Rabble Rabble Rabble. Rabble Rabble. Rabble.

Wintrovert

2012-01-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

X: So, what're you upto?
Me: Nothing much.

X: What's been happening?
Me: Nothing much.

X: How's work coming along?
Me: Okay, I guess.

X: What do you usually do after work?
Me: Nothing much.

X: What do you do on weekends?
Me: Nothing much.

{Awkward Silence}

X: You are an introvert, aren't you?
Me: I can't help it if I find my own thoughts more interesting than you.

Conversations with Bob and Others

2012-01-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

We all know the story.

One is convinced one would make a good artist. A good poet. An author, perhaps. A good something. Anything.

But, alas. One is strait-jacketed into a routine job. One is forced to go to office in the morning, and to come home in the evening, and forever destined to continue this imagination crushing repetitive schedule, until One retires and by then, One is just too old to churn out anything of artistic value. It's not One's fault- it's society's. And society pays for it. It could have had, as an addition to it, a great artist. But because of its obsessive compulsive mainstreaming, it doesn't.

If only.

If. Only.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am the abovementioned One. Since it seems, in hindsight, awfully presumptuous to refer to oneself thus, I shall henceforth refrain. Ideally, instead of typing out this para, I should also edit this post so that every reference to One is removed.

Sadly, this world we live in, it's not an ideal one.

Reading the book Dylan on Dylan, I was struck by the variety of experiences Bob Dylan had exposed himself to by the time he reached the age I was still drinking my two glasses of Bournvita everyday. "He ran away from home seven times: at ten, at twelve, at thirteen, at fifteen, at fifteen and a half, at seventeen and at eighteen. His travels included South Dakota, New Mexico, Kansas and California. In between flights, he taught himself the guitar, which he had begun playing at the age of ten. At fifteen, he was also playing the harmonica and the autoharp, and, in addition, had written his first song, a ballad dedicated to..."

At the age of fifteen, my claim to artistic fame was a story written in my school magazine. At the age of fifteen, I had left my home state a grand total of three times, all three times accompanied by my parents. At the age of fifteen, my biggest concern was the weekly test held in school.

And then I entered college. I listened to Dylan, I read Camus, I saw Bergman. And, having been thus exposed to world culture, I had the gall and the temerity to consider myself capable of writing outstanding pieces of poetry and prose.

At the risk of repetition, If. Only.

Tonight, as I sit at my table, having taken a day off work because of a nasty fever that sprung up, like that unwanted guest, yesterday and listen to Visions of Johanna and engage in a bout of introspection as to why I am unable to, try as I might, tap into that well of original artistic material I'm convinced lies within, I can come up with the following tentative reason, after having studied, cursorily, the lives of some of the artists I respect.

There is no well that lies within. The well lies without. The route to reach it is hard and littered with thorns. One needs to travel in the bus of Experiences. To board the bus of Experiences, one cannot afford to have had a comfortable childhood. A broken home gives one a legitimate excuse to buy a ticket on the bus- there are no expectations to live up to society's exacting, strait-jacketing standards and one is free to pretty much do what one wants. A broken home is a liberating license, artistically. A minimum height requirement for a roller-coaster ride.

Are you willing to sacrifice so much for the sake of art?

I don't think I am. The roller coaster might give you the ride of a lifetime. On the other hand, you might just puke your guts out. I'd rather be the guy at the fair who has enough money to buy cotton candy and is content to have other people ride the roller coaster and come down and tell me what it's all about. Heck, I don't even mind paying them for it.

Pessi Mist

2012-01-17T04:11:00.000-08:00

Where will you go
When the circus has left town
And you are the last of the cast
Left

Holding the last half-torn flyer
Trampled upon by the long gone crowds
Yellowing, and full of yesterday's
Unfulfilled dreams.

While the mist gathers all around
Where the circus tents once sprawled
Signalling the end
Of yet another day.

All you can do
Is to slowly walk away
Cast a backward glance, maybe
Smile a sad smile
And say,
"Well, that's life."

Eulogy

2011-11-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you a secret
There's no heaven and there's no hell
There's only the realisation
You are dead.

Then you hear what people thought
About you
While you were alive
And what they think now

Yes, they will talk
For hours and hours
Of your greatness
And your kindness
How you made the world
Better
By your being in it.
They will say all that
And more
Now that you are dead.

But you, only you
Will be able to see
Trapped in your dead shell
At your funeral

You will see
Beyond the words
Into the minds
Of all the smooth talkers

Your images of you
Will come crashing down
And that is worse
Than hell.

Words and more Words

2011-11-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

Paper upon paper upon paper, we gaze wistfully at a bit of open sky, before turning our eyes back to the air-conditioned sterility of our offices, We visit the world travelling on our computers and participate in Occupy Wall Street, and in the revolutions birthed in faraway lands against faraway rulers, who have run and hidden in their castles, fearing retribution for years of living comfortably, and we participate in the English premier league matches and we run along with the best of them, and every goal scored is a goal scored by us and every goal missed is a goal missed by them and we call ourselves knowledgeable, and let it be known we are knowledgeable.

We drink and we drink and we smoke and smoke and we finally convince ourselves of the independence of our lives and of our ability to be free of all our chains, if only we wanted to, and we let the substances take over and let ourselves go to roam the boundaries of randomness, to visit and be a spectator to impossible events that defy logic and try to bring ourselves back when the illogic is over-bearing, but seldom succeed and all that can be done then is to relish and cherish the absurdities of the world around us and to pass into the realm of the dream-lord and hope that all will be well, when the sun snakes its way through our open windows and closed eyes.

And on those monotonous reprieves we call weekends from the monotony of our life, we pay good money and trot to centers of capitalism to watch a story brought, as far as it can be, to life, held spell-bound by what professional story tellers deem a fit story to tell, and we nod our heads in agreement and say it is indeed a good story and wonder at the way it's been told in, and we wish ourselves to have been part of our story and we go to sleep and in our dreams we rescue fair maidens, we kill monsters, we rob banks, we drive fast cars and outsmart diabolical villains.

Then we ramble and ramble and rouse some rabble, trying to make sense of life, of what cannot be made sense of and stop when we realise that it cannot be made sense of but since traces of the attempt to make sense of it remain, we let it be.

Things that Should not be Stolen

2011-10-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

Let's call him Jim. Jim is a generic enough name. I could be a Jim. You could be a Jim. Anyone could be a Jim.

So. Jim.

Jim had, for long, been carrying around a desire to be heard. To be understood. Appreciated.

Jim wanted to write.

He wanted his voice to be around for years after he'd gone, echoing from mind to mind, growing stronger with each successive echo. He wanted people to wonder at the sheer brilliance that had given birth to such thoughts as he would pen down, the marvelous imagination that had shaped the thoughts into the beautiful words that finally made their way to millions of eager receptacles.

Except.

Except, Jim couldn't write. Anything Jim managed to string together sounded like an instruction manual. It lacked heart. It lacked soul. It lacked everything that made a good piece of writing a good piece of writing.

Some thieves, however, are born thieves. They have the ability to pick locks, to silently pad around a house even as the occupants sleep and to make off with pieces of someone else's lives and make them their own.

So it was with Jim. He could look into your eyes, talk to you, clasp your hand and your thoughts would be his. Of course, he would have to sift through your thoughts (for thoughts can be overwhelming, especially others' thoughts) and he would have to identify the ones worth retaining. And all this had to be done in a cordial atmosphere.

Because most people did not take kindly to strangers clasping their hands, Jim's unique talents were quite ill-suited for any get rich quick scheme he could have possibly cobbled together. There was no denying it, though- it was a strange and powerful gift, indeed.

He had first discovered it seconds before his first kiss. He had been holding the girl's hand. He had been doing it for about ten minutes- the routine comprising of concealing one's impatience and looking into each others' eyes, the talking, the holding hands, the mandatory mating ritual which precedes any sexual activity and which humans, perhaps to disguise the pure disgustingly primitive nature of the act to follow, ascribe so much importance to- and he was awash with excitement. And then they came. In blinding, migraine like bursts of pain, they came. Thought after thought after thought. Suddenly, he knew. He knew that this girl had kissed ten guys before him. He knew that she longed for an escape from her broken home. He knew that she stole regularly from the convenience store and that she loved to dance in the rain. He also knew that she was ready, impatient even, for his kiss and that she was wondering whether what she perceived as his hesitation to kiss her sprung from him not finding her attractive enough.

Because wooing a girl involved all the things that were necessary for Jim to steal thoughts, Jim's mind now held many girls' secrets.

And now, Jim wanted to be an author. Naturally enough, Jim decided to steal an author's thoughts. Jim had read about Neil Gaiman coming to a store near his house. It didn't take him long to figure out a course of action. He'd pretend to be a fan- he didn't, as a matter of fact, need to pretend- and he'd go close and clasp Neil's hand and talk to him and look deep in his eyes. He would then leave Neil, empty and vacant, and he'd go and write whatever it was that Neil had planned to write in his future.

And so it was that Jim found himself in the queue for the signing of Fragile Things. So it was that when his turn came, he strode forward, enthusiastically pouncing on Neil's hand and tried to engage him in conversation. Neil, being the fundamentally nice person he was, entertained this loony fan who obviously nursed a desire to write, but was, in no conceivable way, author material. But Neil was unaware that there were certain inconceivable ways in which one could become an author. And, finally, so it was that, mission accomplished and with that spring in his step particular to someone who has just conned an innocent (largely happy, but tinged with soon-to-be-forgotten guilt), Jim made his way from the bookstore, leaving behind a Neil Gaiman temporarily without ideas.

(Neil would not, for the next month or so, be able to write anything. There would be no lasting damage- thoughts, being thoughts, were always being born. After all, no thief can take from a home an object of desire that hasn't been bought yet, can he? All Jim could take were the thoughts that had already been born in Neil's mind but had not been acted upon.)

His head swimming with ideas, Jim hurried back home and opened his computer to, at last, begin work on the masterpiece. The first of many masterpieces, in fact. Plans had already been made for a visit to Stephen Fry's house and to Terry Pratchett's after that.

And it was then that Jim found out what many aspiring novelists have, over the ages, found out. He discovered, with increasing, maddening despair, that the thoughts were swimming in his head and were refusing to come out in any respectable form. He discovered that, when he forced them out, rather than coming out in a neatly packaged manner, they were just blurting themselves out in insipid, extremely brief and ugly half-sentences. He wrote and wrote, pressing Ctrl+N furiously, but never, in the document after document he opened in Word, could he get beyond expressing his (or rather, Neil's) thoughts in more than two mechanical sentences. There was, "the man who could think about a time and era and be there, but who then loses his memory and, with it, his knowledge of his ability and who is stuck in the 1400s till he dies" and there was "the natural electromagnetic wave from space that drastically affects everyone near an electronic device, and which is to man, what the meteorite shower was to the dinosaurs and which leads to crocodiles becoming the predominant species on Earth". And there were many more. But that was all there was.

It is quite easy to give up on your dreams. You just have to try and stop trying to achieve them.

Jim gave up, rather quickly, his dream of becoming an author.

Jim is now a guru. He looks into peoples' eyes, talks to them, clasps their hands and knows what they are thinking. What they want to be thinking. What they want him to say to them. And he says it.

Jim is now leading a very comfortable life, indeed and is (from the wealth bestowed upon his foundation by the adoring disciples who come from around the world to meet this miracle worker who can understand them to much more an extent in ten minutes than the people they thought closest to them could in a lifetime) far richer than an author could ever hope to be.

Jim is quite glad he didn't become an author.

We are too Smart for this to be our Story, I hope.

2011-10-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

It was a Monday morning. And that should be enough for you to guess the kind of morning it was. There was not a smile to be seen. Except the fake smiles of the perennially and artificially happy. The ones who claimed they had made peace with the way of the modern world.

The weather, oppressively hot, accentuated the emotions of the others- the hapless office-going crowd for whom saying goodbye to the Sunday had been heart-wrenching. The individuals who made up the crowd had long since recognized the futility of their attempt to be individuals and had grudgingly assumed their designated roles of cogs in the giant capitalist wheel. Their weekly revolutions as cogs were punctuated with periodic symbolic protests at the system- they would utilize the office internet for deviant purposes one day, they would show up at work without shaving the next. But they all recognized the protests, if such demonstrations could be termed protests, that is, for what they were- a weak stab at convincing themselves that whilst their bodies were for hire, their minds were free to roam the plains of radical thought and to at least think of doing the things they always wanted to do and that this was, surely, a small victory.

But they were ashamed of themselves. And never quite knew whether their shame was justified.

On this particular Monday morning, however, one of them had had enough. One of them had decided he would no longer pretend.

So, as he walked into the lobby of his office building, smiling at his colleagues, his mind made up about the course of action that he felt was his destiny, he was happy. He was, for the first time since he had started his job, truly happy.

In his mind, sequences from Jeremy and He was a Quiet Man played out and he imported his consciousness into that of the protagonists'. He reassured himself it was the right thing to do.

He walked into his boss's office without knocking. To his mind, it was a final act of defiance to complete his day of defiance - he had decided that today would pan out on his terms and was wearing his black, faded t-shirt and his favorite pair of jeans and he looked disheveled, as he had routinely done through college- before he ended it all. The boss looked up, but did not recognize the look of pure loathing he was being given and inquired, in that polite but condescending manner characteristic of most bosses, "Yes?". Why are you, a waste of the world's space, being a waste of my time as well?

That was the final straw. He had expected this look and had primed himself for this moment. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out what had been nestling there uncomfortably throughout the cab ride and his shuffling, nonchalant and what he thought of as a non office-goer walk up through the lobby and into his boss's corner office.

He pulled out...

His resignation letter.

And he placed it, with an exaggerated motion resulting in a loud thump and with his face crunched up to reflect what he hoped was the apt expression to go with this moment, on his boss's unnecessarily large, rectangular teak-wood table. Carefully drafted over the weekend, full of the choicest abuses and sarcasm, it was, to his proud fatherly mind, the epitome of resignation letters. After having waited a full minute while he watched his boss's normally inscrutable face going from its normal pale (from not receiving enough sunlight) white to a rather curiously shaded red, he said, "There. I've resigned. Now I can say what I have thought every single day since I started work under you. And that is...". Here, he paused for dramatic effect, before shouting, "Fuck you!". As soon as those words were out of his mouth, he felt that he could have better chosen his words. Maybe he could have fortified his "Fuck you" with a "you capitalist slave!" or better still, he could have gone for a harder hitting, less cliched "I pity you, you ball-less excuse for a man!"

His ex-boss's face went a shade redder, tottering on the brink of being burgundy.

And now (for today is Tuesday, one day but, for our protagonist, a lifetime removed from the Monday), he is staggering through the first day of his three-month notice period, as he was contractually obliged to do. He cannot afford to forfeit the bond money.

He is also regretting having quit in such a dramatic manner. Because his resignation letter, written in a haze of intoxication, had been worded in a manner that had angered his boss to such an extent that if it was legal, his boss would have had him slowly tortured by the extremely imaginative Russian mafia and then shot. In any event, it was more than enough to make his boss ensure that chances of him finding employment in the same or any related industry which would value his skill-set were virtually nil. In the darkness of substance induced euphoria, the letter had had an allure reminiscent of, and associated with, engaging in forbidden pleasures for the first time.

In the blinding light of common sense, however, it looked like what it was- a temptress whose seductive, suggestive appearances have to cloaked by the black velvet cloth of the night to be effective and who, by day, looks positively revolting.

And, after having served out his notice period, he will probably have to take up some low-paying job somewhere.

He will probably have to, in the course of such employment, serve or otherwise entertain several of his colleagues, who will give him looks, partly smug and partly sympathetic.

He will probably have to grin and bear it all, and take the measly tips they leave him and save up for whatever sad little thing or activity he will find solace in. Maybe a holiday with his family to a nearby cheap resort.

And he will surely hate his life.

Lesson: Don't be stupid. Even if it is Monday. And even if you feel like shit.

(Diesel Jeans may exhort to the contrary. But, well, it's Diesel Jeans. You'd have to be stupid to take that ad campaign seriously. So, the campaign may, in effect, in all its circular logical glory, be actually working. Who knows?)

You are Always Right.

2011-10-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

A liberal is a man who will not take his own side in an argument, it is said.

I do this quite often. The justification I offer myself is that it is not a sign of weakness; it is, rather, a sign of laziness and of the propensity to automatically lean towards the most convenient route out of a situation.

If you have an issue with the above, I concede to your superior logic.

As I said, with me, You are Always Right.

Rabble on, Anna

2011-10-20T00:19:00.000-07:00

Image aestheticization credit to Igirit. Thanks!

Totally Unnecessary Blues

2011-10-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Visiting facebook. Again and again. And again. Refreshing the page in the hope that someone else is as jobless as one is. Tinged with the expectation that that particular jobless person is thinking of you and has visited your page and commented on that ultra-slick status message you've only recently updated. Yeah, right.

Is this what my life has come down to?

No. THAT is not the only thing my life has come down to. It has also come down to trying desperately to ascribe some meaning to itself by elevating banal everyday happenings such as meeting overweight nitwits on the train to the status of something extraordinary and deluding myself that people will actually be interested in my social commentary on such a meeting. The result of such delusion is:

PS:
1) In case you decide to play along with my delusion, you will have to click on the comic to see the enlarged version of the comic. Don't have the energy to figure out how to have a zoomed version uploaded on to the blog.
2) Also don't have the energy to correct a grammatical (actually, misplaced punctuation) error in the comic.

Super 8

2011-10-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Contrary to my usual established practice, I did not spend time reading reviews on IMDB and RT before heading for this movie. It was, as such, a leap of faith; a leap into the dark abyss of possible boredom, pinning all my hopes on the belief that the lifeline that was Steven Spielberg's involvement in the movie would become taut and halt my fall.

Thankfully, there was no abyss and there was no fall and consequently, no need for the lifeline. The movie was engrossing from start to finish, largely due to the fact that it keeps you wondering. Wondering what's going on, what's going to be going on, why are they keeping us wondering etc. You get the idea.

The tone is set when a train is derailed, and the kids who chance upon it are warned away with a "They'll kill you and your parents." The kids are around because they are shooting an amateur movie for a competition known as Super 8. There is a fat kid, a normal kid, a stupid kid, a pyromaniac kid and a girl who at least two of the kids have a thing for. There is also a nuclear incident which serves no other purpose than as the backdrop of some sort of tension between the fathers of the girl and the normal kid, which, in turn, serves no purpose other than to put the kids' love into the realm of the forbidden.

The moments of foreboding are many and are quite effective in startling one out of the complacency one habitually slips into, and which is manifested in the slouching posture one lapses into after every periodic (each period being about ten mins) search for the perfect posture. The background score (and lack thereof) are used to great effect. The combination of the eerie silence characteristic of small town America and the predominantly night-time cinematography enhances, along with your absolute ignorance of what is going on, the taut thrilling ride that is this movie.

There is also a reasonably funny scene (funny only to a limited demographic, possibly) in which a guy is too stoned to move from the impending danger (which, of course, I can't reveal) with the comic result that people just leave the guy and flee. They never do show what becomes of the guy, come to think of it.

Ok. That's all I have. Someone please tell me how reviewers review a movie without giving away the central plot of the movie (and the central plot in this case is VERY VERY important because the movie depends on keeping people guessing about it, and on leaving them to draw their half- conclusions from the various strange incidents and weird phenomena that riddles the small sleepy town). Because I can't. I definitely can't. I can't even tell you whether the kids end up making the movie for the Super 8 competition because that would entail giving away whether they're dead or alive at the end of it all.

Ah. Fuck it. They don't die. They do make the movie. Whether they win the competition is another matter altogether. I won't spoil that bit of suspense for you. You can thank me later.

Strangers

2011-10-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

We are close strangers, you and I
Doomed to a hello and a bye
A knowing smile and a resigned look
Before a re-burying in the book.

Strangers, but not quite.
You and I.

Ours is the dance of the uncertain
Of half-taken steps, awkwardly shuffled
Of a miscalculated how and when
And a pretense at feelings unruffled.

And when they have passed, the years
When we've laughed our laughs and shed our tears
And told ourselves, a life well lived
It may be then
It may be then that you look back
And remember a stranger that you knew
And wonder
Wonder if he remembers you.

Real Steel

2011-10-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is a confused movie. It’s quite evident that the director couldn’t make his mind up as to the demographic he was targeting. I mean, you see the trailer, and it looks like Rocky meets Transformers. Then you troop in to watch the movie, your expectations higher than Jay and Silent Bob put together after a marathon session and you get weird sentimental moments over a robot. There are boyfriend-girlfriend moments, father-son moments, boy-robot moments and more boy-robot moments. Emotional moments over a bloody robot. And one that can’t even think for itself, like the ones in Transformers. Beat that.

Someone should’ve told the director that Hugh Jackman shirtless is all it takes to bring the ladies in. As Twilight proved, they're not particularly fussy about the kind of movies they watch. :) He didn’t have to generously sprinkle what is essentially a feel good underdog action movie with unnecessary emotional moments. And they come at all the wrong times. They come when a fight is lost, when a fight is won, when there has been no fight- in short, like the gigaloop, they come at all the inappropriate moments.

Nevertheless, the movie is worth a watch. The robots look good, the fight sequences are well-shot, there are enough moments of fond nostalgia for Rocky fans who have whole-heartedly embraced CGI but refuse to leave behind their upbringing, including a particularly adrenaline-rush inducing homage to Rocky’s taunt to Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Which is fitting, considering that the owner of the big bad robot is a Russian. There are also enough moments of robots bashing robots for those souls unfortunate enough not to have watched Rocky (and I include all of today’s kids in that).

And, most importantly, the movie made me crave for a time when I can make a robot fight for me. And isn’t that what good movies are supposed to do? Aren’t they supposed to either make you wish that you were a part of the movie or make you thankful that you weren’t a part of them? To lift your emotions or to make you cringe at what you see?

On that count of not inspiring indifference in me, I award it a 6.5 out of 10. Which means, while it may not qualify as a real steal, it's enough of a steal to warrant hauling your ass up to Malad for a 11 p.m. show.

Lead kindly, Darkness

2011-02-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

The most stereotyped answer to the question as to why one likes Batman is “Because he does not have any special powers. He is more believable than Superman or Spiderman.”

Well. I’m sorry, but the answer lacks originality. In pretty much the same way a photocopy lacks originality. You can tell, straight away, that it's one of those things that people say just because everyone's saying it.

Since when has a character or a story, especially a superhero, been judged on its believability? The point of fiction being to offer your imagination a chance to break free of the shackles of reality and spread its wings and set out to explore the wilderness of possibility and, more importantly, impossibility, it would be stupid to appreciate fiction, and superhero fiction at that, on the basis of how realistic it is.

No. It’s not that. It’s not that at all. Batman is not the best of them merely because he is more believable. He is as unbelievable as the rest of them. It is near on impossible for any single man to have:

(a) All the money in the world to play with

(b) Had Catwoman (and other women, of course)

(d) Gained expertise in almost all spheres of knowledge

(e) Without any special sense like Spidey, dodged as many bullets as he has

To me, Batman is the greatest superhero because he represents the supreme will that we should all aspire to. Because, unlike Superman and Spiderman, Batman had to work to become Batman. He could have just been Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises and amassed millions more. And to get your niggling doubt out of the way, he could have very easily gone in for therapy to get over the shock of his parents’ death. He didn't need to don a cape and a gown and prowl the streets at night.

But he didn’t. He decided to do the impossible. And, because he is a fictional character in a fictional city, he achieved it. What one should take home after taking a Batman comic (apart from that immense sense of satisfaction) is the inspiration to strive to achieve the impossible. You might not be able to achieve the impossible. Because you are a real person. You’re not meant to. That’s why it called ‘impossible’. However, what it will help you do is to become the best you can.

So. When you wake up and switch off the alarm clock, throwing to the wind your resolution to pay a visit to the gym TODAY, no matter what, you should think of Batman and the hours of training he puts in. When you are on the verge of giving up working on what could be the most important case of your career, you should think of Batman and the effort he puts in to catch the Joker. And while you’re doing all that thinking, think also of all the Selina Kyles and Vicki Vales that wait at the end of the Tunnel of Effort.

What became of the Aquarians?

2011-01-31T04:49:00.000-08:00

I have decided to write everyday. And none of that self-deprecatory nonsense. Proper, hardcore, writer stuff. Inspired by Michael Chabon's story about how he wrote The Mysteries of Pittsburg perched on a desk, bathed in the glow of a solitary bulb, I sit now in my room, bathed in the glow of my table lamp, laptop at the ready, with all the anticipation of a Formula One driver at the moment between the red and green signal.

I just noticed that my blog name can be read in two ways. One is, of course, creative juice shop. The other is, as the more perceptive among you might have noticed, creative juices hop. I must admit I'm toying with the idea of changing the location of my blog- this one's been around too long, and change is good and all that- and one of the names I've come up with is creative juices skip and run (.blogspot.com, obviously). Hop, skip and run.

My creative juices have hopped, skipped and run and have collapsed from exhaustion. All for your sake. It has been brought to my notice that my use of metaphors is excessive. Metaphors being to my creative juices what steroids were to Ben Johnson, this proved very difficult. So difficult, in fact, that I inadvertently stoop to using them once in a while. It wouldn’t take a Holmes to appreciate this: the evidence, as you can see, is strewn around on this digital papyrus. Oops. Sue me.

Which brings me to the topic of this post. After fishing around a decent bit for a topic, I recently came across a copy of the Woodstock Poster. ‘An Aquarian Exposition in While Lake, NY’- it proclaims. Not proudly, but more in a genial, slacker kind of way; the kind of proclamation, nay, "this aggression will not stand"-like statement, rather, you’d expect from a hippie.

At the outset, I should admit to being perplexed by the term Aquarian Exposition. While a quick search on Google would, no doubt, lead me on to Wikipedia and then to the detailed history of Woodstock, containing, inter alia, the etymology of the term, I’d rather not go down that by-now-well-trodden path of knowledge acquisition. I have been feeling ambivalent, of late, towards our culture of instant gratification as regards knowledge. Google, I feel, has stifled good old debate. No longer can you, while in the throes of alcohol, debate about something as inconsequential as whether a water molecule has two H atoms separately connected to an oxygen atom. What with everyone carrying a net-enabled phone these days, someone will have taken recourse to Google and that will be that. A quick, efficient chop delivered to the debate. Head rolling down the podium to the bottom of the guillotine. Masses cheering for justice done.

And….. after a very short battle lasting a millionth of a microsecond (you do realize that’s exaggeration, there’s no way I can calculate 10^-12seconds), Google has won. I have turned to it, and being the forgiving addictive service provider it is, it has seen fit to reward me with enlightenment.

I won’t bore you with the details. You can find it here: http://www.woodstockstory.com/aquarianexposition.html. God is in the details, so go. Find God. Chat with him awhile. Then come back and read the rest of this, post a comment, preferably one praising my writing skills. I have already decided that the dedication in my first book will read, “To the known and unknown, who posted comments on my blog.” There. Now you have incentive.

So, apparently the coming of Aquarius is what prompted people to become hippies. I would’ve thought that the license to be lazy and do drugs and listen to music and free love was encouragement enough. This Aquarius bit is possibly just an exercise in legitimization. Anyway, short point being- what became of the hippies?

Did they grow up? Did they don suits and become slaves to capitalism? Did they give up on their dream- THE DREAM? Did they realize that one cannot live on music and love? Are they the ones that bought houses and mortgaged them two or three times, driving up the value of the houses, finally causing the bubble to burst and the economy to go into a slump, warranting government intervention? All right, that last bit was just to show off my knowledge of current (or about one and a half year old) affairs. Did they have kids and start college funds? And do they tell those kids that drugs are bad?

Or are they still around? Flower children, wearing loose comfortable robes, listening to Hendrix and dropping acid? Living forever in the 60s? Are they living in trailers, camped outside some desert? Sad, old, withered couples thinking about the promises they made to each other to love forever- promises broken often enough that its stopped being an event, and passed into the realm of being a minor irritation, like a rash on the sole of your right foot? How do they make ends meet? Do they do odd-jobs, still manning the counter, at the age of 60, of some McDonald’s or Burger King outlet? Do they regret being what they are, and not changing?

Or are there actually people like Jeff Lebowski around? Slackers with, apparently, no regrets?

If you’re wondering what this post was all about, don’t worry. So am I.

Beam me up, Inspiration!

2011-01-29T03:29:00.000-08:00

This morning, I was on the lookout for things to write about. I must inform you, with a heavy yet completely understanding heart (i.e., a heart that has come to terms with its owner's propensity to not do what he decides to do), that the mission was a colossal failure. In contemporary cinematic terms, my mission was like the Persian in 300 who goes to Sparta to deliver Xerxes’ message to Leonidas. It was pushed into the well of inexistence by the lord of inertia. In simple terms, I was too lazy. My eye moved with the enthusiasm of cat which has slept only one out of its mandated eighteen hours of sleep, my mind registered things with the accuracy of a schizophrenic with severe ADD and my hand and pen never made it to the scheduled tripartite meeting with the notebook I had taken along with me on my mission.

So, when, this night, I sit down to type the words I promised myself I would type, my mind is as blank as a newly opened Microsoft Word document. Or, for that matter, a blank sheet of paper. You get the point.

I wish I could say that a magical gateway into the Imaginarium of Doctor Rajasekhar opened up and thousands of words tumbled out, intertwining and mating with each other to produce, in their moments of exquisite orgasm, sentences of infinite beauty and immeasurable intelligence. Sentences which have attained the pinnacle of sentence perfection, Aryan sentences of which the Hitler of Grammar Nazis would’ve been proud.

However, all I can, in fact, say is that I’m still looking for something to write about.

And you have to understand how lame that is for a non-writer to say. It’s like a teetotaler going to an AA meeting and saying….. No. It’s worse. It’s like an Indian virgin impotent guy barging into a porn convention heavily populated with Ron Jeremy’s ilk who are in the process of loudly complaining about how, in their old age, their boats don’t float and pronouncing, loudly, his, well, impotence.

Inspiration, if you're out there and coyly and playfully looking upon this attempt to kick-start my scooter of creativity, I implore you, visit me. In the dead of night. For that's when, like a thief pottering around a house picking up items that seize his fancy, I scuttle around the vast barren lands of my imagination looking for an oasis of words.

The Ace up my Sleeve- Part II

2010-04-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

For Part I: http://creativejuiceshop.blogspot.com/2008/03/ace-up-my-sleeve_24.html

Lois Lane stumbled out from the Joker's cell. All around her, the inmates made gestures; clawing motions, as if the walls of the long, dark corridor had sprouted hands intent on grabbing her and making her part of itself. Part of Arkham. The place had a sordid life of its own.

The Joker's laugh wouldn't leave her, lingering on like a trace of a disgustingly musty perfume tried out in a cheap convenience store, even after she'd run out into the welcoming light of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham's office. The doctor looked up, crow-like in his demeanour, with shifty eyes and a neck that refused to stay still. Lois wondered whether he had begun to go mad, too. He asked, "Ms. Lane, did you find everything to your satisfaction? Your interview with the Joker went off well, I trust?"

Lois did not answer immediately, choosing instead to look at the various pictures the doctor had had hanged on the wall. Depictions of patients in varying levels of agony, undergoing whatever torture passed for treatment in those days, for illnesses of the brain. The doctor asked again, "Ms. Lane?"

"It went well, thank you. Unnerving, but I got what I wanted.", Lois replied.

"Ah yes, the Joker does tend to have that effect on people. Even the most hardened criminals play by some rules. With the Joker, you get the feeling that he is capable of anything. He can strangle a kitten with his left hand while cradling a baby with his right. That's what makes him most.....fascinating."

Lois ventured a question. "Doctor, do you think the Joker is really mad? At some level, he seems saner than you or I."

"Well, Ms. Lane. The Batman seems convinced he is. As for me, I sometimes think that the Joker just plays along."

The phone next to him rang. He picked it up. "No. I'm free. Tell him to come."

The doctor turned to look at Lois and said, "Have you met Mr. Wayne? You must've heard about him, I'm sure. How could you not, him being the son of Gotham?"

Lois murmured an "I should be going" and rose from her chair. She didn't want to be around Bruce, not when she was onto a story about the Batman. Their relationship till now had been cordial, and solely owed to the fact that she was Superman's wife. Between Superman and Batman, there existed a sort of uneasy tolerance. Both recognised that the other performed a crucial role. And both trusted each other. So much so that they had exchanged their secret identities. Which was really not necessary, considering that one was the world's greatest detective and the other had X-ray vision.

But nagging reporter wives being nagging reporter wives, it was only to be expected that Lois would manage to extract that bit of information from Clark.

She was just about to exit the room when the door opened and Bruce Wayne entered, looking every bit the part of the billionaire playboy he played with such aplomb.

"Ah, Mr. Wayne. Come in. Have you met the delightful Ms. Lois Lane? She's down here from Metropolis to interview the Joker for a Daily Planet feature. She seems to think the Joker might not be as insane as he appears. The very idea...laughable! Well, you know what they say.. all publicity is good publicity. And Gotham's coffers no longer being what it was..Not to say that your contributions haven't been generous. They have..", the doctor trailed off, seeing the acute look that Bruce was giving Lois. He added, "You two know each other, I take it?"

Lois felt Bruce's eyes trying to pierce the thin fabric of her thoughts (*Author's note: I know what you were thinking when you read 'thin fabric', you perverts*). For the first time, Lois understood why Clark kept saying that for him, Superman was the mask but that for Bruce, it was the other way round. She felt real fear- the cold, clammy hands from her nightmare, the primal fear she had felt when she had almost drowned in a lake in Scotland. She could glimpse, behind the playboy mask, the dark persona that was the Batman and understood why the most hardened criminals turned into bawling babies at the mere mention of his name.

"Lois, its been a long time. How are you?", Bruce's deep, suave voice penetrated her bubble of fear. "The Joker is a dangerous man. You ought to be careful. If he escapes, as he does with a most disturbing frequency- no offence to you and your staff, Doctor- he could come after you.. there's just no predicting the twisted ways his mind will choose to travel."

"Thanks for your concern, Mr. Wayne. But I can take care of myself.", Lois retorted, a brave attempt at concealing the fear which threatened to overwhelm her. If all the things the Joker had said about the Batman was true, if he had imprisoned an innocent man and labelled him a lunatic to keep his shameful secret safe..

1 Idiot- Reloaded.

2010-01-01T03:37:00.001-08:00

This post was supposed to be inflicted upon you on Nov 30, 2009. One month of cold storage has effectively killed the humour. Perhaps a bit of brandy will revive it? So go down one, come back, sit down and commence the process of self-flagellation.

A year is such an aptly round period, isn't it? For anything. Especially for irresponsibility. You can drop out of college for a year. You can do what you always dreamt of doing. You needn't be stifled by society's and your parents' expectations. A year is a legitimate period to ask for yourself before you become yet another cog in the capitalist wheel. You can backpack around Europe for a year, you can write the magnum opus you're convinced lies within, you can do theatre for a year. Heck, you can even stay at home and watch TV for a year! It's all cool, since it's just for a year.

So. As I was saying, its been a year. A year since we last met and exchanged online telepathic pleasanteries. A year since you last visited this blog and went, "Oh, fuck! Why? Why? WHY????". A year since I last angsted online and spewed out my particularly self depreciating brand of humour. Probably a year since you visited this site, apart from that one visit the only purpose of which is to prod a corpse gingerly with one's toe to make sure that it is well and truly dead.

A year. Welcome back.

A lot has happened this past year. I've passed out of college. My sense of humour has taken a hit, like a bug that's been stamped upon by the cruel feet of Lady Work. A bug who's valiantly making cyclical motions with all its limbs but who's most evidently in the throes of the Grim Reaper. It will have to be resurrected, new life injected into it so that it can continue to terrorise those souls unfortunate enough to wander into this cursed corner of cyberspace.

Also, pR has returned to blogging in full force. As Shelley said, "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" Ok. In this case, though meteorologically incorrect, "If spring comes, can winter be far behind?"

Wish you a Happy Wintry New Year.

Blank Verse

2008-11-30T01:10:00.000-08:00

Please tell me you got it.

Life. Or Something like it.

2008-11-25T20:40:00.003-08:00

Contract- I

Will you go out with me?

Yes.

Consideration- Money, attractiveness, intelligence. In that order.

Termination

Umm...I don't think we should see each other for a while. It would be a good idea for us to take a break.

Damages paid

Time spent being a shoulder to cry on.
Lying through your teeth about why it's not her fault, and about how she's as beautiful as she was.
Being bitched about, slimed by, and the victim of dirty glares thrown by her and her faithful friends, who are secretly happy that she's come down to the level of singledom they have been inhabiting for such an insufferably long time.

More on the depressingly contractual nature of life. Coming soon.

Trust No-one.

2008-11-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

Day is nothing
But night in shining armour.
We think its warmer
And that makes us dance and sing.
But under the armour's gleaming light
It's just as dark as night.

Fashion

2008-11-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

No. Its not about the movie. Too much's been written about it already.

Remember the days before VCDs and DVDs, and how hard it was to get hold of a good print of English movies? Well, it was much harder to get your hands on an adult movie. And if you were fresh into your teens, forget about it. As much chance of it as Shakeela making a comeback.

The year 2001. So, there we were. About 40 of us. From the 8th standard of a boys' school in the, conservatively speaking, very conservative city of Trivandrum. On our very first long trip. Ooty, if I remember correctly. Now, don't get the wrong ideas in your head. I know your type. Bottles of raging hormones as we were, we kept our hands to ourselves. And ourselves only. God knows we needed it.

Unlike in the coming years of excursions, we had no portable VCD player and neither had we made arrangements for our very-exciting-watching-porn-together sessions. Come to think of it, I wonder why we did that. It's not exactly what you'd call normal, is it? Kind of like group therapy for desperate young boys.

Anyway, steering back onto the road of the narrative, we had no means for entertainment, save for a television, with cable, in our hotel room. An enterprising friend of mine quickly zeroed in on...wait for it....FTV! Yes, our very own peek into things we could've had if we weren't born in India to middle class parents. That world of perfect bodies, and presumably willing minds. After all, they were in the fashion industry, weren't they?

So, the scene is this. A group of 8 adolescents gawking at a model wearing the ideal skirt. Short enough to arouse, but long enough to conceal. One among them loudly proclaims, "Man, I want to see more", and goes next to the TV, bends down next to the base and starts peering up.

You know those incidents which are best recounted by animatedly acting out the scene? Somehow, I get the feeling this is one of those. There's only so much humour the written word can carry on its back. And this post definitely seems to have a broken back

Apologies.

Seeing Green

2008-11-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

Seen at a popular culture blog-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Monte Williams has a Bachelor's Degree in Communication. Would you like fries with that?"

Wish I'd thought of such a cool intro.

Poking noses, others' businesses.

2008-11-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

Me: Can I ask you a personal question?

Mr. Name-withheld-for-health-reasons: Yeah, sure.

Me: I've been observing you and you seem to be just wasting your time. What is the purpose of your life?

Mr. Name-withheld-for-health-reasons: Well, you see, the primary purpose of my life {pauses and thinks how best to put it} is to not answer stupid questions like these.

Talk about escapism!

Those Days that Were

2008-11-15T04:08:00.000-08:00

O, girl with the bright green eyes
Sing a while, dance, go wild
Take me right back to that time
When we were young, and love we'd mime.

Those times, they fly around in my mind
Fast forward, a pause, then rewind
That day of joy and wine
The day that you were mine.

O, girl with the pretty smile
Sing a song, dance a mile
Bring back those days we lived
When, in love, we believed.

All talk, no Cock

2008-11-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hi there, my-figment-of-imagination reader. Long time its been. Hope you've been running well, and with regular water-breaks, the marathon of life. Yes? Well, then. The pleasantries being over, let's move on to the good things.

After almost two years of waiting with bated breath, the man's back. THE MAN. The perfect fitting blazer, the crisp white shirt and a studly looking gun in his hand. The uncanny ability to come out of a fight, dirty and grimy and still make girls go weak at the knees. It's really not fair. Bond..James Bond. Anyone else saying his name the way Bond does is on his way to inventing a one-step method to becoming a pariah. But not Bond, no. Every pore of Bond cries out metrosexuality, but "Ooooh...He's so manly!!" The man waxes, uses an undisclosed number of hair products, is always impeccably groomed and yet remains if not the epitome, a climber very near the peak of masculinity. And, boy oh boy, don't get me started on his sex life! Who else could get laid with a pick-up line which goes, "I can't seem to find the stationery in my hotel room. Would you like to help me look for it?".

But this post is not about Bond and his masculinity. It's the lack thereof of someone else.

Scene witnessed outside the cinema:
Car no.1 inadvertently bangs into car no.2.
Driver of car no.2 gets out and shouts, while car no.1 driver sits in his car and shouts.
Driver 2 gets back in his car, reverses and bangs into driver 1's car.
Driver 1's turn to get out and shout. Goes back into his car, and bangs again into driver 2's car.
Both get out and start shouting. Something about, "..you don't know who I am. I can fuck your happiness..."

I mean, what?? Don't get me wrong. I whole-heartedly reject the notion that manliness lies in being aggressive. In fact, it takes much more balls to admit that one is wrong. An apology just drips with so much more testosterone than a curled fist, don't you think?

It's become fashionable again to end things with words of wisdom. After years of groping about in the blindness of believing only in the virtues of disbelief, morals have once again been accepted as being an essential part of mankind's entertainment.

So what's the moral of the story, my dear children? Yes, you're right. It's to stop trying to show the world that you are a man. When you stop trying, you actually become a man.

That's it for now. Time to go. My gym calls. Have to get a six-pack and bulging biceps. Wouldn't want to look like a sissy, now, would I?

Confessions of a Severe Attention Deficit Disorder Sufferer

2008-11-01T04:39:00.000-07:00

How to get over your Quarter-Life Crisis

2008-06-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

So, let's see. What else is left to blog on?
Existential angst- done
Romantic ache/loinging :)- done
Trying to be funny- done

I think my skill set is near exhausted. Being socially relevant is not my mug of beer. I can be as socially relevant as a skunk who's been kept from doing his thing for a week and is just looking forward with anticipation to letting it all out.

In the interests of the discerning public, therefore, I think I'll have to look to other sources for inspiration. No. Don't call it plagiarism. Call it my muse. After all, what's in a name?

And that inspiration shall come in the form of acquaintances who have been talking about going through their quarter life crisis. If we're going to categorise them temporally, i think my whole fuckin life has been a crisis. Right from the first step i took into my beloved school, to the last word i type here.

I have a tendency to always shift the spotlight onto me, don't I? Anyway, to get back to baking the cake of wisdom I was about to serve to you- art thou suffering from a quarter-life crisis? Comes from doing things by quarter measures. Here's the solution. Its a concentrate, actually. So. Here's the concentrate. Add a little coke and you'll have the solution. :)

Go the full length. And be happy. At least for a good 3 hours.

It's also recommended to help you get over pathetic jokes such as these.

The Story of a Lifetime

2008-06-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

There's a story they tell around these parts. About a boy that died. He still comes back once in a while. He was....Wait a goddamn minute!!

Why the fuck am I telling you this story if there are already people doing it around these parts? You can just go ask them, you lazy bastards! Your legs will atrophy or something if you run to the internet everytime you want something!! Do you even remember what your neighbourhood market, or the library for that matter, looks like?? Get a life. Bloody buggers, spending the whole day in front of the computer even if you don't have anything worthwhile to do. When you're so bored that you visit this blog, it's time to get off that chair and take a walk.

Go on. Do it.

The Blogger wears Prada

2008-06-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

Seems to be the fashion these days, no? Stop blogging. I, too, thought I'd write something to the effect of 'I don't have anything more to say. Bye' and leave. That would've sounded suitably classy.

What happened, you ask? Why were we not delivered salvation, you moan? Well, I realised that in light of everyone else's sudden departure from the blogging scene, it'll look like I'm just emulating them. Following the herd. And if there's one thing I've strived to be, it's to be different. Even if its not practical and has no reason behind it other than the urge to be different.

So, socially sensitive blogger that I am, I've decided to let this blog be. It'll be, like some close relative who you're actually not only not close to but who you exremely despise and who you approach with flowers and chocolates and how-are-you-i've-been-meaning-to-come-meet-yous only when you are in desperate need of money, the sanctuary I run to when I'm really, truly and thoroughly bored.

The Ghost of a Boring Past

2008-05-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

I wake up. I go to work. I come back. I sleep.

My life. My sad, little life.

'Twas the night before a day that would be as ordinary and unremarkable as every other day of my life. It came. Clanging and hissing and making all the other noises a ghost is supposed to make. It looked like me. It looked like the me of twenty years ago, in my shorts and with neatly combed hair and a schoolbag and water bottle enveloping me. It looked like the me of yesterday- with frown lines, with the cheap red tie and the mundane black suit, the me that had walked out of my boss's office with a polite smile and with murderous thoughts in my head. It looked like everything I had ever been. It said, "You have led a miserable life. Voluntarily so.You have none but yourself to blame." And I knew it to be true.

"But what can I do? My life till now is done. The milk has been spilt, licked by the cat, dried up and what little traces of it can be found are probably crawling with bacteria!"

"All will become clear", it said. And disappeared. Like a dream. Which it probably was.

I slept. Because the next day, I had to wake up, go to work, come back. And sleep, of course.

The Day I Died

2008-05-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

I'm dead. I know that much.

Don't ask me how I know. I know. I know it the way you know it's morning, or the way you know that it's going to be a good day for you, and the way you know that finally, after all the red herrings, the girl standing in front of you is the girl you are meant to be with.

But it doesn't feel right. Because nothing feels different. People can't see me, that much I grant. But is that all being dead means? No heaven, hell or vast green fields like they show in the movies? I walk through the same streets I walked through when I was alive and I sit in the same restaurant I used to have dinner at.

And I can see other people. Very few of them, though. Too few of them to comprise the dead population of the world. For an instant, my mind fleets to Harry Potter and the ghosts who chose to stay behind and later regretted it. And for that instant, I'm afraid. But it passes. I didn't choose, did I? So, I'll be sent. Somewhere.

No one talks. Everyone's busy lamenting their deaths. I'm not alone. But I feel lonely. The mundane, done-to-death cliche barely registers when suddenly, like a dry breeze that blows over you and makes you uncomfortably hot and sweaty, the knowledge passes over us and we all know.

Heaven is full. So is hell. They're not taking any more.

So, we're here. When you see something out of the corner of your eye? That's us.
When you have that feeling of something touching your neck and you turn around and there's nothing there? That's also us.

But don't worry. We won't harm you. We're not bored. Yet.

The Man who Wished

2008-05-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

He was given three wishes. Exactly three. He complained. The genie said, "The stories all say three. All the genies in history have always given three wishes. Hence."

He shouted, "But don't you want to be different? Unique? Don't you want to be not ordinary?"

The genie looked at him. Just looked. There was nothing spectacular about the look. No way to describe it. No comparisons to be made. It wasn't the look that a child gives rain-laden clouds, as he thinks of the fun he'll have. It wasn't the look that a man gives a woman when he sees her for the first time, and he thinks thoughts which, a second later, he realises he shouldn't be thinking, and then he tries to stop thinking them, and he fails, and he finally decides that morality is a constructed notion and goes on thinking. It was just an ordinary look. One not worth any words. But some things are not worth anything, and still end up getting them, don't they?

Then, in a low, rambling voice, it said, "No, I don't want to be anything but ordinary. Ordinary is a stable state to be in. You can't get into trouble being ordinary."

He gave up and tried to come up with wishes. The funny thing about wishes is, until you have the chance to ask for anything you want, you know exactly what you want. Once you are given the chance, all the things you ever wanted, and ever will want, attack you together. Memories and desires. All together. And the only thing you wish for is that you are not asked to choose. But you can't ask for that, can you?

He wished.

First, for wealth. So that he could live well.

He then wished for women. For he wanted to love.

And for the third wish, he wished that he could rise above the ordinary. It was for him, what Holmes was to Doyle, what Romeo was to Shakespeare and everything else any man is remembered by is to the man. He wanted to be remembered for not being ordinary.

This is the story of a man who had more riches and women than a man could want. And he couldn't enjoy them. Because he was no longer ordinary.

The Importance of being Dumb

2008-04-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Excerpts, again, from a Stephen Fry book:

Setting- A boys' dressing room

"Let's beat the shit out of him", said Sargent, advancing.

"Now, I warn you", said Adrian, "if either of you touches me..."

"Yes?", sneered Jones, "What'll you do?"

"I shall sustain a massive erection, that's what, and I shan't be answerable for the consequences. Some kind of ejaculation is almost bound to ensue and if either of you were to become pregnant I should never forgive myself."
----------------------------------------------------------

Humour at its very best. The pinnacle as far as clever retorts go. However, one does tend to wonder whether this would work in real life. Would waving a red flag in front of an advancing bull, in the hope that some sort of reverse psychology would come to your rescue, work? I think not.

What is required in such situations is a pretense of dumbness. Stupidity. Lack of intellect. Here are some reasons, in case you are one of those people who don't accept things without questioning:

1. People like to feel superior. In one go, you make them feel good about themselves, and also lure them into underestimating you.

2. It doesn't require much to act dumb. Infinitely less resources than is required to act clever. The constant pressure of having to come up with witty retorts, of having to cite sources- all these are thankfully absent. A vacant, lost expression is the most you'll be called upon to produce.

There are situations in which cleverness will impress. And then there are situations where the weight of your cleverness will be a deadweight, dragging you down into the river in which the mafia of the envious will undoubtedly dump you.

To conclude, in such cases, there is no other purpose to being clever than to arouse envy. Being dumb, on the other hand, precipitates pity, underestimation and a superiority complex, all of which can be, in the right hands, put to good use.

The Importance Series

2008-04-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

I hope, for your sake, that you have read Oscar Wilde. More specifically, "The Importance of being Earnest". I know I have used this space to conjure up several dishes all of which waft to you the aromas of the literary genius of Oscar Wilde and Stephen Fry. I wish I could scream "No more inspiration. From now on, I shall be completely original, maybe even original to a fault". But things being what they are, and my insecurities being of an embarassingly massive proportion, I shall continue to plagiarise and to spew out recycled humour.

Back to where we started. The Importance of being Earnest. Thoroughly and shamelessly inspired by the title, I've decided to start a series of ruminations on the people around us, and various characteristics of theirs. Oh, yes. I will be henceforth gunning for the post of Headmaster of the Cynical School. The blog reviews till date have not been encouraging- Salman Rushdie got better reviews from fundamentalist Muslim groups- and hence, a change of strategy is definitely called for.

So. Coming soon. The Importance of being Dumb. Wait with bated breath. Actually, just wait. Please?

These Lives and Times of Ours.

2008-04-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

When he was in school, he didn't know she existed.

When he went to college, he saw her and he knew Lust.

When he started talking to her, everyone said it was Love and he believed them.

When he married her, Convenience became the third bed-fellow. It did not hurt that she was rich.

When they had a child, he thought, "I don't love her. But I don't mind having her around". And Lust turned its head towards greener pastures, to be found on websites and in movies.

When the child grew up and left them alone again, a mild dislike bordering on hatred made itself felt all around the house.

Now, he just wishes she was dead.

When I did What, and How I felt

2008-04-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know. I really don't. People write about what they did, when they did it and how they felt when they did it. Now, I really don't mind that. Not if you are Indiana Jones. Or someone who leads a life that at least aspires to be interesting. To anyone else, I must, with a heavy heart, administer the poison cloaked in the form of the following words. "No one particularly cares. Deal with it."

There are people to whom things happen. Interesting things. Unfortunately, these people are rarer to find than a verbal-diarrhoea-free-person in law school. There are some of us that take our pitifully ordinary lives, the mundane things that happen to us and try to sensationalize it. Good job, I say, as long as it's sensationalized well.

But ordinary happenings written about in an ordinary way is beyond pissing off. If pissing off is a pool of sludge, such writings to me are the micromini particles in the nucleus of a bacterium that inhabits the very bottom of the sludge.

I could, of course, refrain from reading these it-happened-to-mes. But I do like to fancy myself as someone whose opinions count and as we all know, having at some point of time been one, the lot of such an important person is to criticise and to, occasionally, give a pat on the back to the critiqued. Give them hope so that they continue to come up with fodder which the critic can, with a vengeance, chew and spit out disdainfully. Besides, I'm utterly, completely, embarassingly jobless. I am.

My first ever rant. Going against all I stand for and am. I'm sorry.

Here's hoping that it doesn't become a habit.

Self (Realization+Pity+Depreciation). Apologies.

2008-04-09T06:20:00.001-07:00

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two lines vaguely resembling matter.

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The story of my posts. And of my life.

The Age of Cynicism

2008-04-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

In my life, peppered as it is with the black grains of experience, I have, after having given considerable thought to the nature of our lives and times, come up with two observations which scream 'erudition' (and to the discerning reader, 'pretentious, wannabe intellectual') from every available pore. These are:

1. The greatest distinguishing feature of our generation is the urge for instant gratification. We want all of it, and we want it now.

2. The greatest tragedy of our age is mediocrity. Our mediocrity has crept upon us with the cunning of a fox (to borrow from Blackadder) who has been the Professor of Cunning at Oxford. There are depressingly few exceptional people among us.

Mediocrity has engulfed our lives and we have become as comfortable with it as a lawschoolite is with the word 'hegemony'. At this juncture, irrelevant as it is, I would also like to admit that law school has added to my daily vocabulary words such as hegemony, arbitrary, nepotism (and) et al. In fact, all the words which make us sound more intelligent than the average law student. This is, I believe, law school's greatest victory. But, we have strayed far from the flock and we should now return to it, lest it grow bored and jump off a cliff.

As was being spouted, mediocrity. Mediocrity and the urge for instant gratification can be a combination deadlier than George Bush and brains. While the best the latter can achieve is world domination, the former can lead to an emotionally dead world, only seconds away from the setting in of rigor mortis. It can lead to the birth of cynics. It can lead to disregard for and suspicion of everything. It can lead to an existence bereft of feeling, beauty and belief. It can lead to people wishing that the world had ended when they were still the germ of an idea in their parents' minds as the first drops of alcohol which initiated the series of events that ended in the backseat of a car (forgive me, I am a westernised being and totally taken up by the sex-in-the-backseat idea!) were being poured. It can lead to many things, and not one of them will be worth the bytes it takes up in cyberspace.

It is impossible for everyone to be satisfied at the same time. Some people are more mediocre than others and we must bide our time. Instant gratification, perpetrated by our consumerist culture, is not something that can be extended to all spheres of life. So we shall wait, like good children, for Mother Life to serve us our supper. And be all the happier for it.

Even a foolish man is allowed one attempt at being intelligent. I believe this was mine.

Guten tag to you, too.

The Ace up My Sleeve

2008-03-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

Do you think they know me? I dare say they do. After all, how many people can ignore, actually ignore The Joker? They may pretend not to see me, but I've seen their furtive sideway glances. The scared look on their faces when I swagger in. And I must admit that I like it. Well, whaddya know? I might actually be turning mad!

Oh, people may call me insane. But you don't really believe that, do you? If you did, you wouldn't be here listening to me again. You feel it, don't you? That something is wrong. That I can't possibly be as mad as they make me out to be, and as intelligent at the same time. It's simply impossible. Smart, smart you. Poor, poor you. You shouldn't have figured it out. You should never have come to Arkham to see me last week. He keeps a tab, you see. He knew. As soon as you set foot here, he knew. But then, that's reporting for you. That's what it's always been about. Isn't it, Lois Lane?

I was once like you. Living my life. Loving wife. About to have a kid. The perfect middle class American family. Always smiling. Living the great American dream. Until I stumbled upon his secret. His secret. Crime fighting indeed. With a cherubic adolescent by his side. The Dark Knight and his faithful sidekick, Robin.

The Batman. You've seen him. In your deepest fears. Your darkest nightmares. He labelled me a lunatic. So that none would believe what I said. He made me a criminal. He killed me. Now I just play along. But I shall have my revenge. Through you.

I wasn't crazy when he caught me. But now I fear for my sanity. There are blackouts. Where I gasp for breath in the swamp of madness. Its sweet oblivion. To just let go. I might just choose to drown in it. That's why I needed to tell you. After all, someone must know. People must know.

He still comes to see me, you know. He came as soon as you left. And I might just have let slip that someone else knows his precious little secret. His shame. Might. I really can't remember.

So. As for you. Maybe he's coming. Maybe he knows. Maybe you'll turn around and he'll be there. Maybe.

I suggest you start running.
---------------------------------------
Coming Soon!!- "When Night Meets Day". Batman & Superman face-off. The reason? As always, a chick. Lois Lane.
Stay tuned. Same blog. Some time. When I'm really bored.

No Country for Small CVs

2008-03-23T06:19:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

I am Bimal's CV. As of now, there are very few items on me. The one which I wear with the most pride is the bullet point which says "Member, Student Bar Association". For a long while, it has been, in the solitude of the white sea of papyrus that is me, crying its heart out for company. It has begun to give up hope, and is slowly resigning itself to its fate. So I think you can delete the 'as of now' you saw in the second sentence. I just realised that it is an unduly optimistic thought.

The other day, I was placed with a bunch of other CVs. I felt like a scurvy-afflicted Somalian would feel at a party of Sumo wrestlers. On closer inspection, I realised that they were actually not what they looked like. These Sumo wrestlers were largely made up of adipose cells. Actual muscles were few and far between. Read between the lines by someone with the right amount of cynicism, a publication in a journal would amount to "I'm a loser who spends all my time in the library. The only thing I'll remember when I pass out will be the screen of my computer." and a CGPA of 6 would be "I'm really really good at sucking cock. Ask the teachers at law school."

You get the idea, I hope? Good.

As would have crossed your perceptive mind without doubt, I am an insecure little prick of a CV. My insecurities have been exacerbated due to long periods of neglect by my owner. Once a year, I'm unceremoniously dragged out of the farther reaches of his computer, transferred onto a pen drive, printed out and made to see my glaring deficiencies when placed alongside others of my kin. The bitterness which pervades and makes a stinking slimy pit of the above two paragraphs is a direct uncorrupted manifestation of my insecurity. If anyone has any idea how a CV can commit suicide, please contact me. I beg of you.

A Story

2008-03-18T04:29:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a person, let's call him Exceptionally-Gifted-Literary-Giant wanted to write a story. He did not, however, know what to write a story on. He thought and thought, and then took a break. He thought for a long while after the break too, but could not identify any nice silky raw material out of which he could weave a story. Then he hit upon a brainwave.

He thought, "I'll write a story which is inconsequential, completely unnecessary and a waste of time. Sadistic frame of mind that I am in, precipitated by incessant, depressing ruminations on the H2S-filled, claustrophobic, cramped up little room that my life is, I'll just take up some bytes in cyberspace and wreak unhappiness on unsuspecting readers. Ugly little building it shall be, but it shall also be my insolent shield and shelter against the harsh, judgmental, competitive sandstorms that crop up with irritating frequency in the vast desert of life."

So, first, he started a blog. Then, a while later, he wrote a post with the title, "A Story", the content of which was the story of a story. Then, the purpose of purposelessness being accomplished and being truly satisfied that anyone unfortunate enough to read it would feel as shitty as him for at least a minute, he signed off with a "The End."

The End.

The Ballad of Reading Trust & Equity

2008-03-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

I can see the guillotine,
Punishment for my two-months-ago sin.
I admit; yes, I had a fear.
I could not, the thought, bear
Of being rendered non-witty
By studying trust & equity.

A second chance I was given
They said, '"To your R, add another one."
But, when downloading porn
One knows not where the time's gone.
And now, with four hours left
Of all hope I am bereft
Resigned to my fate
Of, with death by boredom, a date.

P.S- For the uninitiated, Oscar Wilde wrote a poem called "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" when he was serving out his sentence for being gay in the prison at Reading. Since it's rarely that I get to show off on the knowledge front, I think I deserve a pat on the back. I shall go watch some of the abovementioned porn.

A Song of Whens, Ifs and You

2008-03-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

When you close your eyes
It's my day that becomes dark
And when you smile your smile,
My world that breaks into song.

When you hold my hand
I am everything I'm not
And when you say good-bye
I fall back to the earth.

If you were here with me
You would be
My sun and my moon
And everything in between.
Oh, if only you were here.

And if only
I could be yours forever.
Or maybe, you mine?

Return of the King

2008-03-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

Hello, all. I am back. How could I not, now that my ego has been sufficiently catered to by the millions of comments imploring me not to deprive literary connoiseurs of their daily fodder?

Intelligent bastards, all of you. Saw right through my cleverly camouflaged attempts at soliciting ego-stoking comments, eh? Well, if nothing else, I can be assured of the intellectual capacity of my readership. Thank god for clouds and their silver linings and the person who infused such comforting, feel-good-even-when-a-shit-shower-hits-you thoughts into popular consciousness. Provides solace to burning insecure souls, it does.

Are you musing over the title of this post? About the misguided notions that fuel the undoubted arrogance that is oozing out of every pore of every finger that is flying over the keyboard right now?

Come, come, now. Where's the tolerance? Where's the good-natured let-the-fellow-humour-himself mentality? Yes, that's it. Bring out the cheer. After all, it's repeat season. You don't want to add to the prevailing depression laden suicidal atmosphere , do you? There. I can see an indulgent smile on your face. A thank you from the recesses of my deep, dark, dirty heart is in order. I knew you'd come around.

So, now you can look forward to more pleasure-filled days of reading the very best incisive comments upon and minute dissections of the trials, tribulations and other garbage that have been so carelessly, inconsiderately and inconveniently strewn about on the otherwise picture perfect manicured lawns of our lives. We can romp about together wondering about the whats, whys and whens of things, cribbing about all that has been, is and will be. What fun, no?

Rejoice, all ye Faithful

2008-03-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

My previous post has convinced me that it is time I took a break. It is time I rambled a bit to myself, instead of letting it all out somewhere where it is bound to leave a permanent psychological scar on unsuspecting souls. It is time to leave.

Have you started singing your hallelujahs? Praising the lord for small mercies? Beginning to believe at last that there is justice in the world? That a blot on the literary landscape, a stinking pit in the vast wilderness of the net, is about to call it a day and that now you can rest easy, without the obligation of having to visit this blog which has been so shamelessly advertised and without the pangs of guilt (after all, he is my classmate- how bad can it be etc etc) which turning down requests by acquaintances inevitably carry with them?

God, I love it. I just love it. To see people's expectations rise buoyantly, faster than The Flash. To have the pin in my hand. And to, at the right moment, burst the balloon. To watch it expel, with a great whoosh which eventually peters out, the air which I, like the jobless maniac that I am, pumped in in the first place. I wish you were here to see how happy this has made me.

Yes. You're quite right, of course. Even at the bleak end of your fast deflating balloon's life. I congratulate you on your sharp mental faculties. It's true that I'm taking a break. And, as you have no doubt deduced with brilliant analytical skill, I'll be back. Pretty soon, that too.

Arrogant bastard, aren't I?

The Insufferable Agony of Working Hard

2008-03-02T06:32:00.001-08:00

Have you seen the t-shirt which loudly proclaims "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?" You have, haven't you? I can just imagine the look of reminiscence on your face. About how you thought to yourself how commonplace and low class that t-shirt is and how fashionable you are and how you stand apart from the crowd in your clearly classy, branded clothes? Don't lie, now. It's ok. It's not a sin to be bourgeois once in a while. We, with our liberal, educated outlook, we who understand the nuances of class distinctions, we who also understand that it's the way of the world and that while regrettable that such a thing as class should exist, nothing can be done about it. After all, who would clean your house? Who would collect the garbage? Ah. But I mustn't allow the socialist-communist mongrel in me to overcome the purebred literary genius, the find of the century. In case you're wondering, that's also a reference to me.

Well, the subject matter of this post is hard work. I like to imagine that I'm a witty philosopher. This often results in deep thoughtful posts about life and its various curious aspects. I like that. Various curious. Very poetic. Of course, I always strive to be different and in this respect at least, I succeed. No one else thinks I'm witty. Or a philosopher. And yes. In case you're wondering again (what's it with you and wondering?? ), self-pity is one of my strong points.

But we've strayed afar. No. Not really. I just like saying that. It makes me feel that I do have a lot of things to say. Ok. Don't say it. I can just feel it now itself. The thousands and thousands of eyes that will view this post and the interplay of the million emotions on the faces on which they are perched. 'I thought this guy said he wouldn't ramble??' I'm sorry. I just needed my dose of self-depreciatory humour (note the thousands, millions etc. etc- yes, those. that's the self-depreciatory humour I'm talking about). I'm alright now. Really.

And now, (as much as it pains me to go against my principles) as they say, to work! A particularly memorable piece of advice I was handed down (a) by a senior (b) in a haze of intoxication (c) in a particularly sentimental environ, the senior being due to leave soon was that "The secret to success in law school is not hard work, it's smart work". I took it to heart. Not least because it was the easiest thing to do.

Recent events have, however, forced me to take a long hard calculating look at this mantra. And the results have not been encouraging. For every one person we hold up as an idol who succeeded without doing an iota of hard work in their lives, there are a million who succeeded purely on the basis of hard work. Depressing thought, no? Hard work! And you! Like rum and tonic.

I could philosophise now. I could wax eloquent on the beauty of being lazy and the willpower it takes to turn down all the fortune that hard work could bring. About how it is the ultimate sacrifice to make and how, by being lazy, one becomes the only thing standing between society and the descendance of the tragedy of the commons upon it. I could choose to justify my dislike of hard work. I'm sure there is a justification which we can use to make ourselves feel better. It has to be out there somewhere. The sword with which we can banish the dragon of empirically arrived at truths.

In fact, I could do and be a lot of things. But I won't. It would be going against my principles, wouldn't it? Finding that sword, pulling it out of the rock etc etc. Bringing out a reasoned argument. Too much hard work.

Ergo, I'll let it be. The world can rest easy. It will not be my genius that will claim credit for dislodging centuries' worth of accumulated wisdom. Maybe the one who came up with the idea that hard work is the only path to success must have foreseen that anyone who might challenge him would be too lazy to actually go through with the process. So, for the moment, we'll just plagiarise, go along with the t-shirt and chant, "Hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance?" Join in. It's the lazy-people-feel-better campaign.

I know. Now I'm rambling. Again.

So. Until next time.

Maalgudi Days

2008-02-27T04:46:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it. The one which millions of you have been waiting with bated breath for. The third and final incident of any import that happened to me in Delhi. The time the white cloth of my innocence was almost muddied in the dirty pool of beckoning lust. Not to worry. Almost, I said. With my legendary iron resolve and unquestioning disdain for anything soceity condemns, I managed to hold my own against the sin of lust! My innocence, therefore, remains untouched. O concerned reader, you can rest easy.

My friend and I, we're travelling in this sleek black Lancer that Lady Fortune (hailing from Nepal) had the grace to offer us. We're parked at CP, wondering, as we seem to do so much these days, what to do with our inconsequential little lives. And, as usual, ideas seem to have gone on holiday and don't look like they'll be returning any time soon. The tapping on the glass wakes us from our reverie on how boring a life we of this generation lead.

Shady looking stubbled guy in a monkey cap beckoning frantically to us to lower the window. He starts off with a tirade on how we're parked where we shouldn't be. Our dismissive excuses vaguely referring to and pointing at our ears and cell phones notwithstanding, he keeps saying, "No parking, no parking..". And then, without warning, and with this sudden jerky movement, he leans closer, his head almost into the car and asks in a very conspiratorial manner reminiscent of certain professors when they are taking attendance and momentarily lapse into hindi while addressing a particularly detested student (forgive the inside joke, but there was absolute similarity, i swear), "Saab, maal chaahiye?"

Stunned silence at the surreal experience which life has presented us with. My friend rises to the occassion and says, "Haan, bilkul". Encouraged by the show of interest, Shady Guy launches into an advertising campaign, "Saab, aat hazaar rupaiye ke liye first rate maal milega. First class. Dekhege kya?"

Confusion reigns. Communication gap, that much was apparent. He was offering a lot of ladies ( in a very liberal sense of the term), and I'm pretty sure none of them went by the second name of Jane.

Of course, determined youth of the generation that we are, undeterred by trivial obstacles like mistake as to the subject of the agreement and with the single minded objective of taking on anything life could throw at us, we ask gamely, "Ab?" "Aapko chahiye to ab bhi dekh sakte hai." The price, however, posed a problem. The Black Lancer must have caused him to start at 8000 bucks. With our combined net worth of 250 bucks and our unrivalled bargaining skills, finely honed through years of practice with the auto driving denizens of our very own Bengalooru, we manage to bring him down, at the cost of looking cheap, to 500 bucks.

Social propriety and self-respect take over at that instant, and we decide to withdraw before we get the guy's hopes too high. We tell him, "Aaj nahin, kal aayega. Aapko kaise milega?" From his description, we manage to gather that:

a) he is the watchman at Lady Harding Hostel,

b) his name is Dharamveer

c) to find him, we have go to Rodeo Pub and ask for Dharamveer.

To date, I haven't stopped wondering what kind of 'maal' we'd have got for 500 bucks. If you find out, please do tell me. So, those in Delhi, stroll over to Rodeo pub. The name's Veer, Dharam Veer. A whole world of pleasure awaits you inside Lady Harding Hostel. Enjoy. You can thank me back in college.

AFTERWORD

Knock Knock

"Who's there?"

"Luck. Let me in!"

"Fuck off. "

The story of my life.

Ok. I'm just kidding. Contrary to any opinions that you might have formed in your perceptive mind through reasoning of the highest order while looking through this collection of attempts at writing, I'm not that desperate. Give me some credit. Some.

Yesterday

2008-02-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I dreamt of the moon, the stars and a cloudy night.
And of you.

We were up all night, and we talked.
I looked into your eyes, and I saw in them all I ever wanted.
We gazed at the shooting star, and wondered how it could
Set ablaze, in the blink of an eye, a million hearts.

Do you remember?
How the wind caressed your lips, and
How it made your hair fly all around,
With the beauty of a fire gone wild.
How you closed your eyes
And how, for a moment, for just a moment,
You let yourself go.
To become an angel of the night.

I remember. And I remember much more.
For yesterday, I dreamt a dream of you.
Did you dream a dream of me, too?

A Swan Song

2008-02-25T04:14:00.000-08:00

Genesis in: (a) A desire to write deep sounding poetry (b) Hangover of 'Big Fish'

I could tell you many things
I could sing of the battles that I've won
About the monsters I've slain
And the men they once were.
Or, I could enthrall you
With tales of beauty, for
The fairest of them have I bed.
Stories of peaks conquered and seas crossed
Lands discovered, and treasures found.

But, here, at the end of time
As I once again don my armour
And look out onto the field
Its the truth that I'll be telling you.

I've seen the day I die.
Again and again have I seen it.
A thousand times over.

I've seen the day I die,
And it looked a lot like today.

And I am afraid.

A Near Miss

2008-02-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Joblessness can do, to you, many things. One among them being filling you with an irresistable urge to publish something on your blog which you know you are going to regret for the rest of your days in college. I feel uncannily like a goat who has put on his best suit and who's walking into the slaughter house singing "It's a beautiful day..".

Description of self in Delhi
State of mind: Bored. Really, really bored.
Outlook: Bleak.
Prospect of meeting attractive women in Delhi: None. Nothing new there!

As any reasonable male will agree, life, on the whole, did not look very promising. Until I got an offer to tag along to NIFT. Apparently, a fest was going on there. Hot chicks, I was assured. Have you heard the phrase, "Faster than a speeding bullet"? Imagine something a million times faster, and you still would be nowhere close to comprehending the speed at which I reached NIFT. The things a desperate man does.

And I was not disappointed. Hot chicks I was promised, and hot chicks there were. In all shapes, forms and sizes. Wearing the latest in fashion, and sometimes even aspiring to achieve the oldest of fashions, invented by Madam Eve. Slurp! Sicko you're calling me, I know. Guilty as charged.

So, I'm standing there. Taking it all in. Heart beat the rate of a rabbit. Blood pumping@ >>> normal to various parts.

A female form approaches. And she seems to be the perfect icing and cherry all rolled into one on the cake for the cutting of which I had presented myself. Well dressed. Exotic figure. Hair nicely done. Simply delicious! I lech at her without shame. For the sake of brevity, let's hereinafter refer to her as Ms.X. She comes close, and there's something about her. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something very very weird about her. And she talks. A lot. Keeps yapping in this hoarse voice. I put it out of my mind until later, when I see her at a booze shop carrying a bottle of Old Monk. Strange. Not a drink of preference for any girl worth her salt. And then she goes away,hand in hand, with a guy who's quite obviously gayer than Elton John in a wedding gown.

At this point, I ask my acquaintance at NIFT Ms.X's name. "Oh, that? That's Mayank. Very pretty he is, no?" Have you seen that scene in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels where the guy loses the poker game and his world starts spinning around? The camera just goes around and around. It happens in real life too. And it takes a full ten minutes to recover from it.

Boy, was I glad I hadn't put my finger on whatever was weird with Ms. X!

N.B: All ye enraged by my objectification of women witnessed above, you'll be happy to know that feminism exists, like Mallus in chomland, even in the unlikeliest of places. At the risk of being accused of contrived humour, I'll try to summarize my encounter with feminism at NIFT: Most of the women there struck me as beautiful and well-proportioned. But one just struck me. On my face. Bitch.

In Defence of Romanticism

2008-02-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

There are cynics and then there are cynics. And then there are some more cynics. Altogether too many of them.

And, sadly, like a pack of horny mal guys to a Shakeela movie, they are attracted to romanticism. But unlike the loving treatment meted out to a Shakeela movie by the abovementioned mal guys, romanticism is set upon by cynics. Take a rabbit, skin it, douse it liberally in grade A blood and throw it to wolves. Now imagine the tearing to shreds that will happen, and you'll have an idea of the kind of relationship that exists between cynics and romanticism. Apart from the purposelessness of life, its their favourite topic to malign. It's their fodder, without which they cease to exist.

Mind you, I'm not saying this because my romantic, soppy poetry has been categorised as shit by these cynics. Oh no. Yours truly is much too civilised to engage in petty squables such as those. I suppose cynics have to be put up with. Just like cockroaches.

So, ladies and gentlemen, not at all influenced by the influx of criticism I have received regarding my poetry, here I launch myself into a short but passionate defence of romanticism. The arguments are simple. To discard romanticism, to see life in black and white, as it truly is, would be to just exist. Without taking joy in the simple things of life. Do you want to be a machine? Do you want to see sex as nothing more than the fulfilling of a need to ensure the continuation of the species, ingrained into our cells by the Maker? Friendship as nothing more than a relationship of convenience? "You scratch my back, I scratch yours", as a Professor put it? {shudder}

Oh, you do, eh? Go ahead, then. While you're at it, also think about the fact that the girl you saw yesterday and thought was beautiful is ultimately made up of blood, mucus and muscle, that she pees and craps and that a kiss is ultimately just an exchange of saliva. Just imagine. You, who flinch at the sight of a spoon used by someone else. Into your mouth. Another person's saliva. Ah. Touched a raw nerve, have I? You no longer think she's beautiful? Welcome to a land devoid of romanticism, a desert in which even a Reliance signal cannot survive. Welcome to the Mecca of the cynics.

My point, you ask? Well, yes. Short post, I had promised. The ultimate aim of life being to feel good, it is our duty to do all that makes us feel good. Oh, yes. Life can be an ugly bitch. But the good news is we needn't be forced to look at it in all its ugly repulsiveness. We have imagination. By the power of Grayskull...I have the power!! Yes. We have, to repel reality, something similar to what He-Man weilds against the forces of evil.

So. Use your imagination. Coat your life with sugar, pour some chocolate on it. Digitally alter it, generously infusing it with Angelina Jolie's features and dress it in black lingerie. Then, look at it from afar. Admire it. Revel in the breathtaking beauty you've imparted to it. Come closer and embrace it. And feel good. Feel really, really good.

For it would be a sad, sad world we live in, were it not for love. And those other feelings and constructed notions like friendship, loyalty et al. These are the tools we use to convince ourselves that our pitiful lives are worth something. That they have meaning.

I can hear the cynic in the crowd. "But what about truth?", he's asking. Well, he can go fuck himself. I love my life. I love my lie. And I pity his.

Midnight logic

2008-02-10T22:36:00.000-08:00

Lost. That's what we are. And contrary to certain books which claim to have unravelled male psychology, we have no qualms in admitting that, as of this moment, we are directionally challenged.

So, my friend and I trawl the roads hoping to catch hold of someone who might know the way to where we stay. And, lo and behold, at a traffic light, who should come to a stop next to us than a surd in his surdie car(yes, with a makeshift turban of its own)!!

Painstakingly, we try to grab his attention by tapping on his window. And he, of all the directions to look in, looks up first. For Superman, I imagine, who he thinks has landed on the roof of his car. Thankfully, it strikes him a minute later that, as unlikely as it may be, the sound might have been someone tapping on his window.

{Rolls down window} "Kya hua, bhaisaab?"
"Vasant Kunj jaane ka rasta maalum hai, bhaisaab?"
After 3 minutes of intense workout for his grey matter, "Haan" and goes back to looking at his dashboard.
We wait. For him to understand that we are not testing his knowledge of Delhi roads, and that we actually want to know the directions.

Eventually, he reaches there. Quite like a mail on the NLS server. It might take some time, but you can depend on it to reach eventually.

Then with a great lumbering movement, he lifts his huge hand and points towards the right. Excited at having got the directions at last, we ask, "Right?"

Still frantically pointing to the right, he says, "Nahin, nahin, bhaisaab. Bilkul straight. Seedha jaao." .

Maladjusted to Delhi

2008-02-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

Ok. It's been a long time. My creative juices are thawing, so the shop is open again!

Here, in the heart of chomland, surrounded by them and a flurry of their language in a dingy little internet cafe, I type this out. My short stay in Delhi does not have me, as I expected after all the eulogising I heard from my friends, singing praises about the place. Yes, there are a lot of nice things to say about it. No doubt. But it's not paradise. So, here, from as incisive and critically analytical a travel writer as was born after Dominic Lappiere, comes a true blue account of Delhi. First impressions:

1. Cold, but not that cold. One of my acquaintances once said that South Indians are more resilient to cold. After seeing what I've seen here, I'm inclined to believe him. Maybe it's all the hair.

2. The roads are good, yes, but they lead to nowhere. Bangalore scores over Delhi in this regard. I've been to just two good places. And the people just don't seem to know any more. What would choms do without south indians to introduce them to Bob Dylan, CCR etc etc? Listen to Himesh Reshamiyya all day long, I expect. :)

3. The food is just kickass. Especially the mutton at Karim's. It's brilliantly soft, succulent, the meat just melts in your mouth, the flavours tingling all over your taste buds, mixing and matching to create that exotic blend which will leave the taste lingering in your mouth ages after you've left the place. Being the metrosexual man I am, I can already feel the kilos piling on. Being the connoissuer of good food that I am, I am going to ignore them until I need to, absolutely and necessarily have to, buy new pants.

4. The fairer sex. After painstaking research and observation for which yours truly forsook many hours which could have been better spent reading the law, the following conclusions have been arrived at. I won't deny that the overall quality is much better, actually infinitely better than in South India. But I was misled back in college by my 'friends' who made it sound like beautiful women were springing out of the pavement every other second. And I was horribly, horribly disappointed. Ok. Take one horribly off. I'm just exagerrating. I wasn't that disappointed.
But intellectually(the intellect being gauged from the way they talk and their general demeanour) I would have to say that the women here are not mind-boggling. Then again, who cares?:)
THIS GENERAL TREND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN AS BEING REFLECTED IN LAW SCHOOL. I DECLINE TO MAKE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT A PLACE WHERE FEMINISTS ARE AS COMMON AS LATE SUBMITTED PROJECTS.

5. Everything is so irritatingly far apart. The distances are insane. I know it doesn't speak volumes about Trivandrum when I say that my whole city could probably fit inside the apartment block I live in, but sometimes I miss my nice homely city where everything is reachable in 30 minutes. The size of this city can be pissing off. Especially when you are stuck in a traffic jam at 4 in the evening on your way to work. Yes. 4 in the evening. I love my work. In a very liberal sense of the term.

6. The money. You can actually smell the money. Financially, I feel like a sardine in a sea of sharks. Which is what I probably am. People just flaunt their wealth without shame. Yeah, for all those out there thinking what I think they're thinking, you're right. I'm just jealous, and rationalising it.

7. The radio just keeps belting out punju songs one after the other. Even the ones that are supposedly dedicated to English songs. I mean, do radio channels in Digga land only play Digga songs? There is a perceptible lack of English in these parts. Tsk, tsk.

8. The people. I have, owing to my extensive knowledge about the roads of Delhi which are ridiculously easy to navigate, had occassion to interact with them, in my finely honed Hindi. And they were really, really nice about it. Definitely scores over Bangalore.

The final score, you ask? There are ten more days to go. I'll sit down and make a scorecard detailing the various criteria. Yes. That's how jobless I am.

There are a couple of incidents I'd like to share with you all (all sounds better than two or three, which would be closer to the truth). So, I'll be back. Unfortunately.

The Game of Life

2008-01-24T06:04:00.000-08:00

You think
You can make me cry
And my eyes twinkle.
You think
You can wave your hand
And make me blind.
But look down sometime
At your hands and at your feet
Can you see
The strings that lead to the unseen hand?
And you weep
When you want to laugh,
Don't you?
Do you know, now?
You are somebody's puppet too.

Back to basics. Back to bad poetry.

Sex, lies and my life

2008-01-17T00:42:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to the genius who decided that sex was a 'dirty' thing and that people below 18 should not be exposed to it. The forbidden fruit tastes the best. I'm sure that if Eve had been offered the apple on a golden plate and coaxed to take a bite of it, she would have refused it and continued with her innocent existence. God probably told her it was forbidden only to get her to go after it. Clever bastard.

I'm pretty sure the abovementioned genius, right after passing such laws and disseminating such ideologies, went into porn production. Anyways, I'd just like to thank him for making my viewing experiences all the more exciting. The switching off of the comp on hearing my dad's car pull into the garage, the cooling off of the monitor with a wet cloth, the hasty retreat to my study room and the impromptu innocent expression of a student who's been slogging his ass off for the past 5 hours- all these enhanced the experience. Where's the fun if sex was, in our world, just another thing which people did, like eating? Of course, the irony is, it actually is just another thing.

So, let's deny it its rightful innocence. Let's colour it with unwanted meaning. Let's over-hype it. Let's do whatever. Anything to make a good time better.

I love the times we live in. I love my life.

Short post

2008-01-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

Exams should be treated with respect. No doubt. It's just that I've lost the ability to offer conventional respect to them. Activities such as studying diligently are no longer within my skill set. I study now like I eat in the mess. Choosing the less unappetizing of the items available, and eating just enough to survive.

Short, infrequent posts during exam-time are, therefore, my innovative way of showing respect. It's a matter of my academic career. Trivial things like blogs shouldn't be allowed to come in the way of greatness. I'm sure you understand.

I did promise a short post.

If I ever rant and rave, do not hesitate. Kill my ego then and there.

2008-01-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

On Mistakes

Knowing what I know now, I would never have loved, but then I never would have known what I know now had I not loved.

I know. You're thinking, "Oh no, not another senti post!". Not to worry. I shall, in keeping with my general optimistic spirit which is so evident in this blog (which I’m with trepidation, and in the hope that you’ll agree with me, categorizing as something more than yet another collection of ‘rantings and ravings of a lawschoolite’ as so many of the blogs around seem to be; I mean, if I want to rave and rant, I would do it in a word document and save it in some corner of my computer, praying fervently that noone has the misfortune of coming across it. Blogs are meant to be read. By the blogger, agreed. But more importantly, by others. C’mon, we might as well admit it. Every raving and ranting lawschoolite wants others to see their angst, to sympathise and empathise and what not with them. My take: they don't need a blog, they need a peer counsellor if they're deluded enough to think that others are interested in being subjected to the tragedy that is their life). Damn, now I’ve spilt the intestines of the sentence all over the place, gutting it with a scythe forged in the fire of grammatical errors. I shall have to start all over again, I suppose.

As I was saying, or trying to say before a fancy took flight in my mind, this post shall be rife with hope. Hopefully. The reason, you ask? Bottoms-up Bimal is feeling quite low. And there’s no alcohol available at hand. I guess I shall have to be satisfied with being intoxicated by the distilled fumes of my literary abilities. Cool, no? Showcasing my drinking habits, and indirectly boasting about my liquor holding capacity.
Well, it is my blog. A space to be what I'm not.

5…4…3…2…1- The process of attempting to try to condition my mind to at least consider the possibility of thinking about making the effort required to put the glass in perspective so as to be able to view it as half-full when it is in fact almost empty, begins now. In less funkier a form, in a form which probably a person who had not read and been heavily influenced by the genius of Stephen Fry would put it, the process of pumping optimism into a weary mind begins now. And a very very short process it is. Not what you’d expect after a rave and a rant as voluminous as the one above. I apologise for any expectations I might have raised about profound content being unveiled forthwith. You are going to be disappointed, I assure you.

So. Mistakes. You think you made a mistake. But think about what you have learnt from that mistake. Don't be sad. Don't regret making the mistake. ‘Everyone makes their own mistakes. It’s their right.’ If I could, I would cite the source. But I can’t. Lady Memory has abandoned me for greener pastures, where her services are put to use more often. These women, I tell you. Fickle.

That's all. On mistakes, that is. I've got my high. Egoistic of me, I know, to get high on my own writing. And today, consequently, is done. Ended on a high note. As good academically oriented law schoolites, you’ll be aware that exams start soon. Even I am aware of that. You should be ashamed if you're not. Ergo, this will be the last post for quite some time. Note the latin word. God, I’m good.

So, I suggest you stop patronizing me. Your sympathy might be the death of you. Or, less dramatically, the academic ruin of you.

Of course, jobless person that I am, and knowing my notoriously low ability to keep promises, especially ones made to myself, I would hazard a guess that there’ll be a new post up tomorrow. But one can always hope that the English language and the Internet can rest easy for some days, while their abuser is busy building his career. And securing his future. So that one day he can buy a house. And marry. And have kids. And live happily ever after. Till he dies peacefully in his bed after taking an overdose of sleeping pills.

If you are the abovementioned one(yes, right there- in bold letters, so you don't miss it), keep hoping.

No, I don't need a peer counsellor. I am my peer, and I usually counsel myself. So, bugger off.

Notes to self:
1)Have to come up with jokes on something other than peer counselling. Overkill.
2)Bugger off??? Have to stop watching British comedies. Don't want to be known as a cultural snob.

My First Experience

2008-01-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

Stop! Desist! Collect your luggage and bundle yourself out of that train. Of thought, that is. It’s the wrong one. Sheesh, how perverted can you get!

I am not talking about sex here. You dirty, dirty people.

What I am talking about is the first time I drank. Beer, it was. I started off with beer. When I say ‘started off’, do I give you the impression that now I drink heavily? Terribly sorry to disappoint you and all that, but I don’t. Unlike some people of my distant acquaintance who drink like the newspaper is delivered- everyday, that is to say- I restrict myself to getting drunk once a month. A measured existence.

But back to what I wanted to say. The day my liver lost its virginity.
Location: the ever-inviting Mojo’s with its warm, smoky, crowded atmosphere and music from the 70s.
Company: Two very interesting people.
Time: Long, long ago. No, I'm just trying to be cool. Two years ago, actually.

I’m watching them down mugs, acutely aware of being the odd one out, a freshwater fish in the sea. Astounded at the magnitude of it all. And also uncomfortable at those unseen glances which I’m sure were coming my way. What are you doing here, you non-drinker? Go back to your Coffee Days and Baristas!

I am fairly confident that the gist, in very short and concise sentences, of the thought process that goes through everyone’s mind the first time they drink is as follows: “What am I doing? Life is short. I need to experience it. As much as possible. Fuck society and its judgmental nature. Who are they to say that alcohol is bad? It’s all a matter of perspective. Plus, I’ve heard it’s a social lubricant. I might get lucky.” You know. Lucky!

So, I drank my first mug. And the second. And the third. And god knows how many more. I was later told that it was 8.

8 mugs! Bottoms up! Not bad, if I say so myself, for a first timer. And apparently, by the end of it, I was claiming, just before I staggered to the loo, that I was ‘all right’.

Ever since, when I start insisting that “I’m all right!”, my friends know that I’m drunk. Not a liability, let me make that clear. Just a drunk, happy man who should be offered more alcohol like Shankara should be offered longevity.

They call me Bottoms-up Bimal. And I've lived happily ever after.

I don't know what to say. I thought I did. But I don't.

2008-01-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

There have been far too many opinions that my blog is too depressing. Of course, 'too many' is a very subjective usage. When there are 4 readers for your blog (that compilation of your beautiful thoughts which you realised is a crime to keep hidden away from the world because the world should not be deprived of such a genius), one opinion is one too many. In fact, I haven't asked for any of the others'.

Because I'm scared. For my ego. And my literary career. It can't take rejection before it's even begun to flower.

Anyway, the readership refrain seems to be along these lines: Our lives are already fucked up. We don't need to hear how fucked up your life is.

Well, there goes my ulterior motive of soliciting sympathy from souls unfortunate enough to be reading this blog. Damn!

I really am not someone who can make people laugh. I'm at my best when I've read Pablo Neruda and am inspired enough to write romantic shit.

But a performer is nothing if the audience is bored to the point of contemplating suicide (of course, in my case, the performer would then become the peer counsellor, but that's another story). So, here's something which hopefully will make you laugh. With me. Or at me, and my misguided attempt at humour.

I really couldn't care less. Ok, I'm lying. I care. A lot. It would mean the world to me if you like it.

The other day, I went somewhere. I had promised to meet some people I knew, though I wish I didn't know them. As long as we're on the subject of wishes, I also wish I was living in a penthouse apartment with 6 hot women in lingerie (obviously, to be taken off eventually) for company. A different 6 each day. One Russian, one Swede, one German, one Persian.... control, man, control!!! Deep breath. Ok. Now, what was I on about? Ah, yes! I went somewhere.

I was a bit late. And one of those pompous self-important acquaintances asks, "Oh, you're here?" Well, a talent for stating the obvious, have we? I wanted to say, "No, uncle, this is an elaborate mechanism to fool you into thinking I'm here. This is actually a projected 3D image of me that you are seeing. It's the next big thing in technology. Really." Unfortunately, the scalpel of social propriety cut away my witty retort and implanted a polite smile in its stead.

And I thought I had a flair for saying stupid things. Everyone should have acquaintances like these. The insufferable irritation which they bring into your lives is more than compensated by their unrivalled ability to make you feel intellectually superior.

There. I hope the ghost of a smile played across your lips. And that your day was all the merrier for it. As the song goes, “We hope you enjoyed your stay. It was good to have you with us, even if it’s just for a day”.

And a very good night to you too.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

A new page in the history of my life. Where the play runs according to script, without any hitches. Where every line is said, and every glance acted upon. And everyone lives happily ever after.

Alternatively, 365 days more of fucking up.

Any bets? If I were you, I'd go with the second.

Happy New Year to you. And to you. And you, and you, and you.

Profound thought for the day

2007-12-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

The only thing worse than a lack of beauty and excess of brains is a lack of beauty coupled with the misguided conviction that one has brains.
Both abound in law school.

{genesis in the 20 minute break. Fellow philosophers in the picture: pR and abhishek krishnan}

Mating Season

2007-12-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

The few readers that I have managed to acquire through subtle publicity (such as leaving my blog address on the lib comps) are complaining. I am too sentimental, some say. Too wannabe, state others. I tried to change. Really, I did. The results are below. And they're not very encouraging.

So, here's what I hope is a funny poem. Well, maybe not at first glance. But I’m sure that if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to see the humour. Now, look really hard. Or you might just miss it. It’s quite dark. The humour, that is.

On the epidemic of love that's been going around the campus.

The script is ready, the stage is done
Nervous the actor, ready to run.
But, with shifty eyes and leaping heart
He steels himself and rehearses his lines
“Umm…err…..”, and then a pause,
Before the “Would you like to go out with me?”
A play, staged a million times before
And still running, to packed, eager houses.

Raise the curtains, direct the spotlight
Let the actor with the rose
And the love-lorn eyes
Perform, and earn his place in the sun.

The lady enters, demure and shy
Knowing all, but playing along.
On her face dances unbridled joy
And with feigned surprise, she acts coy.

Some flounder, some stutter
But most get there in the end.
The script unrolls perfect
And the lady nods her head.

I sit in the front row
In my now familiar seat
And watch the play
Like I’ve done a thousand times before.
Laughing at each forgotten line
And green-eyed at each delivered one.

The show must go on, I know.
So, I lean back in my chair
And wait for the next lead pair
To come along, and take the stage.

Clarificatory notes

1. I am not heartbroken. In fact, I’m at this time as happy as one could be in law school. I couldn’t be happier if tomorrow was my last day here.
2. I am not jealous of anyone who’s popped the question. The poem demanded what I ended up writing there. Anything for my art.
3. I know my poems might lead to my categorization as a romantic, but I assure you I’m only a part-time one. Part-time being the time spent on the blog. As to the remainder of the time, ask anyone, “Is Bimal a romantic?” and they’ll look you up and down and say, “Bimal? He’s about as romantic as a rotten egg given on Valentine’s Day. He tries to be funny and cynical. Sometimes, he manages to achieve a semblance of humour. Sometimes.”

I hope this is one of the times I've managed to achieve the abovementioned semblance of humour.

On heartbreak and poetry

2007-12-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

Heartbreak is the best muse a poet could ask for.
So, fall in love with a girl who’s sure to break your heart. And who will mend it before she breaks it again.

The fall of the Phantom

2007-12-26T12:18:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: This post is only for comic book fans.
P.S- Just to clarify, if you haven’t read The Phantom, you are NOT a comic book fan.

Let me tell you a story.
Imagine a cave in the shape of a skull, in a forest denser than any in existence.
Imagine a treasure beyond measure, all manner of gold and silver, goblets that have touched the lips of Alexander and Jesus. All stored away in a cavern in that cave.
Imagine a tribe of dwarfs who, with their poison-tipped arrows are probably the most dangerous people you will never meet. For you wouldn’t dare to venture into that jungle.
They’re crowded outside the cave. Waiting.

Imagine, if you will, that this is real. For it is.

The 21st Phantom lies on his bed, with his son by his side. A life well lived is about to come to an end. And he knows it. He looks up at his son’s face, and sees in it the undisrupted continuation of the legacy of the Phantom. He readies himself for his final task.

When a new Phantom takes the task from his dying father, he swears the Oath of the Skull: "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms, and my sons and their sons shall follow me." It has been so, for twenty one generations. And it shall, he thinks, continue to be so.

Using the last reserves of the will-power that has so faithfully served him for 60 years, he utters the oath and waits for his son to repeat it. Straining his ears for an answer that, by all rights, should have been readily forthcoming, he feebly mutters the oath again. And waits.

And for the first time in the many centuries that the Phantom has endured as a legend, a myth, an entity feared by all criminals, a Phantom asks, “Why?”
And stands up and walks away from his father’s death-bed.

Thus it is that the Phantom fell.

There are a million interesting things to write poems on. He chose to ignore them all.

2007-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Bimal, the Mallu, the alpha male
Could withstand anything, a tsunami, a gale
This is the story of Bimal the Mallu
Who, alas, was once a lallu.

He came to college, a shy young lad
Quiet and reserved, maybe even sad
It went on like this, for a year or so,
Till the excitement subsided and the 'studs' lay low.

Then he came out of the shadows, and into the sun
Loved by all 'coz none did he shun
For once in his life, he saw what it was like
To be loved by all, men & women alike.

He took to the limelight like a fish to water
Forgot that every girl was some man's daughter
And thus changed a boy into a man
The bigger the bounty, the harder he ran.

He learnt to be soppy, the tricks of the trade
Learnt to be smooth, a monster was made
With his greek god face and acquired skill
There was noone left who he couldn't kill

Women fell left, right and centre
From a student, he became an inventor
He wrote the book about bastards in men
'CHEAT, SWINDLE, DECEIVE AND LIE- How and when'.

But the best is yet to come
The icing on the cake, the cherry, the plum
He did it all with such an innocent smile
The women always thinking they had used him all the while.

But the poor souls, little did they know
A magician's secrets are not for show
Not to women, not even to the guys
None privy to the deception, the lies.

All think of him as a poor young lad
Shy and reserved, maybe even sad
But beneath lies a master, a genius of sorts
The charming prince, the king of torts.

That is the question that faced me today
And thinking about it, in class I lay
I was a player but he is the game
And there he goes now, with yet another dame.

Adhiraj Singh Malik. A friend. A really jobless friend. Artistic licence has been given a new meaning by him. I would like to be what he says I am. But I don't see that happening. Not in law school.

No, I am not being modest here. I don't do modest. If I am something, I make sure the whole world knows about it.

But I don't lie either. Well, not as far as its possible not to.

So, let me tell you that far from being the game, I am not even a player. Let me rephrase. Not even a substitute player. Not, for one minute, even a ballboy.
I am one among the spectators. I make smart ass comments when other people fuck up on the field. That's what I do. That's all I do.

Blogger's block

2007-12-21T04:28:00.000-08:00

You actually expected something, with a title like that?

Revisiting second year

2007-12-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

I know I promised myself that I wouldn't comment on law school, but this was irresistable. I must have been really disillusioned with law school when I wrote this two years back.

Harvard of the East
Belly of the Beast
Whatever you may call it
To study here, I was deemed fit
Last July, I came here
Without even shedding a tear
Welcome to a happy life, they said
And then, to the system we were wed
Sincere student I was
But then I could barely pass
Scamming I practiced
And an O I just missed
Sliming, bitching and all of that
Eventually makes you a rat
Running in the rat race
A podium finish; a respectable place
CV value your ultimate concern
And not how much you learn
Somehow increase your CGPA
Eventually be someone’s TA
Law school makes you rich
But along the way friends you ditch
Cribbing all the way
All night and all day
Too depressing this poem
And so without rhyme I stop.

Joke. Please laugh.

2007-12-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

----The manager called one of his employees into his office and told him, "Jenkins, I've decided to make you the plant manager."

"Gee, thanks, boss," the worker gushed. "What do I have to do?"

"Just water them everyday", replied the manager-----

"Bimal, we've decided to, in acknowledgement of your moral fibre and honesty, make you a SDGM member."

You write. Even though there is nothing to write on.

2007-12-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog......have you noticed that your creative juices start flowing, actually gushing, when there are other things you are supposed to do, like projects? Its true; try sitting down with a conscious will to write something. You'll sit for a long time. You need to have more important things which you can sideline. I think the guilty pleasures of being a deviant spurs on the creativity.

Pathetic, eh? The pinnacle of my deviant behaviour. Not doing projects. Oooooh!!

Anyways, as I was saying, when I started this blog, I wanted it not to be a comment, as so many other blogs are, on our lives in law school. There are good ones, I'm not denying it, like nagarbhavi.blogspot.com. Check it out. (The nerve of me; commenting upon an infinitely better blog in so patronising a manner). However, the point is that there's no space for a new player in that category.

But now, now I am hardpressed to find things to write on. Writing is a difficult process. {You write, you cut it out}^n. Then you finally post it. Then you look at the time and go, "Oh, shit!! Projects!!!". Then you come back and edit it. Again. And again and again.

There you go. That's what writing is all about.

My blog is deteriorating, isn't it? Fuck!!!! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!!

There can be posts without titles as well.

2007-12-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

www.page52.blogspot.com
Fellow poet, comrade-in-philosophy and joblessness. Quite an interesting chap. You'll be missing something if you don't click on it. Of course, I'm here taking the liberty of assuming that there is someone reading my blog.
One of the benefits of having a blog without a count-meter is that you can always hope for the best case scenario. So, to my millions of readers- read away!!

We've all been here, haven't we?

2007-12-19T02:12:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from a Stephen Fry book:

------"Where's it all gone, Donald? This is not the Cambridge I knew. The buildings are the same, you are the same, and yet.."

"You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh water is always flowing past you. Your Cambridge was built of people, not of bricks and stone and glass, and those people have severally dispersed into the world. They will never be assembled together again. The circus has long since folded its tents and stolen silently away and you are standing on the empty village green wondering why it looks so shabby and forlorn."------

Sound familiar? Feeling sad now?
Misery loves company. Hop aboard!!

On the lack of emotion

2007-12-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

I, ROBOT?

There’s a hole where my heart should be
No, this is not a tale of lost love
Nor one of broken hearts
It’s just a tale, of a hole, where my heart should be.

When love came knocking
I could not feel it
It just passed through
And it never came again.

When death came, grim
I thought I might cry
But it wreaked its havoc
And my eyes were still dry.

Then I looked down
To where my heart should be
And noted there, a hole
There, where my heart should be

And I felt not sad, not happy
Nor angry, nor afraid
I just looked up, and moved on
Knowing my life would never be whole
And all because of a hole,
Where my heart should be.

A break from love, long overdue

2007-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

A COMMENT ON OUR INTOXICATED TIMES

I lie on my bed
Thinking
About life and death
And crystal meth.

With that single deed
Of smoking weed
Did I land
In quick, quick sand

Next came cocaine
And for hours, I forgot my pain
Thought I was a rebel
And once, once I even saw an angel.

Head above the sand
In a desolate land
Knowing I should leap
But wanting only to sleep
This extreme bliss
Who would ever want to miss?

And along came a friend
“Your worries I shall mend
This bliss shall not end.
Give me a coin
And take your heroin.
You shall float in space
Play in a maze
You will never want
And there will be
Nothing that you can’t.”

And so I entered heaven
Thought I was a raven
Turned into a rainbow
Forgot many a woe
And a long time later
When I fell back to the ground
I tried being
And found
That there was nothing,
Nothing I could be.

Empty but for a thirst
For that land
And its blissful sand
For never ending sunshine
And imagined women and wine.

So I lie on my bed
And think of life and death.

Ladies(hopefully) & gentlemen, poems no.2 & 3

2007-12-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT: REALITY

The poet within
He sees
Things that never have been
Things that never will be

The lover within
He dreams
Of love that never died
Of hearts that never broke

And I;
I go, with wandering mind
To words never whispered
To lips that never met
To moments never shared
And then,
Then I shed a tear.

SHE CAME AND WENT, AND I'M STILL WAITING

If only you knew
How much I’ve bled
Your words
So callously said
Drew so much red.
Oh, if only you knew.

You would turn back
Return to my embrace
And it will be like
The night never was
When you vanished
Without a trace.

I close my eyes
And hope
For hope makes dreams
And dreams,
Dreams make us.
And so with my eyes closed,
I hope.

That one day
You will know
How my heart broke
How my faith died.
And on that day
I’ll be waiting
In the rain
For you.

Two projects made love, and a romantic was born.

2007-12-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

LOVE, IMAGINED

When the dew drops fall off you
It is in those moments far too few
That I love to just stand
Alone in that far off land

And just look at you
Wondering
Why I didn’t take the chance
Why I let you go

So many things to say
Every single day
Bottled up in my mind
Courage I could not find

Is it love, I wonder?
And then I hear the thunder
Lightning flashes
As beautiful as your eye-lashes

And I know for sure
That this is no mere lure
I will hold onto it
Till I have to let go, bit by bit

And even then, some moments
I will think about you
Wondering whether, in some far-off land
Someone else is holding your hand

How I wish I had asked you
That morning when off you fell the dew
And then I fall asleep
Dreaming of waking up next to you
And then I open my eyes
And sing the song that should’ve been sung
Long, long ago.

Applied for poetic licence. Waiting hopefully.

2007-12-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days, I have realised something. Poetry is something that comes naturally to you. You don't try to write poetry. When you're bored as hell and looking for reasons not to commit suicide (no, I don't need peer counselling; I AM a peer counsellor myself), poetry arrives as a godsend. As ardent a fan of Oscar Wilde as I am, I still must find slight disagreement with his doctrine, art for art's sake. Poetry is not for poetry's sake. It's for the poet's sake. It serves several purposes, many of them therapeutic, even.

1. It makes you feel important. Ha, I can write poetry and you can't. So fuck you!

2. It is a good conversational topic. "Hey, I was bored in class the other day and I wrote some poetry. Wanna read it? {And throw in some good comments while you're at it}". But not me. I don't fish for compliments. Lesser mortals do.

3. Written well, it portrays you as a sensitive person. Any girl would prefer a poet to a porn addict.

I'm sure there are other uses as well. It's just that, in my current project-ridden state, I cannot summon up the mental energy to attempt finding them. In the next few posts, I shall be putting up what you get when you force your prototype young upright determined dedicated (i seem to be running out of flattering adjectives here) specimen of this generation (that is so often falsely accused of deteriorating moral standards and lamented as being a blot on the otherwise perfect progress of humanity) to labour through 60 hours of taxing classes.

First, you get bad legal jokes like the one you just read. And big, pretty words which sound and look good but are otherwise useless.

Second, you get pathetic attempts at poetry.

Third, you get someone subtly fishing for compliments by declaring at the outset that what you are about to read are pathetic attempts.

Hold your puke-bag firmly by your side. It will probably be the most important thing that you could carry on this literary journey. And here we go.