Hitting 7 Billion.

The world's population hit 7 billion today. A number that lasted exactly one second.
The 7 billionth kid is an Indian. Apropos, I think. Gosh, this runaway population growth needs to be stopped in Mr.Plod stopping traffic in Noddy episodes fashion.

FYI: I am number 5, 513,802,182 on this planet.
And here's your number.

'Books' by Dorianne Laux

You're standing on the high school steps,
the double doors swung closed behind you
for the last time, not the last time you'll ever

be damned or praised by your peers, spoken of
in whispers, but the last time you'll lock your locker,
zip up your gym bag, put on your out-of-style jacket,

your too-tight shoes. You're about to be
done with it: the gum, the gossip, the worship
of a boy in the back row, histories of wheat and war,

cheat sheets, tardies, the science of water,
negative numbers and compound fractions.
You don't know it yet but what you'll miss

is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.

What you'll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out

the teacher and the lunch bell's ring. You've stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig into your bag

to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things,

you think, fingering the cover, tracing
the embossed letters like someone blind.
This is all you need as you take your first step

toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you're going to be.

This poem just seems right on this blog. I identify with it on so many levels. Beautiful. :)

Click here if you can't see it.  Comments welcome :)

Happy Diwali, Folks :D

I'm sure I'll be busy eating laddoos on Diwali morning, but I wish all of you a very very very Happy Diwali! :)
Light up your houses and your lives, guys. Stay happy. Stay awesome. (Awesome loosely translates to be eco-friendly).

My man, \Rajni/, says it best. :D 

This One's for the Word-Crazy. :)

It is common knowledge to readers of this blog that I am absolutely, legitimately word-crazy. I admit my knowledge of words is mainly superficial, I am often unaware of their origin. So I'd best classify myself as a word-scavenger owing to my never-ending fascination with all words beautiful. With a word being added to the English language every 98 minutes, English remains a personal favorite for its resilience and flexibility. What interests me are words from languages around the world that are seemingly untranslatable into English. Here are a few I loved :

Pana Po'o-  To scratch your head in order to remember something.
(from the land of hula dances)


Tartle (Scottish)- The act of hesitating when introducing someone because you've forgotten their name.
(Reminds me of my absent-minded dad)


Gummuservi (Turkish)-  Moonlight shining on water. 
(This made me smile :) )

Esprit d' Escalier- The witty comeback that you think of moments after leaving the situation in which you might have been able to use it.
(We've all been there, haven't we?)


Katahara Itai (Japanese)- Laughing so much your stomach hurts. :D


Zhaghzhagh (Persian)- The chattering of teeth from cold or rage. 

Kyoikumama - A mother who relentlessly pushes her children towards academic achievement.
The word originates from Japan. Befitting, I say. :P


Meraki (Greek)- Doing something with soul, creativity and love. 


Luftmench- An impractical dreamer with no business sense.

Plimpplamppletteren (Dutch)- The skimming of a flat stone as many times as possible across the surface of the water.
(There is a word for this. Yes. :O)


Mencolek- You know that trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it. :D
A similar word is Vybafnout of Czech origin, which is to jump out from behind and say boo!


And the most offensive but the one that cracked me up the most IS:


Bakku-Shan (Japanese)- A girl who looks pretty from behind but ugly from the front. 
Hahahahahahahahahaha!


Share your favourites with me :)

That Awkward Moment.

^^ This just happened. And yes, it did freak me out a bit. Happened to you yet?

I also just made this. I'm cool like that. Turning into one of those creative Tumblr-ish people, I am. ^_^

For Life's Not A Paragraph. :')

14th October marked the 49th death anniversary of e.e.cummings. These lines of poetry from 'Since Feeling is First' are breathtakingly beautiful .

"...we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis."

Gosh, I love those lines. 
Another favourite of mine is his poem, 'who are you, little i,' which goes like this-

who are you,little i

(five or six years old)

peering from some high

window;at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day

has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

The innocent sense of wonder and incredulity at natural beauty is stunning. I love his poems, as virginal and unassuming as they are, I love them. :)

Here's To The Crazy Ones.

I don't own a single Apple product, never have, and that's probably why I didn't feel the vacuum created in the wake of Steve Jobs' death. Yet, I've read about him in papers and magazines since I first entered my teens, and unarguably, he was a genius. He was not ahead of his time as much as just right for his time.

This commercial first aired in 1997 was part of the dramatic ad campaign 'Think Different'. What aired on TV was a version facing Richard Dreyfuss, no slouch of a narrator. This, on the other hand, has Steve Jobs essaying the role of narrator and personally, think it's considerably more poignant.

Watch. :)

Spot the Arrow.

Am I the only person who didn't see this instantly?

*eyes wide in amazement*

Old Book Smell :)

Now this explains my favourite smell ^_^

Found on (the harpy)

What Brims With Optimism.

Happiness is an imperative. I retain happiness as one of the few constants in my life.
I don't need a valid reason to feel happy.
I need a valid reason not to feel happy. Happiness is my general state of being.
And I adore the word in itself, and can never find an apt synonym. I've loved it ever since I was a five year old licking chocolate off my fingers.

I often see people settling, compromising.
While literature, cinema, music often helps people soar, routine drudgery and societal norms condition people to believe happiness is a destination; the journey a struggle, a sacrifice.
It is anything but that.

A virginal blank page is a thing of happiness. It brims with possibilities of wording deep thoughts, forging experiences, beautiful catharsis, and creating something out of nothing.

A finish line at the end of a marathon is a thing of happiness. The pride is not in the medal.

The shiver even as the sun is in your eyes on a winter morning. The portion of the song you pause, and play on loop. The favorite something, anything, everything.

When I look back at high school, I often don't recognize the person I was.
But I have thought, I have lived, I have grown. As much as I have transformed into the person I am today, and as much as I am still to learn, let me remind myself to find happiness where ever it may be.

Rationality is happiness. Impulsiveness is happiness. A risk is happiness. Cake is happiness.

Deciphering My Non-Verbal Cues.

This is for anyone who is eager to know a little more about me. (Not that I live a secretive life, considering I have mentioned my entire AND real name on my blog and am easily traceable on Facebook.)
Perhaps you want to know those feelings of mine that I strive to keep hidden. If such is the case, read on, for I have compiled a list of all the non-verbal cues I unconsciously send out.

If I look away or wrinkle my nose when you walk into the room, it means I've begun to associate you with a certain kind of smell. Malodorous, yes. A field of manure or a garbage truck, maybe? Or you may just have put on that perfume I associate all menopausal aunties with, that leaves a weird 'Menopausal aunty was here' smell in the elevator.

If you're talking to me and my eyebrows are raised, it can mean one of two things. Curiosity or impatience. The height of the eyebrows is directly proportional to my level of curiosity or impatience. And since I haven't started threading my eyebrows yet, if you see them disappear into my hairline, do the safe thing and get the hell out of my sight.

If you catch me staring at you, best case scenario is that you're Ryan Gosling from Drive. If you aren't, this may mean you've annoyed me in some way. So, either I am thinking of an intelligent sounding compliment or how I should kick you in the gut. Obviously I don't have the courage to follow through either plan and you know it, hence the smirk on your face.

In case I haven't been able to get out of boring conversation, you may detect a barely audible sigh, a slight shoulder slouch, a stifled yawn or a series of punches to the wall that won't stop till I've fractured all my delicate fingers.

If you find me tapping my feet or drumming my fingers on the desk, I am playing my favourite song on full volume in my head and staring at your moving lips just for fun. I'll probably imitate you in front of friends later.

An interesting feature some friends pointed out is my 'duck face'. This is when I really AM concentrating, and ugly lines appear between my eyebrows and I pout like a petulant baby. Duck face usually appears during examinations when I finally figure out that 25 times 2 is 27, or right now.

If you see a huge smile plastered on my face, I'm actually enjoying talking to you. We may hang out after college at Barista or Candies. (This,however, is a truly hypothetical situation to convince you I am not as antisocial as this post may lead you to believe.)

You may finally, catch me daydreaming blissfully, generally in the middle of Accounts class. Don't interrupt because I am imagining myself one of two survivors in a nuclear apocalypse (the other being Bono, of course), and living the remainder of my days in peaceful seclusion and bloody Sundays. 

Fall Foliage Fun.

October: The season where everyone's an ant stumbling around busily in anticipation of beautiful winter.




Quote: L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Image Courtesy: Mike Bingley's Flickr Photostream

Drive.

'If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. 

I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive.'

Watch it. Watch it now. 

The neon lights. The brilliant soundtrack. The silences. 

Science nerds: This is the white blinding light of magnesium reacting with oxygen, made into a movie.

Girls: If you liked Ryan Gosling after Crazy Stupid Love, you'll love him in this one.

The Things I Think About When I Am Trying Not To Think.

If I had grown up among the Mongols in 1200 or plantation-owners in pre-Civil War U.S.A, would my moral map have been the same?

How some labels lose their sting (blasphemy) while others regain bite (racist).

What are the things I believe in today that will later seem ridiculous? 

How philosophers will deliver patronizing speeches in public when the sewers in the city cease to work.

How people conveniently forget that the Soviet Union also won the World War II, widely seen as the downfall of totalitarianism. 

How comforting it is to live in a city as competitive as Bombay.

How all the streets here end at a wall. 

How I don't remember the last time I saw a rainbow. 

How the night-sky, at the outskirts of nowhere, was flooded with innumerable stars.

How transcending time is characteristic of independence.

How thinking about not thinking means I'm still thinking which is an exercise in redundancy and pointlessness.

(Image Source: Flickr)