Watch what you watch!

We are being told that Television has just seen its golden era. Serial killers, druglords and madmen are reigning TV. Art and entertainment are venturing into realms that were considered perverse or too grim and immoral to be sold as art and entertainment. Maybe it isn't a new phenomenon; it doesn't matter. We see complex relationships between men and women, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, sons and mothers. A part of our brain is making notes. Perhaps relationships are meant to be screwed. Human nature is to screw people over. Love, marriage, friendship are just words in the english language. Their meaningfulness is lost in the chaos of life, ambition and circumstance. Every action, every thought every sentiment is tainted by our selfish nature. We are not responsible for our behavior. Nor are we responsible for the hurt and suffering we cause to others. Values and morals are for the simple-minded low-lives. Winners do not follow rules. Winners screw others with grace and style. Power defines relationships. Tears are instruments and words mean nothing at all.

Life lessons learnt. We revel in blood, perverseness and a total disdain for life and peace. We all want to be happy but don't understand happiness. Desires lead us down the valleys and up the mountains.

To sum it up - we are our desires. We watch what we desire. There is no chance of happiness for us. 

The day I did nothing

Well, there is a Bertrand Russell book called "The importance of being Idle" or something like that which I once saw in a friend's room and said to myself... "hmm, true...". Honestly, the thought had not occurred to me in over 18 years of my ordinary life. Hence, from my perspective it was a rather profound and original thought. I never read the book or considered reading it but today I pay my homage to that thought. I had one hell of a day doing nothing. Again, one has to qualify a nothing with something :D.

I started the day in my usual way - woke up early, got ready, had breakfast and was all set to go for a long run and then for a swim (ambitious beginnings). Instead, I relaxed, chatted, watched tons of southpark, ate leftovers from last night, dozed for hours in a state of sweet bliss. It was a beautiful day which usually brings out the best in me. So around 4 in the evening, when there wa no more sleeping to done or southpark to be watched, I ventured out of the apartment. I ended up at the Bebe lake and walked around the lake, felt the wind on my face and the sun warm up my body. Sat beside the lake watching ducks and a most stunning shade of blue sky reflecting at me from the lake. I was there for a while, contemplating, smiling to my self like a crazy hippie(Cartman talking) and allowing everything to disentangle and breathe inside me. It was like the fresh flouroscent green shoots on bare branches during bombay monsoons. Nothing beats that feeling (perhaps the bouganvillias in full bloom, especially in April, embellishing the pale brown earth with pretty pink, come close). For the first time, I could breathe Ithaca air and feel one with it. I guess I had found a little bit of Bombay in Ithaca or discovered a little bit of Ithaca within me. Another profound thought which I cannot describe in words?

When we were younger we learnt something new almost every day. In school, we were learning quadratic equations and statistics and the biology of the human body. The world was a mystery and everyday was a little adventure. We built friendships and saw relationships in our families change and learnt something about the dynamics of how people interact. And then suddenly one day the learning stopped. We had developed "our understanding" of the world and that was it. We were required to know what we believed, our opinion on everything and we did. We joined salsa classes and learnt french during vacations but our growth had plateaued.

Growing up is such a disappointment at times. The world is full of opinions and no mysteries. We all know the world from our perspective and that is it. However, I believe I digressed.

Yes, I learnt something today by just being quiet, sitting on a rock beside the lake. I did nothing. I grew a little.

Thoughts penned in the midst

How many blogs begin with an "I", go on to narrate a personal experience or feelings and are mostly an expression of, at times, thoughts not worth bringing forth in a conversation or perhaps an essay. This might be just one of those blog entries.

I, for one, am a person who sides with extremes. On the surface, I may put on a moderate facade, but inside it's a violent firy extremism that takes sides and prefers this over that and him over him and her over her and sev puri over dahi puri! If I like Hindustan Times on Sunday, then no other newspaper would suffice. If I like a certain movie, no argument in its disfavor would make me budge an inch from my like-ometer reading. On a more serious note, my disdain for certain things and people shall always keep me all twisted inside around them. No amount of smiles or pleasentries shall unwind the knots inside. I like my chai a certain way and no other version shall please me! I want what I want, and that perhaps, is the source of all my joys and sorrows.
My preferences may fade in lieu of the circumstances but there are times when I am inadvertently caught between two extremes, unable to act or act with a little less of myself! This is one of those times. I am in India, in a little corner of the world I can always call my own. A kitchen, a study room, a verandah etched into my being over years of growing up and learning to walk, feel and learn. Every memory I have and shall have would inevitably be linked to the ones I once lived within these walls. I am back to the time where I eat each meal just the way I liked it, ingredients in the most perfect proportions as they can be ever in my head, chai the way I like best and yet I miss the warmth and comfort of my black coffee.. House Blend, my CS classes and my own little simulation window, and the sweet nothings that get poured into my ears while I am half asleep, half awake and completely in bliss from my bf from across the world!
Even though the list of things I have to miss isn't long, it seems that even little things done everyday beckon you, become a part of that "you" - the one you are in your little corner of your own little world. A "you", you create, a snuggly little nook filled with expressos and the sound of CS lectures :D!

On begging

You beg and beg and beg and then you run out of the energy to beg? No! You quit when you have been pushed to surrendering the last drops of your humility and kicked in you stomach like a rabies-ridden dog with an unbearable stench.

from hot chocolate to chai

sometimes u really need that perfect cup of chai .. because that's the best you can extract out of life at that point.. fortunately (or unfortunately) I just made a perfect cup of chai thereby rescuing myself from the ultimate denial of comfort.. of losing that one last hope of feeling good .. of savoring something so perfect that even the most imperfect of situations in life can be forgotten in those few moments of innocuous sweet gingery bliss..

Field Trails..

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near..


I am somewhere in those woods, lovely, dark and deep, fascinated by them. There is no farmhouse anywhere in sight and somewhere inside I am wondering thatthat what is the significance of these woods, of their beauty in all its vivid, vibrant, varying shades in the miles I am going to cover before I sleep? Am I at a pitstop? Is it like one of those experiences in life which are so brief, without any precedence and without a trail behind that they could as well have been a dream, a false memory?

What if this is what life is going to be like.. a long tedious journey with a few pitstops thrown in between? Conversely, what if life is in these little pitstops scattered on the continuum of long tedious journeys?

Since I don't have an answer yet and since the probability could be 50-50, I am in no position to disrespect either the pitstops or the tedious journeys... and therefore, those little digressions, those little trails followed perpendicular to the highway are every bit as important as the highway..

Everything!

I can be an asshole of the grandest kind
I can withhold like it�s going out of style
I can be the moodiest baby and you�ve never met anyone
who is as negative as I am sometimes

I am the wisest woman you've ever met.
I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.
I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen
And you've never met anyone
Who's as positive as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can�t relate
And you�re still here

I blame everyone else, not my own partaking
My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating
I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you've never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can�t relate
And you�re still here

What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know
What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go

I'm the funniest woman you've ever known.
I am the dullest woman you've ever known.
I'm the most gorgeous woman you've ever known
And you've never met anyone as, as everything as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can�t relate
And you're still here

And you're still here
And you're still here...

Everything
Alanis Morissette

It just takes a beautiful song to make your day. The smoothest subtlest transition of a straight line into a concave curve causing a little depression to form further up along the farthest tangent..a little moment of bliss.. pure unadulterated..