Consumerist soul

Do you know what love feels like? It feels like someone is spinning you around without stopping and even when they have, the room is still spinning around anyway. You never wanted to be that Meatloaf song and "do anything for love". You always thought you could never care about another human being anymore. You thought you would be happy with your personal goals and achievements. Then one day it hit you. That you always knew that you are brilliant/talented/beautiful/whatever. That you would only be happy when you stripped yourself of your own ego and laid yourself bare in front of someone else and they liked what they saw. the old skeleton, the aged flesh, the sunken eyes, whatever. That was dizzying, wasn't it? that someone loved you for what you are and not what you could be,

Let me be the cup that you drink from.
Let me be the run-down ramshackle shelter from the storm.
Let me be the fire that burns you.
Let me the wine that intoxicates you.
Let me be your last washed piece of laundry in your wardrobe.
Let be your lucky penny that you wont hesitate to drop into the wells of chance.
Let me be your guard, your shield, your wound, your scar, your field.
Let me be everything to you like you are to me.
Will you ever see this page? Will you ever understand?

Behold, a surreal cup of tea! Warning : Not to be consumed.

As of this moment, I have read every single novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is like Graduation Day for me. Of course, I haven't read all of his works. Nocturnes remains. So do the three short stories. Nevertheless, it is a happy day.

It is a happy day, because I have finished reading The Unconsoled. I have raced through it with about as much understanding as its protagonist Ryder has about himself. My annoyance mounted with each page, each monologue, the long winded descriptions of each alley short-cut in the book. I kept telling myself "Dope trip or dream sequence. Dope trip or dream sequence. Wait till I get to the last, I will understand which one it is."

Towards the ending, I thought, "Maybe he is in a mental asylum. That would explain everything. The long journeys taken to cover the short distances and this delusional city where people expected art to provide solution to the everyday problems of life." Nah! That can't be it. That would be too simple. Dear Kazuo couldn't have led me on for 500 odd pages to come to this really simplistic and oft-repeated easy way out ending.

Towards the last two pages, it struck me that probably one of the characters that the protagonist interacted with often was a representation of his own childhood. Fine. But then that would mean that every character is a part of the protagonist and this entire novel was the protagonist's unbiased review of his own life.

Decided to take help. After reading the novel, read the Wiki entry on The Unconsoled. Cleverly they have not mentioned anything more than a 6 line plot synopsis that comes on the book jacket.
Turned to other reviews online. Everyone has come up with every possible idea. Compared it to Kafka's Trial, related it to Confucianism, come up with Greek philosophical parallels. Everything goes, however no one has come out and said " I do not like it."

I will do so here.

Dear Kazuo,
If you ever come across this, I just wish to say that this is by far your worst work. However, since you have come up with 2 stunning works after The Unconsoled, I am sure this phase of yours has passed and you keep churning out great stuff now. I am totally unqualified to review your book, as neither do I know about music, nor do I know about literature, which is why you will probably never stumble across this page. However, I love your work and was very disappointed in this particular one. Please make it up to me by coming up with some stunning work set in Latin America or somewhere unexpected. (Surprise me! I am tired of Japan, England and China settings.) Waiting for the next masterpiece.

Your ardent fan,
Gomes

No misspellings found

Follow Mendelssohn

Down the stairs

out into the air

the heavy air, of the street.

Lose him and wonder

with your finger posed sexily on your lip

Caught in the glare

of those whose time is precious

and you don't even care.

Ah, there he is.

Found him again, will not

lose him now.

Make your way into a glass building

open and forbidding.

Louder it gets

and you inch closer to the source.

In the room is a boy

inebriated or worse at noon,

his laptop blaring out this tune,

while he hits on a tired beauty

a couple of years older.

She stops him not

for she wants him to cast her

in his next ad-film,

with her hand on his thigh,

she answers 'Yes'

to what he has not asked her.

The world passes by

with ladders and notes,

with scales and ropes,

with aches and hopes.

You retreat, for to invade

a public moment is wrong

and then you put your finger on it!

"Damn it! It was the Spring Song!"

Humiliation

Dumb? Stupid? Or if we were to be grossly insensitive, retarded?
Don't you think the world is getting progressively dumber?
Our only aim seems to be to catch the next episode of the latest reality show which humiliates our own brothers and sisters. Why do we find such joy in someone else's humiliation? Why?
Is it the thought that "Oh my god! I am dumber than him but thank God no one caught me on TV" ? Or is it the thought of the sorry lives that these barely mortals will lead post these excruciatingly debasing moments? Why do we enjoy seeng other peopel being humiliated?

There seems to be a peculiar joy in watching humliation. Not of the pain and sadist kind. People who watch BDSM videos are considered freaks. But even the gentlest soul will not think twice about watching Paris Hilton's My BFF or Rakhi ka Swayamvar. Why?

Does it make us feel like Anna Wintour for a moment? Do we imagine ourselves in the shoes of the tormentor or aggressor and enjoy it? Secretly, do we want to insult our friends? Is this the desire that is present in us? So every time our friend asks us our opinion of his shirt or tie, are we yearning to tell him how ugly he is actually and how all this effort taken on his wardrobe is a total waste of money and effort and that he should just use a a bunch of grass to cover his modesty and call it quits? Are these thoughts running through our head? In which case, are reality shows equivalent to pornography?
Think about it. We watch porn. Put ourselves in the guy's place and in our heads we are slamming the girl wild. That desire exists in our heads all the time. While watchng porn, we are living the guy's life vicariously. So when we watch reality shows, are we living the judge's lives vicariously? Is that really what we have become?

Christening

I want to invent a name for this feeling. Something that is not Love but has all the basic ingredients.
Something that is like warm rum , which is sweet and silly but not strong and all the intoxication has gone out of it. It is what an invalid or an old spinster/bachelor who has never taken any spirits would appreciate and draw comfort from.
Something like an old pair of cotton shorts that has developed holes in all the wrong places but you love to curl up in it and read Robin Hood.
Something like The Murder on the Orient Express. Though you have read it a million times, you find something newer and thrilling each time you read.
It is a warm feeling. Not like a searing hot passion where you call out to your mate in the middle of the night and he comes to you from miles away on a motorbike or bullock-cart and tries to climb into your balcony and though it is against all reason, you go out to meet him in your best and skimpiest lingerie with the possibility of the Gurkha on the night-watch catching sight of you. No not like that at all. It is not that feeling where 80% of your head tells you to kiss this person / pinch his butt in front of old grannies just for the heck of it.
It is tepid. It is lukewarm. It is like the shower water when you are more than half-way through your bath and the steam has ceased fogging up the mirror.
It is like the last piece of cake left in the fridge. Probably old and going to turn stale and is nothing new, but you know that this one is going to last you a while because it is the last piece and your diet starts tomorrow and it is not so violently delicious that you will be tempted to swallow it in one gulp.
What does one call this feeling?

kabhi siyaahi kam pad jaati hai

kabhi kaagaz ki wasee dekhke sehem jaati hoon

ab haal kuch aur hai mera

na toh kagaaz ki hai galti

aur siyaahi bhi begunaah hai aaj

bus dil ki kami hai

jo beemaar firta hai

khwabon ke sheher mein

aur kabhi na poore hone waale khwahishon ke galiyon mein

jaise koi na-mard ,sirf apni jeb bharkar

firta hoga tawayafon ke mohalle mein.

Enfin

Don't fix the hole where the rain gets in.

Lazy lazy laaaaizeeee day.
No boss.
Loads of free time. Nothing to do. No need to even pretend to work.
Omar Abdullah has been alleged of being involved in a sex scam in 2006. What could have been the scam? Maybe he promised to have sex with someone and didn't put out at the last minute. Now that would be a scam.
Did you know that there is whole movement going on in India to save the Brinjal? Yep, because the government is going to introduce geneticaly modified Brinjal, many independent agencies are trying to get a sort of patent proclaiming the origins of Brinjal to be in India, so that its genetic testing can be prevented. Like in Peru, which is supposed to have given the world its first Potato, the genetic testing on Potato crops is prohibited. I found this bit of info funny, but then, why not? Everything is good, everything is bad. Lets fight for the brinjal as well.

Could I go somewhere? I don't really have the energy. Want to curl up and sleep. or die. Only Crocin has kept me alive since last night. I love Crocin. I love all antipyretics, to be fair. Don't want Calpol being cross with me. While we are still on that subject, I would like to state my affection for analgesics as well. I have my reservations about Saridon, though. Not about its performance, honestly I haven't tried one. I don't think I will ever too. The inner feminist does not allow me to consume Saridon or any other pill that dictates to me what I should or shouldn't wear. Do men feel the same when they consume Saridon?

I should go and do some work. Sometime today. Maybe in the last 5 mins before I leave office. That's a good time. Hmm.

Resorting to the cauldron

Call me perverse, if you will, but I stick to the opinion that there is comfort in falling sick. By that I don't mean any serious illness or anything that involves pain, but merely temporary impairment of faculties. Something like a cold.
I have one right now. I shivered the whole afternoon, sneezed and wheezed. Threw off the blanket, braved the rainy evening for a bit and even made dinner plans with a friend. 15 sneezes and 3 hankies later, chickened out, cancelled dinner plans and crawled under the blanket snivelling. Then I got up just around dinner time and started making rasam. Simple kottu rasam.
I warmed the water in a thin metal saucepan with a loosely screwed on Bakelite handle and soaked the tamarind. 10 minutes later when I dipped my hand in the lukewarm water to squeeze the tamarind pulp, I closed my eyes to revel in that comfortable feeling. At that moment, I swear, I felt the trembling hands of generations of old women caress my fevered brow. I knew then that this rasam was a cure. It was a potion that would cure me of all ills. When I tipped in a spoonful of turmeric into the dark tamarind waters, with a multitude of other good things like pepper,cumin,mustard and butter, I felt like I was looking into a witch's brew. Dark with swirling herbs with flashes of gold in between where the melted butter had captured the turmeric before it gave itself to the brew fully. Now when I sip my rasam, I feel powerful. Dark and mysterious. Empowered by the secret of ancient witches, who knew how to hurt and how to heal themselves. No matter what went wrong.
Sometimes it is worth falling ill, just to test your own powers. Call me perverse, if you will.

Faith and Hope

Not the sitcom, you dummies! For us Indians. We are not an underdeveloped nation any more. Our nation is not one of apes and cave-people. Sorry, if any real apes are reading this blog, but I am sure you will understand and forgive me just this once.
One High Court Judge, A.P.Shah has proved that he is not an invertebrate and above all, is human. He has ruled out in favour of repealing the Section 377 of the Indian Constitution. Of course, this doesn't help much until a Bill is officially passed in the parliament that reads down the Section 377. However, it is a great start! Wooohoooo!
I don't want to be told by any constitution how many people I get do it with. I should be able to do it with any one above the age of consent irrespective of gender. Most of all the Government had better employ its eyes better by watching the weather and crops and NOT what I do in bed! The Government shouldn't tell me how my partner(s) and I should enjoy our time.
Hmm, who knows? Maybe S&M clubs will be allowed across cities. We can always hope. :P
Towards a sex-positive nation. Cheers!

TV Dinners are so 90s!

Won't you undo my shoes?
My feet are killing me so.
I have dragged my shod feet across
the hall, to watch Depeche Mode.

That insanely blue and green-sweet cuckoo
pops its head out of its shiny sham home
to tell us it is eight, and Fuck you, fuck YOU 8
times over and shuts itself up again, back home.

It is Strange Love that they are playing
and I do agree that one gives in to sin
to make life liveable. Otherwise dreary.
Does this mean that we are dining in?

Our plates messy and my eyes glued to VH1,
I have no clue what you are thinking about.
You still haven't helped me take my shoes off.
Love I will have to do without.

Equality is not sexy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/02/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety
This is a very long post and I suggest to those who have strayed onto my blog to read just the article and move on, unless they have precious little to do anyway.

This article spurred me to write about many men I have met in my life and their views on women and feminism. I assure you that all these men were highly educated and have always acted in a politically correct manner as far as women are concerned. They are all kind, brotherly Sir Galahads.

1. My father - He taught me the the physiological differences between men and women and how to distinguish between both sexes when they are fully clothed or even bizarrely attired. He has always been polite to women and was supposedly quite the gallant knight when he was a young man. Yet he feels extremely uncomfortable when my mother takes off her mangalsutra at the hospital for scans and x-rays. He blusters incoherently in unutterable rage when he hears of young married women not wearing the mangalsutra or sindoor. He gave up after nearly 20 years of trying to force me into wearing a bindi. He also believes firmly that women should not be over-educated. A graduation is enough for them and was very disappointed when I did my MBA.

2. Then there was this boy, who was a good friend of mine. We read the same things, listened to the same music and seemed to have the same tastes in everything. He firmly believed that sexual harassment happened only to poor illiterate rural women. The women who complained of sexual harassment in urban work-spaces were,in his opinion, only trying to turn their gender into their favour. He also lent me Disclosure, telling me what a great read it was.

3. A friend of mine has worked with an NGO which deals with destitute women and women's problems in general. He has worked for, I think, 2 or more years with them. He thinks his quota of feminism is done. He finds women who talk of women's empowerment in classes very outdated and boring. Of course, he is an authority on women because he has worked for the most downtrodden amongst them and he must be aware of the latest trends in feminism and such.

4. Another man I have had the great honour to meet, was a classmate. He is runty, ugly, has a needlessly aggressive and very off-putting personality, and is a great attention seeker in his own pathetic way. He once said, " There is not a single attractive or intriguing girl at (my B-school)". He made this off-hand remark to a group of young men and women. Some took offence too, I believe. What stunned me was the fact that, in a world where everything was right, this man would not be able to get a woman to sleep with him unless he were willing to pay for it. Here, in this world, we women had to mind even ugly dull men's opinion. If this isn't testament to the gender skew, what is ?

5. My mind turns to another conversation which I once had with a friend of mine. At that time, I hadn't known that he was gay. It wasn't conversation, it was just idle banter. We were talking about the different forms of dancing that we liked and he suddenly said with a huge grin," The best kind that I like is the ball dance". I said, " Really? Well, i guess. I do like waltzes." and he said disdainfully, " You don't even know what I am talking about." But I did. I knew then, but I pretended to be innocent. For isn't every woman supposed to be armed with feminine innocence ? Gay men, may or may not be misogynists, but they can only be men at the end of the day.

6. A man I loved once and stopped loving because he believed in sexual liberty only as long as it went according to his plan. As long as I loved being the bottom half in some mild S&M and he was top, we were made for each other. Even idle talking of role reversal was not allowed, coz he was sure. He was sure he wouldn't like to try. He wouldn't even want to try something that involved being the bottom. Not even for fun.

7. Another man, whom I was considering getting married to, not because he was suitable but because he didn't seem entirely unsuitable. That is, until we had this conversation. He said that he conservative in his views and opposed to same-sex marriage. I got past that. On exploring what he meant by conservative, it came to light that he wasn't against women working( Wowie! Thankee, mister.), but she must only do most of the housework as he still couldn't bring himself to believe that a married man who cooks more than the occasional breakfast-in-bed on wedding anniversary days, isn't emasculated. In order to do his bit for equality, he offered to mow the lawn and take out the trash.

8. Another suitor who told me that I didn't need to work, and that he was earning for more than 3 people. He said, if I felt the pressing need to make myself useful, why, I could do a PhD in anything I fancied in some nearby university. He would pay, of course. There was another one too who believed that both man and wife should work and earn, however she must sleep in another room and not touch him when she had periods. Yeah, when my womb is bleeding, sexual harassment is foremost in my mind.

9. Yet another friend, who in a very important essay, essayed forth his opinion on fierce femininity. The dominatrix tigress in thigh high boots who is not afraid to ask for sex and locks eyes with her prey and drags him to her boudoir for her own pleasure. Of course, this was path-breaking as well. I mean, Dominatrix! So not a stereotype!

10. A friend who is a fashion fiend is sadly embittered by the women he has met in his life. He says all the women he knows are all scheming, plotting, boob strategists. They use gender and hotness to their favour and are self-centred and milk men to the last drop of their money. He may be right for he can only quote from his own experience. However, I also notice that he is drawn to and notices first the women who follow the style manual to the last period. The high-heeled, double-waxed, stylishly dressed women. Well, if a woman invests so much in her looks, she has to get something out of it. She has starved, primped,preened, curled,waxed, popped pills to look as close to the ideal as possible. If she doesn't milk it for all she is worth,she is a fool. And she is only obeying the code that men set up for women.

Men and their ideas on what women should be, what feminism is. How can men live with women all their lives and not know anything about them?

I want to be a woman. I am a woman today simply because I am not a man. I want to become one really and truly. I want to deserve the title of Woman. I have no clue what one does to do that. The article that I read made me write about some of the men whom I have met or befriended and what they think of women. The poor feminist Sheila Jeffreys, for all her pains, got a dildo named after her. A dildo called - Sheila : A spinster's best friend. I am pretty sure, that a man was responsible for this nomenclature. For only a man could have thought that, by associating a penis-shaped sex accessory with a woman's name could insult her like nothing else.
How absurd! I would love to have a dildo named after me. To know that my name would be associated with sexual pleasure for millions of women all over the world, would give me satisfaction like no other.

Gender determination

From http://genderanalyzer.com/
"We think http://noughtscapes.blogspot.com is written by a woman (79%)."
They haven't even checked out my rack yet!

:)

Are we there yet?

When,God, when will we stop going on and on about love? And not just Love, love in this oh-my-god-poke-my-eyes-out-before-I-read-any-more-of-this-tripe kind of love.


The different kinds of romantic love portrayed in Fiction:

1. Man-Woman Rock Solid love - Two-sided, mono-amorous love. Love of the running around the trees fame, of the we-will-part-not fame, of the we-will swim-across-flooded-rivers-and-die-of-heartache-and-not-pneumonia fame. Romeo-Juliet, Heer-Ranjha and countless others. Shit boring.

2.Want what I can't have - The tales of forbidden love. Adultery, most often. The good old love triangle spiced up by marriage and societal rules and all that. Unfaithful, Murder yada yada. Sometimes, just to be different, it is the case of the hitherto straight man suddenly falling for another man. Or a married woman falling for another.

3. Polyamory in its various forms - Debauched people who paint the most heavenly decadent scenes and then all die of mysterious diseases or of broken hearts and realization of a life wasted away or pure pecuniary scarcity. There has never been a work of fiction where Polyamory has been suggested as a working possibility.

How boring!
Why don't these ugly books by Truman Capote, Jane Austen and Edith Wharton burn down? Shouldn't these books just auto-combust out of shame and boredom? Ugh!
Love,scandal,love,scandal,love,love,scandal. And some more. Fuck y'all! The Harlequin romances are a better read than this tripe. At least,they don't pretend to be something else.

Audacious

The spoon scrapes the bowl
trying to find gruel stuck in the corners,
trying to find corners in the semi-sphere.

The spoon scrapes the bowl
idly, while its stalk( or stem,if you prefer)
leans out of its own accord to laden plates.

The spoon scrapes the bowl
and then stops. Decisively!
Enough is enough and no more!

The spoon is held up by
a trembling hand, resolutely.
And the voice asks plaintively:
"More, please. More. "

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dearest K, I said this for both of us.

Fading

You open one eye and look at the ugly digital clock on the bedside table. It coldly states that the time is 14:34:32 now. It must be Sunday by logical deduction and putting together the following two facts:

1) I am here, sipping my post-lunch coffee and looking at your supine body with absent-minded lust.

2) You can feel a hangover coming on, hence you must have gotten terribly bottled last night and that you can allow yourself to do only on Saturday nights.

Therefore, it must be Sunday.

All this by opening one eye. Tell me, clever one, does the word 'Denotified' mean anything to you? Does your name 'Alekha Gosavi' mean anything to you, darling?

There you go again, you have closed your eyes and turned over on to your tummy. With your eyes closed, your red spaghetti strap revealing thingummyjig riding right upto where your bra strap should have been, you look very, how shall I put it, like you eat right out of my hand and if I ordered you to, you would take your top off and parade in the street outside, no questions asked. Oh, but I know you! I know you better. In 2 mintues, you will beckon me with the curl of your index finger and then order me about to get you water, coffee, some snacky things to eat and saridon, in that order. If I do everything to your liking and I am real good to you, when I come to you with the coffee, you will smile at me, put your arms around me and let my hands go under that spaghetti top.

Look around you, darling. Do you have any idea of how immensely lucky you are ? Look at your lovely MAC Film Noir lipstick, look at your Hermes perfume left carelessly unstoppered on the dresser, look at your expensive clothes which you crumple up and throw at me when you are annoyed. Look at yourself. Look at your unwillingness to move from one room to another to get another cushion or to try a new pub because our usual one was chock-full of people or to try limiting dinner to a hurried single course. Look at you. You,a nomad? Never.
Would they ever know if they didn't know your name, that even now your cousins roam helplessly without food or education or a chance of livelihood from village to village trying to be true to the Gosavi occupation. Who would guess that your grandma and grandpa went around from house to house, begging for food, and in the evening, put all the various food items given to them in a huge vessel and that entire family including your mother ate out of that? To your ear, Mozart and Himesh are the same. Do you know, your musically inclined family used to sing customised songs for their regular patrons? You must, of course, know. If your mother has told me all this, you must know so much more.

Yet, you don't. Your miraculous escape hasn't touched you one bit. How your mother refused to go around with the family begging anymore after your grandpa was arrested for a robbery, how it wasn't his fault but they arrested him because his tribe was a tribe of habitual offenders or 'Denotified' tribes, how he died in custody and your Mom ran away to some house and started working as a servant girl at the tender age of 8. How lucky she was that the people in that house educated her and she could apply for a nice desk job after a few years! Thats why my love, you,Alekha Gosavi and I,Surabhi Venketachala Iyer can lie together naked, go to Poison on Thursday and Saturday nights and bitch about our workplaces with equal aplomb. We can, because we escaped terrible fates.

You,more so than I. Your tribe forms a miniscule part of a 7% of the Indian population of nomads and that too non-pastoral nomads. In common parlance, "beggars". How the tide has turned. Thousands of small tribes who eked a living out of music and crafts and religion and superstition, turned into "beggars and criminals" by one swift stroke of the Brits who ruled us aeons ago. Nobody did anything about it till now. Ok, they removed the tag of criminals, but still your cousins are known as beggars all over this country.

Only my mother sheds a tear for the Gosavis, she remembers. She loves to think of the little Gosavi children who used to come to her house, play some music and take whatever was given to them with true gratitude. She still cries for the Gosavis and holds up her hands feebly in protest when somebody calls them beggars. Maybe she would be happy to know that I have found a Gosavi. Maybe not. After all, one can explain away the denotified tribes, but how does one explain a woman falling for another?

Nomad, you have wandered into my life.Now I pray everyday that it should be true,what they say about gypsies. That they never steal ,but they take what is rightfully theirs without asking and without ceremony.

Miss Marple's Beaux

This is what I would call a my band if I had one. I would be the band manager and main lyricist, of course. Only some filler numbers would be written by the others. There would be a lead singer with a voice like Dolores O'Riordan, slightly raspier than that but as rich. She would be rake thin and lanky and awkward as a colt, except when she is on stage. When she grabs that microphone and closes her eyes to sing, she will become like a graceful bamboo stalk,something the angels sent you for your birthday coz you were so good last year.
There will be two guitarists, both female, one slightly dumpy looking with a cupcake in her hand all the time. Even on stage, surreptitiously, she would grab a bite and try to stuff the half-eaten goodie somewhere on top of all the equipment. She would be the lead guitarist. The other woman is nondescript.She can also play all kinds of flutes.
We have a tabalchee instead of a drummer. It is a middle aged man,who used to play for some brothel pretending to be a kotha for gentlemen. He was an innocent cherub. Really used to believe that all the those drunk perverts came there for the musical pleasure of the evening and after the recital went home quietly nursing their leftover cheap whisky and unspent desire. Then one day, the police came and raided the Meenabais and Sarlabais. When he saw the dishevelled, naked sweaty women being paraded out with their clients, he started bawling. Bawled his head off like a baby. The policemen did not want to have a snivelling tabalchee on their hands, so they ignored him. Since then he wasn't the same man anymore. He was gloomy and took to brooding on street corners where he set up his tabla and played whenever he felt like it. That is how we would have come across him and taken him under our wing. Then,of course, there is a young college boy on the key board, who is always threatening to put his talents to use elsewhere but nobody will have him coz he is so bad and we keep him on coz we have precious little use for the keyboard and he is really the only cute one on stage anyway.
That is what Miss Marple's Beaux would be like. And we would sing songs of the death of love, the flaws of human nature, hatred, poisons, loneliness, spinsterhood and such depressing themes. The music would be sweet and melodious and sonorous. Beyond that I can't really say anything about the music, coz I don't know much about it really.
Want Miss Marple's Beaux to come to life.

Plain

I am plain.
This is not a self deprecatory post. It is just a fact that I state here.
I am not ugly. I am just plain. I got a face that shows how old i am. I got skin that is not even toned. I don't have a hot body that people can lust after. I don't have a single remarkable feature. If I primp and preen and put oodles of make-up I will be able to transform myself. I don't however do that.
As I see it, I am not a model/actress/dancer or in any profession where my face would be my fortune.
You think that I will get by in life? WRONG!!
I forgot to mention one thing. I am a woman.
A woman.
If I need to get by in life, just about scrape through with the usual ups and downs and highs and lows, I still have to be beautiful. If I am not desirable, then I am nothing.
If I were a man, and ugly to boot, I would still get a fair shot at life. They will say, " Never mind, handsome is as handsome does." Even if I were no genius at whatever I do and even if I were not at all talented, I would still scrape by.
However, I am a woman. I must strive all my life to look as close as possible to the IDEAL WOMAN. My teeth must be set straight, I must wear high heels to lengthen my calf ,thrust out my boobs and jutt my butt out, I must wear eye make-up, face powder to even out my complexion, wax, pluck, tweeze, thread, bleach, wear tight clothes, smell good, feel soft to touch, have silky smooth skin and I must maintain this day after day. Only to look the same as all other women, to try hard to be at par with every other woman and look the same so that some day a hairy ugly smelly piece of goods will paw at me and deign to go to bed with me. Call it marriage, call it love, call it an affair. Even if not for sex, I must still strive to look like all other women and as close as possible to the ideal so that the men at work place will at least take me seriously.
If you are a plain woman, and not a genius at something, then life is tough.
I have only one wish. If my genie would come to me I would say to him ( definitely HIM, who has heard of women having the power to grant any wish?) please grant me leave to get away with it. More than anything in the world, I want to get away with being plain. Like many men I know, I just want to get away with it. That's all.

Beaches

Those that have known the sweaty Sundays
do not crave beaches anymore.
Nor do those who suspect themselves to have
fallen prey to melanoma.
All very well for the Englishman to exoticise
the hot waves lapping at the sand-furnace.
All very well for him to talk of afternoons and coffee spoons.
Give me a poem that writes about a beach country as it is.
That tells you of the thirst on your tongue,
the puckering of imported apples,
the sweat baths, the uncalled for tanning,
the cottons that do not help.
Even nudity wouldn’t,
the irritation felt when you see naked Caucasian bodies
that lay sprawled out in the sand.
Covered by sunscreen, protected by their moral code
which allows them to wear nothing but sunscreen,
and then you turn away, to see a black burqua’ed lady
leading away little Asif to his Arabic classes.
Unwilling is he, he’d rather watch cartoons.
No,they do not crave beaches anymore.
A holiday is not a holiday if you go to yet another beach.
Wearing your shorts and tee,watch your family
paw at the waves, feebly, play ineffectually,
feel impatient as you feel the thin ridge of your thong
tease your butt-crack and then snap tight against sensitive skin.
Suffer the same, pretend to enjoy yet watch with sympathy
the local woman who looks on at everything with spite.
Understand. They do not crave beaches anymore.

Mo Movie Measure

Here is a movie watching rule I came across. Its the Bechdel-Wallace rule and is known as the Mo Movie Measure in pop culture.
The rule goes thus. The movie should:
1. Have at least 2 women in it
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

How many movies do we know that could pass this test?
Shall we add some other rules?
How about a movie with at least 2 men in it, who talk to each other without using unparliamentary language and unnecessary arm-punching/backslapping and do not talk about sex or war?
Hmmm... Cinema has to go a long way, sigh.

Now I'm It, run for your lives!

Tagged by Sushi !
Using only song *titles* from one artist, cleverly answer these questions
I choose Asha Bhonsle, and will only use her solos to answer the questions.
1. Are you a male or female: Yeh kya jagah hai, doston ?
2. Describe yourself: Parde mein rehne do
3. How do you feel about yourself: Baag mein kali khili
4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: Jeene ke bahane lakhon hain, jeena tujhko aaya hi nahin.
5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: Aaiye Meherbaan
6. Describe your current location: Daiya yeh Main kaha aa phasi
7. Describe where you want to be: Nazar lagi Raja tore bangle par
8. Your favorite color is: Kali ghata chaaye
9. You know : In aankhon ki masti ke mastaane hazaaron hain. :)
10. What’s the weather like: Shokh nazar ki bijliyan
11. If your life was a television show what would it be called: Jaiye aap kahaan jaayenge,nazar lautke phir aayegi.
12. What is life to you: Do lafzon ki hai dil ki kahaani
13. What is the best advice you have to give: Aage bhi jaane na tu
14. If you could change your name what would you change it to: Mera naam hai shabnam

I tag : Aadi, Abhilash, Keerthy

Just another morbid morning

My name doesn't matter. Therefore I will tell you. It is Jean. In fact it is Subha, but they also call me Jean at work. Didn't I tell you that it doesn't matter?

What matters to me right now is Nothingness, the unbearable lightness of being. I am contemplating various options to end it all. My multicoloured dupattas hang ineffectually on the hooks tacked on this side of the door. There is a bottle of sleeping pills in my dresser drawer that Rahul doesn't know anything about. In fact, there are a lot of things in my dresser drawer that Rahul doesn't know anything about. I look out of the window. 14 floors down is a long way to go. Actually 13 floors, but people call it the 14th floor. Does it really make a difference? Of all these options, the jump down seems the most inviting of the lot.

I stand like this every morning and think these thoughts, weigh the options and then get on with my life. Today I will get on with my death, I swear.

I can hear Dhruv lisping and cooing outside my room and Rahul dressing him. In 15 mins time, they will go off. Rahul to office and Dhruv to the day care. Is that really where they go? Do they also think these thoughts every morning? Does Rahul deliberately wait 2 seconds more than necessary at the signal when the lights turn green and there is a huge truck just behind? Does Dhruv ever look down the balcony railings and wait for the day when he will be able to climb on it and go over the edge?

I must wait. I must let them go off. When Rahul calls out to bid me good bye, I must not open the door. I must pretend to be bathing. Then he will go off. Then I can get on with my...life.

They have gone. I still don't have the courage to do it. I am afraid of falling. :)

There is a painter. He is harnessed safely and the ropes are tethered to the rooftop. He holds a large brush and a can of paint and he swings from wall to wall painting it in broad strokes. He is painting the wall right opposite my window, the D block wall. He has turned around now. He swivels his neck to make sure that I am watching him. He is grinning. Is that all it takes to make this man happy? A woman in a thin cotton night shift looking out of the window with the morning sun shining down on her? Well, lucky man. It takes much more than this to make my day. More money, more love, less commitment, less responsibility, more success,less work. Then maybe, I would be happy and grin like this. Well, I will never know, will I ?

Hell! If I am going, might as well as do one last good turn. I am going to unbutton my shift and give this grinning idiot something to think about.

Its been a while now. He has given up all efforts at painting. He is desperately trying to swivel around and keep the ropes still, but the ropes keep turning round and round. Oh, cruel cruel fate! He must have a crick in his neck by now. I am smoking my 3rd cigarette.

If I hurtled down now, would it scar him for life?

Why is he not making a move to my wall? Perhaps he cant swing this far. He sure could come down, and then make a beeline for my apartment. Perhaps, he thinks that I am not real. It is pleasant but not real. If he were to break this spell, get out of this moment, he would wind up with a fistful of nothingness. I must stay this way, for now, for this man. There are 2 packets of cigarettes left in the dresser drawer

Damoclii

Wonder what Damoclii is? It is the plural invented for Damocles by yours truly.

I wait every day for the sword to fall.
In the meantime, I listen to Pardesi from Dev D which blocks out the rest of the world. When I take the earphones off, the world is aswirl with dark humour and hysterical laughter which triggers even more recession jokes. Occasionally, a few muffled sobs, somebody choking out on a hanky and a glaring empty seat. Make that 'glaring empty seats'.

In retrospect, we could have predicted it. We could have prevented it. What is the point of going down that road now? Everybody, the world over made mistakes.

Here, I pay the price.
6 months back, everything was good for me. An MBA, a job in a good company which was specially known for its retail ventures. Remember,booming retail,anyone? Marketing?

Now, I wait for the sword to fall.

The silken thread is breaking. My erstwhile cool VH1 loyalist friend has taken to watching GOD Channel with great interest. I find solace in denial and relentless optimism.

Where will it all end ?

I have no clue. I know one thing for sure. Whatever happens, happens for the good.

If the sword falls, I will swerve and get out of the way. Maybe I will fall, maybe I will have to crawl. Maybe I will have to start my life all over again. Maybe I will have to take up jobs that will bring down the worth of the already worthless degrees I have amassed to nought.

Jaan hai toh jahaan hai.

Maybe I will become an Edwidge Danticat in my 40s. There is time, lots of time.

Damoclii, take courage. This is a long long dark tunnel. Hold my hand even if you cant see it.There is light. There is a way out. It can only get better. :)

These are a few of my favourite things

Bookmark from Blossom Book House. Simple. Brilliant. Makes you happy to look at it. :)

Has been my motto all my life. This sign encourages me to gorge on Apple Cake ( or Happy Cake as rightly named by my friend K ), puffs, Kulfi Wedge, Mango Mousse, Plum cake..I could go on and on about the wonders at Nilgiris. Its like heaven!

My land and a train going round the bend.

Read, eat and travel on a shoestring budget. Does one need anything more to be happy?
No, don't answer that! It is mere rhetoric.

There is a God - I knew it!

There was fire in the Bangalore Forum Mall food court. There were no casualties reported. The food court area will be restored in a week. Timely action by the Fire Department avoided this incident turning into a tragedy. At the time when the fire broke out there were reportedly more than 6000 people in the Mall.

Though I am glad that there were no casualties, I must really appreciate Agnideva. Well done,man! Maybe this will scare the hordes of useless people who rush to Forum every free minute of their humdrum lives. Mostly what I am happy about is that this incident has proved to me the presence of God. God exists! He watches all!

He has seen the hideous blot on the landscape, that bottomless pit of tacky consumerism, that epicentre of life threatening boredom and mass manufactured discontent. He has seen the people spending their hard earned money on that ugly hideous disgusting shit sold in the name of food in that Food Court. The vomit triggering overpriced eatery! That is why He decided to punish them. He started the fire in the food court. Let this be a warning to all! If people don't mend their ways anymore, He is going to take one Landmark next. I am sure.

How I hate Landmark! With their ugly stuffed toys and cards and useless appurtenances sitting right next to their stuffy overpriced blingy book collection! Fuckers!!! Remember ,you are a book store! Not a dealer of Hidesign bags, not a vendor of cheap Gelf Chocolates, not a T-shirt Store! You are a book store. Invest in books! In art! in LITERATURE!!!!!!! Not other shit! Watch and learn! God is watching!

What I pity the most in Forum are the couples. Lots of couples who sit on the Forum steps and pretend that it is a beach or a park or their couch at home. No, it is not! You can have your Rs.25 sickening sweet corn and feed to each other lovingly, grain by grain and nibble each others fingers or gaze into each others eyes, but FYI,it is not a beach! Just 5 feet away from you is a uniformed security guard checking bags and a metal detector through which people pass. Get real! If you are sitting here because you have no money to go anywhere and you don't even have a place to go to, it is really sad for you. I pity you. If you are there, because you think you are cool, only God can help. You are beyond shrinks, that is for sure.

What can be done with Forum? Raze it down to the ground. Make a park of it! With benches and fountains and heavy foliage for couples to come and well,socialise, ground for children to play in, a huge surrounding walkway dotted with shops which sell books,clothes, shoes, fresh hot yummy authentic food etc at reasonable prices. Better,no ? Better than hanging out at Westside and Cafe Coffee Day, you sad sad people!

Of Ex-es and happy endings

If you and I
were in a Karan Johar movie,
we would meet 20 years later.
We would still be young
and wearing abominably shiny clothes,
get married,'THE END' flashing,
flashing in golden Rockwell Extra Bold font.
We would never say goodbye.

If you and I came out of a
fairytale by the Brothers Grimm,
we would be thrown apart by a
wicked witch, you would roam the world
in search of me and I
would be unconscious under a spell.
Then there would be a kiss,
that makes disappear all the years
and nothing would be amiss.
We would never say goodbye.

If you and I were a part
of an Indian myth, you would forget me
in a wink and I would do penance for you,
apologise profusely when we meet again,
ask for no child support for bearing your child
and raising him, fall at your feet
and then you,me and our son
would do a pooja without skipping a beat.
We would never say goodbye.

If you and I were in a post-modern movie,
depicting the decadent 70s in the US of A,
we would drift apart, get married to 2 perfect people,
end up staying next to each other,
send our kids to the same summer camp
and all the 4 of us would party hard,
have a wild orgy that defied normalcy
in the jacuzzi in my backyard.
We would never say goodbye.

You could go to war,
I could die of a mysterious illness,
one would go in a violent way
leaving the other to be eaten up by regret.
Many things, many ways we would have ended this
on paper, by pen, over blogs, on Orkut,
over mobile networks that easily transmitted
harsh words across great distances.
We would say a lot of hurtful things
that never made no sense.
We would never say goodbye.

We did say goodbye.
It did mean something.
It helps one move on
and the other to get over us.
Because, we did say it,
now I wish you well
and say it from the bottom of my heart,
that at the sound of your wedding bells,
I would dance with a heart as light as my feet.
Wish whole-heartedly, may our stars never cross,
may our fates never meet.

Heard my ex is getting married and about time, I would say. :D.
Hey you,if you are reading this, hope you have a wonderful married life, beautiful wife, 5 kids,a house, a yard, a dog and a well-fed potbelly. :D

Conversation between me and my career

Me: Wilt thou, fair maiden, go my way?
Wilt thou agree to clasp my hand,
lead me out of the mire of despondency
and the swamp of middle-class mentality?
I pledge thee my troth,
abandon all hopes of love
sign on the dotted line that
asks me to give up on my social life.
What sayest thou ?

Career: Young lady, it is much that you ask
and too much lip from a lady too!
Knowest not thou that a man thou must be
to climb up this steep mountain ?
If not a man, then thou must be the fairest of all damsels
who can beguile all the male wayfarers.
If thou art neither, then what right hath thee
to ask so much of me?
Look around!
Varied is thy choice.
Thou canst be the artful courtesan or artless slut
bimbo receptionist or hard-working sales girl
Many low-level options open to you without doubt!
And if these too doth not please thy undeserving ambition,
then marry a man, serve him well
in bed and without
and you will fulfil your purpose of living, no doubt!

Current affairs update

At least the first post after a blog revamp needs to be bitch-free.

Mais, c'est tres deficile! Je ne peux pas contenir ma suffrance!

Would you be able to zipper your lips shut if you saw Beyonce's latest hit single "Single Ladies ( Put a ring on it)" ? You couldn't! You wouldn't!

So many things at so many levels! Where do I begin?

The brown sistas of the world are celebrating Bey's comeback and saying " Take that,Britney!".

In this song, Bey is Bey no more. It is Sasha Fierce telling us:

Cause if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
Don't be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it

and

I got gloss on my lips (lips), a man on my hips (hips)
Hold me tighter than my Dereon jeans

The video has Sistah Action that one hasn't seen ever before!

You want to watch it, don't ya? I know you want to! So just go ahead and click on the video, for Chrissake!



Hungry for more news?

Oh! That Madonna has frittered away the last shred of her dignity and poise by revealing her oh-so-the-opposite-of-young-fresh-and-pre-pubescent flesh as LVMH brand ambassador is old hat now. No need to carry laddus to Tirupati with old news such as not even an itty bitty titty talent remains with the grand dame of music anymore.

Want some domestic news update ?
Nita Ambani goes live with her giggly love story on First Ladies. Excerpt from her precious interview with Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.
“I was hooked by Mukesh, I was booked by Mukesh and I was cooked by Mukesh"

On a total aside, the following 2 bits of information will not or should not be allowed to affect the great respect you have for this show

(i) This show was earlier titled " First Wives" and went on air bearing the same title for the promos. Then they hurriedly changed it to First Ladies.
(ii)Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla are fashion designers, not at all related in any way to the entertainment industry and have no experience whatsoever in hosting talk shows and are not even seen in the league of celebrity hosts.

Don't you love this news update? Wasn't it all important to know about these events?
Really, i don't know why people are trying to forage for information on the trouble in the Gaza strip, or the newspapers go on and on about some measly 7000 crore scandal in Satyam!