Diogenes'er Adda

A Longish Summer

2009-02-05T14:26:00.000+05:30

I was the summer of 2006; muggy, hot, under the baking English sun in an unusual English summer.

I was not in love, I hadn’t been out of love; generally naïve of the shoddy rigmarole of romance – and there was Norwegian Wood, Virgin Suicides and Charlie Brooker ranting on the pages of the Guardian; till he turned lyrical one Sunday. “Supposing we could smother romance to sleep” Charlie fancifully wished; supposing we could wish away the delirious exhilarations of capricious affairs; well – generally on those lines, even if they weren’t his exact words.

It’s been three more summers since – and they’ve been hotter, muggier and far bitterer. Memories of sweat-drenched noons, pink bubbles, claustrophobic nights and watching grey dawns.

They grew better – more prosaic and staid, less anxious but peaceful. So much so, it’s hard to remember much beyond the occasional haunting of a shard of pain.

Staider, plainer, and more grown-up we are – Brooker supposes to get married; we learn to fuck without loving; and one day I found Neruda – his words slinging back all that had died but never did; I found them in the pages of a lost copy rescued from a memory.

They are too poignant to be my own; I wish they were, but again, I really don’t….

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Drug Abuse: Subculture to mainstream

2008-10-18T12:46:00.002+05:30

The 60s and the 70s are inextricably linked with the pop-idiomatic clichés of Woodstock, flower-power, the Vietnam War, yoga and LSD; not necessarily in that order. Every second Manhattan brat would end up looking for world peace in his marijuana peace pipe, a chillum more likely, somewhere off Benares or in and around Kathmandu’s Pig Alley. The Hippie counterculture encompassed these nouveau libertarian and to a large extent eccentric, axioms of retelling of standard societal norms. Demands of racial equality, peace, sexual liberation, women’s rights challenged the pantheon of social mores of the previous generations. An increased awareness of the environment along with a questioning of the materialistic trends of their day and age, were other aspects of the Hippie movement. Societal standards and norms have evolved over the past three decades to accommodate what were once termed excesses as mere happenstances. This is a reflection of the acceptance of liberal doctrines of the 60s into mainstream democratic society. The question of drug abuse and its transcendence from a sub-cultural trait to a dominant cultural phenomenon is an ineluctable consequence of this social transmogrification.

The complex chain of legitimization of anti-optimistic (as opposed to pessimistic) ideas and sensibilities governing public behaviour and thought was strikingly apparent in the field of arts and especially rock music. Psychedelic rock embodied the spirit of the dystopian experience of the Hippie youth. The main proponents including the likes of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, band members of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles amongst others; would indulge in the gratuitous use of an entire spectrum of drugs (non-prescriptive, organic and otherwise). Jim Morrison drew inspiration from the mescaline induced cubist landscape of Aldous Huxley’s seminal ‘The Doors of Perception’ – “Istigkeit - wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? "Is-ness." The Being of Platonic philosophy - except that Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were - a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.” Huxley denigrated the classical spiritual experience as a pale monochromatic imitation of the mescaline-induced psychedelic one. Morrison and his tribe would thrive on the unchartered and unpredictable terrain of the psychedelic euphoria with some positive and some tragic consequences. The strange originality and the questioning of aesthetic boundaries was almost a necessary product of the substance abuse in conflation with the various social issues of the time. The lexicon of the 60s would learn to incorporate ‘square’ – a derogatory term for the conventional individual. Bill Clinton, while running for President of U.S.A. in 1992, would recall his brush with marijuana as a Rhodes Scholar in England as curious and mildly unpleasant, a sign of the ubiquity of substance abuse. Morrison’s liberal quoting of Huxley appropriated the English academic, as would his own death to drug-overdose familiarize the concept.

The general permeation of subversive traits through every section of societal behaviour has now given way to a more domesticated sense of hedonism. The subculture of drug abuse is no exception. It’s no longer profound or dissonant enough as it would have been in the 60s when Peter Fonda inspired Lennon to pen a song in ode to his LSD rants.

Obituary: Paul Newman

2008-10-18T12:32:00.003+05:30

Oct 17, 2008

Manish Golder

Paul Leonard Newman, actor, born January 26 1925; died September 26 2008

Paul Newman, who succumbed to lung cancer on 26^th September, 2008, was more than a sum of his parts. In this case the parts being that of a certain pair of forget-me-not blue eyes, swooning handsomeness, an honest man, a Hollywood original, a loving father and husband, an avid racer – well that list does stretch a bit. As Dragline would say “he was a natural born world-shaker”. Only, he shook us and others in ways that no celluloid anti-hero could ever imagine. But as all obituaries seem to begin, so shall I with memories of blue lightening mingling with his eyes while he lay on his prison bunk. "Yes, his eyes were that blue and beautiful” – Eva Marie Saint recalls; guess he just couldn’t help looking that good.

Paul Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio to Jewish-Christian parents; his father owned a profitable sporting goods store, he was late entrant into what would, over the subsequent years, become a legendary career in film. As all pretty boys are destined to be - mere props in costume epics, strutting around looking good, and drawing general critical derision; Paul Newman missed a similar fate by a hair’s breadth. He would go on to advertise in a leading magazine begging people to not watch his first movie ‘The Silver Chalice’- featuring an uncomfortable Newman in a toga; a cringe-inducing experience he would forever be apologetic of. Critical acclaim came his way after his role as Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” (first-choice James Dean’s since-romanticised car crash providing the big break). He made a seemingly natural transition from the 1950s to the subsequently socially tumultuous 60s and 70s, becoming in the process one of the only few actors to successfully do so. As the eponymous ‘Hud’ and ‘Cool Hand Luke’, he transferred his animal grace into a popular expression of rebellion – against authority and all set norms – as he would twist and morph his own avatar into the most unlikely of them all: "But what really made everyone out there like him was that he became the rebel with a cause. As Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy, Newman gave his audiences a vicarious thrill by thumbing his nose at an unjust society. ... It wasn't the blue eyes. It was the red blood and the gray matter."¹

Barring the misadventure on debut, Newman would forever continue to play down his good looks with almost an obsessive zeal, playing instead some of the most iconic anti-heroes in cinema. As one critic would once say - "Could it be that Newman was always uncomfortable with his natural assets — such handsomeness — and never convinced by them? That would account for the uneasy mixture of porous cockiness and mumbling naturalism, just as it fits with his urge to prove himself as a serious citizen." ²

Despite his matinee idol billing, Paul checked out early on the flashy life of Hollywood. He chose, instead, to spend time with his family away from tinsel town and public glare. A perfect union of 50 years with his wife Joanne Woodword (they celebrated their last anniversary in February) stood testimony to his uniqueness. As did his salad dressing company, Newman’s Own; all of whose post-tax profits were donated to charity. As of date the total amount donated stands at around $250 million – making Paul Newman the single largest contributor to charity in proportion to his wealth. His the Hole in The Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill children now provides care for over 13,000 children free of cost. It was as he termed “Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good” – a phrase that runs across the banner of Newman’s Own homepage.

Well, Butch Cassidy did ‘good’, we’re proud of you Luke. Send us a postcard from wherever you are. Hope you’ve got your plastic Jesus with you for the longest of them rides ‘you, wild, beautiful thing’; may your soul rest in peace.

The 100 Greatest Stars of All Time," Entertainment Weekly

2. David Thomson, "A Biographical Dictionary of Film," 1994.

......................

2007-09-20T11:36:00.000+05:30

Dry lips cracking into a wry smile – over alcohol – nicotine – and healthy dose of solitude – ahh – just about as pretentiously phrased as that. Catch the irony. Self deprecatingly excitable – looping playlist in Christian pop/rock band mode – lyrics bound in indecipherable profundity and pseudo alternate reality mode. Guess it’s easier to type out random shit rather than penning it in – love this autocorrect mode – to hell with the romantic shit of fountain pen and parchment – this darn thing won’t smell of memories or gather any silverfish. There’s that little fear of locking it into oblivion as I did with my first e-poem – lost the godddamn password….that was a bit of a bitch. Having given up reassuringly asserting privacy – beyond late nights of pornophilia – ain’t no teenager no more – am I?

This piece will lie foldered amongst the virtual stack of randomness of nocturnal philandering with half forgotten words – images from memory – and mutated emotions from the present – sudden shots of liberating spirit maybe heightening the pain in the bum coming down smack skating on thin ice on a frozen lake – crisp cold air penetrating the bronchioles – refreshing only till that asthma comes in wheezes and gasps.

“How can you say those two things together?

You love me and then throw it in my face?”

Hmmm…………..

Dialogue always gains its absurd gravity in subtitling – the tacky parts are profundities merely lost in translation.

I knew once to distinguish satellites from the stars – something I remember tonight watching a jetting plane on a long haul over continents through the grills of my balcony – so so so much more over awing compared to that hovering craft waiting to land in the sorry airport – tainted for me with all the short little escapades I keep making in search of the holy grail – to my little abode of peace and otherwise.

But I want to be an engine driver – a railway engine driver – shooting long beams of powerful light, tucked away behind a sleepless slit windowed cubicle – dashing through bug dropping elephant trampling jungles – with a few ghosts of extinct tigers and leopards – sulking and shrewish like ones Corbett hunted with such élan and wrote of with such grace. No steam engines hurtling on powered by Canadian coke – pretty Turneresque silhouettes on wintry mornings – puffing lazily into the dawn fog to etch a cyclically morphing beautifying spectacle onto a sleep-adled kid’s sensibilities – enough enough to recall without reference watching a silver kite ensnared on a mango tree catching the irritatingly mellow hues of the omniscient halogens of the city lights.

Back to satellites – I think that was just some bullshit peddled to a gullible kid – akin to the scary one eyed demon – scary enough to make him swallow the most bitter of pills to heal his spasmodic breathing.

Yeah – I did believe that bunkum about satellites back then – maybe it wasn’t shit after all – with memories of sputnik crashing down in a blaze of glory off the Indian coast – along with its jingoism for all things coloured red – a worthwhile sight. A pity I didn’t catch it – like that solar eclipse I caught on film and missed out on the grand finale of the exquisite diamond ring but I did see and hear the birds returning to their nests at the unexpected dusk – and caught the myriad of crescent suns through the slits of banana and coconut palm leaves – natures green pinhole cameras at work – quite as remarkable as Ray’s solitary noon’s experience with “Khor-Khori”.

I felt the chill on that October noon – watched the light fade – I was purer and sensitive.

It’s a glut of experiences and memories tonight – a giant Ferris wheel of light lone and eerie against the darkening dusk skies – a brief interrupt of a gaggle of dark bats against the inky blue sky - don’t try to interpose them – they ARE random! That’s their only saving grace, other than the juvenile romanticism of speeding past spectacles of literature.

Promontories!!!

Hey – That’s that a word I conjured out of thin air.

“Denigrating the prosaic numbness of life/mediocrity; slowly sucked down by a persistently sustained devolution….”

“Stay by my side as my light grows dim

As my blood slows down

And my nerves shatter with stabbing pain

As my heart grows weak

And the wheels of my being turn slowly

Stay by my side

As my fragile body is wracked by pain

Which verges on truth

And manic time continues scattering dust

And furious life bursts out in flames

Stay by my side as I fade

So you can point to the end of my struggle

And the twilight of eternal days at the low. Dark edge of life….”

Coffee shop boots

2006-10-28T00:17:00.000+05:30

Tan boots said come hither
Coffee shop hues soft
Glass – catching breaths and shutting street
Outside
Filter light
Silence
Jabber
Gossip
Refill
And the leg crossed over another

Come hither
Roving eye report
Caution
Smooth
Another sip
No net
Zuccherro pouch
Tissue
Foot on the ground

Sequin
Tiers
Rubber
Leather
And the come hither boots

The Outsider -( as in.........)

2006-10-26T11:50:00.000+05:30

Bespectacled females, gravitating breasts, toothy grins, amateurish artwork, an exhibition exemplary in it’s the lack of originality. A hot noon day sun, residues of a wild night in the marked lethargy seeping through my aching joints, I try few drags of the newly procured weed as a novel experience ignoring my lurking asthma attacks. The effect is a strange sensation of acute somnolence, a sense of general derision permeates my psyche. Lugging my behind off the couch, my friend and I course through the duty streets to the college campus. Even after three years, the environs hold more than a few surprises for me (my lethargy having prohibited me from venturing little further than ugly classrooms). Contempt required no familiarity to breed; rather it was more of a predisposition whose roots eluded my reasoning (now that I come to think of it! I never gave it a passing thought!). Rickety benches, brilliantly designed in some ancient reference frame, the rivets gnawing at tired butts, the beer in my belly upsets my balance and I grapple desperately to hold onto the desk and manage to look innocent as the professor throws a jaded glance (I wish he was drunk though!). Peeling paint, damp spots creating a myriad of patterns, something I never found any beauty in despite the odd short story romanticising it. Hazy noon heat, dark and wet, drowsy afternoons drooling on filthy keyboards and fingering sluggish mice, doodles on the rag tag note book; moments like every other, an unbroken chain of events in the life of a spendthrift with time.

Tonight is a welcome break. The texture of events to follow did not in the strictest sense leave a great taste, but was tangy enough to stimulate an acerbic article.

On an impulse I dress in the only suit (in reality only a combination of equi-toned blazer and trousers), Freudian humour filling the intervals between my dressing up. Isn’t it true that behind every moment that we spend grooming ourselves lay the primitive mating instincts? This is a concept that is ignored by most for the comfort derived from it and the discomfort in accepting it. With no definitive female in my cross-hair, I dress mainly out of instinct, not necessarily out of primordial urges but rather in sync with my pernickety nature.

Beyond hours of cogitation in my bare room (empty except for the basic but expensive accessories) I had pursued little or no social activity, preferring my own company than any other. Leaning back in my swivelling chair, staring at the ceiling or blank computer screen with unseeing eyes, vision glazed by musings on politics, society or titillating fantasies, I spent my college years mostly within these confines. Never feeling any worse for except for moments of loneliness, but ecstatic the next at having translated it into a worthwhile creation of prose, poetry or charcoal sketches. Sensual lines inspired by a Klimt sketch I had seen as a child, subjective interest in feminine forms, products of perversion or creativity? A question I never could ask myself since the sensation at the moment of execution was too abstract too rationalize and all the more pleasurable for it being so.

I tied the shoe-lace of my leather boots, stepped gingerly into the driver’s seat to avoid the inevitable creases, and drove off

Cynicism giving way to genial humour, I party with social antipodes.

The conversation spectrum ranges the expected antithetic polarities. But a sense of déjà vu is palpable in every word I say with a tongue loosened by alcohol. The novelty of the aural sensation does not go unobserved. Inane justifications roll off my tongue as I sip my umpteenth peg of vodka for the night. Someone is trying his first alcoholic drink and surveys the cocktail glass with apprehension and school-boy excitement. Religious vegetarianism, teetotalism – a combination that starkly contrasted with my previous company. A barely detectable note of derision was creeping into my speech, but I managed to overlay it with a rapid flow of verbosity. A dinner later, we parted are ways and I found myself again in the company of my friends whom I had deserted.

Drunken brawlers and cosy couples greet me. Soaking in the chilly dew of midnight we zip off in search of a late night cup of late night coffee

Bunuelesque

2006-09-29T02:20:00.000+05:30

Classic mush rock, edges smoothened out and the whisky talk; phrases lifted right out of my evening on a hot and cool Shasthi evening in cal and suitably pretentious for me to start off another vastly insipid piece. Do I even write for an audience or just to etch snatches of spontaneity for a story I will or will never say? That’s too boring – hardly qualifies as whisky talk!

The muggy evening sweated out into an overcrowded bubbly night and here I was driving through the crawling traffic listening to a pretty piece of a familiar raga rendered in an all too distinctive idiosyncratic fashion. The radio does have a habit of throwing up pleasant surprises. The announcement of the next piece made me break into a fit of “bah”. Another timeless classic and suitably soothing to tide me over what seemed a long way home; and I grew wearier and wearier as if an invisible ectoplasm seeped from me onto the magnetic repulsive enthusiasm of the milling masses. Life is a tad confusing for me today, and I was just waiting to wake up on the right side of the bed; care for a wager anyone?

20 pennies or a heavy pound or a useless old one p – take your pick since I can spare no silver. That’s a way to make choices simpler – don’t have too many. That’s a fab enough one-liner for me to write home a letter about – or maybe write a stupid blog.

The escape hatch just came undone after years of fumbling with the lock. Preparing for launch; I failed to identify the device. Only too late did I see it was a Vernian cannon; and the massive G-force was soon crushing me into all my excess baggage, and my eyes streamed beyond my pretty lashes along with my tears. Bunuelesque!

Fish hooks

2006-09-27T23:03:00.000+05:30

The korean Isle fascinated - freaked - touched - moved - and shook me up and down a late late night.
Fish hooks down the throat - fish hooks down the vagina
Symbols of love - hardly angelic - no lily white prose to substantiate the greedy neediness of dispossessed individuals living on the margin - on green - purple - and yellow floating boat-houses on a quiet lake of secrets - with scarred fishes - and mute maidens..........
Kim Ki Duk's "The Isle" is all of the above and hardly as prosaic as it all................

Sunday dreams

2006-09-27T22:51:00.000+05:30

I dreamt on London streets

On pebbled paves

On lonely walks

On cold lakes

On dry Sunday

I slept fitfully

On double bunks

On slip in quilts

On lumpy pillows

On Sunday night

I listened to classic mush rock

On the dying battery

On the hook on earphones

On a bumpy ride to Glasgow

On a Sunday noon

Excess baggage on a wet street

Striped scarf in a knot askew

On a buttoned jacket

On a GAP vest

On a gloomy

And a Sunday noon

Looping in a sunny loop

Of unhappiness

And no joy

And little peace

And no magic

And no-one........

Queen of Hearts

2006-09-27T02:11:00.000+05:30

Merlin twirling his fancy wand
A shower of stars
And comet tails
And magic words
And pretty prose
And heart shaped incandescence

Woefully short all woo
And comet tails
And magic words
And pretty prose
And no heart

Sleek rain and sleet
Whetting and wetting
The travails of a loner
And comet tails
And magic words
And the pen runs dry

Azure skies and English gloom
Nowhere kingdoms proud castles
Falling through the magic carpet
And haze of drowning senses
And killing pity
And Merlin?
And blue pike?
And a king of castles in the air

As random as a queen of hearts
Alone
So alone
So far
And comet tails
And pretty prose
Can I woo you again?

2006-09-21T18:29:00.000+05:30

16^th August, 2006, Wednesday

The Belle Vue

Clapham Common

Post a 90 minute session of unintelligent humour parading as comic classic wannabe, it was time for a London pint. The sun was breaking out after an overcast morning and my camera was coming to good use – about time.

My bro and I turned out to be 50% of the crowd – if one could call it that. I guess not too many had a taste in a Wednesday afternoon show; despite the 2 for 1 treat. It was all new for me – well almost. This was my third movie-going experience in London till date; the other two being Superman Returns at the Ritz in Brixton and another very painful tryst at The Prince Charles; oh but I did catch the cult horror classic Nosferatu at the National Gallery; and it did have a splendid 6 minute start with Tim Burton’s Vincent – sumptuously gothic! Anyway – Nacho Libre it was for us on the orange 2 for 1 and we ambled past the pubs near the Clapham common underground and bus stop a tad spoilt for choice. Entering one we made a quick retreat – dark, wooden, musty in the summer heat and maybe a bit rough for two brown boys! The Belle Vue was sober enough (if one called a pub that) with promise of free wi-fi; but we had overshot the happy surfing hours. The pints were good as every other that I had had since coming down to this part of the world. Random conversation; streaked with usual despondency and we were finished for the evening. Back home – a tad tired with the lingering after-effects of the failed comedy raising a few mental laughs – a crackpot nigger admiring a Ferrari from the bus – “A car and a half! Bet you could drive to Brighton and back!” (Why Brighton of al places dude?), the stench of a homeless bum making me crinkle my nose. A low tinkle at my stop and I hopped off the red double-decker onto the familiar footpath.

The uphill walk home and I was finally back, another evening in London – gone with the whiff of dog-shit smeared on the pavement and the rotting leaves of autumn round the corner.

I care less than I could not

2006-07-31T03:53:00.000+05:30

Oh how so little I care now! Far far away from my adopted hometown - but not entirely not "at home".....tired tired tired of the ramblings exhibiting grossly insufficient vocabularies...lacking any semblance of of elegance...inarticulation clogging up my senses slowly but surely. But it's all the past - no amount of semiphallic display of pride to assert nonexistent dimensions can make me look back and wish...the TATE is my candy shop - the little cute art-shop in Soho - the daily tube to college and back - the west end - names names and more names - but none so tiring as it used to be in early memoirs......
Slipping not altogether unpleasantly into a new niche - with gallons and gallons of deja vu.....and oh so much joy...so much comfort.....the blustery days and soap bubble truck across trafalgar square - what was the cheerful chap playing ? ...."my girl...my girl"....and the kids chased the rainbow-ed orbs through the busy street.........
dreams are closer than sleep.....I'm awake in my dream....
.......................btw - it's not really London that's lifting my mood! So rest ye all english skeptics...

Brain Dead

2006-06-09T11:55:00.000+05:30

Quaintly brain-dead one late evening – too late as I get ready for bed. The night may just be young for a Saturday but it hardly matters for jagged feelings and murky attacks of depression. Can hardly blame it on the weather though – or the person next to me for that matter. Just plain vanilla bout of restive me. The ego pinches and ekes out every failure from crevices of fogging past – words of mine declare unfulfilled promises – but that’s just a forgotten past. So much in sync with the ephemeral change in scale of every other pop song; well it just disappeared as I chose my words – and to cap it all it’s another weekend and a Sunday to boot as I pick up the threads. I really have lost count of weeks in interlude and the only record has disappeared with the last press of Ctrl+S (that’s save document for the computer illiterate) in short too tedious a process for me to unearth. I was walking absent-mindedly past the thin Sunday evening crowd near the usually busy crossing – the flash of colour from the usually horny middle-aged woman’s Tanter sari corresponded with the churning equation in my mind falling into place. Was love really a product of habitual circumstances rather than borne of any piquant immediacy. Damn the darned verbosity! Well – can’t help it dear! It’s in my nature – akin to the not really faux accent that seemingly creeps into my unconscious dialect.

The TV’s a great help! Ooh – the sexy siren with golden chains round her oh so desirable waist turns into a curvy bottle of soda pop – the gorgeous Latina shoots from her honest hips – the snazzy brit anchor espouses the virtues of the well dressed business traveler – all in all – all that I could care the least about! The news channels are at it again – no one really seems to be interested whilst they toil too hard mutilating phrases into wishing clichés – too much like the bottled coke taming the fiery rum in my glass. Barb shoots straight – babe she ain’t – and my babe seems just too immune to my arsenal of charm.

Oh and before I finish – my paper boats were never really blue as the ageing park-street-phile may sing – just as I’m not so brain dead today!

Prescient Memories

2006-05-30T18:45:00.000+05:30

A vision of a fleeting red cement floor flies by as I’m momentarily transported to a mosaic of lost memories.

A large window barred with rusted old iron rods sheathed in fraying coats of bitumen. A wide sill – wide enough to sit on and peruse the patches of fast disappearing greenery adjoining the decrepit mansion. A 19^th century fossil ravaged by hard times and declining fortunes of the inhabitants, scarred but proud and with remnants of it’s long lost elegance. Little brown sparrows dart around like the busy-bodies they are scattering pieces of straw as they hastily put together their nests among the Burma teak beams of the high cracked ceilings. Green foliage interrupts the length of the old walls in the form of a young banyan, clawing deep into the thin colonial era bricks and drawing nourishment from the century old lime-mortar. Pockmarked floors are all that remains as memory of better days and the shadow is long among the odd paraphernalia of barely usable furniture which still serve as a drawing room.

Foot high steps, dark landings, lead to a precariously surviving second storey – every time the gang of children jump around with holiday fever, the floor revervarates with suitable degree of seismic fervour to draw the screams of anxious parents anticipating imminent collapse in case of further activities of energetic descendants. The ground floor landing houses an antique of immense interest to the young lot – a rusty old spear! Leaving it behind and struggling over the steps, a pattern of light and shadow lies stirring with the breeze on the exposed bricks of the staircase – a magic created by the air-holes cut into the walls. A long hallway illuminated by the mild sun of a wintry noon lies barren and dusty. On the right is the best room of the house with polished bright red floors, an old dressing table with a movable mirror, the mercury coating flayed off to reveal non-reflecting spots, and shelves built into the walls housing the ancestral deity with vermillion smeared “lokkhi jhapi” rattling to reveal the presence of a few ancient coins. Further down the hall is a nondescript second room. The hall ends in an a cell reminiscent of the fabled Babylonian hanging garden’s (only in form, since the mythological grandeur is an entity that even the most bitter satire wouldn’t dare to encompass) with sloping floors. The latter is no trick of brilliant architecture, but rather a legacy of neglect that has hollowed the sanctum of an old family. Bourgeois sensibilities and feudal vanities fail to account for any credibility in a wildly materialistic world and in a society ridden with corrosive fluids of ill-gained capital.

Slow death – long drawn and painful. A sudden dose of euthanasia expedites its demise. The smell of avarice emanates from the hungry labourers as they tear down a slice of the past, a castle of time and sanctity.

Monochrome memories

2006-04-28T02:00:00.000+05:30

Memories of my first visit to the sea are quaintly sepia tinted like the black and white photographs bearing testimony of the trip. The moments have remained frozen in monochrome – the only aids to my stray memory. The starkly black, decayed wooden pier, the rolling waves crashing into white foam at my feet, the peculiar sensation of the sand being reclaimed by the waves and I break into a run. It was many years before I overcame my fear of water – in any copious amounts. Pools or ponds or rivers or oceans – all elicited acute terror in the little boy. But that was my first encounter with the sea. And there was no vivid melting of the blue sea into the horizon – no pretty sunset on the beach in Technicolor – just black and white images in sharp contrast. My tiny pair of pyjamas – white as were the frothy breakers. The photos now lie neglected – small prints with white borders – and with time the colours have faded and yellowed.
I wonder – is that really a quaint misfortune? I struggle with every effort to remember –happy memories torment me in their lucid inadequacies.

2005-12-10T21:19:00.002+05:30

Petulance

Fragments

2005-11-27T00:16:00.000+05:30

Only enough to hate
and only be to hate
Thence fragments
A million pieces to the full
Devise and device
none sharp a tool

Losing one now
Lost one there
on the cafe walk
on the last mile
The count grows
but a progression too undefined
Remains of what
Remains of not

Is it all there? I check
The sun and glare
The swoosh of hair
wish you gave a peck
Cruelty not my own
A burden of labours
Tune out Tune in
Its still channel nine
Where did you draw the line?

Myopic sin of two whiles
One in jest
Two for rest

The day the fragments grow too large
For moments of no pass
To take no stock
None quartered too
Losing all in a quest to gain none
A destiny
A petty
notice

Bhabna

2005-11-16T23:04:00.000+05:30

Illusion

2005-11-14T16:36:00.000+05:30

Limits of illusion
Hard contact

Touchdown of dreams
I slept too long
The noon is bright

Cerulean haze
The sky too light

Lilacs and pinks
Psychotic and not

The space sinks anon
Without the unknown

Swimming currents
Choosing one
Swirling the other

Limits of illusion
Two streams
One brook
Closet analysis
Diaphanous borders

Limits of illusion
Apophenia and deception

Ascetic

2005-11-13T00:30:00.000+05:30

Ascetic eyes
Body gnaws

Illusionary trysts of night
Nocturnal jives
Losing sleep

Out of balance
Nerves
Portents of sin

Blues
Reds
Greens

Lurid shades of the unconscious
Ascetic eyes
Films of mist

Delvant now
Chaos then

Symptom clause
Of a dying space

Ascetic eyes
Stare into space

Ascetic eyes
The retina detached

Dark spots in hones of light

Mist

2005-11-11T13:55:00.000+05:30

Love
Cocoons of mist
Slow warm
silent
Late night phonetics
on assembly tongue
Questions – void perusal
Mind sidles
a furlong while
Cogs snap
colliding space
This place this time
There for no more
wait
Soporific clause
melatonin
Indentations
Stop right
Take left
turning corners
Fables – none mine
none yours
Comfort
stretching vision
Fraying limits of illusion
remain
Bottom cup of
old dolmens

Treason

2005-11-03T00:40:00.000+05:30

Betrayal of sadness
The heart consumed in solitude
The only solace of ignominy

Impassive un-emotive
Senses of treachery
Rising against reason

The heart will find its mouth
Gag not only truth

Life bred in bridles
Lashes and lacerations

Mendicant spirits
Vile-some and loathe

Sanitation of isolation
Sanctuary of thought

The bottom gives way
Anomalies dig doleful openings

Unrequited tidings of new life
A new existence

The realm of yore
Now breached

Cerulean Expanse

2005-11-02T01:25:00.000+05:30

There are times when you sense the incongruity of landscape. I dream of a genre entirely of mine defintions. As I always describe in my second phrase when explaining impressionism - Monet captured the sun - the wind - the clean light - in his painting. I desire the sense of space and the atmosphere of the scene that I capture. A holistic experience of the senses - isn't that the ultimate artform?

Same place Different view

2005-11-02T01:22:00.000+05:30

Cliched shot

2005-11-02T01:17:00.000+05:30

Nothing seems more pleasing than the copy book shot!

Sunsets...simply

2005-11-02T00:20:00.000+05:30

How unpredictable is nature - as to produce as varied visions as it does. My greatest joy has been not in my skill but in being able to capture the essence of those evenings that I have enjoyed so in solitude. Now I can share it - that is my only motivation behind photography.

Decadence

2005-10-30T23:44:00.000+05:30

The kiln was red
It lent its shade

The bricks lay in ignominious heap
But the palace was pretty

Vulgar and decadent
But devilishly charming

It survived centuries
The world simply changed night clothes

Days gave way to decay
Gold dwindled

And the moss gathered
And the vines twined

The creeper buried its roots
The bed cracked in foul glee

The ghost came to gloat
The soul hung in space

Gnawing at the fabric
The strings were frayed

To die hard
More than death

To die hard
Emotions speared to death

Leaving with the next tide
Are you?

Phobia 29

2005-10-30T00:30:00.000+05:30

The sun soaked the rain out
That was one dry patch
Amidst a deluge

The breeze
dusty
The hair
dishevelled rough
A patchy shower cooled it down

Wishing milestones
More none than there
Youth – with a date
5 years
29 eclipses
Teethed and weaned
Joints creak on a Sunday noon

Morning news and bifocals
Gaining tide losing time

Hang on there
Tunnel syndromes – not quite
Light ahoy!
Songster glee
Monsoon frogs – ribbid!

Paint brush stiff
Congealed paint
Turpentine vapours in the air

The spine creaks
Pages crumble

Pastels coloured dust

The muse breathes the last sigh
The sirens sing the bitter tear

Open spaces rustled tryst
Snippet shelter of trust
29 miles

29 more
5 more uneven multiples each
n times 2
First 25 counts

I count on my fingers
My toes don’t count.

2005-10-27T00:50:00.000+05:30

Glass Eye

Making Out Like Lemmings!

2005-10-26T22:54:00.000+05:30

Prologue: An evening of vodka and grass, incessant conversation bordering on the inane and the quaintly sensible……….

A topic, not really in sync with the multitude of sexual innuendos, which crowd the repertoire of urban expletives, but born rather out of inchoate sensations of a pleasantly decadent evening. Typing out words with pejorative disregard for grammar provides a sense of much needed spontaneity. Losing the threads, tasselled patterns, phantasmagoria of a multitude of Lear-ish nonsense, discovering a brilliant satire in a poem from “Abol-Tabol” – “Katukutu buro”, “Khuror kol”. Unreal characters, rolling around in a fluid of surreal, apparently incoherent lyricism. Disjointed thoughts, a mind a limbo. Drags of cannabis swirling around my tired cerebrum, instigating my reptilian instincts – I have again lost the thread!
To rationalize the unorthodox topic (the act itself sounding pointless), after a short rumination (excuse the oxymoron), I can only trace is back to a particularly wild and overgrown stretch of flora adorning the rear end of the college.
The girl’s hostel, phallocentric phantasms, a dark chilly evening, a dose of intoxicated friendship. A plethora of sporadic cause-effect syndromes, an effort to rationalize the disorganized intellect leading to a culmination of precipitated thoughts.
Leaving alone a futile effort, reaching into the nadir of depression and zenith of impotent rage – phrases, that seem to echo a multitude of emotions trailing in monotonous average. I find solace and confidence, never in success, only in the realization of a niche that was always designated for me in this inconceivably stupid society of ignorant humans.
Getting back to “a pleasant evening”! Journeying through the narrow stretch of asphalt, a road that has till this day remained on the peripheral boundaries of my highly discriminating radar vision, a sense of discovery seeps through my numbed consciousness. Two pots of coffee at a strikingly colonial restaurant populated by Caucasian tourists only bring a haze of perspective.
Singular sense of virility seeps through my nervous system. An urge to do something very foolish is only prevented by lack of courage (?). Rather a life accustomed to inhibitions takes it toll on the moment of imminent satiation. The distinct physical attribute of the statement appals me to the extent of considering revision of it despite the mental tryst to pen my honest thoughts.
“Lucidity is the bane of modern civilization”! “Yes” agrees my friend. “But not quite” retorts the other.
The aroma of pheromone coupled with a feminine perfume keys my senses. A continuing struggle to perpetuate a strangely complex train of thought leads this essay through inexplicable annals.
Marx, communism, capitalism and sociology; all a failure to analyse this predicament.
In company of a reciprocal computer, stacks of bilingual literature and music, traversing a bridge between contrasting ideologues and cultures, I am an easy prey to depression. Apologetic would be the last term that can be used to define my attitude. A lifelong accumulation of modicum of intellect and aesthetics coerces me to the fringe of society. Looking for parables, albeit of the cynical variety, penning down despondency on the back of ATM slips, marvelling at nature, the blue sky is tempting me to take a break!

Relative definition of existence

2005-04-14T22:42:00.000+05:30

The subject might sound a bit hokey, but we simply cannot ignore the relative character of every social and mental states, evolving from one being to another. Environs, people, circumstances and a smorgasbord of experiences are too forceful a set of effects to be decried or derided in favour of definitive rules which are in existence.
Even comfort - be it in either state of definition, abstract or mundanely concrete, do suffer irreversible changes over time.

Are males physically more sexually active than women?

2005-04-12T23:06:00.000+05:30

The inherent powers associated with the position of a male individual in society are probably the deciding factor in sexual aggressiveness so commonly observed. The physical aspect being one that appears to be equally prevalent in both genders, the popular theory, which obviously stems from the assumption, that men are essentially polygamous, we do come to an interesting crossroad in this analysis.
As my friend and I fought over our drinks whence he sought to blame the biological make-up of males to be the deciding factor in the naturally apparent aggression, I was quite undecided enough in my opinion so as to veer into a deeper social implication of the matter at hand. A case in point of our discussion was a most natural choice - we considered adoloscent males who are visibly the most sexually awkward beings in existence.....

A beginning !

2005-02-24T18:17:00.000+05:30

A new blog, one the millions being created per second.

Well, the sheer odour of mediocrity that it lends to this auspicious creation irks me. But cynicism aside, eventhough the very purpose and inspiration behind this blog has been the founder cynic Diogenes , I wish to make my blog not the MOST popular blog since popularity and excellence are uncomfortable bed-fellows.

I invite anyone with out-of-the-ordinary views on life and the world around us since mediocrity is essentially the bane of our times where we are living in a global village.

Come one, but not all!

Rise against intellectual penury!