How I get angry

Silence is a tent I drag over bruises.
Each word must be prised out of me.
Each word is overkill.

how fringe we are

Am trying to get babysitting jobs. This is one of those deviously convoluted schemes that divebombed into my head one day when I was trying to figure out good ways to get access to children's books (about this: later). So I advertised my services on the white board of my friendly neighbourhood sandwich bar, and today, three weeks later, I get a call from Mrs. Jordan to enquire about my antecedents.

She wants to know if I work; my age; where I live and with whom; where my parents live; which community I belong to. At the last one, I stumble. This question I usually wave away nonchalantly, secure within my progressive pomo identity. But here I can sense how important it is to tell her, "my dad's marwari and my mum's punjabi". At which she laughs - what a weird coupling - and moves on.

Later, while driving, I hope my children can grow up in a place and time when they don't have to preface the introduction of their selves with such identifiers. For if they couldn't, I wouldn't know how to identify myself.

Pets 2

The Encyclopedia of Cats can be as much joy for us nomads as real cats.

recess

Am completely taken up by the new Pepsi commercial: Oye Bubbly. The humor is wacky and Shahrukh Khan is finally cast in an ad where he doesn't look as if he doesn't know what to do with his extravagant energies.

There is an Amitabh Bachchan+Preity Zinta+Indian cricketers version as well - Pepsi is obviously opting for a full-dress incursion - but I'm yet to embrace it with as much affection as the first ad.

(Link to Oye Bubbly courtesy Neha)

little blue man (or, this is a mistake)

It was obviously a memory -
perhaps a dream -
that smell on your breath -
was it really me?

Thank you, Universe

I'm awed by the kindnesses extended to me the past two days. Just when I needed some.

Explosive together

Holy fools and wild wolflets don't mix. They blow up.

Four walls

I've written before about the space I inhabit
in college
my words scuttling all over the page
in a new rhythm, a rhythm all my own
I am a bull
I like knocking things about
to come to know them on my own
terms
and now I write again
write about a space of my own myown mysecret
strung slimly on a wire and Sarojini curtains
(red and orange) rippling in the wind
no technique, no planning
all haphazard, but Me
Mine
This space, this solitude is vulnerable as a kitten
And realized I was happy
and a clotheshorse behind my back blithely
braces the washing
Rueful, for I certainly know when to laugh at myself
I position my journal to catch the brightest of the weak, yellow light
to scribble
But happy

She-blogger

By Tild - this is so cool - I love it.

I can't help reading

Am supposed to be undergoing a week of "reading deprivation". Broadly this means no books, newspapers, movies, TV, radio, internet or emails. Had started on Thursday night (the 10th) with remarkable moxie, thinking of all the ways I could avoid reading my emails at work. Sadly, after going through the experiences of a few others (trust a google junkie to come up with this), I realized work-related reading was exempt from this strict injunction.

Well, it's my sixth day and I'm still going strong. Probably since I've been sneaking quick little glances at emails from friends, comments on the blog, what my partner's writing; reading an entire news article about our friendly neighbourhood sandwich bar while munching on sandwiches...

Having to work largely on the internet at office does not help, but I can't help but feel, ever-so-slightly, like a wayward child.

Scary time?

Am truly, truly confused. Blogshares shows an outgoing link to my blog from Gautam's blog, and further, to Anand's and Mario's blogs.

Now we might be dear friends in real life etc., but my naked eye cannot find a visible link to us in G's online hangout. So how the hell does Blogshares find out who our confreres are?

Sunsets

The best antidote to feeling rushed in life: watch a sunset.

The sun takes all the time it needs in the world to make a magnificent descent. It sails through the spectrum of yellow, orange and red, deliberating over each hue with ardor and indolence. Lengths of time pass by and the sun does not finish its downward journey.

An hour to sit or stroll and attend. An airplane flies through the transluscent amber sphere with its wingtips peeping out over the curve. Many minutes later, standing at another level, another airplane passes clear over. The red ball that had vanished from the line of sight when you were down at the lake reappears when you climb to the top of the ruins. The sun, you realize with wonder, had not quite set; it's not yet gloaming.

circa Feb 16, 2005

Disoriented

(Or, how unshut doors make all the difference.)

I walk into my hairstylist's salon to get a haircut and find a door ajar on the right. It opens into a tiny kitchen where a grizzled old woman and a young moustachioed man are cooking. I don't ever remember seeing a door here, let alone a kitchen, and for a moment think I've entered the wrong house.

circa Feb 16, 2005

Not merely a mood

Tiny jets of despair issuing from me.

circa Feb 16, 2005

Vanguards

As some of my friends and I go through certain phases in our relationships, it occurs to me that we are the vanguards for generations future and past, to usher in "new relations of equality". The burden of it makes me slightly resentful, although, to be frank, I would not have it any other way.

circa Feb 16, 2005

Like on a high

So that's a flow. Thoughts leap inside your head. And colors. And textures. And images. Flashing 2D sometimes vividly 3D. Behind closed eyes a story unfolds.

circa Feb 14, 2005

Like cats and wolves

When I thought the 'us' was dying, the special language of grunts between us lived. And I thought, "Why not? Why make it die?"

circa Feb 14, 2005

Once upon a time, and soon

Those were the days of a mad creative frenzy when words came pouring out of my pen - I had something to write every two hours.

circa Feb 13-14, 2005

I tell fibs

Meeting an old friend after a long time. Those that have not even seen the you that was, once, and is already not, is already in the process of becoming another - a change that's not happened, that is in motion, that you're not sure would lead you where.

And I hear myself uttering half-truths, untruths, talking certitudes, professing what's already left.

circa Feb 13, 2005