Come on in, it's Kool inside

Sometimes the past is better dead

2011-03-26T05:14:00.003+05:00

I went and read some old things. Blog posts. Term papers. Emails. And then older emails. I wasn't just dumb. I was really, really dumb. I'd laugh but I'm mortified. The only consolation is that it got a little better over the years.

2011-03-26T02:33:00.002+05:00

I'm guilt tripping myself again. That's a statement, not a confession, you idiot. I'd like to keep the facts in front of me and try and make sense of them together (pssst: they won't). It's like a little ball of wool that's tangled far too much to ever be fully untied. But the little knots aren't that obvious on my new sweater, are they? We could hide one of them on the side, and, really, who looks at the back of sweaters anyway? A few hundred knots could be hidden here and there. But enough with the metaphors. It doesn't all make sense together because it can't. Not with all the switching, the back and forth from the words to the numbers to the outrageous. It's not consistent. I know this. It's no victory when all you can establish are symptoms, but then, you already know that there is *drumroll please* no cure.

I'm going to sit down and make a list of victories. I can hardly believe they ever happened, but listing failures ended in failure too. How ironic. Yawn.

(You don't get it. What I remember are the old, old things. They don't matter. Or do I remember them because of "it" too? I can smile at them indulgently. And, you know, forget about you sometimes. So we're ok. This isn't worth switching posts or blogs, is it?)

What I'm really afraid of isn't that there is no way back. That much is clear. I'm just worried about what it's going to be like. Fuck fuck fuck. I'm much more screwed than I thought. Maybe I'll just stick to the list of failures.

2011-03-12T11:17:00.001+05:00

If these are the rules, this is not a life I want to live. Screw this.

Just waiting 'til the shine wears off

2011-02-28T01:54:00.002+05:00

What's the price you're willing to pay for happiness? Does it matter when? I'm at the last stage according to the Wikipedia entry. Except the Wikipedia entry calls it severe. It's just splitting hairs, anyway. But what does it mean? What does really believing it have to do with anything, except that this is the stubborn stolidity of the other kind, the kind that refuses to budge, the kind that's really hard to overcome.

How would you react if I told you you've wasted the last 10 years of your life? Well, not wasted, but they were a waste either way. All lies. The first fear? Lies. The follow-ups? Lies. The whispers? Lies too. The hours and hours you wasted keeping the fear in check? Yes, those too. And the years I skipped in the middle of those? The ones I can't remember because, well, there aren't any markers I've left and it's too late now. They're wasted, too. Somewhere, some part of me is thinking that there are pins in my head pushing down on some part of my brain causing this, but that would just be the effect, not the cause. Something triggered it. And I know I'd like to take it all back. Never have believed it in the first place. But I don't know the trigger, and so I must be at fault.

How do you make peace with the fact that everything good that you ever thought would happen to you has already happened? Am I willing to pay for those good times, times I didn't realize were that good, by living out the rest of my life dutifully? Were they even that good in the first place? It's deadening, thinking that. People say the birth of your first child takes your breath away. But I can't look that far in the future. I need a small sign, something to tell me there are small things coming up that can make me smile.

I did get lost. This is more than just the disease.

What is your

2011-01-16T03:18:00.002+05:00

Some things you just instinctively know. Favourite band? Radiohead. Favourite author? Coetzee. And sometimes you lose sight of things, and forget the why but not the what.

It's fun to remember the why. And now it's time to shake up the place. Is there even a point to all this?

There Is No Spoon

2010-01-28T03:56:00.001+05:00

Victims, aren't we all?

Bashing yourself is so last week. And so fourth grade. I keep trying to learn to be part of the solution and I keep forgetting. (So much easier, not to). Writing a tell-all diary would be exhausting. I guess that's why they get ghost-writers.

The Sequel

2009-03-03T00:20:00.003+05:00

I have set out to ruin everything. At least, I've set out to set out to ruin everything. Most of it has fallen apart anyhow. One way or the other, it'll all be gone. The only question is, what is it going to be like afterwards?

On Home

2006-01-13T01:20:00.000+05:00

A few months ago, I was sitting on one of the small stools in the kitchen, the ones that make you feel like a little child again, waiting for the water to boil. I was making tea for my dad and thought how cool a feeling that was, to be home again, doing home-things in a warm kitchen where everything was as familiar as it was leisurely. But later, in a different city, in a place just called home, a place that I have to remember by numbers - fourth right turn, third house on the left - a place I have to recognize by signboards and which I sometimes pass over in the dark because I miss the gate, a place where almost-strangers let you in when you ring the bell; I waited the same wait, standing and waiting for the water in a newer pateeli. It wasn't warm at all; it was just a cheerless, empty, disconsolate feeling. It made me feel low to even think of another place as home. Eating in alien plates, drinking in alien glasses. I never learnt to memorize the house number or the telephone number because it just didn't feel like home.

I drank Cherry Coke today and it tasted the same as regular coke, but the aftertaste was cherry-like. That might have been the most symbolic thing that's happened to me in weeks.

decaf

2005-12-31T11:55:00.000+05:00

one year, two years, another year?

2005-12-26T00:24:00.000+05:00

The Law school just started, and they're making a new school of Physics and Engineering and what not. They're having such a difficult time trying to fit 3000 people in here that they've overlooked the most fundamental issue: the bloody name of the university!

Pokerface (staring at the logo on the cover of her Contemporary Philosophy pack): Why is it still called the Lahore University of Management Sciences? They're going to have, what, Physics, and Chemistry, and (quizzical look) Biology?

Decaf (shaking head): No, not biology. But yeah, all those other things.

Pokerface: Well, where's management in that?

Decaf: There isn't.

PF: Well, what're they going to call it? LUS? Lahore University of Sciences? LUDS? Lahore University of Different Sciences?

Decaf just sits there thinking while PF goes through LUAS (Lahore University of All kinds of Sciences), trying to save good ol' LUMS with (the ingenious) Lahore University of Many Sciences, or even . . . . . .

(random snatch of conversation overheard in the middle)

Act I, Scene I: Near empty lab 1 with six, maybe 7 people.

Phone rings. (ring, ring!) Wait, actually it went "Kajra re, kajra re!" in full polyphonic grandeur. The marvels we have now!

Girl: What's your problem?
Girl: (louder): What's your problem?

(some simpering mixed with static. What I wouldn't give to have heard that answer :) )

Girl (again!): I'm in the lab, where else? For the last (looks at PC clock) 32 + 5 . . . (long pause) . . 37 minutes!

Girl puts down phone.

PF and Decaf laugh like crazy.

(and now, back to saving LUMS!)

. . . . . . ..

Act I, Scene III. This is an existential play. It never had a scene II. Good ol' Hima, she was funny, I'll give you that.

Decaf: How about . . . how about . . . Lahore University of Management and Pure Sciences?

PF stares at me for a second. Then we both burst out laughing. LUMPS.

LUMPS! Bachon ko batayain gey, beta, we studied in lumps. One year, then two years, then another year.

Man, I had a similar conversation in freshie year with Xeb and Saad and all we ever got to was Lahore University of Matrimonial Sciences. How we've (not!) grown :)

We're all all right

2005-11-28T23:36:00.000+05:00

You know, when things go wrong everyone finds their own reason. Not an explanation - that's the logical thisishowithappened and thisiswhyithappened. The reason, the illogical, unprovable, but significant happening(s) that we thinked caused something to go wrong. "This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so . . " and "I'm sure it's retribution for . . ". None of it is sure to be true, but more importantly, none of it is ever false. Everybody feels there's a reason that it went wrong, and we're all convinced that our slight was important. And see, none of us ever believe that it wouldn't have happened without our reason. It would have. But our reason is why we deserve it, why we're not lowlifes or criminals but just people who've lost our way, people who made a mistake and are being punished.

God humbles us all, sometimes quickly, sometimes late and sometimes very very late. Feeling helpless (meeting people . . ) is easy. Being humbled is harder, and sometimes it just happens to you. Our reasons humble. Our reasons sometimes make us a little less sad, give us hope that correcting ourselves (and then some) will show God that we are humbled, that we have learnt. Being humbled makes the petty things easy, the harder things easier. God bless us all.

Grim

2005-10-26T21:03:00.000+05:00

Walking out into colddarkwinternights, stumbling while you're climbing footpaths, being slightly, strangely short of breath - your head starts spinning the way it only can when it's dark and a little lonely. You stare straight ahead trying to maintain this . . this dignity that walking alone at night in the dark seems to rip away from you. I tend to walk briskly but that's not the point - the dignity doesn't drain away because you feel like you have to walk fast. It's just that the space seems infringed upon if you walk in the quite night. The people on the sidewalk? They're superior- they either ignore you or stare through you with disdain. You haven't interrupted anything but you still feel like it's more theirspace than yours. Or nightspace. Or anyspace but yours. Sometimes this cat roams the dark alley which the searchlights can't quite invade, and sometimes the orange glow of the construction workers' lights sets off some memories that aren't even completely formed but when you're short you'll do with a memory, any memory that has clung.

They're fortresses, these buildings, fortresses that only hold familiarity captive. When you walk from one building to another, you might as well be crossing the formerly dangerous jungle that had all its animals killed - there's no ostensible fear but you still feel it, like the magnificence of a fallen monarch. You can't help but feel it.

Remember the glory days, Manny?

Long gone, my friend.

Temporary Lull in Creative Thinking

2005-09-30T04:14:00.000+05:00

Temporary Lull in Creative Thinking
Originally uploaded by hohenmagnolie.

My desktop from 'A' levels - it's from the old, old, old Radiohead website.

Of Royal Flushes and Inside Straights

2005-08-21T02:46:00.000+05:00

Winning your first game of (online, not-for-real) poker, on a pair of dealt tens, no less. How cool is that?

2005-08-12T12:44:00.000+05:00

Philosophy is personal. No wait, philosophizing is personal. It’s not supposed to be twenty people standing and nodding their heads, with little private conversations proceeding on the side – private conversations, maybe, about who saw what on TV last night. It’s not supposed to be people piping in with fucking trite observations with smug smiles on their faces. Either they’ve thought about something simple like that – there was a video of a woman with no hands, and she did about everything with her feet – for the first time in their lives, or they’re just so fucking stupid that they actually have some reason in their head to go and whore out their thoughts, with a smugness that’s even more infuriating. I can understand someone making a hesitant, impassioned speech about something that they feel strongly about. Smugness in discussing something motivational and inspiring? That’s about as dumb as you could get.

Letters

2005-07-23T12:22:00.000+05:00

When my cousin Asad was born 5 years ago, my chacha wrote him a letter. A proper, go-to-the-post-office-and-add-stamps letter. It was so beautiful that I just smiled, thinking how lucky Asad was to have gotten something like this; thinking how lucky he'd feel, when he'd grow up and have this letter for him, a testament to everyone's adoration, his innocence and all that hope. Chacha wrote two more letters, and they were equally wonderful, so I'm posting them all. Click on the thumbnails for larger images, and I'll try and transcribe them soon, in case they're easily readable.

I just wonder, how will they affect him as say, a ten-year old, if they could affect me, with all my cynicism? It must be such a warm feeling.

Chalney kee khushi

2005-07-23T12:16:00.000+05:00

Pehla Jhanda

2005-07-23T12:08:00.000+05:00

A Room with a View

2005-07-06T18:36:00.000+05:00

It felt like there was a lake there, almost. At night the windows full of white light were reflected in the water and it felt like I had a lake-front room, with a lake-front view, for just a day or two.

This morning:

2005-06-18T03:38:00.000+05:00

National Geographic's "The Photographs" had a picture of forked lightning that was titled "Nature's Most Spectacular Special Effect". Their picture must have had 15 forks and this one has only one. It's even blurry. But I took it and it feels like the first time I've 'captured' something, and so it's here.

The Waves

2005-06-01T02:04:00.000+05:00

Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!
Virginia Woolf

Orange

2005-05-23T22:51:00.000+05:00

(Click here for the original picture)

Wouldn't you want to drive along this road?

2005-05-05T22:04:00.000+05:00

Are there deadlines in fourth grade? At that time homework left over for after ten o' clock was a taboo. There were phone curfews, some people slept early, others did their homework right after reaching home, and I admit I've done it in school if someone was late picking us up. Calling a friend to ask a particularly difficult question at eleven in the night was outrageous. You could tell it was - your parents thought so, their parents thought so, they thought so and you thought so. Eleven! What did you do the other six hours you had to yourself? That's what everyone asked implicitly, always implicitly because the question spoken aloud was always about how long it would take, when you would sleep. I remember calling a friend at six - six! - in the morning, to tell him excitedly how I'd solved the question we couldn't understand last night - this was seventh grade - and setting off a whole chain of calls that ended with people hurriedly scribbling homework before class. On the school stairs, with nothing to balance their copy on, in handwriting that was spoiled bycopies balanced on knees. On the canteen shelf, standing up, with more support but a lot more discomfort. In their cars and vans, juggling copies and pencils and erasers while assiduously filling in an answer consisting of all of three lines.

But that was them. I had deadlines. I left the homework I hated for last, willing myself to believe that I'd finish it soon. Even the word 'homework' sounds funny now. Mostly it was the urdu homework - a set of muzzakar muannis that would take fifteen minutes, two of ten assigned math problems that would take ten, or anything. Something was always left over in fourth grade when I finally went off to sleep around twelve. I would will myself awake, forcing my eyes open, fooling myself that I'd wake up after just those ten minutes, that I needed those ten minutes of rest. Sometimes I finished it when I woke up at seven in the morning - the taboo was so great that I would lock the door, pretend to be in the bathroom and hurriedly jot down words and sentences and numbers in an attempt to finish it. The embarrasment was so great, and the occurence so frequent, that it made me feel sick every time, generating promises and resolutions that never, ever, would this happen again.

I still feel the same sickness, because very little has changed. I lost an assignment just as I was ready to paste it for submission. The PC rebooted and I could only sit there and stare dumbly, as if staring would recover something, but also, I stared in defiance. How could this happen to me? But I felt saved - saved from the embarrassment of not having finished it, saved from having to explain that I hadn't been able to will myself awake one more time. I felt unreal and elated and relieved and worried at the same time. It became an even stranger mix when it actually was recovered. How do you feel about something that you need to happen and don't want to at the same time? Six in the morning and another fifteen minutes to sleep. It's not optimistic - it's stupid.

2005-05-02T03:20:00.000+05:00

Light the sky and hold on tight
the world is burning down

I don't post lyrics as a rule, but this just came at the right time.

2005-04-11T02:45:00.000+05:00

There's something with driving that I'm always hard pressed to define - when I do, it's always cliched, never being able to convey the meaning I want to. Everyday, I see the gorgeous orange lights curving their way across the wide empty toll road, and I can't help but wish I had a car to take to the road. A car not just to drive, not just to speed across the tarmac, or to hear the air rush by, but just to set me free. There it is again. I suppose I had to try.

I once drove as an escort for my cousin. She is a naturally fast driver, and she was in a hurry that day - I was only there because it was late and she had two small children with her. She drove really fast, but never in an attempt to lose me in traffic. I think that, given the choice, I'd never have been a fighter pilot - I'd choose to be the escort for a bomber, or some important plane that had to be protected. Like a lioness protecting her cubs: never the aggressor, but always defending staunchly. I followed her over the bridge that day, sometimes touching a hundred, never letting her white car out of sight. It was like there was only one object in the world, that white car speeding, in front, but not away, and it was all I had to look at - not traffic, not signals, not people or noises; what she did, I did.

When I was driving that day, zipping across the city as a questionable sort of escort - after all, what could I have done to protect anyone, even if something had happened - and constrained so severely that every choice was already made for me, I really did feel free.

Black and White

2005-04-01T10:49:00.000+05:00

There are black and white mono bands on my desktop. They're beautiful. Black and white spirals that make pretty bands when they're large, and go deeper and deeper inside the picture until they look like faraway monolithic machines with several legs and minimal intelligence. The 'legs' look like giant gyrating pipes that spawn more and more legs as they go down. And if you look close enough, there are diffused little circles of black and white. It's all rather pretty, actually. And artificial - it's too smooth a black and too smooth a white. If you stare deeply, you might get the sense that you're looking at something which you could encounter ordinarily. But there's always this sense of artificiality holding you back.

Not so with black and white movies. I once glanced up from the screen and saw my yellow wall with the UHU-tacks from old stickers, the marks of old scotch tape, the dust-covered connecting cradle on the desk and the colours, all the tacky browns and yellows and blues. The scene on the screen was a naturally-lighted shot of a window with Ingrid Thulin and Gunner Bjorstrand, in all their monochrome splendor. The simple, beautiful, almost austere light seemed magical in those few seconds.

2005-03-30T21:57:00.000+05:00

While flipping through the pale red book of course descriptions that LUMS provides with a prospectus, I'd decided enough SS units to have been a double major. All sorts of Literature courses - courses I discovered wouldn't be offered for the longest time, if at all; all the Philosophy courses; some history, sociology looked interesting, and oh, can't miss political science. I even attended Intro to Philosophy with a lot of optimism, when I did manage to take it. That was until I realized that I was unwilling to share, or change, and that this, for me, wasn't the liberating exercise I'd imagined it to be, but rather an exercise in a lot of knowing and a little bit of analyzing. I realized that my mind was stuck somewhere halfway - deeply rooted to the philosophies that I adhered to, and at the same time unwilling to share the experiences that those philosophies had brought me. I couldn't be like the people who'd learnt the ideas (and names) for the first time - I'd dabbled already - and I couldn't be wise and assimilative because I truly, honestly, was not. I watched the course glide by me, watched something I'd looked forward to since my first week here just slip away, and I couldn't do anything. The one consolation is that I did some of the readings, and that some of the points-of-view were so far removed from my own, sometimes even irrelevant personally, if that's possible, that I could study them for academic interest alone. I think I might have spoiled the course with pre-meditated expectations, but that's not the whole story.

I shy away from more Philosophy courses, even though I'd love to take another shot. A smaller class would mean more discussion - our class was more insipid than any other before us, we were told - but I don't know if I could participate. I know I'm borrowing imagery here, but it's like an unborn, or half-born child whose umblical cord is held but not cut, that turns blue and bloated and soft and dies without being anything at all, with the slightest bit of regret and not much more.

Google

2005-03-30T13:25:00.000+05:00

Go click on the image on Google's main page! It was a nice surprise in the morning, seeing it. Considering I never go to Google anymore, and just use the Firefox toolbar, I'm glad I stumbled on it.

Redbrown

2005-03-27T09:51:00.000+05:00

I woke up with crusted blood on my face the second day in a row. It's not a good way to wake up. I felt immobilized and my mouth felt dry. It took a few minutes to shift into a position that wouldn't soil everything. Then I managed to find a sink, but not before a drink of water. I dabbed and patted it's remains with tissue paper but there's still a little bit of it left. I'm afraid it'll burst tomorrow morning and I'll wake up like this again. I never was queasy with my own blood, until now. I suppose I'm growing up, in some strange way. I think it's the involuntariness of the process. Except it doesn't feel out-of-my-control. It just feels like someone punched me in the face and I'm waking up after having passed out from a fight.

God Save the Queen

2005-03-17T08:11:00.000+05:00

I'm an arsonist at heart. I light fires tentatively, with much trepidation and little tolerance for heat. I shy away from the ensuing flame, and usually panic when it reaches my hand. I've only let a matchstick burn to my fingertips once, and that was just to find out how it felt. But I'm an arsonist at heart.

I look at the oil slick, curving its way from the car. Its bends are lazy, pronounced. Like a section of a river that flows slowly over the ground, knowing its reduced speed, almost enjoying it. The slick is thick in clusters, where the bubbles inside the oil almost threaten to burst. The oil dries away before it reaches me, its riverbank a small lump of gravel that the oil bubbles collect against, rising in number, like a protest that goes on eternally. I just stare at the oil. It looks so inviting, so delicious. A matchstick might be enough, a box of matchsticks better. A lit up Zippo might have been perfect.

I'm scared of flames. I've sprayed deodorant at candles, to see the flame rush forwards. I've burnt matchboxes on gas ovens, just to see the low, glossy green flame. The only flame I've managed to conquer my fear over is the little candle flame that you pass your fingers through. But I'm an arsonist. I'd like to set fire to that stick of dynamite, just to hear what it does, see what it blows. Somewhere, I can hear Johnny Rotten laughing.

Demystifying the Orange

2005-03-08T22:53:00.000+05:00

It's strange watching a movie with someone who's watching it for a completely different purpose. I watched A Clockwork Orange without knowing anything about it, except that it was a classic. It didn't help - I was slightly confused, and extremely disappointed. I didn't realize then, but part of the reason was that we kept being interrupted, all three of us. It's all right if you're interrupted, but not if someone else is. I don't still understand why. All I know is that I kept being bothered by the term 'Orange' everytime someone came in and asked what we were watching - and there was a lot of them. To one of my friends, it was just a classic: it couldn't be wrong, even if it felt wrong to him. It wasn't just a movie, it was an item on a list: things to be done, songs to be downloaded, things to be struck off. I was just watching a movie after a long, long time.

I watched it again at home, alone, with headphones on, my chair comfortable and my interruptions my own. It seemed more comic this time and less violent, more purposeful and less an assault on people's sensibility. I usually end up searching for what I don't understand , but this is an exception: I don't want to search, I don't want to know. I have my own theory on what the Orange stands for. I have my own idea on how it relates to the clockwork, my own take on the movie's morality. Maybe it's because I was so disappointed the first time. Maybe it's just that it made more sense the next time. I don't exactly understand why.

And I still don't know what the Orange is.

Smultronstället

2005-03-03T14:39:00.000+05:00

I ripped Wild Strawberries from DVD during the summer. I hate idle PCs, and there were two sitting in my room. I completely forgot about it until I woke up itching one day a year or so ago. After the usual token attempt - tossing and turning in bed, shifting around the room, pacing the wing corridors - I decided to do something. I chose Wild Strawberries. I'm glad I did.

It's one of those films you like instantly - it's almost impossible to dislike casually if you're thinking, unless you have a bone to pick with the nitty gritties of film-making. I'd heard about art films since the time I was five or six. Nana Patekar only acts in art movies. Art movies - the term signified some sort of movie in which you paced art galleries and commented on them. I know the first art movie I saw must have been Rashomon, which was fantastic, but the whole concept of a 'thinking' film only became clear to me after Wild Strawberries. With Magnolia, I wasn't sure if I like the movie itself, or the reviews I'd read, or even Tom Cruise's acting or John C. Reilly or just the post-modernist feel rather than the whole movie. With Rashomon, I was looking for too much - or maybe expecting too much - to really feel it unfolding. I kept looking for fantastic camera angles, incredible acting performances, masterpieces in the dialogue - anything to make sure that it really was a masterpiece, so that I could go on watching the film. Wild Strawberries sets that tone immediately. It feels like you know you're watching something great - even my love of subtitles, and my fear of liking movies purely for subtitles' sake, couldn't cloud the fact that I knew I was watching an art movie. A great art movie. I haven't seen too many since then - The Seventh Seal, The Man on the Train, The Colour of Paradise - but Wild Strawberries taught me to stop expecting and just watch. I'll always love the movie for that.

The Parrot

2005-02-10T07:09:00.000+05:00

The first few steps were always measured and slow, so he didn't find them hard to manage. Slightly tipping over on either side, groping the sofa and the dining table, almost tripping over the power plug. It was a small room, cramped with a dining table that was too big for it, and as he got older his slow, practised walk across the room appeared more dangerous each day. His hands scraped something; it turned out to be cream from the half-eaten doughnut lying on the dinner table. He rubbed it off with slow despair and kept on feeling his way across the room. The maid only came once a week now; standing here, feeling as soiled as he could ever remember being, he couldn't understand why he had asked her to do that.

He finally made it to the cage. He fumbled his way around the lock until he found the latch; when he jerked it open, he heard the splash of the little water bowl being turned over. He felt through the numerous things in his coat pocket, things he'd been instructed to keep with him for emergencies, things that he now sullenly carried with him because he knew what could happen without them. The little siren for help; the heart medicine; it seemed he depended more and more on what he carried as he grew older. He finally found the little packet of biscuits. He opened them and started crushing the biscuits into little pieces. His manner grew easier as he kept on; he did this every day, but the first few minutes were always uneasy.

The bird had not uttered a sound, or moved in its cage. It looked uninterestedly at the biscuits, the overturned container of water. It had grown old too. The old man put the crumbs in front of the parrot. The parrot ate them, slowly, deliberately, making enough noise to make the old man stop, not uttering a note more than it needed to. The old man, meanwhile, had picked up the leftovers from the table and was trying to discern what they were. He felt them, gliding his hands over them very slowly. He thought they were from the plate of half eaten food he'd just pushed away at dinner: they were actually three days old. Neither of them knew, and the parrot slowly devoured the little pieces of food kept in front of him.

The old man made an apologetic noise for knocking over the water. The parrot still said nothing. It only stared into space for a few seconds. Then it flew out and slurped some water up from the sink full of dirty dishes. The old man waited, like he'd always waited when this happened. He was tired, but he had tired the parrot out too. The parrot flew back into its cage, having eaten moldy biscuits and three day old food. The old man was oblivious. He thought he'd taken good care of the parrot, his parrot, for one more day. He latched the cage again.

He felt his way across the room with relief. The walk now seemed much easier. No trailing power cable, no obstacles to surprise him, nothing there that he wasn't prepared for. He reached his sofa and fell into it. He flipped on the switch of the radio, the sound flooding the room drowning out his heavy breathing, obvious with relief. He started paying more attention to the news being read out. Slowly he forgot about the parrot, for a little while more. The parrot had forgotten him already.

I'D REALLY LIKE TO HELP YOU

2005-01-22T02:49:00.000+05:00

The music is clearer, richer. The bass is more pronounced. The speakers are placed from left to right, and of course, there are more of them. There is a small walk to the bed; there's a little cost to not having the volume just right, or the wrong song in your playlist. Its wider, and somehow more cramped here. The walls seem to be collapsing into each other; there's this restless feeling of energy, of having to do something that makes me roll off the bed every five minutes; a force that drives, and somehow also enervates. Everything ends up in this eventual state of flux, where I can pick up books and read them for a good 20 minutes, maybe even half an hour. Then the bed that slopes upward in the middle becomes more pronounced. And my head starts sloping back more, even though I know it can't be possible. And in this half-sapped, half frenzied state I go to sleep again. If the music is still on, it seems like its coming from a long distance. Anyway, its too late to turn off the music. That can come after the exhaustion passes.

There is no comfort on the bed, not for long anyway. There is some sleep, with a blanket over my face and under my legs. Its warm and somehow I'm shivering under the blankets. I think that I've gotten too used to thick walls and a swarthy, sweaty room. There are drawers full of things that I've collected, drawers that I enjoy searching at odd times when there is slightly more calm around the room. The fast heart rate is too disconcerting. I calm myself down, I take long deep breaths, but nothing seems to work. My stomach feels leaden; sometimes it feels like the bottom of my stomach has never been light.

The world outside this room is cheery though. It relaxes immediately, like some slow hypnotic tape playing in the background. There are sounds from the TV, which I might have turned on a while ago myself. The sounds from the kitchen, the light flooding the lounge from the garden, the sounds of cats and birds. The children are playing upstairs, and hearing them is sometimes a relief, always a pleasure. Sometimes I walk up, unresisting. Other times I can just sit outside, reading a newspaper, or flicking channels, hearing them play, scream, call for help or just run about. Their voices make it seem like everything was always right, like nothing ever changed across the boundaries of the room and the world outside. The world outside is numbing, soothing. Sometimes I think the room is sound proof, which is what gives it its eerie look. But my mind is never at rest inside my room. It is the place for flux, for thought, for reading four different books at a time, for looking around, sometimes furtively, at the objects around me; the objects that are half mine. Even now, the music in the background is just that: background music. Its not blocking anything concrete: there's no noise, not a sound outside but the suction pump, and its steady beat is more soothing than disturbing. The only thing it might be blocking is the walls, or what my mind makes of the walls. And with all noise, all 'alien' thought, all but fear blocked, I can come and try this one more time.

I think the two hour wait was worth it. The little starbursts in Motion Picture Soundtrack have been imagined perfectly, with the camera moving and twisting along like a spacecraft hurtling underwater. The music is still clear, the music is still rich. There is no bass at all. Thom Yorke's voice is gliding over the screen, if such a thing is possible. When the words come scribbling over the screen, as the song starts again on repeat, it seems like there is help on the way. And the music is still so clear.

2005-01-15T07:30:00.001+05:00

One short sentence followed by several others sometimes gets irritating. It breaks the flow of your reading and it makes paragraphs feel hollow. But Oates' did it exceptionally well in Beasts. The beginning of the book was strewn with short sentences that never allowed any rhythm or flow to emerge. What it did do was make me sit up and take notice of each sentence in a way that other books rarely do. What I thought was a lack of artistic flair turned out to be a precursor to a wonderfully crafted sequence which makes the short sentences worthwhile. Plums deify. Stephen King says that makes perfect (grammatical) sense, and that short sentences should suit authors who're not as much in control of their sentences as they'd like to be. But I think he's missing the kind of usage that Oates has, the kind that sometimes brings flair simply by delaying it.

2005-01-15T07:17:00.001+05:00

When I read Jeffrey Archer, I decided I didn't enjoy his books because his writing style wasn't good enough. Which is why I took a slightly better liking to Forsythe. It makes me wonder though. What right do I have to not read authors who do not "write exceptionally well"? Or at least far above average? I don't think I'm so affected that I read them for the mere fact that they're written well; I know I enjoy good writing, possibly more than a good story. Probably more than a good story. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby, and sometimes for the language. In that book, The Lord of the Flies had both. I hope there's many many more of those books to explore.

2005-01-08T05:54:00.000+05:00

Suffocation seems to be the only word that fits. I heard Ted Hughes say to Sylvia Plath to write about "anything . . you know your subject, you're just skirting around it" and it was obvious he knew nothing of suffocation. I feel like I have something inside me that suffocates and chokes on the lack of colour I provide to it. It seems cruel to murder again and again but murder is what worked for her. She's as crazy as any other poet and yes, she's very stylized, but she knew what it meant to not have the words you have come outside where you know they belong.I read Daddy again and its impact is still incredible. Its a rollicking, speeding train of anger and metaphors, reaching its terrifying climax like Blaine The Mono reaching Topika. Blaine The Mono, the insane train which flew worlds in seconds and crashed its passengers on a fight about a riddle. Blaine is a pain and that's the truth. Daddy builds to its climax like that, only it is more menacing, and far, far stronger in its immediate impact.

2004-12-27T03:36:00.001+05:00

Its all alone in the world, this light. It shines and it tries to make sense of the way. It shines alone. Will you ever see it? Will it even stay with me once I've forgotten it once more, this sense of loneliness? How long can a light shine all alone, without having its friend? Can a light shine alone forever, if it never had its friend to remember when its alone? I don't know. I swear I don't know. I know that when they shine together, shine once, shine once and for all, then I can rest peacefully because I know those lights will always be there. We had lights of the prettiest green and blue once. Spinning tops sinking to the bottom of the ocean, like being hypnotized deeper and deeper. Maybe they'll never brighten together; but they will brighten together, in a way. Two lights at the other ends of the ocean, you wouldn't imagine one light reaching the other end. Except it will. They will.

2004-12-26T03:46:00.000+05:00

Slipping down stairs is as humiliating as its usually harmless. You slip, you land on your hands and your knees, you look around furtively to see if anyone saw, and then you just walk down the rest of the stairs, looking for a way to wipe the grime off your hands. And you feel stupid for not being able to do something so simple. Its such a small and disturbing thing.

2004-12-25T03:55:00.001+05:00

Just spent 45 minutes reading a Forsythe short story. I have to say it was well worth it even though I was terribly sleepy. Nice, easy, understated plot, good writing and description and just a great story overall. And its only the first one. I have to say easy reading has its merits.I wish I could say I read a lot. Maybe I will be able to; its not such a hard wish to fulfill. Coetzee, Forsythe, Brearley, Myers, K&O . . I suppose I ought to start very, very soon.

Shiny white notepads

2004-12-25T03:45:00.001+05:00

There used to be a shop near my house called Cash Stationers. Actually, its still there. I once saw a 3" x 5" rectangular notepad there that I decided to buy. I used to carry it around in my pocket, to school mostly, in case I thought of a poem and wanted to write it. When I stopped writing poetry, I just forgot about those notepads until I got another notepad a few months ago as a gift. Those notepads were the only place I ever wrote spontaneous poetry in. They were just the right size to carry and the red ink always settled very nicely. I think I'll love red on white, slightly smudged, slightly absorbed, until I die. I never found the one with the art paper again though. Only cheaper quality notepads that I had to make do with. I think I got through a dozen.

A Doll's House

2004-12-10T02:26:00.001+05:00

I read Ibsen's "A Doll's House" last night. I admit I've never enjoyed plays the same way that I enjoy prose, but it was fantastic. The freedom that comes from developing characters through their own words made it seem a lot easier, but I'm sure a play is harder to write. The characters, his portrayal of their relationship, and most of all his description of guilt is so suddenly universal. In one minute you're moving from an Act of a play to a very real, very common household situation that seems could be your own. He describes Helmer's complete misunderstanding of Nora's charachter so brilliantly. The patronage. The anger. The expectations. The loss he is at when he sees her change. And I admit, I've come to appreciate strong endings by realizing how terribly difficult they are to write.Fantastic play. And I got it for only 30 rupees too. I've always wanted to read Ibsen since Ayn Rand mentioned him in The Fountainhead.

2004-12-08T06:01:00.000+05:00

The sun was fading, shrinking slowly through the dark, tinted windows. The people walking around me were sombre, almost funereal. They were going about their own work, deliberately, slowly, almost trying to avoid eye contact. I think I was the only one who was shocked, the only one who showed the mildest surprise. Everyone else seemed to have accepted that the end of the world was eight years away. They seemed to have altered their behaviour altogether; their way of looking at me, their way of smiling patiently, like I was a small child who had to be looked after. I don't remember screaming, just looking around, dazed and very worried.Sadaf* came and smiled, as if she'd won a moral victory. I think she had. I listened to her with more patience and less disdain than I ever had. It seemed that she wasn't lying, for once. Babar* came and told me that it was true, and showed surprise that I didn't know already. He was patient too. All this patience had me at the end of my own. I could not understand them taking it so lightly, accepting fate so easily. I thought of her, and wondered how she'd feel with fate having been decided. Was she going to alter herself too? Would she be so docile? I couldn't predict her reaction. It made me very uneasy.

The sun was going to shrink and die. That was what they all knew and I didn't. The world was going to end, declining slowly over a eight year span. I woke up some point after that and was unsure how much was true, and my very first, and very real, concern, was how I'd change. What I would become, what I would give up, what I'd cure and what if, all the what ifs. I remember sleeping for half an hour more after that. The same slow, dark movements continued. When I eventually woke up, and this was a good half hour after the first time, I checked the time. It was 1. It took five minutes to realize that all of it wasn't true. It smelt of Donnie Darko and Rain and a Disprin-like sun.

* All the names are changed, of course.

2004-11-29T05:52:00.002+05:00

Trying to appear cultured, or intelligent, I'm really not sure which one, I pretended to myself that I liked the Manic Street Preachers' "A Design for Life". I used it as a title for a daily schedule, I heard it several hundred times and I genuinely fell in love with the music. But I never understood it, and its confusing to see that I love the song still. I'm not sure if its still pretense. And it does make me wonder.

"We were told, that this is the end"

2004-11-29T05:52:00.001+05:00