reasons

of all the stupid things i've done and said, this was surely the stupidest
just like that, i escaped everything that was happy

beds, toilets, you and me

think of the beds
used again and again
to fuck in
to die in.

in this land
some of us fuck more than
we die
but most of us die
better than we
fuck,
and we die
piece by piece too--
in parks
eating ice cream, or
in igloos
of dementia,
or on straw mats
or upon disembarked
loves
or
or.

:beds beds beds
:toilets toilets toilets

the human sewage system
is the world's greatest
invention.
and you invented me
and I invented you
and that's why we don't
get along
on this bed
any longer.
you were the world's
greatest invention
until you
flushed me
away.

now it's your turn
to wait for the touch
of the handle.
somebody will do it
to you,
bitch,
and if they don't
you will--
mixed with your own
green or yellow or white
or blue
or lavender
goodbye.

Charles Bukowski

I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down

we never did share such a relationship
a common_use word, groupism™
i too decided this is not how i like it

i would tell him this, but it's not important

for veena, my blanket_love

Oh girl, no Ma
Nothing much to speak of but a rough diamond
Sleep now, your angels will come, dear
Poor Matilda
Handcuffed to the wheel
And steering wildly
Through love's fields, so blindly

Forever only takes its toll on some
But, tonight you're sleeping alone without him
Tonight you're sleeping alone without him
And everything went up in smoke like wildflowers
Wildflowers, dear

Oh girl, lonely
Shuffles through the parade
Of a sleepless circus promenade
Hold on, dear

Oh girl, no Ma
Sister steals her a coat
For the windless breezes
Sleep now and Jesus will come, dear

Forever only takes it's toll on some
But, tonight you're sleeping alone without him
Tonight you're sleeping alone without him
And everything went up in smoke like wild flowers
Wildflowers, dear

-Ryan Adams

i'm waiting for superman

My deartest Jaya,

Days and hence months have passed since the last time me I saw you. But that is not important, rangoli, on the other hand, is. This festive season will never pass without us walking down those toiled on coloful, asymmetrical designs. Stealing curd from your lunch plate..indelible. And the fact that forever we will share more than those breezy walks in BPT. Your my unsubstitutable, 'soully' cool kid I think I'll ever know.

As for me I really want to meet superman, so much so that my fligths of fancy have crossed all bounds. I live in my head, where all the voices talk at once and there are many friends. He walks besides me, he chose where to put the coffee table just yesterday and yes we both brush our teeth together. I had planned to introduce the two of you in Dec. but he can't make it.

Azermi & superman

the bastards

it was a lovely to hell diwali...
first time i put rangoli after niki and azu left...
with veena. with veena. i love veena.
so overwhelmed i could cry
also bought diwali lights
and went colabahome for puja

played a whole lot of grand theft auto with chiru
i love chiru.

what else was up the world this week?

i finally went to mohammed ali road at 2:00 am during ramzan...
the air was uncharacteristically warm
mad crowd
it could have been 6
clap clap

i decided that nash and i have grown like mad
it's soo nice. a little weird.
the weird you get when the love of your life isn't the love of your life anymore.
and there's a new love of your life. all over again.
one might think it trivialises the whole thing. it doesn't.
two completely different sets of emotions. two different drivers.

scream to a sigh

swear to god i saw superman
i was travelling to bandra
not too late
not too drunk
in a rickshaw
not too fast
two men crossing the road in slow motion
one made it
one held his hand out
the windshield shattered
the glass sprayed all over the street
the impact was brilliant
my autorickshaw fear became
no one was hurt

jayasree

Dear Johny and Varsha, I came back home from England on the 30th of September. Ever since I came back, I have been suffering from one ailment after another, characteristic of old age. You know I am 80 years old. The present sickness is cervical spondilosis and vertigo. I always wear a collar around my neck. I cannot lie down at ease for when once I am on the bed, the whole head together with the bed appears rotating. I have to hold firmly on something, so that I should not fall down. I am fed up of this place and wish to go back to England to live with my son Raju, when once I feel better and am able to travel.

I remember sending an e-mail to you from England regretting my inability to be present in Bangalore for the wedding and congratulating Nikita and her bridegroom. Where are they now? Are they in Bangalore or in Mumbai? I extend my good wishes for a happy Diwali to you, Johny, Varsha, Nikita, Manas, Jayasree and Chirag. What is Jayasree doing now? Has she finished her education?

In England Raju is well with his family and Rani and Jonathan at Harvard are also doing well. Raju's son Mon is in his final year for the first degree in Cambridge. He was in MIT, Boston last year for an exchange programme and returned to Cambridge in September. That is all for the time being.Very sincerely George.

the filling

there are certain plurals that just never reach their full potential; there are some dreams that can never be realised. in love, anything can happen. not quite a glorious line. i'm going to try and understand that life doesn't work like that...and love doesn't work like that.

the sweetest funniest thing happened at work the other day. vel came into work with this slight scratch on her face. so it's vel..what happened? quite coyly she says, bren has a one day stubble. ha ha ha. fuck. that's the sweetest thing ever.

sometimes i feel like i'm weaving this giant web of deceit around veena...smothering her into my world...meeting my friends...watching my movies...playing my games. i'd like to believe that i am indeed liberating her. in reality, i should become an ant.

freestyle

"Dance?"
"I have two no feet."

fingers

It is only after I have been at my new flat for some months that I begin to receive mail other than bills and offers to enter prize draws.

One of my first personal envelopes contains a scrawled message from an old acquaintance with whom I was friendly many years ago. I am distressed to read that my friend is deeply unhappy, and I am disturbed further to read that if he receives no reply to the letter I hold in my hands he will feel compelled to chop off one of his fingers with a kitchen knife. Days pass, full of inconsequential incidents, until a small parcel arrives. The postmark indicates that it is from my friend. With trepidation I open it.

Underneath the brown wrapping paper is a little box which bears the return address of my friend. There is also a stamp on the box, but other than this the package proves to be empty. I open up the box, but the space within is likewise vacant. A sense of relief floods briefly through me, and my days once more assume a comfortable aspect.

One week later, another identical parcel arrives. It too is empty, and I insist to myself that I will write to my friend. Time drifts past, and eventually I have ten empty parcels. It is on a friday that I realise what I have to do.

With what I feel is admirable forethought I use my left hand to chop three fingers from my right. With the remaining two, I hack off all the fingers of my left hand. In considerable pain I place the fingers in eight of the parcels. There is a lot of blood, and this makes the use of cellotape difficult. With eight parcels wrapped, I hold the knife in my right thumb and forefinger. I look at the last two boxes.

As always, it is my inability to complete any task that drives me to tears.

courtesy: slowlydownward.com

snapshut

a great many changes have been taking place. in my head, in my body, in my life. everything seems revealed, seems open. i had a great point to make when i was on the bus(t) last night, but i can't seem to recall what it was. it did concern love though. i realise that i forge fairly strong bonds with people. little people. smart people. people with long beautiful hair. hairy people.

these little smart long hairy people have touched me, not like i touched condi's apples. that might sound a little perverse. but let me explain. when i was in thanadar village, we went apple picking (one verdant tree), and if an apple fell on the ground, or fell too hard in the basket with more apples, one could say that the apple was touched. which is to say contaminated. needs to be thrown out. so, not that kind of touched.

now that we have the various variations of 'touched' in place, i shall proceed with this story. it's always the unexplainable. am i the moon. am i truly the moon?

i get surprisingly upset when one is upsetted with me. i think it has to do with the outbreak of the moon. so here are the significant changes

1. veena didn't speak to me for 2 hours and i cried
2. cori and i have drifted apart a bit and she cried
3. condi is a new addition, from shimla
4. nash and diti are almost an item
5. i miss anchit a great deal

so rucha and i had this whole conversation on depth, people who are depthy and people who lack depth. i really don't know who or what can decide that. i'm always talking about people aren't i?

i'm so full of cock_shit, it's amazing.
(click on the title for snaps)

r e d d e r

i finally coloured my hair red.
i should have coloured it full red
i relied on the advice of the others
ok, i guess

went and met ru in pune
she should come back and live with us
or we should move there

twenty-eight minutes

i cycled to work
i'm super_proud

i told them
my plan is fool_proof

the cycle is orange and black

shiny disco ball

it's been one mindfuck of a more_than_a_month.
i feel the loss of scratchpost.blogspot.com

wedding, travels, trial and error, tumbles and fumbles, love and betrayal. folygamy.

'i feel fine and i feel good
i feel like i never should
whenever i get this way
i just don't know what to say
why can't we be ourselves
like we were yesterday'

void memory sixty-five

she ran to pick up the phone. ringing like a bellowing camel. it was hard to realise the demons. the demons were hard to realise. her family had long left for another. bathing seems inspid without you. to bubble but not to burst, she said, petulantly. swallow. swallow slow. swallow blue. the entire monsoon sky.

sunbathed.

working across each other seemed fine at that the time. sitting
across. moving across. every mo(ve)ment. watching across. sinewy angle.

it's difficult to keep this train. of thought. the movie. fingers. movie
fingers dancing. escalating. leaving. then, after a little while, returning.

chapter 2: social settings.
to fall out of a kiss smiling. giant. the eyes are watching from the mirrors in the autorickshaws.

"ceramic vs. skin"

she slept
i crept
i crept
she slept

her dream came back to me
where our shapless bodiess lay
her's opened
swallowed me whole
and closed again

"wonder milky bitch"

the eyes
they're immense
they're expectant
they're consuming
they need no supporting features

there are secrets she shall keep

"Bearers of my mind
Are hands of metal neurons
Soldered to my skull"

- She

right here

my obervations for the day:

1. rickshaws in malad travel faster than rain in malad
2. i'm not a bread earner
3. neil just swallowed 5 ants
4. i'm super complete 

"slowly"

i love her
i always fall in love
too fast

i love that we cut
her finger nails

i love that we
showered to
gether

i love
spit-tattoo

i love that i can fall asleep
with her breath
under my skin

i might just stop

You’re right about the PMS. It’s definitely the PMS. Sometimes people PMS all their lives through, but that’s a different discussion—one that Sharad will not be involved in. (HEH!). Anyway, I have thought a lot about needing people. So there are some people you need and some you don’t. Once that is established, there’s the whole angle of the people you need needing you.

Now the word “need” is tricky. It has magnitude, intensity, quality, and a zillion other variables attached to it. So while in some cases, a mere sms can fulfill the need, in other cases, even marriage doesn’t suffice. Though the idea of being self-sufficient is very appealing (i.e., like Sarin), I think it gets in the way of hedonistic pursuits. And hedonism is such liberation! So its pleasurable to drink with someone, talk to someone, have sex, make out, etc. There are people who serve this purpose; hence you need those people.

So if you don’t serve that purpose for them.. how personally should you take it? How much misery can inflict on yourself for not being able to serve a purpose? It could mean the end of your life; alternatively, it’s like not being able to fly a kite. (The kite example is a mere fluke. Any association to any person, living or dead, is purely co-incidental). So kite-flying is not your forte! “Sorry kite, I can’t fly you.” Will the kite remain grounded for life? Will the kite find a new flyer? That’s the kite’s prerogative. At this juncture, you detach yourself from the kite. The kite’s flight has no bearing on yours.

What I’m trying to say here is there are times in life when you have treat people like detached kites. It might make you feel like you are dispassionate, sick, passive, a dead insect or worse. But that’s what you feel when you PMS, right?

So its not big deal! Its just PMS

Veena

agreeable

every night i fall asleep hoping not to wake up
every morning i wake up
i wish that would stop happening

beep beep

[Jaya R] what's this beeping noise?
[Belial] who knows
[paroma] dunno..i hope my deadlne is met first
[Swati] r u smoking ??????
[Elvira] basils phone
[Abhishek] Can't hear anything here.
[Swati] its a smoke alarm
[Dan] must be the smoke alarm

the picture of dorian gray

“The story is simply this,” said the painter after some time. “Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon’s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious Academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned halfway round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then—but I don’t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid, and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do it: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape.”

“Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”

“I don’t believe that, Harry, and I don’t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive—and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud—I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. ‘You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?’ she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?”

“Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,” said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers.

- Oscar Wilde; from The Picture of Dorian Gray

i put your picture away

dear rucha and cora.

your replacements have arrived.
come back and kill them all.

eternally yours.
j.

segue

segue:
se·gue
intr.v. se·gued, se·gue·ing, se·gues
Music. To make a transition directly from one section or theme to another.
To move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another: "the imperial march segued into a wicked jam".

i'm really very proud of neil.
bought some roses and threw them at him (good group-e).

they played some floyd, peral jam, nirvana, radiohead, coldplay, mr. big, extreme, the cranberries, audioslave, RHCP, ozzy, manson, staind, oasis, doors, system of a down, limp bizkit, green day, alanis and tracy.

scientist by neil-e baby was fucking stunning..
and the chic sang the bestest cranberries cover i ever did hear..
and roadhouse blues was....ah well...bring on the praises.

and their original (butterfingers) was a sweet madrasi boy song..

i'm glad neil leads this alternative life.
i don't know why i like neil so much. but i do.

very yummy

so i was set up last night. with a sweet sindhi boy (courtesy ru and arch)
so we go to copper chimney...for some arabian night thing..
it goes well...i end up having some either six or ten odd vodka shots
and while he is in the loo, i type out this msg "very yummy. i'm a little high". and instead of sending it to veena, i send it to mahesh (the sweet (yummy) sindhi boy).
so he gets out of the loo, reads his msg and bursts out laughing. i could have died! (i sound like such a chic - it's becoming) so after making the biggest to hell ass of myself, the rest of the evening went well. we might meet for a play on thursday. but i'm not so sure.

i don't think i'm interested in men anymore. i don't know if it's just men or just men. i don't know. i haven't changed orientation or anything. i just haven't met any heart-fluttering people for a while now. (however, sonal from sat-night-party was very heart-fluttery). so i can't figure what's up in my head.

mahesh would make a nice hang out buddy though. i could do with one of those. ah well.

amongst other things. i think nash has completely abandoned me. which is just me being whiny. and there is just no thought of complaining possible (since rishi). this (jealous) thought is sick - i know. i hate this fucking feeling. i'm becoming a veena. maybe a little worse than a veena. anyway.

nikis wedding plans are underway (i keep using this shit editing lingo). the mails between her and dad should be compliled into a comic_wedding book. the wedding is going to start at some odd 5:30 am. ha ha. this should be fun.

tonight neil is going to play at jazz by the bay. so we're going to see him.
rotten underwear.

the city that fit oddly

i did, once, walk through a part of it
more than once; all the time would be a better fit.

see:
the electric blue electric mumble of the tv actor in the darkened room
his voice’s
sound crackles; walkie-talkie, it could be.

terrified piece of plastic
tumbles down the abandoned cobblestones
dances
flutters
(shrieks)
and tumbles on, abandoned in the street,
like a lover in the rain
looking
for what cannot be.

cigarette butts guide the way around the corner.
the one that sneaks toward the main road
where the neon vultures crawl, unsettling
the poet into hiding
in the abandoned alley.

the industrious student cycles by.
he’s on his way to his whiskey, and to his books.
the vultures, they scare him too; with their claws
and their squawk! squawk!
evil eyes! picking at carrion are their flashing, painted,
wicked
sickle beaks.

the promises of pleasure - but where?
the artist looks around - where does he go?
in the darkened alley, a storyteller
weaves the crowd of four a verbal tapestry,
lit up by his candles. the artists sees the minstrel’s
fiery
(eyes)
flash in the dark, reflecting the candle light, looking at the poet, calling
- the madman!- the poet looks away and moves on.

it is quiet, quiet as death, but less certain.
there is a movement somewhere, a-
thrum. the bowels of the city
churn
in the silence of their deed.
the poet feels sadness flow into him, coupled
with malaise’s thick cloud making him a cloak to wear in the city’s cool night.
he trudges into the dark night
back to the dark placebo of safety
that his little room offers him.

the world closes, like a masturbation fantasy.

-AN

character zero

last night was fairly entertaining.

what a difference the day made

beam me home mommy

no sleep
fever
nausea
running nose
chums

risheen said some hot milk and sex would make me feel better.

Did I say that I loathe you?

The Blower's Daughter

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

- Damien Rice

memento

I watched him walk away with a sickness in my heart - though it was a pleasing kind of sickness, if such a thing exists. I mean to say that if you have experienced an evening more exciting that any in your life, you're sad to see it end; and yet you still feel greaful that it happened. In that brief encounter with the Chairman, I had changed from a lost girl facing a lifetime of emptiness to a girl with purpose in her life. Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting could have brought about such a change. But someimes life is like that, isn't it? And I really do think if you'd been there to see what I saw, and feel what I felt, the same might have happened to you.

Memoirs of a Geisha

once upon a stony sunset

there are relative truths and then there are absolute truths. for me, there are only relative truths. this morning when i woke up, what i wished for was a saviour of sorts. an up-and-goer, who would say to me, “j, i’ve made some arrangements, pack a bag. we leave in a week”. “where to”, i ask bewildered, as the adventure-ess in me is near dead. “ok, so this is the plan. we’re going to go to himachal. i’ve saved up a little money to get us started. we’ll teach in exchange for food. and we’ll just explore. three months, and then we can re-return to what we’ve satisfied ourselves with. but i think three months is important enough.”

i’ve slept like a sweet little baby for the past two nights. mostly because danielle was on the day shift (alas, it ends today). so i’ve discovered the reasons for my sleeping problems. i can’t sleep alone. in some sense, it’s good, cause who knows, at a later stage in life, it may be a full-time thing, and i might as well get used to it. wait! that’s not a jaya way of thinking. let’s just bury that thought for now. (how i envy people who are so damn content just being with themselves – but do they really exist?)

i was talking to rishi (and nash) the other night, about human dynamics. my stance remains that people cannot be understood. i think a lot of my stance has to do with nashpaul. i have failed so miserably at understanding him that i’ve given up on understanding people completely. i don’t think i’m too wrong in saying that, but ya, my perspectives of right and wrong, slut-e and and saint-e have gone for a random walk. i think i understand everyone i’ve met before him.

many light years ago, there was a great kingdom, the kingdom of busa. the kingdom had a strange quadruple structure. quadruple. n. a quantity that is four times as great as another. v. increase fourfold. a. having four units or components, four times as great or many.

there were two streams running through the kingdom, dividing it into four parts….

consistency check

no sleep for a week now. strange dreams. psychedelic even.

meaning of psychedelic: producing distorted sensory perceptions and feelings or altered states of awareness or sometimes states resembling psychosis

waves are speedbreakers
the hullahump man seranades the sinking boats and cried as the buffaloes lament

scene not good

been too serene
too proper

waiting

saw passion of the christ
remembered tu-tu girl
listened to how to disappear completely
all in one night
strobe lights and blown speakers

i'm slow
i'm cracking up
i'm falling down
wipe that smug off your face

i just rolled my chair over my toes
ouch

from my gut

this love can be fatal

The Uncertainty of the Poet

I am a poet.
I am very fond of bananas.

I am bananas.
I am very fond of a poet.

I am a poet of bananas.
I am very fond.

A fond poet of 'I am, I am'-
Very bananas.

Fond of 'Am I bananas?
Am I?'-a very poet.

Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond? Am I very?

Poet bananas! I am.
I am fond of a 'very.'

I am of very fond bananas.
Am I a poet?

~Wendy Cope

am i a child or an adult...

ha ha..that was a kick ass poem in school
i think i'm going to turn into an insomniac!

the shift was good

while walking out of my building i fell and twisted my ankle and tore my jeans..
so i was an apaahidge for the rest of the day (still am)

danielle and i took a cab to malad...picked up rucha on the way
reached malad and put away some of me things...i definitely packed too many things
then nash came by with a bottle of wine
so we just bummed around and watched a lot of tv...i was insanely sleepy

the insanely sleepy in important cause i didn't sleep a wink at night
danielle was on night shift...so i was alone at night
and i think..no i'm sure, this was the first time in 21.11 years that i've spent the night absolutely alone
wow
so, after i got over all the rustling noises and swtiching the tv on and off some 1000 times, i ended up sleeping for like an hour
danielle came back in the morning...around 7:30...
we had breakfast..then i left for work...

the trains weren't that bad...though i cheated and got into first class (i'm injured damnit!)
i think i'm going to experiment with train and bus routes this week. will be heading into town on wednesday to watch charmed with chiru. he he.

proudest monkey

This is my new address:

Flat No. 301, 3rd Floor, Mariana CHS,
Lourdes Colony, Orlem, Malad (W)
Mumbai 400 064

bloggieblogblogblog

work's going good.
i move tom.
ha ha ha ha ha.
it's really cold where i sit.

what's with all the horses

met anup quite unexpectedly today
he didn't make his flight from bangalore
so he flew out of bombay to(day)night
he's a sweet kid

then went for something's gotta give
the first half was great
the second half was like the end of lordoftherings
dragqueens in velvet underwear

rucha has this much debated theory on how nobody should have kids (anymore)
cause this world just too over_populated
the hopelessness is..
the poor don't practise birth control cause they're uneducated
the educated don't practise birth control cause they can afford to have kids
ru's selling point is -- adoption
yes yes, it's not the same...but..

either way, i'm all for adoption, 'cause i don't think i'd love the kid any less. and i can get my tubes tied and have unprotected sex and not worry about my chums, and there are a great many perks. yup, there are some side effects.

but that brings in the bigger(smaller) picture of marriage
the only reason i see myself getting hitched is to have kids
it's a very stereo-typical viewpoint
but with age, that too has changed
there's absolutely nothing wrong with adopting a child, if your single
sure, it'll be tough, but fuck, everything's tough
being a loner is not where i'm going with this train of thought
fuck, i love people, it doesn't mean i have to get married to them to live with them

so i'm in a non marriage phase of life now
i don't see the fuckin' point

dream_run

there's something quite lovely about this momday morning.
i ran 7 km for the dream run yesterday
it was good run
got some nice shots
i couldn't move for an hour after
but what the hell!
also the end of kalaghoda happened yest
and dana sang the blues
we didn't sit around on the seats but lay around on the grass
and i played with the darlingest kid
'mahuli'
bansi's friends - J and L have adopted her
then nash and sarin turned up
it was soo good to eat fish after o so long

the feeling of jazz

hecker was great.
iit was tiring.
but hecker was great.
went to nachi's resto.
anything else?
o ya, there's a stand up happening at ncpa
i'm going to try and catch it (for rishi)

dickdale

i got myself a new job
but not sure if i'll take it yet
it's all the way at MIDC - andheri(e)
the interview lasted for 4 hrs
test after test after test
i did better than i thought in almost all of them

so now?
i'm really out of it today.
have one more interview tom. (different company)

letssee

thought 'bout nash a lot today while travelling. i don't know why i still think about him. i guess i just miss knowing him. i don't miss the beer or the fish anymore. beer and fish substitues are easy to find. now it boils down to just him. i'm waiting for this quarter to pass.

one of us must know

saw sex and lucia today. nice movie.

last night we went for steve young. he was ok nice. he opened with a bobby dylan song.
on the way back we saw a dead pup in the middle of the road. so we got down and moved it to the side. must have been a hit and run. could tell by the blood.



I didn't mean to treat you so bad
You shouldn't take it so personal
I didn't mean to make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that's all
When I saw you say "goodbye" to your friends and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you'd be comin' back in a little while
I didn't know that you were sayin' "goodbye" for good

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn't see what you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid
I couldn't see how you could know me
But you said you knew me and I believed you did
When you whispered in my ear
And asked me if I was leavin' with you or her
I didn't realize just what I did hear
I didn't realize how young you were

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn't see when it started snowin'
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn't see where we were goin'
But you said you knew an' I took your word
And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin' me, you weren't really from the farm
An' I told you, as you clawed out my eyes
That I never really meant to do you any harm

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

- Bob Dylan

macho_man

today was a fairly good day.
saw talk to her (this spanish movie), i'd recommend that it be watched.
then saw aprajito. been meaning to watch a satyajit ray film for a while. finally did. i haven't formed an opinion yet.
then all the excitment happened when we went to horniman circle for Les WAMPAS!
crazy ass french fuckers.
seriously. crazy ass fuckers.
the lead singer did everything from climing trees to walking over chairs to kissing everyone. ha ha. sideshowbob.

text_twist

chiru fainted today.
it was one complete hindi movie scene.
i dropped him at kalaghoda at 4, and then i was hanging around in the area at the site office with kanika (who didn't quit) when she gets a call saying this one kid at the workshop (papier mache and mask making) has fainted and his name is chirag. so i ran and ran and ran (from jehangir to the museum) ha ha. and came to his rescue.
that was the hindi movie part of it.
anyway, he's ok now. he has holidays and leads a terribly unhealthy lifestyle. scare-e chiru.

the film festival (vikalp) has been most enlightning
i have great anger and disgust for those fucking humanity_less people of our country.

and i also shall no longer look scornfully at those going to pursue studies in the US or the UK due to reasons that are just a shadow of my ignorance.

fuck a doodle doo

did i tell you that nisha's dad past away?
he's been in the hospital for a month (bone cancer).
that's 4 friends who've lost a parent in 2 months.

below is an excerpt from 'The Joker' by Thomas Mann. I first read it in nash-es loo a long time go. just randomly chanced upon the chapter. but it stuck in my head like the site of of a green wabbit! I actually typed it out for rishi and anch.

"Is it possible for any man, at the age of twenty-seven, seriously to believe that his situation has been unalterably finalized, however depressingly probable this may in fact be? The twittering of a bird, a tiny gap of blue in the sky, some half-remembered dream when one wakes in the morning – all these are enough to flood one’s heart with sudden vague hopes, to fill it with a festive expectation of some great unforeseen happiness…I drifted from one day to the next, meditatively, aimlessly, my mind busy with this or that trivial hope, even looking forward to such things as the next issue of an amusing periodical: I was filled with the resolute conviction that I was happy, but from time to time I felt the weariness of solitude.

If the truth were told, they were by no means rare, these moods of exasperation at the thought of my lack of friends and social intercourse; for this lack scarcely needs explaining. I had no connections with the best or even the second-best local society; to get on a convivial footing with the jeunesse dorée I should have needed, God knows, a great deal more money than I possessed; and as for bohemian circles – why, damn it, I am a man of education, I wear clean linen and a decent suit: am I supposed to enjoy sitting with unkempt young men round tables sticky with absinthe, discussing anarchism? In brief: there was no specific social circle to which I obviously belonged, and such acquaintanceships as I happened in one way or another to make were few and far between, superficial and uncordial – this, I admit, was my own fault, for in these cases too I behaved with different reserve, disagreeably conscious of the fact that I was able to tell even a down-at-heel painter, in brief clear words that would command his respect, who and what I actually was.

I had, of course, severed my ties with ‘society’ and renounced it, as soon as I had taken the liberty of going my own way instead of somehow making myself useful to it. Had I needed ‘other people’ in order to be happy? If so, then I was bound to ask myself whether I should not now have been busy enriching myself as a fairly successful entrepreneur, who would at the same time be serving the community and earning its envy and esteem.

Whereas – whereas! The fact remained that I was finding my philosophic isolation excessively vexing, and in the last resort quite inconsistent with my conception of ‘happiness’ – with my consciousness, my conviction, that I was happy. And that this conviction should be shaken was, of course, beyond any shadow of doubt quite out of the question. Not to be happy – to be unhappy – why, was this even thinkable? It was unthinkable. Thus I decided, and thus I disposed of the question – until the mood returned and I felt again that there was something wrong, something very far wrong, about my self-isolation, my retired seclusion, my outsider’s life. And this thought put me most shockingly out of humour.

Is one ‘out of humour’ if one is happy? I remembered my earlier life in my native town, that restricted society in which I had moved, full of the gratifying consciousness of my artistic gifts and genius – sociable, charming, my eyes sparkling with high-spirited mockery and an air of benevolent superiority to everyone; people had thought me rather odd, but I had nevertheless been popular. I had been happy then, in spite of having to work in Herr Schlievogt’s big timber firm. And what was I now?

But after all, an absolutely fascinating book has just been published, a new French novel which I have decided I can afford to buy and which I shall have the leisure to enjoy, sitting comfortably in my armchair. Another three hundred pages, full of taste, blague and exquisite artistry! Come now, I have arranged my life the way I wanted it! Can I possibly not be happy? The question is ridiculous. The question is utterly absurd."

Premise

It shall concern a man and his house. A house, which runs deep underground. Some of it is antiseptic, clean and white and pure in its glossy tiled walls.

Some of it has big windows. Like big eyes. But these eyes do not look out. Light enters, but apologetically at best. And the corners they hesitantly grace contain no shadows anyway. That’s for the underground house. Upstairs, its all hunky-dory.

The ceilings are high, for the most part. At least, upstairs. The man who made them had lofty goals, but went about his work hurriedly, impatient to get it done and get out.

Music might float across the halls. In tune with your footstep, if you were lucky. Or the rhythm might ignore you, rendering your every step jarring and discordant.

Who lives in this house of hope and dream? With walls of fairy-dust floating freely over white, vinyl floor? Our protagonist (lets call him “01” for now) is a writer. No, not a writer. He is an inventor. A creator of. . .constructions (curiosities? Amusements? Petty thrills?) and abject slave to whim. He has built himself a house. In this house, he resides and works.

No, he hasn’t built his house. He’s borrowed it, piece-by-piece, from the minds of other men. It should have been “stolen”, rather than “borrowed”, had he the stomach to admit it.

Anyway, we’ll break him down more later. He’s not alone in his house. He can’t afford its upkeep. He needs to bring people in so that he might afford to change things about once in a while. He needs people for stimulation. But that doesn’t mean he likes it. Or them.

He has one boarder. The boarder is friendly, but the protagonist doesn’t like him. He’s hostile to this alien. And for good reason. The outsider is. . .stupid!

01 resents the intrusion the outsider makes on his life. More importantly, he resents the new stain on his environment. But he also knows that he desperately needs the outsider. More than the outsider suspects. He needs him as a psychological foil.

But, superficially at least, the two of them get along really fucking well. Like a house on fire. *snigger*

There are a couple of other odd people around who pop up from time to time. Almost like ghosts. Often they’re just bits and pieces of people. An arm here and a leg there. Whatever it may be. Traces of memory. Shades of the past. Glimpses of a vague future. Vague glimpses of any future at all.

Anyway, 01 is at work. He’s working on something. What shall it be?

Yes, what indeed?

He’s working on something, but he’s also looking for something. What?

It should have something to do with his house. He is his house.

Lets tell this story through the eyes of the outsider. Or maybe, I can alternate the first-person between the two. That should be fun. Shifting perspectives on the same thing.

What does one do? What does one do when one is simultaneously the inhabitant and the inhabited? How do you translate a being into space and form?

- Ud

love was made for me and you...

i quit my job at kala ghoda!
i now have a new problem.
my tolerance for people (as a species) has reduced to a bare minimum.

--

azermi says: tell me all going well. Kal ghoda and applications

too many questions says: no i quit that. applications well

azermi says: anything new visions

too many questions says: no just some interesting things to do research on.
1. runners becoming faster (need to look up stats and analyse and fuck) and then relate with factors like better shoes, etc etc, etc
2. there are no odd legged animals
want to know if there are odd legeed robots
if there aren't, there should be
and they should move in a circular motion

azermi says: that amy have to do wiht gravity and balance

too many questions says: not balance, a three legged stool balaces quite well

azermi says: but in terms of movemnt

too many questions says: co-ordination, i'm thinking!

azermi says: yes during movemnt. ye sye.

too many questions says: like say a dog which loses a leg, it still balances itself

azermi says: i used thewrong fucking word not balance ' but coordiantion nad hte redundancy of it

too many questions says: and i also have my doubts to how eveolved this two legged thing is in terms of movements

azermi says: if it can be achieved just as well with two why three

too many questions says: (not three -- but a quadraped -- most of the mammals) because it's much less tiring, and more speed and fuck. so, it's like an inverse equation

azermi says: but we were talking abt odd numbers

too many questions says: as the mind evolves, the body gets more handiapped in some sense but with the development of our hands, that too can be questioned

azermi says: as the mind evolves, the body gets more handiapped ? explain tht

too many questions says: in terms of speed. man (for his size) is one of the slowest animals, but the smartest. correct?

azermi says: correct

too many questions says: it's all a trick, because, with his brains, he's built cars, cycles, concordes, to out beat any animal

azermi says: but j there might be more psyiological differences to which that can be attributed

too many questions says: i'm just rambling. u know that no? i haven't reached any conclusion or qritten anything down. was just thinking in idleness

azermi says: well i'm glad yr mind is preganant with thoughts. i rarely haev that privilage

too many questions says: i think i solved my own debate. i don't like the whole idea of man being the most intelligent creature (by mans standards of course)

great-ings

today rayo and sonal came to entertain me in my chowki/site office for a couple of hours.
it was good fun. but i lost all the games.
we then went for the tyger tyger exhib at ncpa. i liked this one snap. and there was this adorable kid sitting on the ground drawing. fuck, he was sweet.

another great hightlight is the cop who eats lunch at the chowki - he is just too cool. he's a plain clothes policeman and keeps me informed with the most scare-e 'chori' ka 'stori'-es.
(i'm a little stoned).

he also told me that the chowki/site office was actually a mourge. many years ago. when the british ruled.
and this other random man came in and asked me a hazaar questions to why this area is called kala ghoda and offered to get me a picture of the actual 'kala ghoda' which used to stand in the now parking lot hundreds of years ago and stuffs. sweet old man.

in the night i went and met jayati and natalie (from luxemburg - nice chic) and hamid and karan and nachi after quite some broken dates. nachis hair is lovely. so i made him 4 braids.

can you type?

who would have ever known that the same chocies that i've made would render me so helpless and defeated.

most_people

i've never heard someone scream as much as i heard my temp_boss scream today!
nevertheless, kalaghoda is wonderful.

came across him (eecummings) today and thought i'd share.

--

The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople - it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootof - minusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.

Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous super-palazzo, and dumped into an incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesireable organism. Mostpeople fancy a garanteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born twice they'd improbably call it dying - you and i are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings; for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of growing: the mystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. you and i wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life, for eternal us, is now; and now is much too busy being a little more than everything to seem anything, catastrophic included.

Life, for mostpeople, simply isn't. Take the socalled standardofliving. What do mostpeople mean by "living"? They don't mean living. They mean the latest and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal passivity which science, in its finite but unbounded wisdom, has suc-ceeded in selling their wives. If science could fail, a mountain's a mammal. Mostpeople's wives can spot a genuine delusion of embryonic omni-potence immediately and will accept no subsitutes. - luckily for us, a mountain is a mammal....

--

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-;ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

---

if i love You
(thickness means
worlds inhabited by roamingly
stern bright faeries

if you love
me) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable gnomes
Of complete dream

if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our breathing

valid truthful information

sometimes, i too see the body as a mere object, a means to facilitate movement, a means to prolong a name.
i've taken 14 long leaps in the past 24 hours, and my head has shrunk. even though he is a nice_caring_guy, i fail to feel more than the feelings of a curious child. on the other hand the night was like nothing i've ever known. i'm glad i leaped.

i start working for the kalaghoda association tomorrow.

life keeps brining me back to you

it seems like i'm waiting for some sort of a miracle.

what if one day your just sitting around at home
and there's this fire
and you watch your house burn down
all your belongings
all your possessions
all your memories
reduced to ash
what would that mean to you?

well, it seems like it would mean nothing to me.
should it?

imagine

wow. last night was great. great great great closing of the WSF.
it started off by 5 with some folk performances from pakistan, then shubha mudgal and koshish sang, then some speeches, then music by gilberto gil, brazil, then an african ensemble, and the closing by indian ocean!
i danced my bloody ass off. the last three acts were truly rejuvinating.

rohini also enlightened me to what globalization was about, and in what respect is everyone against it.
from what i understood, the majority of the people at the wsf aren't extremists in favour of closed markets, or any shit like that
but what they are after is non-exploitation of labour and resources of developing countries.
so, i finally saw the cause.

missile red

WAGE PEACE

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and
flocks of redwing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and
freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening; hearing sirens,
pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.
swim for the other side.

Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Don't wait another minute.

- Mary Oliver

mail to cora

well, in december i decided to finally let go of nashpaul
as i am obscenely obsessive compulsive disorderly about him
i just don't like myself when i'm around him
and i put the guy through hell
so, after an unsucessful 'good breakup'
i decided to orchestrate a 'bad breakup'
it worked out great, 'cause unless there is some sort of hatred
it wouldn't have worked
so, hatred has come about
and the way see it,
we'll meet in goa when we're 50, when you're around, and cook fish in his house!!
ha ha ... (i just hope i haven't completely pushed him to the other side, for him to be a bitter fifty year old jazz junkie)
so, i do miss him and all, but i definitely don't want to keep in touch with him anymore.
there are two sad things. a. i said a lot of rotten stuff i didn't mean at all. b. nash is someone i considered my own, like you, rucha, anchit, chitz and rishi.

as far as anup is concerned, i haven't given him much thought
he's just a one-nighter
i told you i could never have one of those, well i was wrong!
yay!

please call me up soon, cause i have no money to call you. i'm jobless now! it's doing wonders for my weight. ha ha. it feels like forever since you've been gone. i know it's just been a couple of months, but it feels like forever.

so, tell me more about marcus. does he tell you to talk slower? ha ha. but you talk slowly anyway. meticulous cora.

i've decided to get back in touch with the world. simple stuff like email people more often. somehow, as i grow older, the more i seem to want to know the people i knew when i was younger. it's from a song. ha ha.

there is soo much in my head right now. it's getting increasing difficult to sort out.

shailee left today. so i spent the day with her. i got a lot of new hindi music. stop with the faces. i miss hindi music. especailly with the whole wedding season. it's infectious.

tom will be a nice day. lots of stuff happening at the closing ceremony of the wsf. like shubha mudgal, some braizilians doing some stuff, some africans doing some stuff, and indian ocean is closing. will probably go and set camp real early as i missed the opening.

so, now i'll go fill my stomach with some foods stuffs.
visit change on blackmilk, some of the wsf snaps.

always,
j

superfast

i bumped into nash today at the WSF and it was awful
atleast now i know that we aren't being polite if we ever bump into each other
fucking weird

but anup is a great distraction, albeit a short term distraction
he's leaving bombay for good on the 31st
so...it's one of those

art in resistance, resistance in art

yesterday at the wsf (world social forum) was a very pretty day.
saw some nice street plays and the art exhib almost made me cry
we also saw a group of warli ppl doing the tarpa and i got damn excited
that was the dance the tribals taught us at rural camp
nostalgia all the way
anup also came by for a while, and he and rucha took my bum a bit (about my hindi)
then we also met monica, she was handling a stall selling clothes that the mothers of our raigad kids stitched
she said the kids are doing real good
so we bought a really pretty skirt
all in all the day was very satisfying!

the devil is in the details

i went for an interview today
and broke a glass
no really
while my interview was on
my hand knocked this glass over
and it shattered into a gazillion pieces
i'm sure i'm not getting the job

ha ha ha ha ha
damn that thirst

stand by me

well either i've completely lost it, or ...
anyway, so alex moved into his hotel room in the renaissance
and i went and met up with him there
really pretty room, fantastic view of the lake
either way, we bummed about a bit then proceeded to the nesco grounds at goregaon
got virtually no work done there and then proceeded to hiranandani
anup met us there ... this was around 7:15
and we hung in this place called aura where we had three phillipinos seranading us and a lot to drink
so as the evening progressed we danced a bit and chatted a lot and jaya here ends up making out with anup
for i virtually don't know what reason, except that it was new
either way, i don't know what to think, so i just won't
even though i have this disgusting need to scrutinize everything
i'll just listen to my body_shot_naked_sleeper buddy

alexander from macedonia

i had the most rocker day
so after my successful day at college and time spent with nisha
i got picked up by alex from macedonia!
not really, it was fun saying that
he was one of those guys dancing at jazz the other night (the hen party one)
the world social forum is happening in bombay this yr, so there are all the firangies who've come down
so i was wallking by jehhangir and bumped into him
so then we to mondes for a coffee
then we went to strand for a couple of beers
then we went to koyla for a sheesha
then his friend who he was staying with came and met us at koyla (indian guy, from bangalore working in bombay - anup, very pleasurable meeting him)
then we went to leos for more beer
then somewhere in the middle my dad called and said where the fuck are u, u left home at 10 in the morning saying yr going to college
then i came home..
cool na! i'm too amused by the evening
so anyway, we're going to film city tom. and i hope anup comes too.

hennish

hey hey hey
i had one of the most wonderful nights last night
these hen parties rock!

blisskiss

elastic reality

i've grown to really like udayan. really really like him. he couldn't be more perfect for ru.
we went to strand after the longest time and guess what? they now have music there.
these biglittle speakers and all, playing walk of life and other such musics.
fuck, i was too excited about it.

i also saw the last samurai. i really liked the movie. sort of makes me doubt my peace_loving_nature.
there was something glorious about their way of war.
i also throughly enjoyed kill_bill, so maybe i just have developed the stomach for gore.
i want to read more about different cultures. it's interesting stuff.

on the personal front. i realised that almost all the assumptions i make are wrong. which is really fuck all, because in someway it has just shattered my way of life. i'm the people_getter. well, not anymore.

also, those damn hallucinations have stopped. in bangalore i had a bad case of it, but it was probably all the alcohol. i still hear music though. that can never be bad.

o ya, the wedding is over. it was a nice wedding. even ru came for it, and my dad insisted on pretending she was niki. ha ha. poor ru.

Callus Bastards

It is strange, isn’t it?
That a man should have a consuming passion
To do something for which he lacks the capacity !
T. S. Eliot

bang bang bang bang, bangalore meri hai!

yay! it's a new year, new beginning, new dreams, new fucks, new new new.
shiny happy people holding hands.
everyone i've met in bangalore is a rocker!

wow, i've had more alcohol pumped into my system in this past week than the last six fucking months in bombay.
i like these quasi inebriated states.

i don't want to move to bangalore. that's certain.
i still really want to move out of home. that's certain.
maybe malad would be a good try.
i decided that there are some poeple who are just made for me
some are in my heart and some are in my soul.
one of those you can run but you can't hide thingis.

bangalore is nice though, not as quiet as i expected it to be.
i figure if i want a big enough change i should be looking at pondicherry or himachal pradesh or kerala, but not some imitation city.

so, how am i?
i really don't know. i just about reached back.
and for some reason started crying.
and have been crying since.
no reason.