And the World Begins, again!

The old man stood in front of me and told me college is not good for such minds as mine. Another bearded old man said college is going to be a compulsory part of my life, inevitable and necessary. I chose to listen to the bearded man, as I have for the past 19 years and I needn't change that now. 

Fourth Semester paints a new red mark on the college board, and quietly managed to enlighten me about the process. As an institution, anything from family to college could get dysfunctional at all points of time. But, one has to surely understand, at least after an age, that they are an equal functional unit responsible for the balance of the institutional processes. Imagine an ecosystem, and draw an intricate web of the all the species, then you will know every system is purely the same. Every unit is functional and responsible, though some may be replaceable. 

Here is why I have suddenly found some interest in writing proactively about college. This is because, this semester is filled with two of my favourite words in English language: diverse and random. History of India - III (Freedom Movement: 1758 to 1947) has a brilliant Professor handling the paper. First of all, one of the few Professors with a great command over English, moreover, he is a person who demands you to read and work. He walked into our class on the first day and has been delivering wonderful lectures on Periodization of History and Developing Trends in India during the 18th Century. This is why I am in college. 

Introduction to Archaeology and Museology is good fun, because I never really expected to be learning this. A nice professor, and new things to learn. This is quite exciting to look forward to. And then, I continue with Elements of Sociology, and I quite enjoy writing that paper. For one, I score well, and two, it has some interesting reading material to go with the topics. 

Now, probably, the best of all, and a paper I never expected to be studying is Music and Literature. It has been great fun sitting in that room that smells like a studio (which always proves to be nostalgic and pleasant). Studying Musicology is really good fun, and he relates it to English and Tamil literature. Today, he was talking to us about Music as an Art form, and then as a temporal Art form. This course really inspires me to put on the sruthi box and practice in the evenings. He concluded by saying that Sound and Time are the two bodily elements of Music, that define and create it. 

The only sad news, I am yet to get over, is that this is the last semester of General English. I really love studying English Litt and there goes my last chance of doing it in college. It has been good so far, and I only hope this is one of the best semesters in that regard. The Merchant of Venice and a Nick Adams story, are some of the things I am really looking forward to delving my head in. However, we've also made some changes in class patterns and I might end up doing a lot of Tamil translation this semester. 

Side by side, Chai Kadai is going really great for me. I have found some brilliant people to write for it and if you are reading this, and have a story for it, please do email it to us at chaikadai@gmail.com True, true, I am putting out the Chai Kadai label wherever I can, and I have figured that is probably the best way to get people to speak: Tell them, they can! 

Otherwise, I have been experimenting with a little bit of writing here and there. I hope to finish NanoWriMo somehow. As usual, I have an assignment in head and that is why a blog post is flowing so easily. I have refilled my Rotring pen and hope to see some of the ink flowing on to paper somehow. I am no longer interested in creating art as such, I am only interested in creating myself and for that I am going to let a lot of things flow. 

Academically, this Semester sees a small bit of pride for me in the hidden pockets. My French teacher called some of us and told us there are some students in Sacred Hearts Matriculation, Shozhinganallur, who need French classes. She thinks, we will be able to handle it. I will be going over there, tomorrow. Let's see how that goes. 

Overall, a good set of months that have started well. I hope to save up a bit and travel this December. Whatever works and whatever doesn't, this year I am going to have my best Christmas and New Year, for I've been deserving one for a very long time. 

Goo goo night ! :)

Bombay Days.

Every time I hear your voice in my head I cannot wait to write you down. It seems like ages since I've put pen on paper or fingers on keys. Somehow all of this does not matter, because in some weird way all my sense fly away and all the words are written down....I have a dream...a voice...I'm hanging on to something I know nothing off...It really doesn't matter what I think and do, it's what I feel and do that matters. To do I need no thought. 20.10.2008 I am not searching for a living. I am looking for a medium of 'search'. Who cares if I do not become "professionally" able in everything I try. If the point of being is to make a fool oneself. Then it shall be done with no sarcasm and cynicism. What is the whole damn point??? 20.10.2008 Watching out of the train at the expanse of the sea we were travelling on: Like a million people standing very close to each other, between the cities stands a smog dome. It's suffocating not able to see a horizon. But...20.10.2008 I am always getting ready to explain why or what I did...I always have a fabricated excuse....the point is to create what I want and how I want it. It's the point of putting pen on paper and leaving the words and lines to flow. 21.10.2008 'The world keeps happening.' The only sentence apt to describe this city. It's an absolutely alive place that has managed to scare me and yet make it seem like a home. :) 21.10.2008 I'm only as free as I feel. I am only what I feel. 21.10.2008 It's always him-me, she-me, hers-mine, his-mine, theirs-mine, Them-Me...Comparison!!! Language is starting to sicken me. It limits one expression to a certain set of words. Bluh blaaah bloooh! 22.10.2008 It really hurts till the center of my tummy that I made of no talent or beauty at all. 24.10.2008 The train should not stop. Home? I am confused. A complete part of me has been left within four wall of pink in a completely different city. No.. I am not going home! If the train never stops, I will never know where I'm going and will never be force to end or begin. But wishes are merely wishes, because if they weren't I would have got off the train, because one must do what they have to do most of the times. 27.10.2008

The life of mysteries and the answers it hides in a basket of all-nighers:

It is two hours past midnight and I am no where close to "done" with these assignments. In four hours I have to wrap all this up and get ready for that new day, and nowadays because of the closed window next to my seat in the bus and the headset that booms the radio into my ears I feel insanely sane. Happy and calm. I am watching Alex and Emma on Zee Studio and I amd esperately trying to understand what this midnight means. I am out of my harem pants that were getting too tight around the ankles and have slipped myself into a beautiful pink tie-and-dye sarong. This was initially stitched to be my sister's blanket, but ended up being a multi-role playing beautiful piece of cloth. Everything keeps changing! Somehow, in this strange hour as these thoughts keep running through my head I feel this in-depth feeling to be honest with one and all. The goal of life here is not salvation, but to attain a simplicity in handling the day-to-day life and the days to come. So, the truth... My therapist (hmm...I don't know if I can call him that. I went to his center for three days, got diagnosed and well that's it) called me yesterday. He let me know that taking medication is a very important part of dealing with illness and health. This has been a debate of science and medicine in general. When did this whole trend of psychiatric medication crop up? What about Einstein? Are you going to start calling him a lunatic too? I know, I know..he is not calling me a lunatic, neither am I calling myself one. No one is a lunatic, everyone ends up having a history and a reason to do something, which might be treacherous or wonderful. It is in the talent of the individual to understand what is going on. Yes..yes..what about these people simply out of their minds..like probably, Hitler. Here is my point. As long as I am not harming anyone and I am not harming myself, everything is fine. It is this definition of normalcy that really deserves a debate. For one I do not understand the word. In which culture, in which history, is what normal? I do not condemn psychotherapy itself. If so, I would not be reading hell of a lot of psychology text books and books by psychotherapists. Believe me, for one, I would not speak about something I do not like knowing about. In that sense, the visit to the therapist, and knowing what the dance of my neurotic chemicals could be classified into, is a boon, because it is a just step closer to understanding psychology and psycho-therapy as a whole. So, it has been fun so far. Yes..that too. The crying has happened, but so has the laughing about the situation. It's a realisation process that is happening here. I am talking to myself and making myself write this on a public forum. Ever since I got to know what my "psychological" condition could be, I have had many questions about what I should do with myself, but I just realised that there are so many people out there with similar mood cycles and...(wait Alex and Emma just kissed. Where is this movie going? Why do I like it so much?)..distractions, and well..."disorders". And they don't even know it. Come on and they are living extremely "normal" lives. And here I seem to have understood what this whole "normal" concept means. They are living "their" lives, free from some kind of tabulation and labelling. What difference is that I know it? I know it and that's all. It's like what life has in store of you, at least a part of it. I feel happy and calm. This is the best midnight and al-nighter ever. Things love to change! Back to work. Goodnight.

Some Corny Diary Piece

I am STUBBORN. There have been a 100 times in my life when I’ve started writing wanting the best story to turn out of it. I keep hearing it being read in another’s voice; the glamour, the fluidity and the lucid body of that voice. It feels succulent in my palms, because in that voice I feel and hear the path I shall lead. As a writer I have been born here as a slave – the freest slave the world has ever created. In my stubborn existence, all I have ever wanted is a struggle; a struggle different from my parents. I travel on these buses – yellow, blue, and green. I think till my brain, those convolutions Shantanu always referred to, burns. No wonder every love of my life finds out one interesting thing in me – You think too much! But somehow in this much thought-out existence, I have constantly missed two things. Those two things that just held in their tiny hands a massive key that has opened the door to the most beautiful black hole one could have ever heard of. One, I am struggling now. All this while I have fooled myself to believe is that I have been waiting for my struggle. “I am in a waiting phase.” No Sam, snap out of it, now! It’s a struggling phase. Your struggle is not to run away from your parents, but to turn around and learn to live with them. That is your only way to be yourself. These are the loins, hearts, and sweat you sprang from. Whatever you create, they have the credit too. Give it to them. It is not straining oneself to be different that works, but it is the point of brewing and realizing that we are essentially different. You are their lucid and succulent voice. And what you may create might be for such a voice. But, two, understand it is yet again your voice that has to speak it first. It is fun to release your stagnation and understand that the river will flow, but will stay in a place when you dam it.

Written on 24.09.2008

The Red-Gown Bald Master and His Monkies

The trees were singing to an old rainy tune, and the Zen monks were chanting their prayers. The scene settled and some students started to follow the master, a small round and bald man. He always wore red, in this land of nowhere and nothing. This master was the one who always asked the questions, which celestially bothered their primate origins. But here civilization did not matter, because in civilizations no one is brave enough to ask a question. He plucked two red shoe-flowers and planted it on his ear. “If the body rules all will the monkey take over?” One disciple answers: “Correct your grammar and then find me a monkey.” He does not believe in a civilization on these blue-ridged mountains, but keeps peace with all beings, believes in oneness with the webbed skies and underworld snakes. The master turned around and watched these creatures and just had more to ask! Written on 11.04.2008 Edited on 24.08.2008

Window Seat

The rainy afternoon was just coming to an end. I was still in the yellow colour bus, which was jumping up and down in the road. I could hear frogs, or toads, I do not know. But, I heard a voice in the squeaky wheels of the bus. Just then, my friend, Ego called me. My phone vibrated and churned in my bag, and I desperately fished it out of the mess. Ego is a he. He has always been a he. I keep changing choices, wanting to be a she and then a he and then a spider, but nothing changes. He spoke some gibberish about a debate on Wednesday afternoon. We were always pitted against each other in debate and speech classes. However, we often won both ways by playing our favourite game: Parasite and Host. Ego has always been my first love, because I was born with him. No, he is not a sibling. This would make us extremely incestuous. He is my lover. A lover who sits on tree tops and heckles at me, when I sit on the porch with a ligament torn in my right ankle. I’d quietly watch his blue eyes, burning with victorious laughter. Once, he noticed me. His eyes blinded with tears and he cuddled into my palm. He slept there for hours, cherishing dusk, clouds, stars, and night. I slept with him. We all own a kind of him. His species is peculiar, unique and mine. Soon, he squiggled awake and started his morning run. Faster than ever, it hurt my thighs and arms. I tried to hold him back, and then all of a sudden he sprouted wings. He attempted to fly out of my hand. These ferocious wings have only hit me when he has needed, wanted, and yearned love: the kind he got from Pride. The phone started to hurt my neck. Only if he knew that I loved him. I was hoping too much. His gibberish continued and joined the squeaky wheel-voice, the pitter-patter, the croaking and that queer swiveling spring in my head, which was spacing out.

rajasthan village woman who fed me dinner - bhajra rotis

I found this woman in the sky, the land of the stars, where the milky way was mine and hers! A secret revealed at 5.30 a.m. Is a secret of Suns and Moons and Flowers new?

Moon Songs

Midnight pen and paper love stories have been on a long humid vacation. Tonight, it's raining. I will write. The spiral in my head wants a rest, but it keeps on spinning, singing to the vanishing eye. My heart is palpitating like the pushing and pulling of tides in a vast ocean. The dim bulb is flickering, and humming: when what I cherish dies, love alone stays. For the miles we are apart and the trains that drag us closer to each other, there is a song. The moon usually sings it to us when we take a break from the road and sleep on the shore of our tides. The beat bellows into our deaf ears. Tonight, I am learning to listen to my tides, and the spiral in my head. I am learning to restart a childhood and eat mangoes in the middle of a night. I am learning to climb and fall off bunk-beds. I am feeling alive. I am breathing. I can hear the purple sky dance with the moon and the dark green mango leaves. I can sleep and snore. I can sigh. I can love. Lovely!

A man flying in his dreams....sleeps

click on it to see in original size!

the mindless creatures climb the trees and fade away with lead lines...

Popped

I have got this sudden fascination for this world of Pop Art. I have been reading bits and pieces on how it originated. The term first appeared in Britain, in the 1950s. It encompasses much of the twentieth century art. Let's see what I get doing in the next few days. Blaaaah.

Reminder!

Once a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name ho! B. I. N. G. O B. I. N. G. O. B. I. N. G. O. and Bingo was his name ho! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, you face will surely show it! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

ஒரே ஒரு ஊரிலே ஒரே ஒரு ராஜா அந்த ஒரே ஒரு ராஜாவிற்கு ஒரே ஒரு ராணி

suddenly, my head was filled with nursery rhymes and I started to check my planner. I have to study for a Philosophy examination. This happens to excite me in many ways. Fully engrossed in a random book, drawing and sticking papers in some notebook, I fail to think that I have to sit and learn some definitions. So, what is philosophy?

the pages keep growing

Thoughts while watching Taare Zameen Par

When the world is make-believe, the action is real. Does fame and recognition cure everyone? Does recluse deserve maturity?

Lookers, Watchers, and Lovers of this Elf

A looker, a watcher, a lover, are you?

I see you perched on the same trees,

every day and night.

Sometimes you climb down to hold me,

tight in your arms, like you -

you would never let me go.

That's when I swirl you off my arms,

I let you slip through the winds,

I watch you disappear.

Am I a looker, a watcher or a lover?

Many old voices ask this elf.

I sink in my pleasures, can

but only smile.

Flowing hair, calculated walks,

I know this world,

as it knows me true.

Are we lookers, watchers, or lovers?

Those who live true,

who breathe,

are we?

*work in progress or shall be abandoned in this state.

Pages fly

As I stare at a computer screen now, I feel heavy. My head is throbbing, not with pain, but with some strange set of thoughts. I am hearing words, but not too much sense. I put my luck at stake, to understand the world of letter. Pincodes and postal officers have created hell of a lot of confusion killing my enthusiasm in this whole venture. So, I have decided to be persistent, to live against this cold blooded murder. I read of a nurse tending to a burnt patient, wandering in her solitude. I feel new. I feel old. I feel me. I know I desperately want certain things. If you cut open my head, you will see an iron mesh, dark and hard sealing my brain, my flesh, my blood, the nymph. The nymph of the blue world. The world of the blackbirds. Fly. An obsession. Cameras click, studios build. I am sleeping in a corner, at a recording studio. People speaking, dubbing, acting, morphing scenes. Living truly. The air-conditioned hall is causing a chill to crawl down my back. I am wrapped in a blanket on cushions, the child of the sets. A child brought up in these wrapped blankets, crowded nights, and ancient rooms, next to a cardboard box. Today, I'm home. The air-conditioner is on. I'll be wrapped, in some blanket, in some corner. The pages of a book are flying. My pens are rolling in the wind. The curtains fly with my dream clouds. A floating spring. I think. I dream. I am. I am curled up, next to a cardboard box.

Watching

Blue trees blow in the wind, We don't ask them why. Paths may lead to nothing, but old golden fields of rye. Solitude of a painted cloud, like seers sing for a sky. Raindrops fall into vision, watching a dead star die.

A glass.

Silver plates clanking, we all sit in rows, today and day after, just to be served, forever! The crows tear the curtains, Flying in - angels of the Sun. Think further than the glass, it shows you to us and me - Opposite of you and same. Caught in the films of sand, polished and blameless - a wish far from true. Run away, break the mirror, Destroy and forget to live.

Delusionary Senses

The drum sounds of a marriage procession run through my ears, into one and out of the other. Pencil stands remind me times to sketch...bald men, or Greek heroes. Materialistic pleasures ooze out my eyes and I can think of my worldly possessions just making me smile. The books, the people, the bags, the phones, the computers, and well even my medicines...everything that physically exists - an illusion!

Midnight Post

Why are the skies blue if the green sea is white today? Midnight materials: orange pen, computer, cell phone switched off, philips night bulb, milk with tumeric powder, phone charger, parent's cigarette lighter, dictionary of khazars, thick quilt, several pillows, History of South India, cherry drops sweets Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn! Logs off.