Bemused.

I am up at 6am after ages. These days I am mostly asleep all day and I hardly do any work so I can’t really complain about my erratic sleeping patterns. But what makes this morning special is not this faint and vain hope of setting my bio clock aright. It’s special because this one morning ushered me into a realization of sorts. So I decided to write about it before I dozed off into my routine 'day slumber' and killed it.

There are these moments in one’s life when one can quickly trace one’s steps back to defining moments in one’s life- important decisions, academic and otherwise and they appear as fleeting images before one’s eyes like those little toys that play picture pages with the turn of a key. So as I turned this figurative key of my memory, it showed me several pictures that make me bemusedly calm. They made me think about my stay at Valsad where I had made the best of friends. I also had a brush with my ex-boyfriend and some lost friendships and I realized how I hate the whole idea of being an ex. Somehow a broken relationship or a friendship always leaves a secret kernel of guilt and shame reinstating each time you are referred to as ex that you could not secure a convenient place in their lives. Yet we continue to keep wishing them well and not linger on these pictures longer. We keep turning this metaphorical key to play pictures, to revive our memories, to smile at some and cry a little.

It also made me realize why I love literature so much. I have never endorsed that literature is meant for people who manage to dissect, analyze and deconstruct everything they read, or is meant for people with finer ‘eyes’. I hardly regard it as a subject. In fact, I believe it’s an ideology that one cultivates ever since one is born. It is innate. So then why do some pursue it as subjects meant to carve out a career while others don’t? Well that is because there are some of us willing to cultivate and broaden this ideology and have incumbent roles to play that is to dole out our developed ideas to the ones that chose to broaden and cultivate other ideologies, also innate and vice versa. I believe (I don’t say this like most of our insolent professors with an air of superiority) the moment we all realize this, education would make more sense. So there, I love literature because it is for everybody. It is capacious yet intriguing. And this love is only getting stronger by the day, no matter how many death blows at my academic career try to douse it.( This would make sense to people who know me.)

I am currently reading this book called Nine Lives : In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple. Yes  he is one of the notable organizers of the Jaipur Lit fest and once you read him you will feel truly indebted to him as an Indian reader. I can’t stop thanking Souradeep for making it happen to me even though he demurred at first because he is selfish when it comes to sharing an amazing reading experience such as this unlike me, I am more selfish *wide grin*. Yes  I will come up with a book review for sure because I really want to document my reading experience.

P.S- I know this is a rather incoherent post because my mouth feels sluggish, I am hungry and 6am is an unearthly hour for me. And writing at this hour, is a feat in itself. Thanks for reading me. Have a nice day.

Mundane post.

So here comes another mundane post.Another needless post about my obscure life,about my uneventful life.I hit the sack at 11:30 pm hoping to set my biological clock aright but hell,here I am ,wide awake, hooting and booting.Well,never mind.There are a few things I chanced upon last evening. So I thought I might as well write about them before I lost the train of thought and gave in to airy nothings (Kill me!).So these things are a video and some old letters that resurfaced from amid old phone bills and documents.The video had me in tears because it revived my affinity with old hindi songs.While most of my friends back in school listened to the Backstreet Boys and Shakira I listened to old hindi songs.Yes that's because I have this intrinsic cord that reacts to basic hindi songs.No not the songs that jar your head and make you feel giddy but the ones with proper classical notes and entity.Like this one-Manna Dey's rendition-'Poocho na kaise maine rain bitai'.
The song is based on the raaga 'Ahir Bhairav' which is a brilliant synthesis of the raagas 'Bhairav' and 'Ahiri'.Manna Dey's rendition is soul-stirring and to my surprise even before the song got over I had tears in my eyes.I have always maintained that some works of art are transcendental.Not just memorable but they transcend accepted notions/perspectives/understanding of the aforesaid and they make you experience the 'other' and it is at this precise moment of realization/epiphany that one is so choked and at a loss of words that one cannot help but cry.That is what precisely happened with me.I had also experienced something similar when I had read Norwegian Wood last year.
Cleaning your study table might seem like a trip around the world. But hey,how do you feel when a letter containing your first poem resurfaces from the motley of needless objects on what is supposed to be your 'study' table? Funny? Nostalgic? Well I blew a snot bubble laughing insanely and almost pooted my pants. I did. PLEASE read. It was titled...


Introspection.


As this sultry night,
breaks the twilight of my emotions,
I realize I am too prone,
to emotional convulsions.


My eyes search support,Oh!
My heart is weak for the violent palpitations!
Mourning the death of my happiness,
I now curse my strange disposition.


I am unfit,gullible,Yes!
That's my ultimate confession.
My feelings betray me,
no one to combat the burning sensation.


Reality and my dreams,
have always been in dissension.
I silently break down in suffocation...


Waiting for the one hand,
that can wipe out my grief,
and lead me to divine ascension.


PS-I was in class 9. I was heartbroken.
xD *snorts and runs*

Hate list continues...

5. I hate people who borrow my books and forget to read and return.No wait that includes some of my friends and my stupid boyfriend.I can't afford to hate them.Cardinal sin.They will send you repining texts reassuring you how sorry they are but will altogether forget before it's long overdue and you begin to forget that you had once owned those books that now lurk in shoddy racks with the pages dogeared and turned transparent due to deposition of dust and tea stains.So then I dislike such people.No I am neither an academic nor a scholar but my books are an extension of myself and I feel this incipient pain within me when they are away from me for long. *sniggers*
6. I dislike people who harp on their past with disgust and irony.People that occasionally scream " Look did I really write/say that? Oh! How could I?" .My advice to such people would be-own up guys.The emotions behind such expressions in the past were real when you felt them.So don't be ashamed and own up.
7. I hate elders that scoff.Not scold but scoff.I chance upon such people almost everyday but can never rub one cosmic truth in their faces that I live by-"Respect is mutual".
8...*yawns* Later!


P.S-I am enjoying writing here after a long time.Helps getting the gamut of chaotic experiences in order.
I read a beautiful short story by Rohinton Mistry titled 'Auspicious Occasion' and I am overjoyed.I think the feel that short stories render is more intriguing than the stories themselves.The stories might ostensibly seem incomplete but the feel they render makes you feel everything has come full circle.Of course these are just some short stories not all and Rohinton Mistry is amazing at that.I am an insomniac and I hardly study.So there,
8. I hate myself and my lunacy.

"When I grow up,I want to be a little girl"

Whenever I am upset or extremely disgruntled,I do a little exercise- I trace my steps back to times in the past when I had been perfectly happy and content and my steps always take me through a blurry maze of events that had taken place in school,some friendships until they finally stop at this one time and refuse to move beyond that.I have always felt that thoughts are little elves in our heads and they have their furtive intentions.So last night as I lay my mind open for the elvish thoughts to act upon it,they took me back to this one person I had met back in the year 1999.He was my first friend and the only friend from Valsad,of whom I have a distinct, happy memory.As we grow up,as we find our lives cramming up with more people without purpose,more thwarting experiences, it is the memory of such friendships that keeps one going.It keeps me going at least.You also realize that the more distant the memory,the better.So then you get hours to trace your steps back to the event and its tough and time-consuming but it takes your mind off the hurt or the anger that you presently experience.I remember playing snooker board game with him at times,and at other times we would simply giggle together while discussing sundry details of school.I remember wishing badly that I could keep him but he had to leave because he was on a vacation and had put up in his aunt's place who happened to be our neighbor.he had promised me to be back soon however we both knew inwardly that was never happening.So ever since that day,that moment I have treasured the memory of the innocence and the effortless friendship.It is indelible.I wonder if he remembers me just the same.I wish. I am reminded of a random post on facebook which read, "When I grow up,I want to be a little girl"

Listless.

I'll just list the books I am currently reading while sitting astride a plastic chair that is screaming for help under my weight.I will also list a number of things and people I presently dislike.

So here are the books-

A Sort Of Life by Graham Greene.

Black Dogs by Ian McEwan.

Short stories by Rohinton Mistry,and,

poems by Agha Shahid Ali.

The things and people I dislike ( They are not listed as per increasing/decreasing degree of dislike or hatred hence the order is random and arbitrary.I frequently let out a squealing "I hate!" when such things or people get on my nerves and express my general hatred towards the following.) 

1.I hate Arnab Goswami.Yes that surly,ill-tempered curmudgeon who is a journalist with Times Now.

2.I hate people who are judgmental.Rather people who are not discreet about their judgment.Yes such people I hate.They are social misfits. Such people should be killed. ( I am presently resisting my urge to name such people)

3.I hate my college.Period.

4.I hate crowded trains.Yes I am a daily commuter and I travel by local trains so crowded trains ruin my day.

I am sleepy and irritated.The list is endless.I'll get back later.

Totally random.

I am beginning to feel guilty for not posting here frequently even after claiming satisfaction at owning a page on the World Wide Web.My life is uneventful.Besides nobody reads my blogs naturally because I never read theirs, because I am hardly ever online from my dysfunctional PC and my humble mobile is ill-equipped for blogging.I am not a part of any literary circle which I am sure does help people to write because one is always curious about the comments on the literary exegesis or even random write-ups.Also,none of my friends,I gather,blog anymore.So I am pretty forlorn on the web sphere.But then again it's a relief that nobody reads me because attention makes me feel fuzzy.It truly does.

Since nobody reads me I can't resist the temptation of divulging sundry details of my uneventful life.

Presently my only discernible activity is sitting.And reading occasionally.That does not make me hopeful about my future since I have an exam in few days.However,I must admit that I am having the time of my life.Besides hobbling around at home I also cook sometimes because I enjoy cooking.I associate cooking with strength because it takes a lot of courage to cook with considerable amount of uncertainty.I never follow instructions and I follow my instincts while adding spices etc.My study room was no less than a pandemonium at hell until recently but I felt accomplished after cleaning it notwithstanding the backache left in its wake.I don't have pets and I never get bored because every now and then I invent new ways to amuse myself.I can sit staring vacantly at the window sill or sniff the curious tang in the summer wind that blows mysteriously without whisking off leaves or small buds.Its a sad excuse for a wind.I see children whimpering and trailing after their mothers while returning from schools in the afternoon and an occasional baby wobbling its head and drooling in the mother's lap.I enjoy watching kids,more precisely babies.The way they wobble their heads and clasp the free end of their mothers' sarees in small fists amuses me.My boyfriend says I am senile and lazy and that unlike others my age I am not 'active' or sociable.However he refuses to see I partake in these little day-to-day activities with great joy and I am pretty stoked at the end of the day.I enjoyed writing this.

That's my desk with the book I am currently reading and my desktop on it.
Yeah right I am jobless. :/

Gah!

I like everything that's ordinary.
So if you're extraordinary please make a hasty exit from my life because you make me feel fuzzy and that hurts my head.And you will become my beloved if you travel by local trains,eat chine badam,crunching them noisily,do not study and weigh at least 60kgs.

Pity.

In the second week of February 2012 , as the whole world celebrated the week dedicated to ‘love’ by exchanging heartfelt greetings with their loved ones and had immense ‘fun’ culminating in reckless drinking and PDAs and so on, a forlorn woman tried having her share of deserved fun at a local bar in Kolkata. Later she was raped in a moving car, at gunpoint.

Without much hope, she courageously reported the incident to policemen at a nearby police station. They jeered at her in return and offered her a night of ‘fun’ at Tantra because after all, it was Valentine’s Day. The chief minister, a woman herself and the custodian of a ‘progressive’ state, alleged that the incident had been ‘contrived’ to malign her party. This shocked many and made them wonder how the same woman who waited outside Jyoti Basu’s office with a deaf and dumb rape victim and refused to budge until justice be adjudicated, could say something so illogical in such a grave moment of crisis.

This recent rape incident reminded me of this one debate I had participated in back in school. My argument demanded frequent use of the term ‘rape’ and I clearly remember that I was asked to replace it with the phrase ‘trespassing on women’s chastity’. Of course it made my speech unnecessarily long-drawn but ‘safe’ and ‘moral’. I lost. I lost my argument.

Returning to the case at hand, what I personally fail to understand is how people and the custodians of law distort the term ‘rape’ and do not deal with it professionally. What is rape then? Of the myriad interpretations, one thing might I add is settled-it is definitely immoral. “How could a separated mother of two , Anglo-Indian , go to a bar at the wee hours of the night and drink?”, “ What was ‘she’ doing there?” are some of the questions raised by the custodians of law and our ‘celebrated’ chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. It is interesting to note how social aspects which are otherwise irrelevant to the case are brought in and how they distort the case further- Marital status, caste, interests. In India, it is observed that women who transgress the roles they are expected to play in the society are always considered immoral. It is indeed a shocking fact given that our country, particularly our state, is believed to be progressive and all that. Rape, we all must realize is basically a crime. Like murder, like larceny, it’s a crime and the culprits must be penalized like what every law, in every other country demands.

I salute the victim for her indomitable courage and congratulate Damayanti Sen and her team for identifying the hooligans .Apparently, the case seems to have been solved but what remains unsolved and shall remain unsolved is the deep-rooted problem of prejudice that makes one’s will to fight and the law skeletal.