Tonight, I'll stay up till twelve. :)

                                      "What can be said in New Year rhymes,
                                       That's not been said a thousand times?
                                       The new years come, the old years go,
                                       We know we dream, we dream we know.
                                       We rise up laughing with the light,
                                       We lie down weeping with the night.
                                       We hug the world until it stings,
                                       We curse it then and sigh for wings.
                                       We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
                                       We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
                                       We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
                                       And that's the burden of a year."

                                                                    Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today is a 'last day'. Strange, isn't it? Today I'm living in 2010, I'll wake up tomorrow in the year 2011.

It's the time of the year to be pensive, to make resolutions, to be excited out of your mind, to be hopeful and to go absolutely insane.

I'm feeling a certain calm. I'm staying at home, watching whatever movie is on TV with family, will wait for the clock to strike twelve, and cuddle up and go to sleep.

I only hope 2011 is a nice happy year. As rose-tinted and simple as that. :)

You know what is really exciting? My 18th birthday is in 6 days. I am approaching the age of majority at a frighteningly fast rate. That makes me so happy! :)

Here's wishing you, your family, your best friends and your cute little puppy a very happy new year.

Stay happy, stay awesome. :)

On Beauty

You are so beautiful, to me. :)

We live in a world of stereotypes, opinions, judgments and assumptions, which we may not have been party to creating but are influenced by, nonetheless. There is no denying that influential beauty stereotypes exist that fill the pages of fashion magazines and brim over in cinematic endeavors. A desire for perfection- the perfect skin, the perfect hair, the perfect nose... has crept into the mind of every girl.

Beauty beliefs start early in life, I think. When my parents gifted me a Barbie doll with a flowing pink gown and a plastic dress, she was my first definition on beauty. The definition has changed dramatically over the years; from a Bollywood actress to a Hollywood actress, from a pop singer to a woman in a corporate suit, from a friend to an aesthetic.


I was in the auto-rickshaw on my way back home from office the other day, battling the usual traffic and eunuchs at traffic signals. As I waited anxiously for the signal to turn green, I saw something. An image that has remained in my memory ever since. A poor old beggar woman was sitting on the pavement. She had deep wrinkles on her face, and the way her sari hung on her gave away her malnutrition.Ordinarily, I wouldn't have been moved by this sight, except probably, sparing a second ruminating on the neglected India. But, then I saw her extend her right hand in front of her and smile. I couldn't help but stare. It was only after a few seconds that I realized there was a broken fragment of a mirror in her hands. She adjusted a few strands of her hair, opened her eyes wide and smiled. 
And in that moment, she was the most beautiful woman I'd seen.


And I realized that beauty can never have a base value. It is such a fragile commodity, subjective by its very definition, that there is no generalized basis for what one may consider a thing of beauty. With Photoshop, touch-ups and cosmetic surgery being the talk of the day, this may come across as being a superficial argument. But it truly is a wake-up call to me, for every day I wake up feeling fat, zit-prone or having a static-propelled hairstyle, I think of her happily. :)


"Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Aristotle, that it was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that it was a glorious gift of nature; and Ovid, that it was favor bestowed by the gods."
Francis Quarles

Ho Ho Ho!

              I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.
                                                                                       - Harlan Miller


Merry Christmas, everyone! And here's to an amazing new year. :)

Dwarfed...

...By the Beauty

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

(The world's largest salt flat, stretching over 12,000 square feet and is so clear that the water reflects the sky with mind-boggling clarity.)

...By the Courage

Indian soldiers after winning the Kargil War

...By The Emotion, "Saudade"

A Portuguese word, one of the most beautiful words in the world, refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone who is loved but is lost.

Wabi-Sabi

The beauty in impermanence. The exquisiteness in  imperfection and asymmetry. The allure of the authentic.

To embrace the scars as they come and the wounds time gives us.

To cherish frayed edges and look for beauty waiting to be discovered.

Bared to the essence, this is what the Japanese world view of "Wabi-Sabi" is.
And what a beautiful thought at that. The mere profundity it implies renders it virtually untranslatable. And that only adds to the enigma of the concept.

As another year draws to a close, I cannot help but reflect on the events,however fleeting, that have occurred and the memories,however trivial, that have been formed.
Certain events, people and conversations made me grow in terms of developing a educated world view and to develop an understanding of the unknown.
Certain events made me realize the flaws in my opinions, and the defects in my character. I am learning how to opine, without generalizing. And I am learning how to accept, without judging. I am learning how to lead, without dominating. I am learning how to laugh, without yearning.

One of the things I am most proud of this year is this blog. Yes, this blog has been an achievement in the sense that its very existence has forced me to sit in front of my laptop and write. If this hadn't existed, I probably wouldn't have been forced to think the things I did, and however trivial my thoughts were, I am unimaginably thankful that they occurred to me. And I am hugely thankful to the 45 people who found this space worth their  few minutes of Internet-happy time. :)

2010 has been a year of surprises.
A man made a million plans(and bucks) and succeeded at most of them, until his office was raided and he was asked to quit being chairman of the IPL.
A cricketer on the other side of the border may have married the love of his life, until it was discovered he was telephonically wedded already.
The best golfer in the world, a happily married man by the looks of it, would turn out to be a tiger outside the golf course as well.
An amazing trip to Europe may have been planned down to the last detail, but an unpronounceable natural disaster somewhere in Iceland may have thrown you off track.
The most respected and venerated journalists in the country would lose face when tapes of their lobbying for a corrupt telecom minister were made public.

Who would have thought?

The natural cycle of ups and downs, growth and decay, fast and slow have been witnessed in this year more apparently than ever before.
2010 truly, has been the year of wabi-sabi.

Snowflake in An Avalanche

At the very outset, my most sincere apologies to the four and a half people (including my sister's two friends) who truly missed my blog posts. And average apologies to the rest who missed my blog posts just because they had nothing better to do than be bemused by adolescent jargon. (You know I love you guys and completely suck at being nonchalant, right? :P)


(Okay, I have something to share with you, but I'll do it later because I have to behave modestly for the sake of propriety, but please remind me if I forget!)


__________________________________________________________________________


When I was 8, it was such a big word. I couldn't imagine ever being able to spell it correctly.
When I was 11, I was blissfully ignorant about it.
16 was when I found it fashionable to shirk it.
I'm turning 18 next month, and am already bogged down by it.
I’m talking about that 14-letter word that fills every newly inducted adult with a sense of excruciating dread – responsibility.




Ah, those simpler times when responsibility meant doing your homework fast enough so you could play "Hide and Seek" with the building friends. Oh, that period of carefree abandon when being irresponsible only meant forgetting your homework at home and inventing creative excuses to cover it up. Responsible was the person who got picked Class Monitor, or School Prefect.
Responsibility has arisen from its murky depths (or glorious ashes, as might be the case), to take on its arch nemesis- the hapless young adult. From something as simple as dealing with team members during projects and warming up food for your overworked father to making pertinent life choices.


You know when the enormity of this struck me? 
When I went to SBI the other day, to fill in a scary-looking form to open a bank account. To deposit my intern-happy stipend. It's not too much, but makes me glad nonetheless. It's my first salary. (Stipend, my boss corrects me for the umpteenth time!) 
When I went for Independence Rock the same evening, and saw a nuclear mushroom hovering above the venue. The ghastly migraine-triggering smell informed me, it was just a drug-produced smoke cloud. 
( I have decided to make an effort to not be judgmental about the latter. Drugs, alcohol and the like are their personal choices, and I have no business opining and meddling. My definition of correct isn't the same as theirs, as someone very wise told me recently.)


But anyway, it made me realize that "I've become a big girl". 
And I'm happy about that. A little terrified, but happy still. :)


Oh, and for my big news!


I stood first in the Story-Writing Competition held in college. (I have a cool new pen drive and discount vouchers to prove it!) Of the many topics, I chose to write as a serial killer who has to justify his actions to the reader. Twisted, and rather interesting. 
I wasn't too happy with the way I concluded my story, but who cares? I won! I beat the second-year scribblers  and third year pedants! :P


"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
Voltaire

The Wannabe

A "wannabe" (slang for "want to be") is a person with an ambition to be someone or something that they are not. The term is mildly pejorative, intended to convey the foolish nature of the desire due to the incompetence of the "wannabe" to accomplish the goal.

There you go. The Wikipedia borrowed perfect introduction to my blog post. I bet my old English teachers would smirk at this.

Those guys who wear their jeans so low you can see their apple red Jockey underwear.

Those guys who flash the Yo/Peace/I think this means the metal sign symbol.

Those guys who show off their interest in music by rattling off all the genres and sub-genres of metal, with no idea what's the difference between death metal and progressive. The wannabe girl says "Oh, what's your favorite song, guy-I'm-so-impressed-with <3 <3?" And he says In The End, that Linkin Park song. The anthem of the wannabe.

Those guys who think saying "Kewl" is so cool.

Those guys who say "Ssup Bro" and think it rolls as smoothly off their tongue as a typical American teen. 

Those guys who think unbuttoning the top 3 buttons of their shirt makes them so much more attractive.

Those girls who think using the F-word five times in a sentence makes them a mama from the hood.

Those girls who buy that tight tight t-shirt without looking at their bulging t-t-tyres.

They don't understand something critical.

It's okay not to be American. And it's perfectly all right to prefer samosa to sushi. Faking your music or literature interests can only get you so far. 

Who are you trying to ape, anyway? Those bunch of morons in 90210? 

Seriously. Wake up, smell the coffee beans and get real.

You have one life. Don't live it like someone you are not.

P.S. I sound like a motivational speaker. :O

A Glitch In Reality I Want To Fix

I've been feeling slightly out of it lately.
Restless with the routine of everyday life.Every today is identical to a yesterday which is identical to a tomorrow. My big adventure of the day was trying out the new Chicken Salad sandwich at Cafe Coffee Day. (Yeah, I'm sticking to my Tropical Iceberg, please.)

Let's take for example, the subject of Psychology I've been learning in college. The lecturers are great, better than many we've had this year, their presentations are loaded with great examples, yet I feel slightly disconnected. While they promulgate the fact of every individual being unique, they delve in so many stereotypes and generalizations of behaviour.

No, I do not believe that girls imitate their mother's behaviour and guys imitate their father in the course of their own relationships. Simply because we are exposed to so many people and role models in life, who impact and influence our interactions.
No, I do not believe that guys wear only blue and girls wear only pink. And how come a guy wearing pink is a big deal and not a girl wearing blue?
No, I do not believe that a guy would choose not to marry a woman who earned more than him in this day and age. If he does, he is shallow and that cannot and should not be attributed to 'typical male behaviour' or some such nonsense. That only validates bullshit.
No, I do not believe that when money comes into the hands of women their first instinct is to splurge on themselves. For heaven's sake, 99% of clients of microfinance institutions the world over are women. ONLY because they are more responsible than men when it comes to managing finances. Research proves it. Take a look if you don't believe me.

You get why I'm not enjoying the subject, right?

But it's not just that that is eating away at me.
I look around and I see slackers. And I see people who are satisfied with what they see and the situation they are in. And I see people who don't know and even worse, don't care to know what's happening around them.
Maybe they've attained that tranquil state of nirvana. If they have, I'm happy for them.

I wonder sometimes, do I just have a profound misunderstanding of what reality is supposed to be.
Or maybe this is it, and I don't know how to fix it.
Shit, all of a sudden, I feel like tearing apart all those Ayn Rand books I have.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. 

Drudgery and Dimsum

There are multiple reasons for my AWOL-ness, but none substantial enough to find their way into honest writing (I can't really start with the rant of 'I needed space, okay! You just don't understand me' here, so forget it. The point is I am back. :P)

* The Routine of 'College at 8 a.m. - Interning for 4 hours - Home just in time to watch Pamela Anderson on Big Boss - Sleep'

Why even elaborate on this? As if college isn't mind numbing enough with its lazy group discussions and the typical drawling lecturer accents, throw in drawing up content plans for banks, college canteen panipuri and rigged reality shows to the mix that is an average day in my life. It's interesting and exhausting in equal parts. All I wish for these days is for Sunday to come, when I can enjoy a nice mug of coffee and let my caffeine-immune body enjoy some literature and sleep. 

*You Are So Beautiful My Angle, But Your Brain Like Potato.

(This is what Chinese taxi-drivers have printed on their t-shirts, because in their world of limited English understanding, this makes perfect sense.:D )

So, the trip to Hong Kong and Macao/Macau (How the hell is it spelled?) was amaaaaaazing! When else would I have gone on a gondola ride, seen laser lights dancing on buildings at the harbour front, watched Cirque du Soleil perform live and most importantly, visit Disneeeeeeeyland! (Enough of the unwarranted stretching of words and exclamation marks, but that's the only way I can positively display my excitement.) Hong Kong is one of those urban beautiful places where you imagine your dream office might be located. With exacting standards of cleanliness and civic sense, it is a city Mumbai should take serious lessons from. HOWEVER, and it is a big however, that sickly stench of seafood, including octopus and hairy crabs, pervades the city. And oh my god, the street shopping is insane, with Jimmy Choo fakes being sold for 3000 bucks! (We didn't buy any, what with our morals and all, but irrespective, it is a booming business.) There is SO much that I have observed there in terms of method of communication and the general culture of the place, but that's a whole other ball game/blog post.

P.S. I watched Guzaarish today. That Sanjay Leela Bhansali film every critic in town is calling a cinematic masterpiece that will sweep away all the awards this year. Call me uncultured or intellectually depraved or creatively crippled or whatever the hell you want to, but I disliked it. A lot. Primarily because it all seemed so staged and artificial, from the 17th century mansion right down to Aishwarya Rai's shade of lipstick. It screamed of SLB's pretentiousness and was so self-indulgent in its flow, that it got onto my nerves. Also, I have read so many books that have dealt with euthanasia in such a sophisticated and sensitive manner.Movies like Million Dollar Baby, for example, too put this film to shame. Have you watched it yet? What did you think?

Beautiful Blueberries

Beautiful Blueberries.
These were the last words Christopher McCandless ever wrote in his journal.

If anyone has truly inspired me, it is that young man of 22 who left all his material possessions behind and created a new identity for himself travelling the country and residing in the Alaskan wilderness for 112 days.
Below, is an (actual) haunting snapshot of the journal he maintained, that prompted me to write something here.

 I would have loved to write a book/movie review on "Into The Wild", but I won't. For the simple reason, that it would dilute all that powerful feeling of courage and idealism, into a few words. I don't generally read biographies or autobiographies, because the few times I have, I found them pretentious. (For heaven's sake, Miley Cyrus has her autobiography now!) But I love this book, I love Alexander Supertramp and I love the person who had the good sense to gift it to me. :)

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless

But hey, it's my favourite time of the year! Diwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaali!!!! :)

Diyas light up homes, streets and lives. "We wear cool suits, we wear shiny shoes," with much aplomb this time of the year. I can hardly hear the boom and fizzle of fire-crackers this year, so I assume Mumbai is going green. Happy Diwali, all of you. :) Have a blast!

Obama is coming to town tomorrow, and I leave for Hong Kong and Macau with family for a much-awaited holiday.

It always seems to bring that U2 song, "City of Blinding Lights" to mind. I'm finally getting excited. :)

It has been such a beautiful year. I have loved every second of it. It seems I have transformed into a whole new person. From the stammering girl on stage to the shiny bright (somewhat) confident person I am now. I have become more sensitive to people and have become open-minded and accepting to a lot of things around me. While Obama failed to bring much change to his nation in the past year, I have witnessed a sea change in my interaction with people and my thought process.
I have shifted loyalties from coffee to green tea with great ease, for example. :)
It truly has been an amazing year, and I wish for many more to be exactly like this. Not just for me, but for all of you too. :)

P.S. Get your hands on 1984, will you?

Confessions of a Bibliophile

I try and try to accurately recollect it, but I can't. I can venture a guess and probably hit the mark, but that won't be the same as truly knowing.
I want to know what is the first book I ever read.
I'm assuming it was one of those cute little picture books with Cinderella and Peter Pan. But again, I'm not sure.

I was thinking about this when I was up till 3 reading last night. (I was re-re-reading 1984, if you must know.) My sister still finds it incredulous that I read for fun, and that I don't have a perpetual book report assignment! The fact that I can stay up all night reading novels of my interest, but have trouble keeping my eyes open by twelve a.m. the night before my board exam troubles her. It is now common for my father to get up in the middle of the night for water, find my reading light on and me curled up under my blanket with a book.

A large part of me is defined by my love for books, and consequently, for the written word. What started off as being mesmerized by fairy tales and using the word "famished" instead of hungry at age 5, has now turned into something I cannot even sleep without.

There is one lady I would like to blame for this.
Her name is Enid Blyton.
I devoured every single book she served, and every chapter of my childhood has the indelible imprint of a Blyton book. From my innocent little Noddy days to naughty prankster Amelia Jane, from the adventurous Famous Five series to the Oh-I'm-a--grown-up-girl Mallory Towers books.
Although there is no retirement age for Enid Blyton, I switched loyalties by the end of 5th grade to the dark, gloomy, mysterious world of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, I admit to falling head over heels in love with Sherlock Holmes. And I always found comfort in grandmotherly Miss Marple to solve a small-town murder. Soon enough, I entered the eccentric little world of Roald Dahl and the Big Friendly Giant became my best friend. :)
Then, in 7th grade, my English teacher goaded me to read classics. When I first placed hands on the paperback Jane Eyre, I didn't know what to think. For one thing, it was fat and bulky! And the vocabulary was beyond my comprehension! I had no clue what the words conventionality, self-righteousness, clamored and agonized meant. I sat with a dictionary, underlined words and slowly, I learned.
I discovered that I loved words sometime around then. And it is a discovery that has shaped a huge portion of my 17 years on this lonely planet.

I can write about discovering Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Lee Child, James Patterson and the like. But you get the drift. I really started enjoying books. I used to love going to the school library and picking out these books.

But now, with college and work, I find myself unable to devote as much time to my books. When I return home at 9 p.m., I am too tired to divert my energies towards a McCarthy or Murakami. Numbing televised entertainment is all I can take for an hour before I crash my head into my pillow.

However, I eagerly wait for Friday and Saturday nights for a marathon book read, so I can wake up leisurely over the weekend. On those days, the thrill of written words takes over. I am magically transported to make-believe worlds where I can imagine characters and situations that are NOT conjured by television networks. I trust literature to challenge my perceptions and enrich my intellect. Time flies when I set my mind and eyes on some good writing, and I forget all about an unfinished episode. The pleasant smell of old books as I stand a few inches from my bookshelf, the yellowing old pages of a Jeffrey Archer, the comforting weight of a book in my hands- it all reminds me why reading is the most satisfying and compelling experience.

I think I'll read a Famous Five sometime soon. I just need my Blyton shot. :)

The Paid News Problem

Every time a journalist delivers a live report or newspaper write-up, he carries upon his shoulders a weight that would even make Atlas shrug. To serve as a watchdog of the nation's workings, to objectively provide citizens with accurate and reliable information, to identify the heroes and villains of society, and to offer a voice to the voiceless. Since The Bengal Gazette appeared in India in 1780, the character of journalism has undergone a tremendous change in the country. Along the way, unfortunately, these intrinsic journalistic ethics have been forgotten as we hear of the social menace of 'Paid News" in mainstream media. Put simply, it involves unethically acquiring media space by shelling out huge amounts of money. 

Our media, it seems, is now on sale.

The “paid news” phenomenon can be traced to the entertainment sections of the media, where PR agents began paying newspapers for promoting their clients. The weeks leading up to a film's release saw papers covered with stories of link-ups and controversies surrounding the lead actors. While not the pinnacle of journalistic excellence, it only caused minor discomfort to the people involved but never directly undermined the integrity of the paper. However, now even politicians are cashing in on the deteriorating conscience of the media. Paying money to media houses for favorable coverage allows the politicians to manipulate the media to their advantage thereby misleading the public, and has a grave impact on press freedom. As Sushma Swaraj, head of the opposition BJP party says “First the journalists asked for tea, then liquor, and now money.” This cash-transfer scheme of corruption is brazenly seen in India’s two largest states Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, and must be dealt with severely.

I believe that a system must be set up by the Election Commission by which campaign material can be put out on private print and electronic media with the state funding it. The views of every party and every candidate contesting in the elections should be heard and reflected in news.  Following the success of the RTI, heavy penalties must be imposed on political parties indulging in such practices. Only when such bold steps are taken and there is transparency in the political and corporate machinery, will the words “Let Truth Prevail” ring true.


(This is the somewhat final draft of a speech I have to deliver in my Effective Communication class tomorrow, for a life-changing 3 marks. In case you're wondering. :P)

Madness in a Whisper.

Quite a weekend, I've had. :)

Pearl Jam celebrated its 20th birthday on 22nd. I'm not sure what draws me to this band.
The lyrics? Eddie's vocals? The infectious atmosphere I see them create live in concert in all those Youtube videos? I don't know.But ever since, I discovered them in tenth grade, I have been equal parts fascinated and mesmerized, fully conscious that I am yet another member of the cult that their millions of adoring screaming fans is.
Needless to say, I was incredibly excited in the leadup to this tribute gig at B69. Considering this was the first gig I had ever gone to, I was busy picking out clothes from my closet scrounging around for gig-appropriate apparel! When I reached the venue however, a 1000 square foot room that looks unused, mossy and a bit like a drug-dealer's den from the outside, I realized that anything worked. All I could see were chilled out people, who were just looking forward to some quality Pearl Jam time.
B69, I was informed on reaching, is where most of the metal bands in Mumbai rehearsed on a regular basis, and probably still do. It has a rich cultural history, that way. :P

• To see a crowd of approximately 200 people from diverse backgrounds singing in unison, 

         "She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man,
           She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man...
          Can't find a better man
          Can't find a better man"

          is just such an amazing feeling.

• To discover an entire sub-culture in one evening, is such an experience. Guys headbanging to the grunge. A mosh pit starting right before your eyes. The lead vocalist of Blakc jumping into the crowd. The insane energy when "Black" was performed. I have never seen anything like it.

I had a FANTASTIC time. :)

Let's do this again sometime!

Also, this weekend I watched an amazing documentary. When You're Strange.

This is a film about The Doors, another long-time favourite. 

Okay, at the very outset, let me tell you this. Jim Morrisson is, and always will be, the guy all guys want to be and the guy all girls want to date. 

As I watching it, all I could think of was how great he looked, how magnetic his personality was, how multi-faceted and pure his talent was and the sheer awesomeness of the man. The documentary cruises through the entire history of the band-the shaky start, its liberalism and connect with the tumult of those times, archival footage depicting the tremendous 'high' it reached, and its heart breaking death in a bathtub. 

"This is the end 
Beautiful friend 
This is the end 
My only friend, the end 

Of our elaborate plans, the end 
Of everything that stands, the end 
No safety or surprise, the end 
I'll never look into your eyes...again"


It has also been a weekend of frustration and being unproductive. Yet, it has come with loosening of shackles, certain freedom bestowed and the desire to be something more. And for that, I am happy.
Another Sunday flies by, and I look forward to the coming week with gleaming eyes, ready to capture the world.
Later. :)

Ever heard of The Smiths?

If you haven't, please do. :)

Admittedly, I started listening to them after watching 500 Days of Summer(a great movie, by the way!), but I have fallen in love with the music and the lead singer Morrissey ever since.

Of course, it was an 80s British band, which disbanded in '87 and Morrissey categorically maintains that "he is bored of men...bored of women", which makes my chances of ever going on a date with,this now 51-year old, I adore a complete non-event. :(
(Please listen to his solo album "Viva Hate" if you have the time.I've been listening to it, and I absolutely love it.)

My favourite song by The Smiths, is from the album, The Queen is Dead.
And it is called....

9.9999 times out of 10, I am averse to tattoos. Not this one. :)

Some other songs of theirs that I absolutely love are-
Half A Person
The Charming Man
 Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me
Stop Me If you think you've heard this before
Hand In Glove
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
Frankly Mr.Shankly
I Love the One I  Cannot Have.

Okay, I know I'm forgetting quite a few, but these songs are really good.
Give them a listen. :)

The Bane of Banning Books.

I'll tell you something right now, that I can bet you wouldn't know.

I place this bet with such confidence because not many are languishing in front of their laptops at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and even those who are, there is just a Lilliputian chance that you have been surfing sites regarding books for over an hour.

So, this is what I have learned.

(And what I completely missed, but my bibliophilic intuition adhered to unknowingly!)

September 25th to October 2nd was Banned Books Week.

It is celebrated in the U.S., a country where high school students would have to think for a minute whether college is spelled with a double 'l', but so what?

It celebrates the freedom to read. :)

Books such as "The Colour Purple" , "Catch-22'" and "The Catcher in The Rye" found their way to this outrageous list because they contained offensive words, sexually explicit scenes and inflamed certain religious sentiments. 

I finished reading the latter by the end of September, and it was such an amazing read. A story of a bewildered teenager, wishing he didn't have all the knowledge about society he had. The protagonist, who lost his innocence about money, sexuality and school does not wish the same upon others and matures through the end of the book. Catch 22 is a historical satire following the story of Yossarian, who tries to understand the self-contradictory circular logic in the military, and the world. The Colour Purple on the other hand, deals with the life of a young African American woman, a victim of rape and physical abuse.


1984, the George Orwell classic had been banned for its account of a totalitarian society, which was considered unsuitable content for impressionable minds. I am reading it right now. Gone with the Wind, The Call of the Wild, Lolita, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... For god's sake, even Goosebumps and certain Roald Dahl books have found their way to being banned!

These books are considered as gems of English literature and all regularly feature in lists of the best English language books ever written. 


Back in Mumbai, Rohinton Mistry's "Such a Long Journey", a Booker-prize shortlisted book has been banned. 
By a political party who spouts baseless and ridiculous religious propaganda every voting season, and by a spineless Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University. And most sadly, by a 20 year old politically-backed-and-brainwashed Bachelor of Arts student in a prestigious institution, who could have chosen to really do something useful with his life.
This, in a country, that has the words 'liberty' and 'secularism' in the Preamble of its Constitution.


Sometimes, I just fail to understand the workings of our society. How are these bunch of morons allowed to become politicians, and our representatives in the government? How is a fictional character in a fictional book using expletives an issue? I can name ten other books by Indian writers that contain offensive language and unsavory reviews of politicians. Does highlighting a few vernacular expletives and paragraphs in fluorescent marker pen allow you to become a literature Nazi and deprive others from reading a superbly written novel? And keeping all this aside, HOW do they even take themselves seriously?

Correct me if I am wrong, but these are exactly the kind of people our country does NOT require.
I am going to get myself a copy of the book as soon as possible now!


P.S. This Friday, I am going for a Pearl Jam tribute gig at B69. My first 'gig'. I am so excited! :)


P.P.S. Twilight also features on the list of banned books. Now THAT was a good thing. :P

To Answers, wherever I may find them.

Will I visit this place in my lifetime?

                                                      Stockholm Public Library

Is wanting to live in this beautiful Norwegian home asking for too much? 

To be happy or to be successful?

There are those who think happiness is overrated. 

They are the ones who don't understand life at all.

If that makes me selfish or an objectivist, so be it.

My life. My terms. I want happiness. Lucky for people, I find happiness in the smallest things.

These aren't the questions I meant to ask here. 

They were (a little) more important than these ones.

I've been feeling apprehensive about my future of late. 

What do I really want to make of my life? 

Will I able to make a difference? Bring about a change in attitude, circumstance or ideology?

There is so much I want to do. 

I want to drive change, influence and engender passion. I don't want to be just one of the many with a high-powered executives with a prestigious job and hefty salary. I really don't. I would much rather earn a smaller income and do something more substantial in my life.Yes, I know how many reading this will think of the immature idealism underlining this statement. You will probably read it with the stinted hollow of the dubious.

To be honest, as I write this, I am thinking the same things.

The impracticality and impossibility of it all.

I hear people talking about leaving the country and never looking back. I hear all the rationale for getting a good job somewhere and being 'settled'. And the funny thing is, that also makes sense. A lot of sense. That might just be what I end up doing with my life.

It's just that the idea of being 'settled', implies a certain amount of complacence and satisfaction with what I see around me. 

There are so many things I'm thinking of right now and unable to frame coherently into a sentence.

For lack of a better way to put it, I would always like to be somewhat dissatisfied with what I see and what I do. Or else, what is the point of it all?

I have completely forgotten the point of this post. Tell me if you find one.

10.10.10

A bright shiny day, with an interestingly symmetrical date (which is of no consequence at all), except that my exams begin day after tomorrow, India is performing pretty well at the CWG and it is Ragini's( my 13 year old neighbor who I've known for almost ten years!) birthday.

Since I didn't have the time to make her a card, I'm just going to wish her here to make up for it!

Happy Birthday, Ragini!! 

Here's wishing you soooooooo much happiness and luck.

Love,

Bunny and Sana. :)

Trimester Ends.

Fun fact: I always associated the word trimester with pregnancy before college began.
And sometimes, it still feels that way.

The first trimester is a time of profound changes, and everyone experiences these changes in their own unique way. Excitement and fatigue. Anxiety and hope. Junk food sprees and the subsequent weight gain. The coffee craving. The occasional mood swing.
That's common to both the blushing newly-pregnant woman and the outgoing college kid, don't you agree?

The first trimester of my first year in college ends today.
It's eleven in the morning. Yes, you guessed correctly, I bunked. Who attends two lectures of Sociology in sweltering October heat on a Saturday morning, anyway? :P

Exams start in three days.
Can I call myself prepared?
Not by the farthest stretch of even Shakespeare's imagination!

Even Elvis and Pearl Jam are unable to make bivariate linear regression(Whaaaaaat? :O) somewhat interesting.
Am I doomed or am I doomed?

But oh, look!

08 OCTOBER 2010

Guest Post: An Open Letter to a Stranger

This new guest post is brought to you by Nitisha; a fellow writer and blogger. She is a great writer who recently sent this post as an email submisison. Don't forget to submit your guest posts to jhaish09@gmail.com. Check out Nitisha's Open Letter to a Stranger then check out her blog here.

Here's the story.
I sent Jessi, the super blogger on The Musings of a Wannabe Star(having 1109 followers, not to miss!) my blog-post "To a Stranger" a week ago, and she actually posted it on her blog!! Check it out at http://jhaish.blogspot.com/2010/10/guest-post-open-letter-to-stranger.html
Exciting, right? :)

Guess there is something nice to be found in the worst of situations.
A pearl in an oyster, the end of a trimester.

Later. :)

War: The Wrong Answer

(All characters, countries and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Or not. It's up to you.)

War can looked at in two ways- The religious and the objective. By going to war, we are challenging God's authority, by destroying something he had created. Or we could see it like this. The world is around four billion years old. What with all the nuclear war weapons, it could end in a second.

(I'm not religious. I'm also an atheist. I don't get the point anyway.)

XYZ was a completely medieval society. They had less money, less food, less resources and smaller bombs. They were, for the most part, a gentle, God-fearing and peace-loving people .However years of battle have stripped them off these very characteristics that distinguished their race. Young boys play with guns, girls dance to the tunes of bombing in the vicinity. Most of them orphans, they have not even experienced the comfort of family life. They are growing up in a society that has been devastated and ravaged by war. They are growing taller in a society where innocence, tenderness and ingenuity hold no meaning. Now the people no longer know how to treat their own people; killing, stoning and brutalizing has become the norm. The country's foundations and the cultural tenets it upholds are crumbling to fine dust by the second.

A certain event was the harbinger of this change in global power relations.

It involved aeroplanes, skyscrapers, suicide bombers and several shivers down one's spine.

Moreover, who were the bombers? Ordinary people whose absolute belief in a cause overrode their natural instinct for survival. They were but ordinary men who were manipulated and thoroughly brainwashed by very influential people. False promises of paradise after death were the seeds of the utter devastation they wracked. Yet ABC, one of the most well- educated nations in the world, failed to understand their pathetic situation and chose to retaliate with vengeance.

Terrorism, as I see it, is any act that spreads a feeling of terror or endangers the basic freedoms of people. That is exactly what the great state of ABC has done. It has plundered XYZ of all his wealth and integrity. But more importantly, it has sent out a very strong message. That it can do whatever it wants with the peoples of the world, and get away with it. It is taking for advantage the fact that it is the strongest, most powerful nation on earth. As aptly written in the essay ‘War is Peace’, ‘Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements - or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognized government.’

The war has altered the very meaning of life for many. In XYZ, living has become just as scary as dying. In ABC, obesity, of ALL things, is the greatest threat to survival. Why doesn’t this superpower just use commonsense for once, and realize that it is futile to destroy an already destroyed land? Dropping bombs will only shift around some debris, dirty up graveyards and bother the dead. The idea that the world can be ride of evil doers and terrorism with more violence and cruelty is just absurd. Something even Einstein or Newton would not be able to bend their brains around. So why not they just start learning to love people of weaker nations and unlearn hating and ruling them?

And there I thought "change was all we need" was something that would be followed through.

War still on? Yes. Change? No.

War, and in extension, violence is not the opposite the peace. 

So, it cannot possibly be the correct answer, can it?

All that was.

It's only Tuesday. The week has just begun. Yet I find it easy enough to say- I've had a rough week.

I don't want to talk about it. Not here, at least.

My issues are completely irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, right?

The Commonwealth Games are sprinting towards disaster. Snakes are being found in hotel rooms. Stray dogs sleep on the king-sized beds within the Village, politicians sleep on king-sized beds in the comfort of their mansions.

Verdict on the Babri Masjid title suit is to be delivered by the Allahabad High Court on September 30th. Pathetic how a case with such easily identifiable culprits has languished in lack-luster courts for almost eighteen years.

Aaah, life.

P.S. I finished a 4.5 kilometer marathon on Sunday.:)

P.P.S. Dealing with 'writer-rejection/inadequacy/what-made-me-think-I-could-write-so-well-anyway/why haven't I started studying yet/why don't I have a job yet' syndrome.

Yeah, not the best syndrome out there. :-/

I Spy :The Elevator Edition

How many times have I traveled by an elevator? Uh, somewhere in the range of a million? I currently reside on the 12th floor, so there's that, then college and malls and airports, the list is long, and honestly, dull.  But that does not stop me, (does anything? :P) from making a few observations on that, on average, 35 second lift ride up or down.

 You might not even know the name of the person standing ten inches from you, (quite the friendly neighbor, I am) but still: You know what he's reading;  his cologne(or its lack thereof) ;  his taste in music coz of course his iPod's volume is turned up high enough that your eardrums are revolting : his cell-phone's ringtone and why will it be anything but 'Tera tera tera suroooooor" and you will surely guess that he's had aloo parathas with spicy chutney for lunch. Whoever first called India the land of spices said it from 'stuck with an Indian in a closed space' experience! 

All at once, it's weird yet completely normal. Here we are, two complete strangers stuck in a closed box for less than a minute and yet we part knowing more random details about each other than many in our friend circle. To think, this is when we haven't even exchanged a single word. 

Move to "Hello" time. The inevitable(not always, ironically!) conversation starter.
The sharp divide between Introverts and Extroverts is a lie. So is the divide between 'tomayto' and 'tomahto', the Montagues and the Capulets, the bibliophiles and the comic book readers. All the people in the world can broadly be divided into two kinds of people- People who chit-chat in an elevator,  and those who don't.

You know the drill if you're in the latter group.  Aimlessly play around with your cell-phone, check your hair if there are mirrors around etc etc. Aaah, the silence does carry the acute weight of discomfort and just waiting to get the hell out! Neutered of even basic conversational skills that I am, the elevator ride just makes me feel the sheer inadequacy of these silly social skills. And, if you fall squarely in group 1, then you absolutely have to make eye contact, fake- smile and nod a silent hello, and wait for Aunty to ask, "How is college?" or "Where is Mumma these days?" before you ask, "Aunty, I haven't seen Pappu in the longest time!" or "Thanks for the lasagna you sent over, it was yummy!"

And oh, how can I even forget the drone of Kenny G elevator music .3 times a day, aaaaaaaargh, I've had enough!

Is it time to get all "I'm going to be a health freak" and take the stairs?

Yeah, we'll see how that goes. :P

P.S. In India, an elevator is called a lift. In case you're not from the country and are wondering why people are waiting for a car to give you a ride while waiting in the line for the elevator. :P