Jimi Thing

Talking of Michelangelo

2009-11-21T18:41:00.026+05:30

Then she saw it.

"Chicken Teriyaki and one Chicken and Turkey Ham, please."

"Wheat?"

"Yes."

The man took a foot-long sub and placed it on the counter. The knife sliced it open from one end to the other and exposed the insides of the wheat bread. Ham slices on the left and a cupful of teriyaki chicken on the other.

"Extra meat?"

"No. And no cheese for the teriyaki."

Next, the olives and gherkins. Mayo? Check. Barbecue Sauce? For the ham, please. Mustard Sauce for the teriyaki. And some Thousand Island Dressing to finish it.

"Takeaway, ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you."

Deft fingers tucked in the extra lettuce and neatly folded the corners of the paper wrap.

"Talk to me, baby. I've missed you."

"Sleep," she placed her hand over his eyes.

But he pulled her close to him and kissed her on the mouth.

"I've missed you," she whispered. She could hear his heartbeat as her fingers traced patterns on his chest. Smooth and brown, it glowed softly in the tawny light inside the room.

"I'll never leave you, baby," he promised.

On the stark white sheet.

"I'll spill on the sheets," he threatened her.

She ignored him.

"You went to Barista?"

"Uh-huh, picked up a coffee for myself." Iced Latte. She'd liked the way the bitter coffee had hit her throat. Still felt it there.

"Got us subs like you wanted." She handed him the carry bag. "Sorry, but I think I forgot to get tissues."

"No worries." He was back with the last bits of the toilet paper. Housekeeping had not given them a fresh roll in the morning. There probably was no housekeeping. 'Our hole in the wall' he liked to call it.

She didn't mind. In fact she loved how he never fussed about things. She loved him.

"Is it the same?"

"No. The guy wrote something on yours." She checked and gave him the one with 'Turkey' scrawled on the paper wrap.

"Spot on!" he finished his sub and smiled.

"I'm waiting," says Alice.
"For what?" Dan asks.
"For you to leave me."

"Hey, is that Natalie Portman?" he asked.

"Um...hmm."

"Good cast. What movie is this?"

"Closer."

He turned and pulled the blanket up to his chin. She reached over and kissed him.

"Good night, baby."

"But I want to watch the movie. It's interesting." He curled his lip.

"But you're dozing off," she laughed.

It scuttled across from his side of the bed.

She lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. A light grey; and a patch that was disintegrating in delicate flakes. Her eyes took in the rest of the room, as they already had a hundred times that day. Yellow walls, which gleamed in the amber light. They had not been able to find a switch to turn off that light. It had stayed on all through the day. It would stay on till they left in the wee hours of the morning, when it would be switched off by the man at the reception.

A small cabinet for the telly and her bag. A chair. A tiny refrigerator that she hadn't dared to open. A jug of water and a thick, short glass. A mirror reflecting them. He was asleep. She was waiting.

I'm waiting for you to leave me.

She look at the bed. They were twin beds, in fact. The man at the reception had joined the beds in the morning for them. She slipped her fingers into the crevice between the beds. She could drop her phone in there and lose it forever. She could even get rid of the thick, ugly tv remote. Her pack of cigarettes; his lighter. Her book. The hotel staff would find a booty next morning. Just that they wouldn't really care for a half empty pack of lights and a dog-eared Murakami, she thought. The phone? Probably.

"Five years," she said to herself.

It seemed like forever.

"I'll turn mad if I stay inside this room any longer," she sighed. "Can we go out for a walk?"

"Sure. We can pick up something to eat."

"You don't have to come." She knew he didn't want to.

"I think I'll stay in then. Get back something to eat. Subs. Or, fried noodles."

Two minutes later she was gone.

The smell of burning gas hit her nose. She felt the grime in her hands. Took it all in greedily. Savoured it.

Crowds thronged the streets. The weekend would be over in a few hours and everyone was out shopping, eating, chatting with family and friends. Soon they'd be home and in their beds.

The air was cooler than usual. But as she walked down the road she could feel the tiny beads of sweat on her face. Every where she looked she saw people, and cars, and people in cars.

She spotted the familiar neon sign and crossed the road. A million cars honked. A million pair of eyes stared at her from inside the cars, from inside the store. She pushed the glass door and walked in to wait in the queue.

"Chicken Teriyaki and one Chicken and Turkey Ham, please."

She picked up her phone and set the alarm for 3.30 am. That would give them an hour before they left for the airport. She had a 6.00 am flight.

Then she saw it. On the stark white sheet. It scuttled across from his side of the bed. It had thin strands for legs. And a fat belly. Ugly as hell. Tiny, like a drop of ink on blotting paper. It was hurrying to hide inside the hollow edge of the mattress. She wanted to hide from it. She picked up the adapter that was plugged into the socket inside the wall over the bed. The adapter felt small and hard in her palm. She brought her hand down.

She looked across the bed at him. She stretched her arm to touch his face.

I'll never leave you, baby.
I am waiting for you to leave me.
Five years.

And killed it.

2009-07-29T23:07:00.002+05:30

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W.H. Auden

misty morning and waterfalls

2009-07-23T17:14:00.014+05:30

and, yes, there were waterfalls. thankyou R, for sharing your view.
p.s. not bad, for a low res cell phone, hunh?

2009-05-25T19:00:00.011+05:30

It rained last night. And all day.

Tracing unknown patterns on cold, hard glass. Watching them melt at my finger tips as the streetlights hurry by.

Sweet smell of smoke.
The rain.
You.

And I found this.
Two years ago. Another rainy evening. You wrote...

rainy weather
tibetan honey bread
walk in the hills
skippadedoo
fireplace
mulled wine
you

2009-01-23T17:06:00.004+05:30

Over the last few months I’ve had this great desire to slap – real hard. Some obvious slapworthy souls at work. Simi Garewal. The Booker jury (or whatever they are called). Aamir Khan (no, not for Ghajini – haven’t watched it – but for saying he did not “understand” Memento).

But all these fade in comparison to my violent urge to slap, while watching Barkha Dutt interview the Slumdog guys. Rocking in her chair in glee (you wonder why) she asks Danny Boyle why he made this film.

Bombay (he probably said Mumbai), the energy of the city, blah and blah…

(Now I like Danny Boyle, don’t get me wrong. Years ago he made this really cool film named Trainspotting. So it’s not Boyle I wanted to slap.)

Blah and blah. And it’s not really the money…after his win he’s alone, at this station…

Wrong word there, Danny boy. You shouldn’t have mentioned “station”. But how would you know! How would any of us know! Except, of course, Ms Dutt.

From sheer glee to the deepest pensive look I’ve seen her wear in recent times (usually she’s always frothing at the mouth), she adds: Ironic isn’t it (or, strange isn’t it)…how a few months ago, it was this same station that witnessed the terrorist attack…

WTF!!!!**&#&^*0

You could almost see her hoping to conjure up this little inset on the screen, showing her brave coverage of the attack at VT. Poor dear, how was she to know back then that VT featured in Slumdog. Or that Slumdog would be where it is now. Or else, she would've definitely taken a 10-minute break from the Gateway to drop in at the station and drool over the blood-stained platforms.

Small mercies.

P.S. I do think the Taj at Apollo Bunder is an icon and this post is not about 26/11.

The Others (4)

2008-11-07T21:34:00.014+05:30

OK, here's something from Srijit. He's been promising this post for ages; then I've been promising to post it for ages. Finally, it's up. Phew! And I got him to post it directly here because I wasn't able to upload the pics (don't ask me why - some darned security measure at work - bleagh). But here it is - and Yay! - there's more to come (or so he says). I can be lazy yet!

Thanks, Srijit. And come back soon - with Obama toys in tow :)

Srijit's Post

Order and Chaos in The Dark Knight
WHO IS THE BATMAN?

What does a man dressed as a nocturnal marsupial signify?

To turn back a little, the bat, with its leathery wings, strange shrieks, and sharp fangs have always been thought of as heralds of darkness; manifesting them-selves out of the gathering gloom. At this point I am forced to recall a line from one of Joseph Conrad’s Malaysian stories (probably Karain: A Memory) where he talks about the evening bats gathering about as “flakes of darkness”. The im-agery in those few words is fantastic and effectively refers to a snowfall of dark-ness. The color imagery is quite important as well with the juxtaposition of the whiteness of the snow with darkness.

Cultures throughout the world have worshipped animals, and within their mytho-logical corpus they have also associated certain creatures with darkness, death, and fear. Creatures like the jackal, wolf, owl, raven, crow, toad, cat, and the bat have been thus associated with the darker elements of human thought. It is quite well known that Anubis was the jackal-headed god of the Egyptian under-world. Similarly, the bat-like god Camazotsz was such an agent in Incan mythology.

Though there is little proof that Bob Kane ever knew about the gods of the In-cas; in retrospect the roots of Batman’s creation can be easily traced to the Mid-European legends about vampires. There’s no denying Bob Kane had a lot influ-ence from literature and folklore. Novels like Carmilla, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and a quite a few Gothic stories must have held their influence on young Kane’s mind. But, now there is an interesting twist to this. The Batman, like a shaman, is a conscious bearer of ‘darkness’, a man who wears a mask. The Batman’s pur-pose, after the brutal murder of his parents, is quite consciously to strike fear into the hearts of criminals. They are according to him, or rather Bob Kane, “a superstitious and cowardly lot” who need to be beaten, broken, and intimidated into submission. The Batman’s purpose is this is quite sinister. With his strict pol-icy of not to kill, the Batman on the other hand generates fear, and therefore de-sires in a rather twisted way—control. Writers of Batman stories have repeatedly made Batman refer to Gotham as “my city”. This is definitely not your average cheerleading for your hometown. How different does this make Batman from the evil of the Joker? There is a very thin line that the writers have made themselves walk in the Batman stories. Writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore have stretched these limits of Batman’s character. In stories like “The Dark Knight Re-turns” and “Batman: The Killing Joke”, the Batman is slightly schizophrenic and not quite sane. There is a controversial piece of dialog that Batman utters in an-other one of Frank Miller’s storylines:

But even then, the Batman has been a symbol of good, of heroism against insurmountable odds, of righteous vengeance against criminals. So, does this make the Batman a hero or, just a man with a lot of time and money on his hands with the desire to run a dictatorship? A man who is, in fact, sub-consciously using the murder of his parents to run an autocracy in Gotham? I am almost tempted to think what Bruce Wayne would have become had his parents been alive and well. If we allow ourselves to stretch our imagination a little, in DC Elseworld fashion, then I would say that he would have become a ruthless businessman, a commercial dictator like Lex Luthor. But in this world, in our timeline, Bruce Wayne has become the Batman; the Batman has not become Bruce Wayne.

The writers have also conveniently created masked criminals for the Batman to fight, for the Batman’s trouncing of petty criminals, rapists, and thieves on a daily basis would only highlight a single-minded sadistic desire of bullying and intimidation. Social service groups might say that it’s better if the Batman fo-cused on the poverty and lack of education among the poorer sections of soci-ety. After all, poverty breeds discontent and leads to breaks in the social order. Writers have quite consciously and cleverly dealt with this. They have projected the criminals as an insane and irredeemable lot, with the Batman as an extreme sanction against them. His existence is like that of Robespierre during the Reign of Terror; a necessary step to “guillotine” the criminal masses and purge the so-cial body of its evil. And even within this, the Batman upholds human life by not exterminating it, but by considering it for rehabilitation in Arkham Asylum. It’s a different thing that Arkham is a sort of Lovecraftian hell; but the Batman’s at-tempts are quite honest.

WHO IS THE JOKER?

The Joker is a manifestation of our deepest, darkest moods; a projection of a chaotic psyche that is beyond human understanding. The manifestation of the Joker as a clown in the Batman comics was immediately targeted at a mockery of human emotions.

The Joker, created by Bob Kane, was supposed to have a little lived career as a petty criminal who was to meet his end in the second round of his introduction. Through some quirk, the character survived, in spite of the failing sales of DC Comics during the 50’ era. The DC writers had realized the potential of the char-acter, of the Joker’s ability cock a snook at the social order. Then, could the Joker have been just a nihilist? An anti-establishment renegade, who could have been a hero? But, this is apocrypha, and my mind is wandering upon the numer-ous possibilities that could have been.

The origins of the Joker have never been fully explored till Alan Moore’s rather shocking Batman title, “The Killing Joke”. In it, the Joker fatally wounds Barbara Gordon (the original Batgirl) and takes her father, Commissioner Jim Gordon as a prisoner. Strapped and naked in a rundown carnival, he is forced by the Joker through a tunnel of horrors populated by bloody images of his wounded daugh-ter. Alan Moore’s idea is simple, yet sheer genius. The Joker, by his capturing and psychological torturing of Jim Gordon, likes to show him that a single day out of the ordinary is enough to drive a man insane.

The story is cut with flashbacks where the Joker is shown as he once was: a failed stand-up comic artist burdened with an ailing and pregnant wife, and steeped in debt. It is a very sad and pessimistic picture that we get. And within this we see, that “evil” in its various forms of crooks and con-men soon track his helplessness down and give him false hopes for a new life. Through the insis-tence of some shady men, the comic-artist is told to dress up as a vigilante criminal mastermind called the Red Hood, and just generally act the boss while a robbery takes place. He is told that he would get his share, a hefty sum that would allow him out of penury.

The comic-artist agrees, though his wife is quite against the idea. She tells him that she is ill and that she needs him. But the man, shown the hope of a better world goes out to meet his fate. During the robbery that goes horribly wrong, and being chased by the Batman, the ‘Red Hood’ falls into a vat of chemicals. At the same time, some of the crooks, who suspect that the comic-artist is trying to con them, land up at his house. There is a short scuffle, in which the wife dies.

All of this happens in a single day. A life that is almost reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s, this one single tragedy is enough to confound the poor man’s head. The vat of chemicals does little to help him out of it. It bleaches his skin chalk white, and drives him mad. The madness that comes up brings up all the murderous instincts of a serial killer, a psychopath with a twisted logic of villainy that was never fully captured again till Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”.

The Joker is a character who is integral to the development of the Batman char-acter. Just as Batman is a symbol of strict order, the Joker is the perfect antithe-sis, standing as a symbol of chaos, anarchy and disorder.

It is for this reason Christopher Nolan depicted Heath Ledger’s Joker as unkempt, idiosyncratic, and insane. The white leper-like patches of paint on the Joker’s face emphasize the filth and disease, not only of the perversions of the human mind, but signify the suppurating corruption of an entire society. The Joker thus provides Gotham with a “better class of criminal”.

The Joker is like Macbeth, spiraling down the path of evil and corruption, but a Macbeth who has passed over into the world of the witches. The Joker does not remain human; he has become an agent of destruction, of ultimate chaos. The character of the Joker bears a striking resemblance to another of Alan Moore’s earlier creations: V for Vendetta. A graphic novel classic, the character of V is a man with a smiling mask, a “frozen mask” that “just smiles”. The grand plans of V in breaking the stranglehold of a dystopian society bears fruit in his terrorism, and is justified in his extermination of the men in authority. The Joker, too, be-comes a terrorist in his battle for “Gotham’s soul”.

Even the earlier films and television series of Batman, the various portrayals of the Joker by Cesar Romero, and then Jack Nicholson have shown the character as insane, but limited in his scope. Heath Ledger’s Joker is out for blood to claim a whole city for him, and all that stands between him and his prize is the Dark Knight himself. The Joker does not see any opposition in him, but an opposite to his nature, so perfectly matched that he declares that the Batman makes him whole. The Joker’s evil is all-encompassing and absorbs the presence of the Batman. The Joker is the first to realize this, and to turn back a little, the Batman too agrees to this in a strange way in the final pages of “The Killing Joke”. As the Joker is captured, the two share a joke about two madmen, and that how one would try to reach the moon on a beam of torch-light and how the other would turn it off mid-way. These characters are not quite sane and share a very thin boundary between madness and sanity.

This boundary is manifested in Two-Face. My thoughts on him will appear at a later date.

---Srijit

The Others (3)

2008-09-29T12:56:00.002+05:30

Ta-dah! Here's something from Rajasree. And here's that something on her. She's fun and pretty cool. And I'll miss her at work when she's gone (in two days, to be precise :( ).

Rajasree's Post

Mon…

Chelebelar kotha bhebe, paalai ey mon jokhon…
Ma’er koley jao doure, bhoi peyo na tokhon…

Golpo shuune raashi-raashi….
Paabe tomar bejai haashi…

Jhhora paata chhoriye ghashe…
Orao ghuri nil akashe…

Khelte khelte hochhe boro, tomar chena kobi…
Likhbe jokhon dekhbe tumi bhubon jora chhobi...

Baadol dine jaabe chole kore obhimaan...
Thakbe smritir shonge shudhu jhhora paatar gaan...

2008-09-25T17:28:00.004+05:30

“What do your bay mates think of your blog?” asked S.
“Erm…they don’t know it exists (like most other people).”
“But why?” said S.

Here’s why (a little something on the five people I share my bay with).

1) NDC, the irate Project Manger. She joined a while ago. Works late. And is forever harassed. Always interesting to watch her fight it out with her team. But last evening she was really rude to this Graphics chap on her team and I wanted to slap her.

2) MK, the new Graphics girl. Harmless, quiet. Shares nice Bangla music.

3) RG, the elderly Content Lead. He’s, well, elderly. Genial smile and all that. Great sense of humour. Though I wish he would not stop work (especially since he’s on my project) to stop and stare at everyone else’s work…with said genial smile in tow.

4) IB, the new Content chap. Earnest and suffering at the moment because he has to write his storyboards in PPTs. And interrupts RG every 2 minutes for dope on PPTs (RG happens to be this PPT wizard). Which is mildly off-putting.

5) SB, the Graphics guy. He sits on a towel and clears his throat all day.

SG, who sits in the next bay, wrote me this email once:

Dear Monjima.
I am sorry to sound picky, but SB has been clearing his throat incessantly for the last 45 minutes.
Regards,
SG

P.S. I miss my ex-bay-mates, D (which is understandable – he’s a friend and talks rubbish all the time) and RB (God help me – but then again, he sat on a chair, always).

The Others (2)

2008-09-24T15:28:00.011+05:30

Here's post two from "The Others"...thank you, Mitul. Or maybe I should thank S for: (to Mitul) "I dunno how you keep your project deadlines" and (to me) "Go and push that Mitul's chair". So, here it is. Mitul says it's the beginning of a new novel - it will continue on her own blog (the cheapskate)! S says we can all collaborate and finish the novel, on this blog (yay)! But since I'll have to run after people and yell threats over the phone in the middle of the night to get them to "collaborate" on this novel, I shall, very graciously, allow Mitul to finish it on her own blog. But to read the beginning, everyone has to visit my blog - how cool is that! Heh heh!

Mitul's Post:

Life, as we knew it, is over. Gone. Kaput. Yet, here I am, seeped in nostalgia and bathed in hope. Nostalgia, I can understand, for it deals with events already happened… in the past… in some specific time. But hope? Which future am I hoping for? What’s future? Where’s time? Blown into blithereens, time has ceased to exist. Or is it still on somewhere… tick-tock, tick-tock? Hard to say; difficult to hear in vacuum. Time has dwindled to zilch, but space has multiplied million times. Soul-destroying darkness all around. Did I say ‘soul’? That’s funny, do I still have a soul? Or am I just the soul? Spinning wildly in some post-apocalyptic heaven? The darkness, the stillness, the silence: afterlife. After Life-On-Earth. But where’s Earth? Didn’t I hear its core being ripped out — the last thing I heard in fact.

Who am I speaking to? Can’t even hear myself. But it’s important to feel my lips moving. Something moving. Can’t feel anything else. I have boiled down to my lips. And memories. Maybe I can tell the story now. Surely, am no longer under the oath of secrecy. Oaths do not matter now. Nothing matters. No matter. Bad joke.

I will talk. It will look like a pantomime. If anybody’s watching, that is. Any Body. Never mind. I need the past for company. Let me pick a random date: 22nd September 2008. Bet you never knew what was going on as you went about your life that day. Bet you never knew…

I’m feeling thirsty. That’s a good thing. Means I’m more than a soul. But water has ceased to exist too. And food. And cigarettes. And wine. Is that it, then? Am I to die a horrible death, choking on my own spit? Am I to count the moments till hunger gnaws away my innards? And what about my story? How will I tell my story? The story of…

The Others (1)

2008-08-28T14:15:00.007+05:30

This is a post by...well...Anon. She'd prefer to be that. Anon. Am not complaining because (a) she's really cool and (b) she's that one person who has 'submitted' her 'entry' first. So I completely love her. Thank you, Iren...erm...Anon.

Anon's Post

Her handwritten entries appear in the phonebook.

Her favourite soaps are bought every month.

Her make-up, her comb, her sindoor lie on the dressing table.

Her books and magazines rest on the bookshelf.

Her investment statements arrive regularly.

Her perfume emanates from her wardrobe.

Her favourite colours adorn the furnishings, the linen.

Her voice fills my dreams.

The sound of her bangles suffuses my imagination.

It’s two months now.

Her presence is everywhere.

Especially as the lump in my throat.

2008-08-28T14:06:00.004+05:30

I don't enjoy writing. In fact, 'despise it' would be more near the real thing. But here I am – saddled with a blog (let's not get into the whys and wherefores, please). And not feeling very enthusiastic about 'posts'. Add to that guilt – creeping in on you when you least expect it. I mean, here you go and create a bloody blog (well, technically speaking, I didn't create it; and it's not really bloody) and then you don't really want to go and write. Why? Because you despise writing, remember? Also, here's an aside: I am super lazy (in case you didn't know; or haven't figured by now). Bottomline: poor old blog languishes in blogosphere! Which is not necessarily a bad thing; but what the heck, I don’t know what said blog is thinking. Do I?

Cut to...

One lazy August afternoon. And a stroke of genius (on my part, of course)! I pinged/called/accosted friends: “Hey, why don’t you write something for my blog?” And they agreed (all but one). Some because they like writing and don’t have their own blogs. No being saddled with a tiresome blog and nothing to write. Smart, hunh? Some because I sold ‘collaborative writing, Web 2.0' to them. Heh heh. And, of course, because they are all friends. Different matter, of course, that after a month, I have just one ‘entry’ (after a few million reminders). One more is on the way (S don’t ditch). As for the rest, well here’s to more reminders, threats, et al. Ha Ha!

So, I will keep posting their stuff from time to time. With a little line on the writers. There's no theme, no mood. They can write anything, about anything. Free falling. And somewhere along the way (I am hoping) I’ll write a bit myself. So there.

P.S. I am calling this 'collection' (heh heh) "The Others". Eeeuuww. Someone please suggest a better title.

2008-07-11T14:09:00.001+05:30

Haven't felt this happy in a long time. Stupid, stupid me.

2008-06-19T01:25:00.004+05:30

Adieu tristesse
Bonjour tristesse
Tu es inscrite dans les lignes du plafond
Tu es inscrite dans les yeux que j'aime
Tu n'es pas tout a fait la misère
Car les lèvres les plus pauvres te dénoncent
Par un sourire
Bonjour tristesse
Amour des corps aimables
Puissance de l'amour
Dont l'amabilité surgit
Comme un monstre sans corps
Téte désappointée
Tristesse beau visage.

- P. ÉLUARD
La vie immédiate

2008-05-02T15:36:00.002+05:30

Dull and dreary "challenges" at work have robbed me off the pleasures of life. So I am stealing two earth-shatteringly important minutes from work to say: Charolastras rock!!!

2008-04-02T13:44:00.005+05:30

A follow up on my previous post (and the whole point - missed/not fathomed by some).

Here's a bit from Nick Hornby's The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (do read it). He's writing on his experience of reading Dennis Lehane's Prayers for Rain. But that's not the point (not for this post, at least).

Sometimes, when you walk into a pub in the center of town mid-evening, you get the feeling that you’ve missed the moment: all the after-work drinkers have gone home, and the late night drinkers haven’t arrived, and there are empty glasses lying around (and the ashtrays are full, if you’re drinking in a civilized country), and you didn’t make any of the mess…

P.S. Nick Horby makes a walk-on appearance in Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation as a smoker from London called Nick.

Why I Loved New York - 2

2008-03-20T19:25:00.008+05:30

Nah! Not because The Village just happens to be the most interesting place I've ever walked through. Not because Dylan wrote "Blowin' in the Wind" sitting in the Fat Black Pussycat. Not because Jimi Hendrix jammed at Cafe Wha? Not because a serpentine queue appears from nowhere in front of the IFC at 9 pm on a regular Thursday to catch a docu on Kurt Cobain. Not because someone decides to sell a "brand new" bicycle at Washington Square Park at 8 in the evening. Not because the lights are still on at the Whitehorse Tavern, where Dylan (the other one) had dropped in for his last drink.

But because outside Cafe Wha?, The Fat Black Pussycat, Blue Note Jazz, the Whitehorse Tavern and the other innumerable bars and restaurants dotting Manhattan, there's always a large group of people standing and puffing at their cigarettes like there's no tomorrow.**

Cut to Madison, WI. I was the only one hurrying to finish my fag outside Mickey's, while the rest of the population sat inside sipping their drinks.

**In 2003 New York City amended its anti-smoking law to include all restaurants and bars, including those in private clubs, making it one of the toughest in the United States.

2008-03-03T16:31:00.006+05:30

But though there were different names for God in all the different languages in the world and God understood what all the people who prayed said in their different languages still God remained always the same God and God's real name was God.

From A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man by James Joyce

I wanted to pray. To God. And I can’t remember the last time I did. Just pray.

A and S were waiting for me at One Step Up but I asked the cabbie to take the right from Flury’s and stop right in front of school. My school. Even in the dark I could see the familiar maroon steeple. I think it’s St John’s. Could very well be St Thomas’. Just that it’s always been the "school church”.

The black iron gate sulked gloomily.
“Saare chhai bajey bandh ho jaata hai, madam.” Damn!

So I walked up Middleton Row, back to Park Street. Feeling stupid. And very irritated. Where does one go if one needs to pray at nine in the evening? What if one doesn’t want to stand in the middle of the Maidan and pray? What if one doesn’t wish to close one’s eyes in the kitchen and think of God?

I guess one just drops in at Oly or Someplace Else.

I mean, it worked.

Why I Loved New York - 1

2008-02-28T19:29:00.004+05:30

Okay, it's not like I am diabetic. Neither am I working on this "toilets - the worldover" paper. It's just a shuttling between airports/cities thing.

Peoria Airport - very clean loo
Chicago (O'Hare) Airport - very clean loo
Detroit Airport - very clean loo

And I told myself this is the US, first world and what-not.

Next stop JFK. Avishek was meeting me in 20 minutes. I'd been told Harlem was not too close to the airport. So I decided to pay the loo a visit. I mean, why not?

For a minute I thought I'd stepped on a portkey that had transported me straight to the Howrah Station. Apparently not.

That's when I fell in love with New York.

2008-02-27T18:04:00.004+05:30

Ma's back. And she's got me DVDs. She had handed over my wish list to the guy at the DVD store; proceeded to shop for everyone else at home; got back to collect the booty and pay the chap. She's a nice soul and had full faith in him. Here are the DVDs he'd kept aside for her:

Breathless
Pierrot le Fou
Jules et Jim
La Dolce Vita
Three Colours: Red
Three Colours: Blue
Three Colours: White
Goodbye Lenin (yippee!!)

The ninth one is Oliver Stone's "Alexander". Now I know that both Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie are super hot but I was looking forward to meeting Fanny along with Alexander.

2008-02-21T15:06:00.004+05:30

If suddenly
You forget me
Do not look for me,
For I shall already have forgotten you.

“But how can someone look for you if the person has already forgotten you?” my friend asked. And I immediately felt insanely superior.

And this is how g-talk handles have come to be my Simone de Beauvoir and Karan Johar – statements all and feel-good too!

Is happy! rarely elicits a response. Unless it’s my ex-boss P, who will want to know why and how this happened. You’re happy? But how? Kaise?

Try some Alanis Morisette and everyone is all agog. What happened? Who’s this for? (As if it can’t be just for you.) Are you okay? (Of course not!) And there’s P, of course. But why? Tell me all dear.

Back in Peoria, when I was visited by existential angst – big time – I sported Needs a new job! followed by Needs a new job. Desperately. People back home laughed (hollow laugh, I bet) and P asked: but why?

There are handles. And then there are handles.
Here’s what.

There are handles that tell the other person where you are, what you are doing: Chillin in Accra (Shite! You lucky bitch!), Fuel bombed at Crobar and they think they can ask you out for a date.

Amy Winehouse and Pablo Neruda – you are obviously depressed out of your wits, ready to kill yourself, who’s the bastard who hurt you dear… Aaargh! Do these people really think I’m unable to appreciate good lines?

And good old Macavity is always ignored. There’s P, though. Who sniggers at monster of depravity. S-i-g-h!

And then there’s bathos. For over two weeks I sported these “deep” lines for someone who, I later discovered, had blocked me on g-talk. Duh! He’s on again though, with “frequently asked questions” about the new ones. Heh heh heh!

But here’s the last straw. Someone’s witnessing this great tableau being played out in g-talk world — my g-talk handles and Mr X’s. “Different pieces, tantalizingly belonging to each other, my dear” she says. “God help”, I say. “But I can see” she insists. No points for guessing who she is.

2008-02-20T18:52:00.004+05:30

“When the hell did I start believing that I need a man to make me feel complete?” (Aaaaaargh!!!)

Feb 14. Never a special date for me. Those years when I was “with” someone (different someone everytime, of course), I was too busy trying to prove to myself (and others) that I am not the bandwagon types — don’t believe in red roses and chocolates wrapped in pink foil. And I made sure that “someone” refrained from the usual Feb 14 excesses too.

Those years (more of these than those above) when I was not with “anyone”, well, I was too busy telling myself that I am glad I don’t have to join the bandwagon. Sour grapes, said some. I said, “Yippee!”

Cut to Feb 14, 2008. A bunch of single men and women meet up for dinner at Sigdi. Most of them are meeting for the first time (“friend’s friends”, as the phrase goes). Good food, average conversation, a few laughs, couple of “uncomfortable silences”, cigarettes to the rescue — over!

Now these single men and women are no longer your 20-somethings. They’ve all been there and done that. So they spent the better part of the evening wondering why the hell they were there in the first place. What went right? What went terribly wrong? More desperate than cynical. Cynicism works when you’re 20. At 30 you know better. Theories don’t hold water anymore. You’ve already shown the middle finger to liberation and emancipation. Your copy of The Second Sex is just good paper weight material. You want to tell Germaine Greer that you’ve started painting your nails at 31. And it’s okay, it really is – makes them look nice.

And you start admitting (only to yourself): “Ma was right!”

2006-03-24T18:23:00.000+05:30

"I think as soon as people see something a little unusual on the screen they try too hard to understand. They understand perfectly well, really, but they want to understand even more. If you show someone drinking tea or saying goodbye, they immediately say yes, but why is he drinking tea?...If you see a bouquet of flowers on the table, does it mean something? It doesn't prove anything about anything." Jean-Luc Godard (1962)

2006-03-23T21:03:00.000+05:30

so i had a friend create this blog for me. why? the last three times i started a blog, and made a couple of posts (or none), i also managed to forget the login. so i supposedly have three blogs, somewhere out there in hyperspace! now that could be cool...or just plain stupid. well this time around, i am hoping my friend's gonna remember the tedious details (of login and password) for me. i just might have to pay him for that, though!

so why did i want a blog, again? well, i was having this discussion with a friend (a different one, of course) on 'brokeback mountain;' a discussion, like all discussions, that meandered to a whole of lot of things. the point is that i ended up defending a film i didn't like in the first place. which is not necessarily as weird as it sounds. why? coz we debated on artistic expression, viewers' interpretation, narrative theories, and a whole lot of other supposedly intellectual things. thing is, it wasn't all so bad. i realised that i dig talking about stuff, which doesn't really lead on to anything. so much for purpose, direction, and all that jazz!