eBytes!

Brief vignette of a navel gazing writer wanna be

2010-08-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

I would really like to contend that I was a child prodigy in literature:

Picture a plump little toddler clad only in a thickly wadded loin wrap, bent over a long, ruled page, painstakingly inscribing baby scrawls, cute pudgy fingers grasping a much chewed up pencil stub, tongue lolling out in concentration, working on a babyish tale about rabbits and ants fighting over fruits, hardly glancing at the steaming bowl of lovely, aromatic rice pudding (payasam) his mother has placed beside him with brimming pride, tearing eyes and gut wrenching affection –

But that would be patently false.

Well, I did have a rabbit for a pet for a brief while, but it was taken away mercifully from my curious hands because you know, it had this lovely soft, pristine white down that just invited savage plucking. As to ants, I loved to poke a stick in the tiny anthills in our small backyard and pull it out to watch all the tiny insects scramble all around. My mother would shriek in fright, startling me, for I could never gauge the gravity of ants running up my tiny fingers, and red ones they were too, till a year later a big, black ant latched onto my pink, juicy little toe. My mother wasn’t home then, having gone out to the hawking cart in the street to buy my favourite ripe tomatoes that I used to think were lovely fruit that weren’t cloyingly sweet. To this day, I prefer fruits that are about to ripen, not the fully done, repulsively soft, mushy ones.

I still love payasam and get it regularly and I’ve not written a novel yet.

My Trilemma~: Writing, Speed-reading and Brimming Minds

2007-08-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

[~Note: Trilemma. As in Dilemma. And by extension, tri-. Each ‘unilemma’ enumerated below. Get it?]

Let me come right out and admit. I’ve been lax in updating my blog. I’ve even tried to fudge some reality in my last, lame post. The one about the newbie writer’s life and my good wife. Truth is, I’ve been laid low by a trilemma, an especially enervating version of writer’s block.

Do I know when it all began? No. All I know is that it’s right now surging to a terrific climax. Soon. As of now, I’m currently swimming in the robust body of it. Beware as you venture forth.

Cicero once said something to this effect: say what you want to say, but just so; beware that your extra words will spill over an already brimming mind.

He may have been too right, as my current trauma will prove. I’m become an oriental orientated to occidental ordeals, riddled with strange visions. Cicero style. Oh, read on.

Apparition (1)

I first discovered it a fortnight back, when one of my friends asked me what I thought of the latest English movie in town. Never being one to succumb to brevity when I can manage it, I was ten energetic and hardly elaborate minutes into the review. Then I casually glanced at him mid review. What do I see? He has an odd expression – dazed, or rapt, perhaps – and for a split, mad second, he looks like an undomesticated Rastafarian, swaying to some mind numbing music only he could hear. Hair on my arms stood on end.

Then I shook my head and my eyes watered immediately. I broke off and we went to a café for tea. My friend looked normal, of course and relieved for some odd reason. Topic during tea was weather and other routine matters. We parted soon after with no mention of the movie or the review or my maddening, frightening hallucination. I desperately hoped it was the pre-monsoon heat gone to my head.

Then I drive away to the net parlour, log on to the net and some pointless browsing… lo! I find Mr. Cicero’s quote. Ringing in the gory synchronicity in all its sinister splendour. Surreal, no less.

Those dreadlocks… what if they were my own words falling off the side of my friend’s brimming head? [shudder] Poor guy. Poor ME!

Affliction (2)

If I’ve been caught between a rock and a hard place, my tremens – as I discovered above – is exceedingly delirious. And here’s the hard place – a three headed hydra I’ve been throwing biscuits at, unwittingly cajoling it - ‘puss, puss, here kitty, kitty’. In my case, the beast has reared each ugly head in slow demonic grace. Savour each champing and malicious head as I paint the petrifying picture for you.

I wonder if other newbie writers are caught in the same, tight bind – finding it easy to be frivolous and excruciating to be frugal.

I wonder if it’s healthy, or even right, that for a newbie like me I sense many ideas out there and much to write about. But I refrain because I need more close knowledge. And then I can’t figure out the exact limits of it to either avoid pedantry or deliver the appropriate authenticity and control over subject.

I wonder about the impasse over style, length and the integrity of the idea. So I just end up in froth over it all, because to even sort this sorry mess out I’ll have to fight my own laziness. And then to squeeze my professional time further, which is low paying anyway.

Juice in the rind, anyone? Yup, I didn’t think so.

Avoidance

Oh, what opened this hideous can of worms in all its debilitating details was this one particular story draft of mine that I laid out a month or so back. After six rewrites and endless frustration, I realized that for the story to come right out and out right, so many things have to go, well, right. Truth be told, it will have to be done in complete spite of all. Some mid-wifery, this. Just got my goat, you know, goatee and all! So I took the spite’s way out.* but I have realized that I’m not to have rest or redemption.

[* Mail author for useful, short do-it-yourself Good-Riddance-Guide to handle annoying writing drafts and similar frustrations. Works with drafts on any subject - author testimonial. Certain pre-conditions necessary for satisfaction. Needs immense will power, but peace of mind guaranteed. No charges.]

Let me present the third trauma of mine this way – the rock: check, the hard place: check and here: the cracking cliff shelf I’m now scrabbling desperately on. A mixed metaphor, I know. But then I have no luxury to ease in the choicest, I just have to grab at all straws blowing in the wind.

Angst

I realize, looking for ideas is like a languid, pleasurable walk in your private garden – in cool shade one summer noon – musing at the low hung, blushing mangoes. After I finish licking my fingers of the sweet stickiness, I look up to see unusual and rich gossamer around me, fragile, shimmering, colours delicately blending in the gentle breeze. All I have to do is to just choose, pluck from thin air and begin weaving. Colour, strength, design and meaning are just waiting to emerge in arresting confluence, it seems.

But I find that actually launching into writing an essay or story is like navigating stormy night seas on a frail boat. The wind’s rent my sail, my oars are almost soggy, my toe’s plugging a hole in the bottom and well, in this situation it’s a non sequitur: the fact that I can’t swim.

Aggravation (3)

It’s like the issue over sub-vocalizing (9) in speed-reading courses, the last but not the least of my present troubles. While reading and comprehending quickly does appeal to a writer-learning-to-be, it has precipitated a peculiar existential trauma in my case. This last resort, so to speak, has denied me recourse to relief and release. Be warned, o novice speed readers.

You don’t know you have this self-defeating tendency, and have been happily coasting – stumbling, more like – along when suddenly you find out you are actually suffering because of it. And you realize that your entire reading life has been below potential. Take that.

Then comes the knock-out blow: you’ve got to re-train yourself with reading faster. But this cure is worse than the disease, God. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s terrible; all at once, you’ve become this millstone around your own neck, watching, assessing, inquiring yourself if you’re vocalizing - and you’ve just overnight become a relentless self interrogator. All this, while you read. Takes the fun out of it, you know.

Oh, Aristotle did say a man’s full of contradictions and selves or some such thing, but… Blast! He never let on that I would end up waking an eternal nagging voice in my head, for sanity’s sake! I'm now beyond psychiatric succour.

Agony

Now I can’t enjoy my favourites anymore! Brian Greene, Amartya Sen, Belinder Dhanoa, John Le Carre, G.G. Marquez or even my own consulting and research documents and reports. I’ve become a nervous wreck from trying to SHUSH this voice in my head now.

It’s a veritable Frankenstein’s monster, refusing to go away now that it’s hatched. These new age learning methods are nothing but primitive, thinly disguised, vile black magic. Add to it the brimming heads I’ve begun to spot. Cicero’s advice, speed-reading and the writer’s block. Imagine solar system my way – a cowering little sun [me] in the centre and three slavering monster planets circling him into a terrible trap, inexorably moving in vicious, centripetal anticipation. Brrrr!

My social life has gone to bits. I can’t visit libraries for fear of endangering librarians’ livelihood. I can’t read or write in peace. I’ve been ushered unceremoniously out of film theatres already. Worst of all, my clients are counter-counseling me! I play pathetic hide and seek with my suspicious wife. It won’t last long. I’m faced with either self-imposed exile, without any attendant fame to boot, or socially sanctioned asylum. What have I perpetrated on myself!

Ignorance does really tend to bliss. Ah woe.

Where was I? Oh yes. Writing’s a double edged dagger. Serrated. Dipped in poison. Oiled hilt. Riveted with tiny, sharp spikes. And a sizzling grip… ok! You get the point. Right.

Alleviation

Ah, I also realize that writing is as much saying as withholding. It is in equal parts revealing and concealing. Good writing is supposed to illuminate space, till then in complete darkness, and to bring into sharp relief that which is worth seeing, or deemed by the writer so.

It is also to provide crisp, clean edges to the subject in focus – who or what ever that may be – so to suggest shadowed other sides from which it withdraws with tact, by design, through deliberate omission. To nuance is to layer, texture and acknowledge dimension.

To fling typefied lingo at you – show and tell, just as well.

Good writing naturally accords respect, empathy and freedom to the reader to paint her own mental landscape, lighted by her imagination and guided by her emotional compass. It is a beautiful contract that is fulfilled automatically to all round satisfaction, if the writer is committed his writing.

Abandonment

To lay bare is to bore, loudly crowding out the reader, to refuse room for her intelligence. On the other hand, one cannot constrict expression in the name of precision. Then there would be no meat, nothing to masticate, leave alone to relish, regurgitate and remember.

The challenge and goal is balance.

I also realize this. Every so often, I seem to strike sublime poise on the slippery edge of ability, just about, there… but I begin to totter in a minute. I flail wildly, grasp haplessly, and keel over awkwardly. Ooooo-er!

I plunge headlong and helpless into excess.

Overdone adverbs mock me on the way down. Wheeeee.

Archetypal Authorial Anguish

There. Quite a beast, eh?
My very own trilemma, in its elaborate explication. You see… uh!
Ah, well. My eyes are watering again…

Guess you are all topped up now. [sigh]

A Newbie Writer’s Life

2007-06-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

A writer’s life is not easy. Inspite of being just a newbie, I can see that the practice of this demanding art can be, well, demanding. Let me prove to you why: something happened last night while I was seriously at work on my PC.

I was having a bout of the mood obscure that newbie writers get into quite often: free-floating ideas. At first glance, these have neither clarity nor context for a story or an essay. But they need to be recorded – so I’ve learnt – because hidden meanings could reveal themselves later and inspire your writing.

Oddly I had about three such ideas pop into my head in the last hour. With their buzzing growing frantic, I decided to put them down for record to exercise them soon. This was the last one, which I had just finished typing…

The Extra Long tail of technology benefits.
Modern day physicists would have you know that digital timekeeping is a sophisticated technological advance in scientific progress. It’s led into sub-atomic and sub-nuclear clocks offering astounding accuracy and amazing applications in high-tech physics.

As a common man, I commend science and its fruits that I enjoy in my life. Why, I’m personally very satisfied with the little plastic digital clock I bought a week ago. It’s quite nicely replaced the spring clock by my bedside, which I would surely have smashed one of these days. What with writing late nights and being a light sleeper, I need peace and quiet.

But I’ve discovered something no scientist has as yet. A sort of Tao of all the physics behind it. With a digital clock, man is now able to muffle time’s inexorable march. Rid of ticking, he’s no more aggravated by its nerve wracking progress and the constant reminder that every passing moment, one more quantum of his life has been spent irretrievably. Existential logic flowers in silence, I can testify –

And then I started clapping. Inspite of myself.

My wife, who was puttering about in the kitchen, peeped around the hallway with a cynical expression.

“Hey, post it on your blog first??!”

She’s not exactly derisive towards my writing, but she’s not overflowing with love and encouragement to a budding artist, either.

Oh, she’s always known my interest in literature. When she found out I was planning to try my hand at writing, she was quite thrilled and supportive. At first. Now as I’ve started gathering literary momentum, I find she’s become quite inventive with excuses to avoid reading my blog. I feel it’s something to do with my personal philosophies and sophistication of expression.

So, back to my applause. I became so upset with her question that I refused to speak to her. At breakfast today morning, she claimed I had muttered and exclaimed to myself all the while I was at my PC last night.

She joked that I’ve become narcissistic, although I know quite well I don’t suffer such self-delusions. Of course, I do believe in my growing literary genius; it’s a mere matter of time. Well, I just maintained a stoic silence though she kept teasing me about it. Recognizing true art is beyond most people, I thought.

Anyway, I have no mood to tell her, any time ever, that I was only chasing mosquitoes last night. It’s going to be a tough life, I can see that.

Oh, me? Oh, my! - 2.0

2007-06-03T00:16:00.000-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Oh, me? Oh, my!

2007-05-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Laugh out loud! Hee haw, snort!
Inquisitive ole me just got slammed with this quiz.
It kinda sorts your responses to its odd ball queries, and presents a totally weird and unsorted persona, you.

Curiosity killed this cat, right-oh!
[I gotta remember to read this book first!!!]

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Waking early on a summer morning.

2007-05-21T21:41:00.001-07:00

Life is a rowdy train charging into the horizon towards unknown destiny. I’m an awe-struck freight. Passions jostling in me, I thrill as I wonder who’s engineering this juggernaut, to what futures. I’ve spent fitful fistfulls of time, drifting in and out of awareness for a few past hours overlaid and muffled with the cool, dark velvet of night that had flooded in from without. I look out of the window and see that the world outside is unmapped country, blurring past me and lightening gradually. I breathe in deeply the chill morning air that is glad and rousting about afresh in my bay.

In an hour, I think I’ll hear the final cymbal clash of a risen summer sun fiercely reborn.

Away!

2007-04-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Ah!

A welcome hiatus
from my omnibus
of rants errant,
of regard scant.

Readers mine,
go on, shine.
Breathe and smile
this short, sweet while.

Off with me, then,
to a little holiday.
Oh, where? Back when?
Heh, Would I say!

The blasted heck of blogging

2007-03-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

Statutory Warning: Angst may be harmful to collective consciousness.

Managing this blog layout's beyond poor ole me.
I might as well try to chew hot rolled steel.

If readers aren't going to be smug and bug me about my blush, I'll just flashback here.

About a month or three back, I found a couple of nicely designed blogs with curiously compelling fonts and colours. And human nature being what is it, the grass on the otherside felt a little greener, a bit more luscious with a slightly richer, stronger tang to the mown. My mind immediately made its customary leap, and feverishly imagined running proudly a journal likewise. So I hurriedly identified a small post I'd made to trial with, and reposted it with no wee glee.

Looked good, YAY. But then the beta was no betta!

For when I tried to change it back to the earlier font, no go. It just didn't. Ah, I thought, must have overlooked some small parameter, heh. So you know what I did? I tested the font change with a couple of bigger posts, my novice mind ignoring the insistent peal of the warning bells.

Breath baited, then I tried to change them back to the earlier font. Now the faint peal of tin (warning bell, oh you know!) was an awful iron din. They seemed stuck, wedded doggedly to the new font; I felt like I'd violated something sacrosanct.

I even tried over the weekend, creating pseudo-posts, making quasi changes, and faking reposts quickly before the blogging software could recover from the last one.

What's worse, I created more new blogs just to check this compelling, buggering phenomenon. Although, I insist it's pretty irrelevant here that I couldn't gather enough courage to try it with them. I really do.

At any rate, I ended up feeling like a particularly low sort of a repeat violator, of a blog's dignity, like. I couldn't reply to some kindly readers of my blog, nor look in the mirror. I couldn't control my compulsive logging and my obsessive rechecking. To fail is to ail with no avail.

Awright, I'm a flying doodah if I know what that means, but can't you just empathize!

So I fell back on my last, final, ultimate resort: the mystical. What I did was this, (my very own Blog Correctional Manifesto) :

1. start new day with positive attitude; power up PC and whistle nice tune.
2. ensure ergonomics - arm rest, check, straight back, check, monitor level, check.
3. focus: no trade-offs between calls of blog and nature.
4. take break every 45 minutes, walk, breathe, loosen up carpal, shoulder, neck.
5. remember: regularly practise mystical practice.
6. pay no regard to screaming banshee of urge to just... just log in, even once.
7. utterly abstain thus for one whole week.

The weekend would come with attendant distractions and go leaving a host of little chores in its wake for me to take care of. And then... STAND BY.

It's noon, Monday. I am stoic, aware of the now poor, bedraggled temptation peering over my shoulder, following my navigation of information on the PC and the net. Till now, I've managed to keep it at bay inspite of its rather heavy, rather warm sighs on my neck.

SUDDENLY...And I mean real, hyper suddenly, ok?

my fingers lunge over the keyboard,
calling up my blog,
login with lighning fast taps,
race the mouse to the 'Edit Posts' link,
couple of rapid clicks to change the font back in the errant post,
and a strong daub at the 'Publish' key.
One single cursor leap to 'View Blog' and my hope is sky rocketing.......

Hopeless.

Well, imitability can lead to irritability, I've learnt.

Even meditation
(Yes! So? I did that!
That was my mystical secret, of course!
What would you do... eh? Hrrrmphh!)
with abstinence doesn't make up for the mysterious shortfall in consummation; there's always that, some such little itsy bit of a detail that always escapes the eye.

Oh well, WYSI hardly WYG, so to say. or more like, WYWINWYM. (What You Want Is NOT What You Can Manage). Huh.

Now all I've ended up with is some posts in the girdle (middle) of this blog with one distinct font, and at the neck and feet - a totally different one. Go look, you'll see what I'm talking about. (sniff!) Ah well. Might as well learn to live with it, take both smooth and rough, learn soft/ not rough, let it go/ hellward ho, stop and cease/ be at peace/ learn to eat/ rotten peas ... and all that rot.

Am I too proud to seek expert help? Or am I too bashful over what seems quite silly - decidedly inconsequential - or a needlessly beguiling complication or... or well, - by a long, improbably long shot, I concede - quite simple.

Not trivializing Nietzsche or other such effective regurgitators of reason, rationale and rapacious sagacity... but I do wonder sometimes now if true misery is after all the mother of maudlin compromise with technology. I mean, Kafka, Orwell, Gibson, Stephenson & Co. weren't just doodling idly, you know. There is something alarming about this growing virtual intelligence, with overly sophisticated technology, much bandied killer app programs and computing complexity around us and our children that, I'm convinced, should place us squarely in the circle of chaos in future. May sound like a defeatist's conspiracy theory. Being a hapless, self nominated victim, it's not that I subscribe to it or that I don't, but I do! Er...

Well, it's with no light heart that I say that I hardly scroll down my own blog nowadays. It's like - in the middle of a popular play on stage, the protagonist suddenly spots two sniggering, nudging viewers in the front row and develops an irrepressible suspicion if his fly's come open.

Well, talk of being a martyr. You are reading about one, for sure. The play does go on, has to; might as well enjoy the breeze.

Gah!

Micro Review: Blood Diamond

2007-03-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

Rating (out of 5 stars) * *

An issue-based thriller with a weak story, Blood Diamond is almost good. Mind you, no more.

A white diamond smuggler (DiCaprio) and an innocent black fisherman (Hounsou) join reluctantly together - with opposing moral and psychological motivations – in civil war-ravaged Sierra Leone (late 90’s Africa). They are on a violent crusade to find a pink diamond in a race against death and brutal, warring government and rebel troops that covet it too. The background is unethical international gem trade, terrible reality of child-soldiers and slave labour in a poor, brutally ravaged continent.

The film boasts of above par action sequences and a remarkable performance from Leonardo DiCaprio. But the screenplay is an over-done advocate for your conscience. Good first half, heavy second. Thanks to the disappointing stereotype of a sermonizing American journalist (an attractive but wasted Jennifer Connelly) helping the smuggler find nobility in the midst of moral chaos.

Story #6.

2006-08-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

A rough sketch, from my sister, who's one of those billions of normal souls that get by in life swell without reading a single book. I believe one of my stories here stirred something in her. So she mails this sketch of an idea for me to re-work on, and see if it shapes up good enough for my blog.

I was struck when I read it, a strange, bitter-sweet tale. And I decided to post it here just as she had mailed it to me. Do let me know if you did enjoy it as much as I did. It is not titled, and here's how it goes...

************

A girl who was all alone, dint need friends or people for her to talk to or be with her coz she was living in such a place which had so many wonderful things, rather living things. To talk about, waterfalls from up above the sky, half way thru a bridge this was entangled with creepers with small colorful flowers. At one end of the bridge there was a tunnel like opening and at the other end this girl had made a house for herself a small hut made of dried leaves and hay and some wood. Inside the hut had nothing in it but a stack of hay with a small pillow made of hay again where this girl used to sleep.

The girl had big blue eyes, blonde hair that was so silky and soft. She was 3 feel tall, quite chubby coz was very healthy eating all different kinds of fruits all over the forest. Had no fear of any animal coz she hadn’t seen one till then. It looked like there were no dangerous animals in the forest. Lucky or good for the girl. She used to wakeup really early by the chirping of a bird which used to fly to her hut every morning. This bird had bright red color on its neck, it had a long beak and blue feathers all over.

For our convenience lets call the bird MIGHT.

Might used to fly to her hut every morning, no idea or reason why. Might used to make such lovely and melodious sounds that the girl used to enjoy it and wakeup with a smile every morning. She used to wakeup and go to the river stream and clean herself with the water and some leaves which gave some lather and made her really look fresh. Those leaves had a fragrance like rose and freshness like the first rain after a hot summer. Then she used to eat berries on the tree which looked like it bent down for her to reach it. Sumptuous, Big, RED, transparent, juicy sweet and sour Berries with no seeds absolutely.

The girl used to eat some and give some to Might. Might used to bring some really precious, shiny stones everyday and give then to the girl. Girl had collected them all and kept them in her hut. Might used to stay with her all day long, go to the places the girl used to go and sing lovely melodies to her on the way.

Could the girl speak?

She used to make exactly the same sounds as the bird, exactly the same melodious sounds like the bird. Might used to give her the precious stones and fly away by the sunset after the girl slept.

One night the girl followed Might to see where it went, Might flew like an eagle up above the sky and vanished.

The girl came back disappointed and lied down on her bed. Next day, she dint wakeup the bird dint come, there was a lot of silence all around everything looked still. No movement absolutely. The girl woke up with a shock to realize that Might was not there, the waterfalls stopped and the river stream was dry. The berries were so high the girl couldn’t reach them; the precious stones that the girl had collected from Might looked like they were alive, yellowish red Milky Way in the stones started to roll all over the stones.

She dint understand why it was happening and what was happening. She stood there watching them. Suddenly the girl could hear the same sounds from a distance and when she looked back it was Might, it came like a swift and Sat by the stones. The stones started to move, one stone cracked and a bright Red little birdy came from it. In a few seconds all the stones uh uh Eggs started to hatch. Might is a rare bird that found the girl reliable and kept the eggs safely with the girl and waited till the eggs hatched. The girl was so happy to find so many friends.

Story #5. It's Just Skin.

2006-08-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

"Just what do you have in mind!" I demanded in irritation.

"Yaar, Pranav, don't get upset, please. I need your help. I can't… I can't face her. God, after her call from the clinic, I don't have it in me," Rajesh pleaded, tinny and pathetic over the line.

I tried to knead away the headache, my brow burning. It was 10 o’clock, Saturday morning, in the office beginning to bustle with the activity of a fresh new day.

I had been nursing my frozen shoulder, cursing the overheated laptop that let up finally after an all-night effort to finish the critical market report. My eyes burned with strain. I could smell my unwashed mouth, dry with too many cigarettes the night before. And I was fretting over the presentation due to start in an hour.

That was when my cell phone shuddered in its vibration mode.

Rajesh started an obscure lament about society and disability and what not; I was not paying attention to him. In fact, I was turning over in my sleepy mind my wife's cold silence over the phone last evening. I had desperately tried to explain why I couldn't make it to our anniversary dinner. That was when he caught my attention with Sheela’s name, and I realized something was wrong.

With a loud sigh, I tried to marshal my emotions.

"Rajesh, I understand you’re worried, man. But talk to Sheela first. I mean, it's not life threatening, right? Bloody hell, it’s just her skin! Why, the doctor’s assured her that things will be fine with her. You’re just hyper reacting, yaar."

"But what about future? What about our offspring?" his thin wail sailed over the line.

In a mind clear and bold in financial planning, he hid a vein of deep self-centredness. I should know, as his close, discerning friend over decades. I learned to work around it, after initial missteps.

But ever since he fell in love with Sheela, our one sensible common friend from college, he had seemed different. In her company, he relaxed more, gave freely, shared willingly. It was curious to watch the change in him, but I had felt glad for him, in private.

"C’mon, Rajesh. There’s no guarantee it will pass on to your children. We can ensure preventive treatment, just in case.”

The selfish streak that had lain dormant for years broke out in a rabid rash now. All it took was for Sheela to discover to her alarm a few white patches on her cheek that appeared out of nowhere. She had actually called me to ask if I knew any skin specialists.

But, with Rajesh, a simple extension of commitment was what it needed to rear its ugly head.

"No, Pranav. Out of the question. I can’t take chances like that," he said, surprising me.

"My family won't agree with this, yaar. I can't take it myself," he offered in a low tone.

I was incensed. "Family? You wretch! I thought you loved her. All the romance since college, what was that about?"

"I know, I know. But I never knew this… this thing would develop in her." He was agonizing, like a child.

“Are you telling me the only thing that mattered to you was a body without blemish?”

My sarcastic hiss silenced him for a few seconds. I pictured Sheela’s endearing beauty, and felt guilty immediately.

He resumed with a surprising calm, in a hardened voice. A line had been crossed somewhere.

"You know better than that. But I have limits to my compassion, friend. At least I have to think of my offspring, for my family's sake. You know, love is all good, but you need social acceptance."

I could see that coming. His father was an affluent financier well known in the city, more successful in the family trade than his forefathers. He was infamous for his compulsive religious orthodoxy. Rajesh often complained while in college over the time he lost in attending the elaborate family prayers in the estate shrine every morning. He used to say there was more ritual than faith.

“What social acceptance? This involves just you and Sheela, and she needs your support now. Are you saying you won’t accept her now because of a sudden loss of pigment?” I rallied.

“It’s not simple as that, all things considered. It’s … it’s embarrassing. Society won’t accept her with white patches and all. I know how particular my family is about religious beliefs. They will deem it a portent, a symbol of some sin or sacrilege in her previous life. We’re calling for misery. Why, remember how we used to taunt that poor tailor’s son in school? Those horrible jokes about the father of Pandavas, you know?”

“But Rajesh, it was wrong, we were wrong. We were kids and knew no better. And our society’s blind sometimes. You can’t rationalize superstition. There’s not a shred of logic in public acceptability. Listen, man, people stigmatize in ignorance-”

“Ha, you’re forgetting this is India, my good sir. It doesn’t matter what you believe personally. In fact pox on you if you harbour anything different. It’s all about conformity. My father grudged me my clean shave for years. You know how he dotes on a moustache, going on about how a real man should grow it thick and twirl it at the ends. I gave up and grew one. So much trauma over a stupid strip of facial hair! I’ve learnt independent thinking is all fine, but within limits. You outgrow it when you’re an adult. At any rate, my family won’t accept a physically unfit daughter-in-law, especially one who could pass something untoward to their heirs.”

He was grumbling with a blend of hate and helplessness. It felt like he was reveling in an insular logic.

“Sheela is what - just a child bearer to you? Next you’ll be telling me, you actually doubt if she will bear you boys, thanks to her vitiligo!”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“Pranav. What matters to me most is my family. Is it wrong to respect its legacy? You may not like it, but that’s what’s made me. That’s who I am. And do you think the decision is easy for me to make?”

I snorted bitterly.

"Oh, is this the same legacy you told me about? How much, did you say… three hundred million in silver? You’ve made your choice then? Between this LEGACY and your love!"

Later, I felt he had held back his venom at this outburst. But I was plodding on.

"All right. So you leave her for this legacy. Let’s say your parents find you another girl, and all’s well with the world, eh? Life’s not a zero-sum game, yaar. What if your parents’ choice develops a disability herself? What then? Your family’s willing to live with that? You are trying to escape from fate, Rajesh."

Quiet. The distance between us was growing every second.

“What if she bears girls, one after the other? What would happen to her? And your family with its dreams of boys and heirs, what would they do then?”

What he shot back next will remain with me a long time.

“In this country, girls make their own destiny.”

I couldn’t speak.

“Pranav, I am an only son. I owe it to them. And I know about zero-sum games. Just call it cutting losses. It’s social blight for anyone with disabilities. And I cannot partake in it,” he said quietly.

“You are unbelievable, Rajesh,” I recovered a little.

He sighed, irritated, “Yaar, this society decides our manhood. What’s new? I can’t justify my duty to anyone. It just is. In spite of myself.”

“Then do it, for God’s sake. Why tell me?!”

"I... I need your help."

"What? I thought you got all the help you need from your FAMILY!"

I knew that must have stung, but I was past caring. He ignored the barb and continued.

"I called her back, after her call. She was coming over to see me. I told her no, I'm meeting you in the next half-hour for lunch, so she might as well come to your office. She was happy, said something about friends being the best people to share troubles with. In fact, she should be there any time now."

There was a catch in his voice that my senses tingled at.

"What are you telling me, man?"

"I’m not coming. Tell her for me."

"Look, man. She loves you." That was more the truth, it was clear now. It was the last shot in spite of the heavy air of finality between us. It was a plea.

Click.

I sat shocked, cradling the receiver. The phone on my desk buzzed. The number blinking on it showed it was the front office calling.

Sheela must be here already, with her innocent smile.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Vitiligo - a specific type of leukoderma, depigmentation of epidermis. Common sign is white patches over face, neck, hands etc.

Humble Erratum.

2006-08-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Goodwill from friends over the internet has prompted me to post a little corrigendum.

The stories (marked by numbers/ '#') I have posted here are pure fiction, completely imagined - though they do have a certain basis in real life experience. Yet, fundamentally nothing but fancy.

Reader reactions have been heart-felt. Grateful self bows humbly.

Story #4.

2006-08-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

Momentary Distraction Of a Tired Headhunter.

His eyes are glazing over. He is light headed now.

He feels completely wrung of sweat in this stunning swelter. Odd, he thinks, and smiles to himself. Something tickles the edge of his vision and he turns to see.

He is transfixed.

Ahead, a huge head has risen from the earth; its enormous maw gapes open pouring out hundreds of large black scarabs. And the hideous stream is endless: bristling in the noon glare, scuttling in great hurry, welling up at him as they farm out busily in all directions. With eyes wide and hair on end, he turns his head around in a slow arc.

Chaos swirls around him in furious, disobedient ecstasy. Beast and machine meet in a roaring flux. He is the petrified eye of a fearsome whorl. He is helpless, in the middle of fume and fury.

He is the target on an altar of senseless duty.

******************

A shudder wakes him from his reverie.

The sun feels wedged in the sky without release. The earth's heat has enveloped him in a roiling embrace. It is Saturday afternoon, the rush-hour traffic giddy with relief from a week of work.

He is on a makeshift post on the junction island. He stands under its narrow metal dome, its gnarled skirts eaten by rust. In the shame of its shade, his vigour has pooled at his feet, unable to rise. All around him is a reek of burning fuel and an insistent drone to destinations. In the distance the multiplex is disgorging its noon show crowds.

And he has been gazing in distraction at it.

People heave out in a fever of multilingual cacophony. The stale conditioned air sighs out invisibly in their wake. Their heads glisten curiously in the noon sun, as they stream out arguing, laughing, gesturing...

He shakes his head to clear it of the eerie daydream.

He has allowed his tired mind to take over. He mutters a curse on power cuts, his quick glance lashing at the traffic light pole, dead since morning. His shoulders scream from constant signaling. Intense, stark heat has sponged him of all sap. He is just a uniformed automaton in a dry drench of grit. Apathy mocks, taunts, spits at him. Smog has obscured everything. Stick out his tongue, and he could probably taste it.

Hatred is uncoiling in him fast. He is hungry, ready, his head hunter's eyes keen and seeking. Time to quench, the jam be damned.

There.

He skips off the platform and loops into the slow traffic, blocking the speeding yuppie on a sleek executive bike. He motions him to the curb with a superior air. The flustered biker blinks at him, aware of the hefty fine and highhanded barbs to come.

The constable mentally re-orders the formidable check list - driver's license, pollution control, vehicle registration, insurance, number plate, inter-state transfer papers. Such a large net to cast and he has already felt one inviting snag: the missing helmet. The latest decree for driver safety this year, the easiest to enforce on these rowdy hordes.

Ah, to indulge in sweet, luscious revenge - violation by traffic violation.

Story #3.

2006-08-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

Breathe

There she stands peeking from behind the tree, her slender arm parting the hedge where it has thinned. It is a warm, breezy afternoon.

She watches the tall man crossing the street, walking away from her. Unaware of her vigil, he has a lazy swagger, the mark of a man retreating from a private, satisfying frenzy. A bead of sweat rolls down and rests in the cleft of her upper lip. She shifts weight on her feet. She is ready.

She draws her breath in deep, deep, and holds it.

As if in response, the wind hesitates. There is an abrupt, fierce brightening as the sun slips out between the clouds. Everything grows still and silent, with the noon shadows darkening. Her heart thuds hard. She is holding her breath now, eyes intent on the figure across the street.

He stops and coughs loudly, raising a hand to his chest. He is puzzled and looks around towards her house. But he cannot see beyond the murk of the wood’s edge.

She continues her hold on her breath, watching, waiting.

It has been a beautiful courtship, her first. His tutelage began sober and disinterested, intent on a proper education for her. But youthful beauty and a juvenile infatuation have worn his defenses down. The privacy in the large quiet mansion has been so tempting today.

Her eyes do not waver. The man gasps, his eyes wide, his whole being desperate for air. He struggles with a heart beginning to collapse. She is unmoved but for her terrible will.

She had not known what to expect, but it had not been pleasurable. Yet she had smiled up at him in innocence and love and pain, a little dismayed by his rough and unfeeling needs. When she looked into his eyes, her heart grew cold. Unknown to himself, his eyes had shown an animal sating itself. That was when she knew. She had lain there under him, as her world swirled inside.

Before he left, she had held him with a long, lingering kiss, while he professed ineffectual, adult loyalties to her.

The man is now whooping loudly, sucking at the air. He’s kneeling on the pavement, helpless. His head jerks urgently, and his hands claw at his throat. She has grown still as a statue. Her eyes remain on the figure now struggling with itself and dying.

When he had entered her, for a few precious moments, she had felt vulnerable. She had felt the deep wonder of being a woman. She had felt lost, unwilling to be found again.

The figure is now still, prostrate on the pavement, frozen in the grotesque dance of death.

She straightens, wiping her tears, her long sigh releasing the breath the world has held. She has recalled her breath of love to herself, the one she gave him when she had kissed him. Now her breath is heavy as she remembers the warning she has ignored:

'Find your kind.'

Story #2.

2006-08-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

Eating a peach for the first time.

I found this piece of advice, rummaging in my uncle's desk.

He passed away last month, after a decade of mild dementia inflicted gently on him from a lifetime of psychiatric practice in a frenetic city. I had volunteered for his care, the other relatives unwilling to take care of a loony old widower. I am a middle aged bachelor seasoned with self-imposed abstinence from familial hazards, on the verge of a sabbatical from journalistic career in Mumbai and living atop a weather beaten building close to the Gateway of India.

He died an old – very old - child. I’m sure he approved living with me, though I have a ticklish suspicion that it was more because of the deep love for chocolate I shared with him.

I was his favourite nephew. Ever since I gurgled in his lap, his cheerful directness had always disarmed me without fail, as did his unabashed hugs on all my birthdays. Wherever he is now, he stills holds in good confidence my confusion over career choice, and my first painful jilt.

He was a gentle, intelligent and accomplished man who could not father children, who had deteriorated in loneliness after his wife’s death. That was when I decided to bring my surrogate father home.

He was so well mannered, clean of habit and well ordered that I had no qualms bringing up my colleagues and friends for nightcaps. They were all deceived in the first meeting, until they were led into the bright, festooned party halls in his head. A few returned to renew acquaintance with him, their deference to his whimsical wisdom only growing. A likely emotional response of tired middle aged hacks in the unrelenting, frantic melee of life in Mumbai.

Some time back, he had discovered the internet, and with a child like glee, graduated rapidly to creating a blog with a pseudonym in which he argued about the primacy of matter over mind. His poor online audience was enthralled, knew no better and offered him great traffic. He was so abstruse, so obscure in his monologues that I used to indulge in them myself whenever I needed to unwind the knots in my writer’s head.

I had put him to sleep many times fighting between tears and laughter over his ideas expounded during dinner. This was to be his latest update. And I decided that the last post to his blog shall go online.

Pre Script: I remember, he had so enjoyed the little satchel of peaches I brought home two months back. I thought it was somehow charming to see this wizened child slavering over them, endearingly silly. Had I known better - which the following last update of his reveals, I would have filled my pad with fruits of every kind, every day, all within his arm’s reach. It would have made him happy, I think.

*******************************************************

EATING A PEACH FOR THE FIRST TIME

You should try it, eating a peach for the first time.

Not again, not after, not now if you have done it before - simply for the one and only 'first' time. You could never enjoy a peach the same way again, trust me.

Try it, with any fruit, I dare you. I might have eaten a million bananas,

but the very first one should have been one of the most important experiences in my life.

But now it's gone, inaccessible, irretrievable, forgotten - overwhelmed completely by all the subsequent tastes, smells, textures and the mighty meanders of growing up without spontaneous awareness of simple things in life...

If one'd done it already, then it's over, beyond you forever. The leading edge of one's faculty for sensory REdiscovery is blunted, in the case of something you have eaten once.

Tasting something for the first time happens only once, doesn’t it?

It is an irreversible process, unrewindable, unrecordable, unrewritable and unburnable for posterity. You cannot bring it back, in other - simpler - words. It can only be done once, and once done, stays done, and becomes undoable thereafter - the first taste of something. For example - a peach.

TO WIT, ONCE:

It is odd that innocence is never recognized till it's lost. Take the case of a child. Everyone knows that. Which is why everyone loves them, and envies them for their delicate, simple, sincere, guileless ways. Classically, is it that one loves a child for something one lacks or has lost? Or is it tacit acknowledgement of a virtue that once existed in oneself? Or is it a convoluted transaction where by an adult could somehow hope to transfuse their dark life fluid with fresh innocence, while the young is bled of it to decay towards adulthood?

TO WIT, TWICE:

Capture is exciting, rousing, invigorating; recapture is yawn, humdrum, ho-hum, glum.

Pioneers are about climax and discovery. And then, followers walk in in hordes, turn a single delicate experience into a collective stimulation, turn an experiment into a fad, trend, tradition and orthodoxy. Theory is laced with superstition, added to perversion, shaken with ignorance, stirred with ego, poured into punitive preaching, delivered on iced dogma.

The world is force fed thus. And the meek shall inherit.

NOW TO THE MARROW OF THE MATTER:

The peach is a fascinating fruit: I found yesterday.

The delicate blush makes the colour a celebrated favourite among women. Skin velvety to touch; when licked - a curious coarse powder coat on your tongue; rich, sumptuous inside, firm and full outside, a certain self-possession with a tinge of lividity - voluptuous; prise it apart, a quiet yielding in your hands; the heart - the crimson and calloused seed - is a mild visual shock, nestling safe, wet and sticky in the juicy loin; tiny flecks of red (from seed) in the centre of the other half; the texture is thick, lumpy, golden fibre, the smell a pleasant, secretive acidity; sink your teeth into the deceptively dry flesh and you can hear faint snaps as the little live fibres break; the syrup is faintly abrasive, makes you want to grate your teeth.

A little surprise, for it feels like a mild, gentle version of a pineapple, but with a neater, drier and just as rich soul of its own....

Ah....should try the Kiwi next.

But I lose my case with Lemon, Orange, Pineapple, Sugar Cane, Water Melon, Apple, Banana, Guava, Plum, Papaya, Grape, Pomegranate, Sapote, Jack fruit, Mango, Custard Apple, Cantaloupe, Pear, Berry, Cherry, Fig, Date, Strawberry, Gooseberry...

NOTE:

Eating fruits is healthy, and should be done at a distance from a meal.
Distant in time, not in space. So there.

Eating fruits in season is better. Eating them regularly is much better. The best part is there's tremendous variety in them. The so-so part is we get only those more suited to our tropical climes (I live in India).

Come to think of it, there’s not much to choose between humans and simians suffering this experiential angst.

TO UNWIT, FINALLY:

Serendipity is simply superb, as long as one holds up the torch of ignorance long enough. Put it down, sup on a peach and put it up again.

Ignorance can be a useful thing, if you are blessed with good memory. There could actually be a case for maintaining it, but of course, with programmed relapses to knowledge, to allow for functioning in survival. To not know yet is a blessing, as long as you enjoy the experiences that life rations.

Live life, long or short is beside the point.

What happened today...

2006-08-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

I moved my earlier posts on rediffblog to this here nest. There. That should explain it.

Story #1.

2006-08-09T05:40:00.000-07:00

"Come down, little bird!"

‘No. NO! I can fly. I am ready.’

‘No, little bird. Not yet, there’s still time for you. Oh please, you haven’t healed yet. Come down! Here, hop on to my hand now.’

‘I am healed! I am healed! You just won’t let me get away, won’t let me FLY away…’

‘Oh darling, why can’t you…wait! Flap your wing! Please! You know, like all you birds do when you fly? Just a couple of times for me? Please?’

‘Uh...like this?’

‘No, no, you little rascal! The RIGHT wing! Yes. Yes. That’s right. That’s the one! Now, flap it.’

‘….Uh..hurts.’

‘See? See? That’s why, darling… Your wing isn’t right. You can’t fly! If you jump off, you will fall. You won’t fly. You will fall and hurt again.’

‘But why?! Why does my wing hurt? Ohhh!’

‘Don’t cry, poor bird, stop crying. Your wing is broken. You hurt it, remember? The last time you wanted to fly? You came all by yourself and took off! Never even told me. I would have shown you where, I would have shown you how. But you just jumped, and fell. And broke your poor little wing.’

‘I don’t know… I don’t know. I…I…want to get into the sky…’

‘Little bird, you are not ready yet…trust me, won’t you? I have been good to you, haven’t I? Haven’t I?! Here, I won’t give you the sting, ok?’

‘Really? N-no sting?’

‘Oh yes! No sting, no needle for my little tweetie bird. No more sewing of the poor broken wing. I'll leve it well alone. But now, my darling will get the sweets, the hugs and the kisses.’

‘Ummm…’

‘Come on, little bird. Let me help you, darling. Let me heal you, let me give you enough strength, and teach you how to hold flight in high winds. It is time to get better now.’

‘Ok….I love you.’

‘I love you too. You know that, don’t you? Yes, hop on to my hand… right there in my palm…yes! There, that’s my sweet, my lovely and sensible little bird. He’s a smart birdie, he’ll get better, his wing won’t hurt anymore and he’ll fly away soon.’

*******************************************************

The nurse turns around to the petrified intern watching the scene. Her whole being reeks of fear and sweat. But her eyes are relieved and clear.

Her instructions come out to him rapidly in a low monotone:

‘Get me the jacket double quick and help me with it. Then go page the doctor and tell him No. 11 has had the attack again. He’s all right; I'll stay with him, but he needs his calming shot. If it's intravenous, let me handle it. Get the resident psychiatric counselor too. And on your way, ensure you notify the electrotherapy team. Move!’

As he hurries away, he throws a brief glance back over his shoulder. The elderly nurse has already helped down the scrawny man off the railing of the second floor balcony. She is ushering him into the room, muttering tender words into his ear, her hand firmly on his shoulder.

The intern, new to the asylum, has heard of ‘the bird’. His heart had jumped into his throat when he spotted a lanky figure high up on the building, struggling on to the overhang of the second floor, his legs on the thin railing trembling. He had been assisting the nurse in calming the old woman that stood tearing at her wispy hair in the lawn across the building, her head bloodied already. They had rushed up, desperate to reach in time.

A 'flight' occured last month, one hot afternoon. The asylum had edged into a restful peace as the inmates sought slumber after a heavy meal. The bird enjoyed an unescorted half hour. Then he found a 12-foot ladder left unmanned by the janitor in the corridor connecting two patient wings.

In a fit of glee, he decided to launch himself from atop this ladder and soar to the high roof. He fell and broke his right arm. The same nurse was roused with his screaming. Later, she had raised a ruckus with the warden over shoddy attention to procedure in the asylum:

‘The bird’s progressing fast, doctor! Every time he flies, he finds a higher perch to do it from.’

My Zeitgeist

2006-08-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

Lot’s happened in self’s life before.
Life gently bobbed on, in the Gulf of Ennui...
anchored on the Isle of Complacency. You know - modern life’s seductive, misleading, intoxicating - dulls your senses and plays the Piper, with your inner sense of direction.

And you end up feeling in control - somebody/something else’s.

Happens, don't you see?
well, it was happening to me, and I wasn't seeing it yet. that was when there was this li'l bolt from the blue.

Ding-a-ling!

Oh nothing, just a friend remarking about how we both are pushing 30. Still, made me think about a particular glass - half-filled or half-empty or some such thing. In the right mood, makes ya thirsty, what?

Thus.
Realized, and set to settin' things right right away.
For one dizzy, heave-ho high,
before dear old doddering death drums on the door.
One gotta lotta do. And you gotta do it yourself.
You know, life's not meaningful, till it's meaningful.
Live. and live now.
well, if you wanna feel nice while you are at it, let live too.
There you have it:
the feisty gist, the gutsy gusto,
the bee in the bonnet, the manic manifesto,
my zeitgeist, and the rummy thing.

P.S.: But one can't forget:
it's the journey that matters, not the destination. Life's one wizard's back pack, full of surprises of the anticlimactic kind. I just tell meself:

better or worse, it's yetta come! heh.

Oh, India, India.

2006-08-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

We are quite a citizenry, by all counts.

A large, largely ungovernable nation. The busy buzz of diversity, in unity. The struggle for sustained subsistence, straining at the ever-restraining leash of philosophical confusion. The surging economic indicators. Narrow, limited choice for gainful occupation. The relentless onslaught of riled and razed research on leading campuses in business publications.

One state government is defrauded by gamely commercial imposters, another imports potable, bottled water from a parched neighbour, while denying it a share of the river; one holds rights and growth of a whole population to ransom, while another twists tolerance into narrow nationalism.

Prosperity hoodwinking the hordes in the hinterlands. The urban mis-identification with the ethos of responsible consumption. The evanescent empathy with empowered social effort. Rampant female infanticide, Hippocrates be damned.

When will we really, collectively access the pleasures and pains of the citizen's Right to Information Act?

IT ploughs a remarkably deep furrow in the social consciousness for economic opportunity. While educational disciplines like Sciences, Arts and Social Studies face alarming under-enrollments. The vigorous wakes of corruption, child abuse and eco-decay.

The under-subscribed reality of Consumer Price Index. MMS is in, meditation is out. Murder of wild life and the mis-placed, mad din of media playing tag with the celebrated. And we tut-tut over traffic, tolls on income, temples?

Personal grooming, propagated pornography, Page 3's paid PR and pub hopping. The heat and dust of real estate, and reckless wreck of ground water resources. Debut and debunk of dubious initiatives like double taxation.

Weakening medical, pediatric and pension support, emergency response, crime control, sponsored sport and trust in familial values. The truth about internet growth in India, and the falsehood of political correctness. Marauding hordes of mobikes and the automotive, and the silly road rage. The assault of the incremental innovation, and consumer delirium. The cityscape raped by the Discount.

When was the last time you saw a sparrow, hopping busily? In a decade, as environmentalists and scientists project, you will be pointing out most of the species in encyclopaedias for your toddlers.

Lead me to economic salvation, not fundamentalist oblivion. Give me not over-branded emoting, but pure, pristine acting. Allow me integrity, not a furtive squeeze on a crowded bus. Spare me the media hype and commercial overkill, just let me at the game. Leave out the platitudes -fight against poverty, AIDS, the woman's emancipation and absolutely negating need for Reservations. I am just trying to quit smoking.

Cut out the spurious TV drama targeting narrow demographics, deliver entertainment for all audiences. Stop meaningless exposes and sting operations on the burnt out and irrelevant industry; don't sell me under-quality baby health products, toss me my treats in quality packaging, and keep your worms in your spic-n-span western labs.

we are the third world, they say. Our brothers are brown, black and unfortunately termed yellow too. We are the Orient. We bow, when we do, to the divine in one and all. And while we are inscrutable, we had once learnt to live with nature, with differences and with the self. Much before they even learnt to cover their nether parts. Many great religions, still alive today, have been born in our bosom.

Now they call the cradle-continent dark, they abused its rights and hope once, and now they ready themselves to corrupt its commerce and future economies, what is left of it anyway. They even claim patents over herbs of nature, soon to package breathing air, mind you.

Carnation in the button hole, silicon smile on the touched up visage, the pocketed hand kerchief warm with blood, the lust of hatred and xenophobia under the carpet, the million broadcast misdemeanours of a mis-directed missionary zeal of a super power.

Niggardly, suspicious Asian sisters. One believes in the phony absolution of FDI, the other in economic necessity underscoring national security, another in national security drawing a hood over identity crisis.

Many more pawning their people in labour camps to kickbacks from humongous western MNCs eyeing silly overspending Asian consumers, and politico-econo-military patronage from covetous, meddlesome countries. Mis-representation of hungry, young nations at superfluous, international altars and subtle, raging wars over energy resources.

If it is disinterest, we should have been one 'enlightened' billion. If it's apathy, we are a pathetic populace. If we are confused and passive, then we are really corrupt. And fie on us, if we think we are powerless.

All there

2006-08-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Something absolutely pointless, but curious nevertheless.

Stand in a busy, bustling market place, junction or even in the cool, plush throng of the most popular multiplex, on a Saturday evening. And close your eyes.

Think of a colour, try to visualize it in a shape, any shape. Focus for a couple of moments on it.

Then open your eyes. And start a slow sweep, a leisurely scan - of 180 degrees, from either left or right. Unhurried. Languid. Deliberate. Measured.

Notice how the colour you visualized earlier springs out at you, from every nook, cranny, corner, space and place all around you? In all shapes, sizes, forms, textures and shades, above, level, below, angles...doesn't it?

Interesting. Pointless, but fun nonetheless.

High-derabad, my home.

2006-08-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

This unique, torrid, frantic spot on the atlas isn’t all about IT,
pipe dreams o' the bit pipe o' the digital type or the subsequent hype, you know.

Hyderabad is dry, intoxicating air, Irani Chai, yummy Biryani,
'light le yaar' life, dirt cheap delicious burgers,
most profilic beer guzzlers in India, exploding food choice,
possibly the best movie theatres in the country, heady cosmopolitan culture,
ridiculous traffic, denizens desperate for nightly do’s, heavy swaying buses,
lotsa students, enigmatic time keepers, sizzling summers, dime-a-dozen net cafes,
real cool winters, ship shape shopping plazas,
snazzy bungalows, festering slums, soupy cinema,
sizzling chaat, slip shod buildings, holi, sankranti,
christmas, mohurrum, …and then IT.

Like all native city lovers, I believe - Hyderabad’s a place to retire, to work, to party and then some. What’s needed when you come down is attitude - yours, cause like we believe here:
the more the mayhem, the merrier.

Vexing Huxley

2006-08-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

Vexing Huxley

Hmm.
Grappling with Aldous is quite some thing - all in its own class.

'Eyeless in Gaza'. An extremely frustrating read, gets you all fickle and fretting and phasing out every 5 minutes to fumigate in the freezing balcony. Yet his observations are so penetrating, cutting so deep into the psyche of each of his characters, with such a haunting cadence in his pace, populated with subtle byways into his fixations with the metaphysical, mystical and mesmeric.

Nothing escapes his incisive nib - children, men with scattered emotional lives, women with dubious morality, the social theatre and such. The most devastating aspect is his understanding and rendering of the stress and strain of fragile innocence, and the ungainly gait of growing up while losing step with the deep rivers of one's soul, in the lives both infantile and juvenile.

Yet, his writing so feels like a grand rhythm in an overview, but with innocuousness all through upon close inspection...picture this: a mesmering necklace, handmade, painstaking, precious, but strung together with rare gems not quite matching either in character or contrast. Yet, somehow, they make sense and a beautiful necklace.

Except, when you wear it, Huxley's comprehension of the human life will turn it into a biting choker.

Sigh. The point remains, the case just won't rest:
Oh, be vexed with Huxley, and dare you veer away, but in vain.

Hope

2004-07-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

the dawn's spent, fallen from its height;
the wind's vicious banshee hails the night.
the torch is aloft, and flutters yet;
hope does now tattered flames beget.

the earth frozen, bereft, the air dust,
the sky livid, its intent cold,
nothing warms but the creature's soul
that writhes somehow for forward thrust.