only one I know who does it, just to feel special. Just to be like him. And then there are things that everybody I know really does. Like studying for years to land a job. and then taking that job to live the life. and then living and wanting that life even though it's probably far more difficult than just doing nothing or even dying. These have come to mean nothing because everyone does them. Even though, what I've been learning and the life I was assured of by going through six unkind years of college almost completely influence what I am today, these parts of my life are to be subdued or ignored because they involve this other trait called ambition and ambition is never cool. yes, I said cool. Because an engineer is neither endearing nor interesting to anyone, but a fan of snow patrol is, perhaps, both and more. The love for the right kinda movies and music says to some, here's one with good taste. The love for, what I think is, the right kinda education and a real career just says in large neon letters: ordinary.

I zoned out for a while here, censoring myself and using the backspace button fervently, and had this blinding moment of clarity. yeah, the one followed by a resounding thwack to the forehead for not realizing something so simple earlier.

I have gone from being torn between wanting to please my parents and wanting to do what I like even though it hurts the health of my relationship with my parents to being torn between wanting to please Ashok and wanting to do what I like even though it hurts the health of my relationship with my Ashok. Every single time I manage to do what I like I secretly think of myself as unimaginably heroic. Even though it involves something as un-grand as finding and falling for Ashok(in the previous case) or getting sloshed(in the latter). My parents always said they didn't really have a problem with me finding and falling for someone, they just weren't happy about a few things: like timing, Ashok and his general influence on me. Ashok always says he doesn't really have a problem with me getting drunk, it's just the timing and alcohol's general influence over me that riles him. Oh, you and I know what else is gonna rile him, this comparison and this blog post. But, today I can be reckless coz tomorrow I could be jobless and, subsequently, broke and internetless. I go get pasted and try to hug the My Chemical Romance star on First Ave's walls (when sufficiently drunk I feel the name has special meaning given this thing we two have going here) because I'm never going to get to do it again. I dance like I'm possessed from the moment I start buzzing coz I have trouble even smiling at people when sober but I really like people, I like being around them, I don't like sitting alone, constantly trying to please people who're important to me but don't really like me unless I'm the way they want me to be. Drunk people love each other. Drunk people don't care what you are. There's no real need to be unique when you're moving with a crowd. There's no need to watch out for death traps set in ice on the sidewalks coz there is no embarrassment or pain until later. Five good reasons to fuck up your liver and lungs? I'll give you one. For jus those few hours/minutes it doesn't matter if you're ill-equipped in every way for the life you're being asked to live.

tag attag. my kinda weird.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:03:00 +0000

this is for ziah. aishwarya gamely responded to her tag while i stayed true to the glacial pace i pride myself with. its almost illegal, how i treat matters of online consequence. something to do with the inherent comfort of impersonality that ether can afford you. and about the theme. seven possibly shocking and necessarily weird facts about myself. before i turn my psyche inside out and lead my dark secrets to light, i have to agree with ziah. its difficult to tag what really is a personal idiosyncrasy as weird if you haven't tried to lose it. the fact that they exist is proof that you have made peace with them. they go as far as shaping into your own personal forms of protest. against the ultimate in conformity. that of regular humanity, all of which, they say, can be mapped onto a single genome.they are probably more than quirky personal traits. more than old habits dying hard. they are what set you apart.the sheep and the scarecrow. the shock of invisible red hair your personality is determined to preserve. the self-proclaimed war cry against ubiquity. they may be weird but not unfamiliar. strange but not inexplicable. hilarious but notwithout purpose. they are after all, carefully ignored unusual habits that people credit us with. and the other way around. why is this turning into a declaration of independence? let me stop my opening statement. and take the plunge.

weird fact 1 : an unhealthy obsession with the 60's

there is somethin unresolvable and gripping about the 60's. the irresistible glamor and an unhealthy nihilism aside, the fact that an entire generation of able young people swayed to the clarinet of individual expression and unregulated freedom is fascinating. i have always rued the absence of a cause in my life. an all-consuming activism, not necessarily political or socially relevant. a belief system governed by my own laws. about nature and human response. steadfastly held, in spite of overpowering opposition and indoctrination. challenging existing authority with a glint of mischief. irreverence with a hint of the devil. the 60's had them all. young people taking to the streets, hollering about their own individual take on justice or the lack of it. braving a knee-jerk clampdown and pamphleteering for what they thought was the sake of humanity. they took themselves seriously, though i guess they were far too right for their own good. students, just like you and me, standing up to an enraged political administration. seeking accountability.demanding change. fighting for peace. i don't imagine there would be a time, quite like the 60's. or would there ever be a phase in human history, when makin love was an expression of solidarity and handing out a flower was an advertisement for hope. they could have been flawed. maybe humanity would never survive so much hope. and of course, they simpered down to a slow death. but i really wish i was there. i really wish i handed out a flower and smiled.

weird fact 2 : an equally unhealthy obsession with the tragic

all my earlier posts stand irrefutable testimony to this. i can be irredeemably sad. almost nothing in the world can save me from the gloom i can nurture. i can be depressingly cynical, infectiously sullen and inhumanly distraught. almost everything in this world can make me sad. and i can spend a million hours just mulling over why i mull so much. whats weird about this,is that i need an absolutely flawless environment to be able to function normally. and in keeping with the truth of life, nothin is flawless. and i realize this stupid grudge about the stupid rule, by shuttin down. by withdrawing into the safety of voluntary inaction. self-pity comes easy when you start believing you were the victim. equally easy is being a pessimist, when nothin ever worked for you. i guess am just a dissatisfied glummy bear. the trouble is, this obsession with the tragic seems to bleed into other worldly functions. if i ever write, i only write about how sad life is. i watch a movie that ends with the usual happily ever after and construct an alternate ending where everybody gets killed as an asteroid smashes into our planet. this is not sick masochism. i am far too ordinary for that. its just me not being able to come to terms with the existence of so much happiness in the face of the obvious and inescapable evil that abounds underneath every human. can anybody ever claim to be entirely free of malice? can there ever be a utopia, which can prove the existense of a higher power beyond any reasonable doubt? i don't know. and it makes me sad that i don't.

weird fact 3 : i cannot communicate over a telephone.

if you can get hold of my mobile phone and check on my contact list, it'd prolly throw up as many names as there are people who can spell "bourgeois" right in the first go .i only use my fone to talk to aishwarya and to say yes to all that my mom asks me to do. somehow it feels too unreal for comfort. trying to picture a face behind the voice, animating the voice with an imaginary body language, infusing it with the inflections you are not quite sure you can make out. it just is too much work. the few times that i do receive a call from somebody i am not exactly dying to talk to, its a pain shuffling on my feet, trying to not get bored and coming up with some way i can end the conversation without really spellin out how big an asshole i am. i dread unknown numbers so much that i skirt away from answering any number i do not have committed to memory. an upshot. i cannot quite understand the fuss that surrounds the regular foray of mobile fones and the people ready to bow down to some contraption that lets them blog and shoot and flaunt and touch and play and gyrate. in addition to the incredible option of actually calling a human being. its not really weird considering the premium i think personal interaction should be accorded with. almost everybody i know have given up on tryin to reach me through a telephone. which most of the time is my own loss. but i don't think i can give up on the habit. here's to silence, solitude and sounds with a face attached to them.

weird fact 4 : i cannot bring myself to say cool.

this has to be the weirdest of them all. i cannot bring myself to say cool. this has to be the weirdest of them all.

weird fact 5 : keep trying to make an OST of my life

i've been a militant fanatic of indie alternative punk since i discovered box car racer's "there is", half a decade ago. the reason why it was so liberating was the fact that it seemed to be strumming out lyrics, that wouldn't have been outta place applied to what was goin on with me, back then. they fit in, right down to the last rough edge. then came jimmy eat world with "night drive" which put me to sleep as i was grapplin with a disappointing rite of passage. sum 41's "pain for pleasure" articulated my energetic confusion while "pieces" lent background to the sadness that was threatening to seep in. i flirted with iron maiden and metallica for a while, but they sounded far too archaic and irrelevant to be my spokespeople. drifted back to cold play, and they gifted me with "fix you". there couldn't have been a better representation for the promise of a second chance. box car racer returned, this time in the garb of blink 182 and with "i am lost without you", they ensured i din lose faith in the healing powers of familiar music played repeatedly. and then, there came snow patrol with "run". that song was divine intervention. it was just what god would have sung if he was signed up by a record label. it was everything. i am not exaggerating. you just have to listen to it, to know what i am talking about. i keep adding tracks to my ost. keep lookin for newer music that i imagine would fit into my ost with the downside being outright rejection of every other blameless track. for the simple reason, that its not singing for me.

and for reasons best undisclosed, aerosmith and "I don't want to miss a thing" occupy a very special spot in that ost.

weird fact 6 : i have a mortal fear of snakes.

the darned creatures weren't supposed to survive so long. never had a close call with one of them, but i routinely recall my best brandon lee education each time i step on a hose. i've never been able to overcome the stupid fear. she thinks they are graceful. that they help in eco-balance and make for exciting nat geo programming. i am not sure if a balanced ecology would do me any good after one of them gets me in the backside, someday.

weird fact 7 : i am horribly susceptible to vice.

give me a hint of the satan and the opportunity to get addicted and i'd take to almost anything. no questions asked. no will power exercised. and no remorse exhibited. there is something irresistibly sinister about the seduction of the dark side. something about practicing the prohibited. guess its a remnant of my juvenile years, but i still revel in repelling authority. i realize most of the times, that i am treading that thin line between making a statement and losing your footing. but if you were dying to know to know how free fall felt, would you not want to jump? among my latest acquisitions is a wanton liking for playing cards. i play low stakes, low brow and low class. but its begun to make sense why gambling is so frigging addictive. the sheer anticipation of making easy money, coupled with the usual ecstasy of winning in a group added to the dignity of getting away with something illegal. trust me on this, you'd not stop at embracing the devil. you may just go ahead and offer him your neck.

and that, would be it. the seven weird traits that made the grade. i should definitely be concerned about some of them. especially about the new found love for wagerin small change for gambling. but the fact that you can't help but succumb, that you'd rather live with them than try to address them, only adds that faintest hint of mystique to your personal weirdness.

Hard Times

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:19:00 +0000

It came down to a 15-minute walk to home and three-day old rice or a 5 minute ride to West Bank and getting lost trying to find this restaurant I've been dying to be at(since, hmm, the last 24 hours).Well, five minutes later, I found myself staring at a chalk board (vegetarian!) menu that says:
Coffee: $1.00
Stupid Questions: $5.00

People, I've fallen in love with Hard Times Cafe. Rather, fallen in love with the idea of me - this very uninteresting, barely alive, woman with deep-seated faith in a (now) conservative religion, the establishment/system, and order - stepping into a place that flaunts it's anarchist history (and present) and finally feeling like I'm home.

Like always, paused an awkward second while deciding whether to give my real name for the tab or that shorter-but-easier-on-the-american-tongue form I so hate and then spelt out a-s-h. The guy writing it down notices that I'd hesitated and wants to know if that's my undercover name. I whip out my card to pay for my food and was told they accept only cash. of course.

I find a table in a corner crawling with white etchings of what looks like somebody's thesis in theoretical physics. There's crazy graffiti all over the wine-red walls. Wine-red walls. My idea of a perfect room has been, for a long time: wine-red walls, moroccan rugs, mood lighting and the faint smell of an existence steeped in leisure. I look around for a blue-haired person, there's gotta be one in a place like this, hollywood says so. It turns out, the blue-haired woman with a mysterious air about her, who later in the night changes your life forever, is, in fact, a language major with raven black hair. She's scribbling furiously onto her legal notepad, I peer and discover she's practicing the devanagari script. of course.

At this point, I'm wondering if the novelty of West Bank will ever wear off. Been 18 months since I first stumbled onto this side of the river and I always find something to gape at for a bit longer than is acceptable. I catch a glimpse of a mural of a many-armed being with one hand clutching a severed head before a group of somalians obscures it again, a highly inappropriately placed hindu god, I reckon. A visibly stoned guy is smiling a benignant smile at me. I find out that my quesadilla is seasoned with lime. The visibly stoned guy is now feeling around on his table for his coffee mug while still smiling his benignant smile. I find out that spicy really means spicy out here. The somalians want to know why there's no music. Some ancient, awkwardly-tuned cambodian song with shrill female vocals and a hint of a western rhythm blares outta speakers placed right over my head. I pull out my copy of English, August: it's been on that reading list way too long. Perhaps, it was meant to be that I read of unbelonging at this very point in my life.

Spent two hours absorbing the dull clamor and irreverence in the air before making a trip to the loo. The restroom's walls scream out a hundred different thoughts scrawled on by those not satisfied with the larger, more open canvas outside. Some responsible citizen had carved out a list of 'chariots' - cab phone numbers - near the mirror. Zoned out for a bit in that tiny room, could feel a presence in there, it felt like the comforting touch of a million lost souls, felt like there's no place I'd belong to, no place that'd like me, none that I'd be at peace with and knew for the first time that it was alright. I walked out into a wall of cold air ten minutes later and for once didn't hate Minneapolis all that much.

rough seas and the northern star

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:40:00 +0000

a momentary surge in the machinations of your circulatory system and an arguably audible snap in your oblangata coupled with a horrible sight of your own suicide and a generous helping of primal fear. this is how you resist insistent condemnation. accused of vandalism when you were only trying to gather the broken pieces. you respond with righteous anger and a reflex of self-pity. held for murder when you were only trying to help. you fightback with eloquent silence and a faith in goodness. for innocence is much too dignified to protest. and the truth isn't too good to be itself. you hope to be understood. by the inebriated mind of the self appointed vigilante. from above the din of flying daggers and hopelessly accurate fists, you wish for another time. another place. another chance.

can you be wrongfully right?

You may have tried.with intentions as honorable as self-less courage. sparing no practical effort and swearing an allegiance for life and the thereafter. when no distance is far enough, you ask yourself this. how far can you go, if the collateral is hope. would you stop, if the end is the only incentive? falter, if pain is the only inspiration? you don't risk asking questions, if the answer spawns a mist of despair. tempted to look back and take stock, you trust your gut and keep moving. to retrospect, is to risk fatigue. and to tire, is to die. you stand up tall. on your knees. living out a lifetime's worth. of anguished anticipation. of steel chaired waiting rooms. of dogeared magazines and the smell of disinfectant. you close your fists.take the name of the lord. in vain desperation. you stare with suspicion. at your own new-found religion. wishing for help, you wander. between begging without pride.death before dishonor is a distant luxury. you wish nothing changed. things are always different. from what you remember. people aren't always the same. as those you remember. we have waited all this while. with different perspectives. in different time lines.

how difficult is staying happy?

i have been loved. to know that, to hold that hand that wanted to hold you back, to kiss that face that wanted to kiss you back, has been the greatest gift of my life. i knew her. more than the fact, that she was the one. i knew her. as the only one. when you are living out a fairytale, its easy to dream. its easier to get confused. between whats necessary. and whats possible. between an ordinary present. and a better future. i wanted her. she wanted us. not the same thing. like resilience and resistance. like pure silence and deafening noise. she was willing to wait. till the tide and tilt at sunset. and i was holding her tight. till she lost her patience and breath. i din want to lose her. while i dug my nails in. i din want to let go. while i was pinning her down. i did not know. that the reason why we were the greatest love story on earth could flit between plain vanity and the genuine truth. i want to clean my non-existent act and still look into her eyes. i want to promise change and still make her smile. you never know you've lost it. until you notice the absence. i have begun to notice. and i want her to know. that i love her. i can't be sorry without the obvious triviality of the word. i can't take us back there despite the impossibility of the thought. but i want us to want to sleep together again. i want us to dream away the nightmares, this time.

P.S : she hates the seemingly disconnected rant i just posted. but she'd understand the underlying purpose of it. we have hit a rough trail, my friend. and we are fighting to keep us alive.

Autonomy

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:12:00 +0000

a myth.

sigh.

Weird!

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:55:00 +0000

There is no escaping now, I think, now that I actually have been tagged to write something. There always is the 'was too busy with my thesis to blog' trick. Sadly, there is also the 'I wrote a 1000 word essay, yet again, about the same thing I always write about and it's now your turn' trick too. The problem is that there is nothing weird about me. Or interesting. which, as ye invisible readers must've figured out by now, is the reason I write so little and so far between. So, I present to you a list of, let's jus call em amusing, facts about me.

Oh, wait, the 'rules' of the tag. I'm required to
a. Link to the person that tagged me: Ziah, you couldn't have chosen a time worse than now, lady. Follow the blog closely and make him do fun stuff like this: it's easy, I leave symbols to guide you. Leave me to my inappropriate RSS style propaganda posts!
b. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about me: Patience, we're gettin there!
c. Tag 7 other people at the end of the post: Now, this is gonna be a challenge. Ashok, hon, we really need to socialize.

And now *drumroll* Seven Amusing Things About Aishwarya

a. I have nine moles on my face. Three around my mouth which in the absence of the other two could've worked perfectly as beauty spots. Yeah, I know what you're thinkin. I don't have skin cancer.

b. Or Diabetes. Or Pancreatitis. Not severely hypochondriac, but slowly and surely gettin there. With support and borrowed paranoia from Ashok. It is quite strange that I'm still alive considering I grew up in a household that firmly believed in paracetamol panacea. So, I'm surprised that nothing's wrong with my body (goddammit, the brother at least has allergies) and try to read a li'l too much into every stomach ache and sneeze.

c. Oh, nor do I have 'weird brain disease' that makes me wildly intelligent as it worsens. Always wanted to have a major catastrophic illness which no one but I and a friendly uncle knows about. And wither away. And be a genius the world didn't know it was losing. And then die within 24 hours of my secret being revealed and leave behind some unimaginably brilliant work.

d. Yeah, I stare at the pimples on my ceiling all night and dream up a lotta weird things like that. I can also loose track of time admiring myself in the mirror. I cannot start using a new pair of socks without first checkin if that tiny metal clip/hook/thing holding the socks together makes for a good clip-on nose ring.(it does.)I always smile at myself in the mirror, even if I've been crying till just a moment ago. I've tried practicing speeches in front of the mirror but never get past a line or two because I start smiling at myself. Very embarrassing but I must admit that I feel better when I look good. I suck at looking good.

e. I don't understand what the big deal about a hot meal or a hot drink is. It think this too is a direct after-effect of my largely forgotten but probably traumatic childhood. Mom was busy being the busy working woman and middle-class India had not discovered the magic of microwave yet. So now, I walk into a coffee shop in our crazy Minnesotan winter and ask for an IceCrema 'cause I can't wait till regular coffee cools down enough for me to be able to even sip and the barista has this look that reads, 'the snow probably does weird things to immigrant-looking people'.

f. I can sleep for obscene lengths of time. And if my neck didn't begin hurting after 16 hours, I'd sleep some more. No, we're not talkin about crashing after a tiring day, once in a while. We're talkin about weeks spent just sleeping and waking up to eat and then sleeping some more. Ashok thinks I'm hibernating.

g. Most days I'm happy spending my time alone. There are very few people I care about. I am the most important person in the world. But, I also want to travel a lot and meet people worth traveling across the planet to meet.

Oh, alright, so the last one was not really all that weird.
Or amusing.
That's because, I can't think of seven weird things about myself. I might be conceited. Wait, if I'm not sure does that mean I'm not?
And I did ask him for one weird thing about me. Well, he's too friggin scared of me to actually suggest anything weird enough for the purposes of this post. Like I'd believe the very fake,'shit, there's nothin weird about you??' thing he did. Just you wait till we quarrel again.

Now for the tagging 7 other people part. I can't think of many people who'd take me seriously if I were to tag them. And most of the people I can think of have already been tagged. Thanks a ton, Ziah. So, I'm gonna be really fair and let him tag four people and come up with three forward links myself.

Here's my list.
all or nothing who doesn't really say much ever but just might take this on for a change.
Ubiquitous who hasn't written much in a long long time. and,
Alien who's been around since we started this blog.

do nightmares have a director's cut?

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:18:00 +0000

people unsound of the mind, and unhappy with the world have imaginary friends. they call them jack. or tyler. depending on whether you vote for the shining or the fight club. people high on newsroom conspiracies and invisible wmd's have imaginary fears. they call them muslims. or any of the equally islamic names of oil-rich countries. depending on whether you vote republican or democratic. those with vivid imagination, and lotsa spare time, have imaginary lives. they call them hell or heaven. depending on whether they vote for suicide or an eternal cycle of pause, play and repeat. i am one of them. i lead an imaginary life.

let me,or something like it,explain.

i live alone. but in the company of the girl of my dreams. i don't talk to people. but my jaws hurt reeling out my day to her. i don't eat much. but i light my rationed cigarette after every home cooked meal. i don't have a home. but i try painting every wall red and blue. i don't have kids. but i help them with their homework everyday. i know am losing it. but i have everything to the point of excess. i have the best imaginary life in the universe. every unimportant thing that happens, is an important plot point. every new indie rock song, a thankless addition to the original sound track of the life i don't have. singing in praise of the people we are both not. not yet.

forever suspended in anticipation. beauty delayed on arrival. and a future of unmitigated goodness, lost in transit.

freeze frames and picture books of anniversaries that never happened. conversations and minor conflicts that almost seem real. walking barefoot on sand and foam, hand in hand with thin air. lulled into sleep by the whispers of a cold wave. painting stick-people with my fingertips, on the small of her back. and the nape. both made out of regulated hallucinations. making shapes out of cotton candy clouds. and laughing back at the memory of her face. and her laughing back at the memory of mine. uncorking wine and tinkling tall glasses that are always empty, and never spill over. li'l triumphs over everydayness, gloriously memorable victories over the general dictatorship of boredom, sweeping acquisitions of lifestyle enhancements. all ignorant of their strange intangibility and obvious impossibility.

invitation to a display of blank painting frames. holiday cruises on ghost ships through dead fish. and weekends in the basement. with the music on mute.

i love all forms of my life. love the way it pans out of lush green grasslands to reveal one winged monsters. determined to take their loss of flight out on my wish to soar. i love my wished for life. with all its predictable drama. and the imaginary long faces and even longer freeways to reality and perspective. i love the girl of my dreams. i know she is real. i know she is out there. somehow dreaming up the same impossible dream. reaching out through the haze and hate, that goes around as respectable denizens of this dying planet, battling out her own army of scampering personal demons. scheming a way out to me at the other end of the labyrinth. in my fairy tale, she has to reach me while i am still standing. and for me to get back up on my feet, i'll have to hit ground soon.

and wake up.

A Change in Theme

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:02:00 +0000

because it's my turn to write and as ever I can't think of anything to write about. This evening started with I thinking of watching Munich. I sauntered into its IMDB page to check the ratings before I began but found myself reading page after page of discussion on the Israeli-Arab conflict. In the words of one of the more reasonable sounding Jews on the board there was one "propagandist, the ideologue who cares more about winning an argument, trouncing an enemy, upholding the virtue of the ingroup, than testing her assumptions and learning something new" supporting zionist politics, battling a whole bunch of people and rejecting everything that sounded sane. Then for a natural progression towards 'Hindutva' and Vedic 'Science'. However, most of the stuff I read offended me, like all those of-course-god-exists! arguments with Ashok do, mostly because all the (scholarly) text only adds to all the reasons there are for quitting on Hinduism. When I don't wanna quit. But then, I found this:

I asked myself, what sort of secularism have we created in our country that has appropriated my claim to my intellectual heritage?

and am convinced I should hang on.

So, even if he hates me for doing this to our blog while he sleeps, blissfully unaware, here's the link to a paper I loved: The Dilemma of a Liberal Hindu

remote host dead and buried.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:15:00 +0000

there are two things you can do with your sorry mortal self, thats more exciting than living in gandhinagar. listening to the radio on mute. and arguing with your dog about the trans literal versatility of the french new wave of the 60's. how did i end up living in gandhinagar? moved here from hyderabad four years ago. just when the new kid on the cosmopolitan block that hyderabad is, was waking up to disposable incomes,women drivers and public displays of affection. just when i was waking up to alcohol, alternative rock, and alliteration. i was just out of high school, armed to the hilt with a clean conscience and obnoxiously good ranks in entrance examinations. bad things, they say, happen to those who don floss before they go to bed. and i ended up in the dhirubhai ambani institute of information and communication technology. the university's in gandhinagar, gujarat. and my life, changed forever. change is good, they say. i'd love to get my hands and feet and dynamite sticks on whoever said that. a four year stint here was supposed to grant me among other things, a degree in ICT, proud parents, a beautiful wife just the right kinda dumb to follow me back to some G8 nation, a set of ties that match my socks, and the financial freedom to proactively indulge in lifestyle catalogues. a four year stint here and i don have a degree. i live in a one room tenement with a coffee mug¹ for an ashtray,and a laptop for a lifeline. and i have a bad case of bronchitis. shit. this is that point in a man's life, when he starts wishing his dad was an oil baron. my love's an effective distance of a coupla small planets away and i secretly wish india invades the united states. pulling a csi on the life that was, and tracing everything back to where it started, i find myself standing on a carpet of garbage with a yellow board sticking its head out and tryin hard to convince me that it certainly was the ahmedabad railway station. yeah, that was four years ago. the filth was appalling. i have this annoying habit of drawing an unfair parallel between everything this country is infamous for and its counterpart in a much cleaner, less corrupt and more colder country. and the filth painfully reminded me of their sanitized public transport systems. and that's been a constant feature of everythin in my life, since. a split screen of the good and bad, seperated by the longitude of national boundaries.

the first semester ended. and everything started going down. she blames chuck palanuick and fight club. and i blame humanity as a form of life. i mean, here i was in a fledgling university trying to fit into a mindless system of learning and unlearning. grappling with the urge to turn into an individual, strugglin with the lack of an ambition. i was 18 and already tiring. i was young and already losing. i don't know if i did not fit in, or if i was just not supposed to, but, i started fashioning an anti-social lifestyle. out of bits and pieces of expressions of resistance and acts of rebellion. when helpless in the face of a bullying enemy, you hurt yourself. just your li'l circus of pain to show that you are not afraid of it. i hurt myself in stupid ways. i flunked and flunked again. foolish enough to imagine i was being true to my ideal.or atleast and more definitely, the lack of it. and the people. they were stupid. obvious idioicracy passin off as grave wisdom. young kids, just like me. they were all content. it was the same university for them. they lived in the same crappy city. but somehow they found the trick to sleepwalk through it. they embraced mediocrity and made peace with the lack of a meaningful youth. i knew this was not the paris of 1968. but it was too one-dimensional for an india in 2007. a software career at the end of the mono-chromatic rainbow was just not going to do it for me. i don know what i was looking for, but what i had was just not what i deemed it should be like.

and i withdrew. threw in my towel, and walked out in utter silence. not a whimper of protest. not a signal of unrest. i just switched myself off, and withdrew. i could not talk the talk. i could not cop out, in deference to a generation oblivious of the rot that set in. in a country with an irritating moral high ground hurtling towards an anchranous future. and i went through the motions. tried to be a theoretical rebel. followed the basic minimum programme of any self-respecting suicide bomber. lusted for zarathusthra. rooted for and against russel and freud. interchangeably. agreed with marx. ridiculed bush. worshipped che. and laughed at god. had the drawl of a scarred young man, with a dark past. i was living out a caricature. as pedestrian as the rest of humanity i sought to debunk. and gandhinagar did not help. neither did the university. it was a downward spiral. colorful, confusing and certainly comatose. i loved the fall. but you hit ground, someday. i hit ground 4 months ago. belated perspective hurts real bad. and truth's just as painful. i knew i missed the clue somehow. all i was supposed to do was pretend blind and feel my way outta the darkness. all that was required of me was a love for the ordinary. an acceptance of the mundane. if i could have reigned in my intolerance for the less beautiful, controlled my aggressive pillage for the higher truth, i could have arrived with the rest of them. in a comfortable straitjacket.

and i did not.

i am 23² and unemployed and unhappy. am hurting her with my lack of ambition. she's always waiting for some sign of a concerted effort. and again, i blame humanity as a form of life. at least the most immediate variety. she is my sanity. i am foolish enough to take it out on her. am scared of failing again. cynicism hits home, when nothing is funny anymore. and i am irritatingly cynical sometimes. waft across universes as disconnected as what i just wrote. thats understandable when you see that i lost the script.lost my bearings. lost my invaluable chance to end up as a nameless, faceless software professional.i don't know anymore. how world peace and making the world a better place, got around from being anthems of redemption to beauty pageant cliches. how armies of young, bright people can short sell themselves. the worst part is,i don't know if i would be anymore happy if i was anything else. i don't want to trade my consistent misanthropy to a comfortable ignorance. if i could change anything that happened over the last four years, guess i'd pass.

and one other thing, thats more exciting than living in gandhinagar? staring into deep space, and waiting for your shooting star.

Update
¹This is what happens to uncreative birthday gifts.
²He is NOT 23. That's just what he wants to believe. Hon, you're 22.
^*Doesn't he jus make you cry sometimes, the sweetheart?

The 1 am Question

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:38:00 +0000

It always begins after he leaves while I'm still not dozing off mid-sentence. I lie there, in absolute silence, lit by the glow from the screen, very incapable of falling asleep. Sometimes my thoughts freeze while I try to decide whether to rush forward or backward. To dream or to ruminate.

That smile I fell in love with teases me to recollect, fill out that face, paint out every detail, every pore, every smooth curve that, by now, I surely must know very intimately. But, the smile is all I remember. Years with him and all I know of my love is his smile. That's all it took, really, to begin with. That's all every day is about. Keeping that easy smile intact till the end of all this. At the end of all this will be a life that can not be described. Even if he tried.

Early morning drives, pass-me-the-sports-page, pasta fights, blatant consumerism, lazing around, sweet-nothings, ear lobes for lunch, indie-movie induced siestas, disastrous meals,you-have-a-pretty-nose-when-I'm-drunk, and then this very moment, lying in the dark, feeling the gentle wave of his breathing, thinking of his smile, while snug in his arms.

Why in the blinkin world did I choose this when I could be doing that?

psychosis, nutcases and the lochness. in that order.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:41:00 +0000

always thought psychosis was a fancy name for plain lack of sleep. and nut cases just an important genre fodder for celluloid. smirked at the idea that one day, i could be staring down at self-inflicted lacerations. counting down people who'd mourn my loss. betting on being forgotten and relegated to somebody who once was. somebody, who could have been. self-importance is a chemical superior to lsd. that heavy rush of adrenaline that cloaks brittle susceptibility with an inflated sense of your invincibility? i just didn't know. that someday, I'd be painting my masterpiece on my wrists. set alight by the red of my leaking ego. the pain drummed out by lack of hope and loss of faith, and the screaming armies of blood thirsty scavengers of your broken spirit. that a sense of loss could deliver spine splitting blows to your wanton lust for a personal triumph. i complain of too much light, fighting eponymous demons in pitch black darkness. where dignity takes a bow, deprivation rings in. of course, you can't have a second helping. of course, there's no such thing as a benevolent super-power. you can only laugh, when the joke's not on you. fair dice is a matter of chance. i don't blame my luck.i should have known better. that you could be a perfect example of a living, breathing, dreaming specimen and still be smelling of formaldehyde. that suicide is more than a simple act of cowardice. to voluntarily submit to the loss of your own life, is to conquer the natural fear of your own death. to give up on survival is to embrace peace.life after death? good. death being truest form of closure? better. miss her. like crazy misses madness. love her. like crazy loves madness.

the impossibly fulfilling knowledge that you deserve to be loved? i feel loved. beyond any scale of reason and logic. she swears she'd be there. for me and for us. she is my only promise. of a lifetime of proximity. till endearing senility takes over. she convinces me its only for the better. that staying away is only a sign that we'd be together. that the two year old lump up our throats would only end in an omniscient melody. that crying everyday is preparation for a better perspective.that mourning every moment lost is a precursor to an endless celebration of life. i want to believe her. keep wishing i could chip in with some form of encouragement. and i fail miserably. i want us to be real. wish we could live some place beyond row houses with IP addresses. its too early, she maintains. we are still a work in progress, she assures. she says the fatigue is self-induced. and the sadness, a necessary evil. i beat myself up. for not being able to see her. beyond the pre-programmed pixellated images, the web cam delivers.but only just. bad lighting and white noise included. when cue of speech is a luxury, you can only say so much. and hope it means something truer than it seems. i have degenerated, she says. from the starry eyed kid who spoke in movie quotes to the whiny little monster with a penchant for sad songs. i wasn't always like this. unmitigated self love has given way to irrevocable self loathing. and i hate being who i am.

i am waiting for the wait to end. when happiness is not spelled impossible, when i don't have to stand in line for peace. that nameless someday. when we step down and stretch. when we arrive and rest. that nameless someday. when we hold hands and sigh. when everything's behind us,and everything else is ok. i resent the fact that these are our best years. and we are losing them to the mechanics of a better life. i could be wrong. this could be the start of a brighter than sunshine life. i don't want to live like this. but it could just be the best i can have. i want us to be happy, and stay at it. i hate my life but i still love her. i mull over death and the afterlife but i still want us to grow old together. i shuttle between stark reality and selective imagery. and i still want to picture us in the same frame. i don resent her planning for the bigger picture. but i want her to notice the little things. and the vanilla sky. that life cannot pause and resume. and that I'd love her,before and after. the best part of pain is that it'd either go away, or you get used to it. i am used to it now. and when it finally goes away, psychosis and nut cases, may just get back to what they were.

aishu baby, love you so much. forgive me. and I'll forgive myself.

dawn-dreaming and other pathetic attempts at finding a title

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:40:00 +0000

I search for women+subjugation+marriage and the first think google throws up is "The Rise and Demise of Women's Liberation". Excited, I flit through the text - that was one radical piece of writing -

Motherhood-as-calling, as sole definition of women’s social function, and marriage as the only “normal” condition of women, serve to assure the necessary annual crop of new proletarians.

I'm not sure if it was too dated or am too programmed to believe I'm liberated but decide to look for somethin worth staying up till 5 AM to read.
And then on the results page I notice the sponsored links am attuned to ignore.

* Married but feeling unfulfilled?
Find local like-minded partners.
* Become a Tupperware consultant and
work from home.
* Find Unhappily Married Local Women
Instant Search Your Area

I am particularly intrigued by the suggestion that Tupperware is related to post-marital subjugation of women. Oh, the other two links just vouch for the fact that we are one filthy generation.

My mother and I are infuriatingly hypocritical women. We'll scoff at women we know who do not think of being only home-makers as being 'only' home-makers,think they're preserving a piece of themselves and exercising their dormant entrepreneurial talent trying to sell tupperware, women who without a trace of self-doubt, and perhaps even regret, will live only for others. She and I have had friends who claim to be ready for life of domesticity and easy affluence - always surprising - considering the women I knew are now only 21, jus outta college, weren't far behind me academically or really regressive rural types. But then who doesn't want a life of domesticity and easy affluence? Who am I kidding, working isn't as much fun as everyone wants me to believe. Challenging, perhaps, but only challenging enough to have me chew my nails off for an hour or two before I see a workaround. The last year has been jus about a bunch of minor accomplishments on the academic front and major bouts of heart-crushing sorrow in my personal life. If I could give up everything, all this - the life I've always wanted, I would, for a life of domesticity and easy affluence.

ah, if only easy affluence was as easy for us as it sounds. I have thought about this before: if I can ever be so rich that I'd not want to be anything. well, other than be rich, that is. a naive new engineering student who was doin quite well for herself that I was, I told myself that I'd bore myself to death not doin anything and that my education, my intelligence is too precious to throw away. And now I stand at the very edge of my comfortable life as a student staring ahead at years of 'gettin there' followed by years of 'almost there' and I want to be magically transported to my 'well, here we are, shall we get that vermeer?' era. on second thoughts don't even need that stupid 17th century paintin, want be comfortable enough to lie around and read about Vermeer all day and maybe consider selling Tupperware. I conform to society's standards of how a woman should look, why the moral high ground when it comes to standards of how a woman should act. I guess I'm reaching here. Women I know who sell tupperware do work their asses off too, at home though, and they can single-handedly churn out smashing meals for a large thankless family. But it just seems so much easier. and peaceful. and strangely fulfilling.

well, who knows? maybe he'll paint his masterpiece and we'll retire at 25 and quickly aquire a taste for pina coladas and malibu.

four hundred grams that can't unfeel.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:45:00 +0000

where reason fails. when any attempt at exoneration, only secretes more rhetoric. when darkness turns from the mere absence of light, to its vehement denial.day collides with night declares war on dawn submits to loss triumphs over reward secedes to guilt.

where do you look for inspiration?

four hundred grams. thats what it weighs, the heart. four hundred grams. it pumps away. in sheer darkness. oblivious, of the tragic soliloquy. wafting across your insides. mindless of the encroaching vines of sad thoughts. it pumps away.thoughtless. innocent.

why are we scared?

an overwhelming wish for unconditional freedom. a gripping prophecy, of an epic calamity. the dilated pupils. of a fast-approaching disaster.you try to garner the firewood of sympathy. long for the familiar scent of familiarity. strain your ears. so you'd not miss a voice. you know the voice. you hate the voices.but you love the singular note of this one voice. that effigy you built of her. all the statuettes of cotton candy. the figurines of rum filled chocolate. the face that remains after you've joined all the dots. when you come to the end of all that you can make sense of. you hear them speak. and all you hear is that one sound. her voice. asking nothing of you. but courage. the courage to be human. the courage to react. constructively.

the courage to give up. compulsion.

you want to break free. the chains of historical submission. want to break out. of the mirrored confines of self-doubt. your heart. all four hundred grams. circulating blatant screams of uninhibited intention. to escape is to touch her. to touch her is to live again. to live again, is to look back. to look back.

inspite of the impossible.

instead, you blame. undo all the good work. turn back the sand clock. smudge your own masterpiece. you blame. invisible angels of a personal nightmare. you reconcile. to be reconfined. four hundred grams is now collateral damage. four hundred grams is now excess baggage. blame. you take stock. you do the math. you look for the leaks. crib for the plugs. self-abuse. the machinations of regret take over. the ruling deities of self-conferred misfortune, wield their iron fist.

you blame.

act like you are acting helpless. you are. helpless. you give yourself up, to the forces of death. you turn yourself in. and inside out. you cheer lustily as you are tried. tried and sentenced. sentenced to more than the lack of life. sentenced to unfeeling. that damp corner, safe from light and life? you scamper to it. smile incredulously. bored witless and free from freedom. you embrace bondage. you crumple. crusted eyelids. that once hid circling fireflies and parallel universes. stable limbs. that once rode over happy surprises and warmer sunrises. time-frozen thoughts. that once unsolved open mysteries and made movies. that never got made.

those four hundred grams. that once heard her say your name. strangely, they still do.

sadness is a smudged neon sign

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:21:00 +0000

Crispy chicken, a bowl of noodles and a lager. That was their last meal together. It was the cafe leopold. This unassuming but spacious bar at the foothills of the imposing Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The cafe, proudly claimed an origin dating back all of a hundred and fifty years. A painting on the wall tried real hard to advertise the cafe's international patronage, rather unsuccessfully. It did have a smattering of tourists, most of them white and some of them surprisingly carryin kids. Surprising, for it was a fullblown indian summer. He was distracted. Something really insistent was playing on his mind. One look at the clock on the wall, said it was nine. They were short on time. And he couldn't bear to think about what lay in store a coupla hours hence. They had shopped for inexpensive clothes all evening, and managed to fall for a clunky bracelet, a frilly brown skirt (which later turned out to be nothing more than a square piece of cloth with a hole cut out in the centre). From the street that housed hundreds of vendors, tryin to make a living out of cheap imitations and mispelled foreign brands, a taxi ride had transported them to the gateway of India, that colonial monument built to symbolize colossal India's submission to its relatively puny imperial ruler.It was tastelessly set alight by vapor lamps, planted inside the building. Though it did not effectively ruin its basalt charm, it did reinforce the notoriety, keepers of history in this country are known for. It was their first visit to a major monument of considerable national acclaim. And they,like a million others before them, tried real hard to register a major landmark in their lives. Visiting the gateway of India. Thats one thing you can strike off your list of things to do, in this lifetime. They knew it was mammoth, when they couldn't fit the whole structure in the viewfinder of their humble cannon. he lit up a smoke, and tried to think straight. Tried to stay in the moment and not wander to distant lands of eventual loneliness. They still had three hours together. three hours of stumbling for happy things to say. Three hours of keeping extremely crippling sadness at bay. They walked a while, along the wall that separated a permanently agitated sea and the more ordinary bustle of the city. She said something about how Mumbai could be the only city walled in from the sea. The Arabian sea. He strangely gave it a thought. Made a note to himself, that he would confirm it afterwards. She lit a cigarette. He noticed, that it was the last cigarette he'd see her smoke. Everything that day, was the last occurrence of something.

The last time they'd ride a train.

The last time he'd see her smile.

The last time they'd hold hands.

They walked along the wall, trying to photograph the entire gateway. They stood there, looking out into the sea. Her words now. Describing how the view of the sea was different from her own home town. He cud sense the strain in her voice. He knew the strain in his own voice. A strain that asked difficult questions but demanded no answers. They crossed over, onto the other side of the street.

The last time they'd cross a street.

He held her hand, while they gazed at the windows lining the entrance to the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. It housed stores of all major insanely-expensive brands. There was Dior, Versace, Zegna and Bvlgari. They wondered how Bvlgari was pronounced. They settled, amicably on vulgari, more for the prices than any consideration for Italian linguistics.They looked around for a place to eat. A few blocks away was the cafe leopold.

the last time they'd dine together.

The time was nine, and they had two hours to go. The food arrived, carried by a waiter, who couldn't have been out of place in any bar,anywhere in the country. He was inoffensively unspecial. Before he finally ordered crispy chicken to go with the lager, he had stared at the menu, unnaturally long .Trying to avoid her eyes. and trying to choose from the extremely wide array of cooked meat on offer. Beef and pork, aren't exactly a regular presence on menu cards in this holy fuckin country, he thought. But this place had quite a few additions for both supposed blasphemies. Somehow, he felt a new surge of respect for the Cafe Leopold. He had never eaten beef. And she doesn't eat meat. They settled for chicken. He fiddled with his food, forcibly calm. And finally gave up half way into it. He cleaned the lager up, while she twirled a single strand of noodles with her fork. they were both contemplating. two hours from now.He was biting his lip, now. while she was fighting to stay collected. She begged him to take care of himself. Repeated invocations of the word love, rent the air.He said he'd be fine, knowing he wouldn't.They decided to have the leftover chicken packed. For the imaginary great dane, loungin around in their imaginary beach house.

The last time, they'd get their food packed.

They got into the taxi, and left for the hotel they were staying in. She was tired. they'd walked a million miles that day. Rode trains and Shopped long. She rested her head in his lap, and slipped into sleep, real quick. They were drivin past Haji Ali, a place of worship for almost everybody, when he first broke down. He looked outta the window, strugglin to fight back resurgent memories of the month gone by. Then it happened. A trickle down the left cheek, and his first thoughts were to stop it from landing on her, resting on his lap. He pressed his eyes close. And wished they'd keep riding through the night. An hour to go. He stroked her hair back from her head. A million vehicles sped all around them. Some expressed their anguish, and threatened with unspeakable violence ,behind them. A million people, with things to do, people to see, families to get back to, nightmares to run away from. Crowded on that one stretch of road. All at the same time. He cried his heart out. While his baby, slept in his lap. He kept stroking back her hair. He kept lookin out. At particularly nothing. But he could see pain. It was a smudged neon sign advertising bath fittings. But he could see pain.

The last time they'd be in the middle of so much traffic.

They reached their hotel. She took a bath,changed into clothes they bought that day.He tried real hard, not to give in. He was determined to keep it as less sad as it was humanly possible. But its human to not want to be alone. Its also human, to look around the room one last time, and break down into your love's open arms. And he did just that. They kissed like they were breathing life into each other. They kissed like they were never gonna kiss again. They kissed and cried. And hugged, in sheer hope of fusing together inseparable but dead. Inseparable. and never mind, dead.

The last time, they'd kiss and cry.

They trudged down, got into the hotel car. It drove them insufferably fast to their destination. They got the bags out. He made a couple of inquiries, and it really was time. They walked leaden footed and heavy hearted, to the door. The bags, her luggage, stacked on a trolley, They got to the entrance for international departures. It was time. There they were. At the end of a glorious Indian summer. The cruel glass door. The point of no return. This is where they stop. This is where they last hug. This is where they last cry. This is where they kiss.For the really last time. She goes into the door. Turns back, looks at him. A rush of vignettes from a parallel universe, where everything around implodes. Crashes into itself. Disappears. and she can run back to him. And they can both go home, to their imaginary beach house, with the imaginary great dane. A parallel universe, so wished for, it could be real. She turns back one last time. He raises his hand, limp and detached. She smiles, from behind the eternal sadness of an unfulfilled wish. And then, she disappears.

The last time, they'd see each other.

elemental weather and a bed by the window

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:46:00 +0000

There's something about rain that makes me, well, not pause and ponder really, though that sounds so much more profound; jus stay up incredibly late and watch it wash all the sickening heat out of my city. I force myself to think sad and for once, I, the queen of all things gloomy, can't come up with one stifling thought to go with the stifling weather. Been very very long since this last happened but I'm calm, laid-back and not thinking of any one thing in particular. All I can see is the simple fact that I've changed so much. Random thoughts and everything that flashes by leads right back to this: that I've changed.

I used to love getting drenched in the rain, a love probably inherited from my dad than cultivated - dad moved from one rain-soaked city to another and missed his rain-soaked land as much as I miss mine now and made sure his kids see him fly into raptures the moment it started drizzling.
I used to love being around people, being surrounded by people I know, chided, bossed over, being loved, belonging. I used to be a rotten sister: younger brothers were never meant to be loved, I willingly submitted to the stereotype of the elder hence smarter sister and was about as big an asshole as indifference allows.
I used to believe in friendship.
I used to believe in love that is forever.
I used to believe in God. completely. without any doubts.
I always wanted to look better than I already did.
I was convinced I'm one of those lesser beings who are solely responsible for the world being a mediocre place that just about runs.

Now,
I will watch the rain from a distance, stretch my arm out and let the drops slide down to my elbow and admire the path a drop takes almost following my vein, but I will not let the rain really touch me.
Friendless, but glad. I used them all, most used me and am now left incapable of trusting anyone but myself.Yes, I care about my brother now and watch with concealed respect what the kid's turning into.
Am not so sure about God now and not being sure almost means not believing in her/him/it.
A trip across half a planet and a million reassurances later I'm comfortable in my skin.Yeah, it does help that my hair's so breathtakingly perfect, these days.
The world is still a mediocre place but if it runs at all, it is because of me. alright and because of a coupla others.

And the best part? Only he knows how much I've changed, I suspect he quietly nudged me into evolving, and yeah, into feeling such love for myself.
I almost can't recognize myself from a coupla years back but I am the me I want to be now and for a long time to come.
Content.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
- Yeats

(Perhaps a little vain, but hey, self-indulgence is the theme of this blog.)

no road that is right entirely

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:26:00 +0000

my room was annoyingly warm and I was letting the summer torpor take over my senses when I hear someone knockin at my door. the evening had been exceptionally noisy, live right next to the freeway, so keep hearing sirens of all kinds all the time and today it was as if everyone in the city had conspired not to lemme doze off. find mike at the door wanting to know if I'd like some pizza and then before I could say anythin he hits me with the news. no, actually, he assumes I already know it.
the bridge two blocks from our house had collapsed taking about 50 cars along with itself into the mississippi. the very first thing I thought of was that I could've been on that bridge had it not been for the annoying warmth that's supposed to mean summer out here in the twin cities. and this thought was followed by a dozen very very selfish thoughts: if I really were on the bridge and something did happen to me, how in the world were people back home gonna find out? it was a long long time before I bothered to find out anythin about deaths and injuries.
two minutes later we were all sitting in dan-the-new-guy-upstairs's room eating his cold pizza wishing whatever obscure music he was playing could drown the noise from outside. there were half-hearted attempts at conversation and awfully sweet kool-aid by jan.

should we bike over and see if we can help?
naah, we'd only get in their way.
you're with CivE, did you hear anything about this earlier?
naah, I do roads from Albertsville.
is your phone dead too?
a collective dejected yeah.
does anyone wanna watch the boondock saints?
what, in the blinking world, is the boondock saints?
can I get help for my dynamics homework?
lying blatantly: oh. dynamics isn't really my thing.
don't you just miss your family terribly sometimes?

yes, my friend, more than you can even imagine.

especially when I'd been as silly as is humanly possible when I last spoke to the love of my life and if something did happen to me, that stupid conversation would be the last thing I'd leave him with. it's tragic enough having to go through my daily routine all alone, only letting him know what I can and choose to put into words. the last thing this relationship needs is a disaster. the worst thing i can think of is everyone who cares for me back home waking up to some kinda bad news and then realizing that they've slept through the event and then that they're completely helpless. yes, I do realize I'm obsessed with something very improbable.
what are the chances of me being on a bridge minutes away from my home when it finally chooses to collapse?
oh, very high.
but we don't ever imagine that anything so huge could really touch our lives significantly enough. don't we all make decisions about our careers, lives, and if you're us, children's names like we've conquered death? and don't we truly regret years misspent and this need to plan for the future, all the time, when we realize how delicate the present is? hell, a little less laziness and I'dve been on my way to the library and later found myself in the HCMC.
think there's a telugu word for this post. or wait, was it sanskrit? smasana vairagyam?

just wish I was in a different place and I had the sense to choose the roads that lead there.

the customary poem,

Entirely
By Louis MacNeice

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
And falling twigs of song,
And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.

If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else’s arms
We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s
Yammering fire alarms
But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of Love entirely.

And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in the brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.

change's good. change's good.

noreply@blogger.com (love and squalor) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:51:00 +0000

one of those times,this. when you sniff at that air of pregnant possibility. i can't quite put a finger on it, nor can i describe how it feels to be surrounded by apparitions of the past and faint inklings of the future, in a present, beset by a
complete lack of faith. and hope and everything that stands in vulgar contrast with how i feel right now. i feel good. determined to change things. determined to start believing in the goodness of change. personal, consequential and well-meaning. its been hard. being dealt real bad hands, game after game. bad enough, sometimes, for self pity to be an enticing enough resort. self-pity. that outrageously comforting excuse for inaction. and large quantities of alcohol. wasting away in academic ruin. you don't know you are in trouble when failure's the reason, not for readdressing and a careful second act, but for more failure. failure does sit easy on an anvil of weak will. only to be annealed into frightening prospects of wasted potential. and a strange resonance of every resolution i ever failed to uphold. like quitting smoking.like working out. like. starting to live. when you know you are not supposed to be this way, what is it supposed to be like, anyway? i am here.nowhere anybody would have wished for me.i know i should shrug away the middle children of history tag, i sport. with scarred pride, and foolish hope. i abhorred the lack of a glamorous revolution. i ached for a romantic death. i was impressed by the unassuming ideology of the flower children, both anachronistic and antiquated, now. as i was with the validty of self-sacrifice for selfish causes. i was impressionable, yeah, but only by what i decided to let near. i failed my parents. i was wary of natural courses of life. i hated the smallness of people trying to succeed. i sided with the minorities. just because the majority happened to have large sections of stupid people. rather people, i conveniently regarded stupid, while all the way, they were just different. besieged by problems they could actually do something about. while i fought private wars, upholding the importance of self over success, they went about, bee-like and industrious, getting ready for the bigger struggles of survival. like ensuring economic security, that'd guarantee them time shares and faster cars, a few decades from now. there i go,again. heartfelt animosity making way to satirical contempt making way to jilted haplessness. and i shamelessly discover now, that my ideal, the ideal of free everything, just happened to be self-indulgence at its most self-indulgent. you can't disparage what you happened to be bad at. you can't justify your hatred for things mundane, with an unfounded trust.the trust in the good judgment.of normal people. given a choice, between regulated improvement and unmitigated self-destruction, between comfortable ordinariness and exquisitely lonesome detachment, i chose the path less trodden. less trodden, hence dangerous. dangerous, hence, less trodden. i was living in a time-warp. fighting invisible authority. i knew this was democracy. that style of governance where faceless masses, are supposed to fashion the face of our nation. a democracy, where people imagine they are still ruled by dead people. where erstwhile hoodlums and streetwise hookers can actually hope to rule. does it not seem stupid, for things to work this way? i wanted a qualified reason. something satisfactorily explanatory. the lesser evil being the greater good? the maxim of these modern times. never been able to subscribe to it. turned down everything with a wider appeal. was fascinated by unaccounted greatness and unchronicled heroics. i liked to believe, my life was one such account. slated for posthumous greatness. but the truth is, i longed to be heard, for far too long. i don't know if its too late, though i confess, i really am tempted to believe it is, and it really is inviting to withdraw into another shell,wrought with regret this time, and wallow in a fresh serving of self-pity. for where i am, is not where i am supposed to be. doesn't make sense, really. for where i am has wholly been a result of my designs, or the lack of them. as baudrillard was once translated,rather verbosely, if i may add,as having said "it is paradoxical to do a retrospective study of a work, that was never intended to be prospective". nothing can, in a manner as servile as this, can better describe the last four years of my life. and i cannot account for the last four years. like i cannot assume responsibility, for doing so.i want a way out. an exit driven by disillusion. i have made peace with the fact that, things just are. and that voluntary banality is not any less despicable than useless brilliance. have always explained my inability at pro-active action with a weak smile. world-weary at the age of 22. i am my own caricature. but i hope to change. and i hope to change fast. i feel good. not that i have realized the inherent flaw of life, and hope to cash in and make good. but its just that i have managed to shrug off the shroud of impossible perfectionism, stifled my enormous ego that ordained i don ever change, and have finally made peace with the idea of an inconsequential but comfortable good life. time shares, and faster cars? i hope am not late.