Why the flashy males?

An interesting article from Tropical Topics.
We humans flout the rules of nature. While it is generally human females who go for colours and ornamentation, in most other species, if there is a difference between the sexes, it is invariably the males which dress up.
Read more(PDF file)

Koffee with Karan: Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapur

These two were one of my favourite couples in old hindi films, and I loved watching this interview. It was really sweet! Check it out ...

Love Songs

I keep telling myself I should be sadder,
but my exuberance is spilling over!

Is my gaurd, my wall, slipping?
Have I forgotten, I'm still in mourning?

It's been just two years and a quarter.
The pyre still burns steadily over.

Besides, why should I rejoice?
Yet, I can hardly still this voice!

Once more, a nothing will be unsung.
Just a verse, is not a song.

Pyar Ka Side Effects

To prove the total lack of logic behind my song-in-the-head theory, and/or my stupidity and/or confusion, I have had random insane songs stuck in my head lately. Golden Earring, Pyaar Ka Side Effects, Rang De Basanti, Woh Lamhe, Yuva and Guru, when I should have something like Misty Blue or Ye Jeena Bhi Koi Jeena Hai, Lallu!

This is why I like Rahul Bose. Even when he does a crappy movie, with some random person, the result is hilarious and wonderful! I loved this movie. I had been trying to convert a wannabe phirang pal over to bollywood latley, one of my favourite soapboxes. I gave up when he did'nt love this movie! If you have any kind of sense of humour, if you are one of those always complaining about my lack thereof, watch this movie :D

Its probably a cliched, hackneyed theme. Nothing new in the story, but it didnt need the novelty. Something about the way it was carried off was fresh and real and full of "oh my god I've been there moments". My favourite was bose's pal who hates to change his underwear. Or the one where the same friend tells a heartbroken bose, freshly ditched by sherawat, that ofcourse she'll take him back, because she has already spent three years 'training him'. Or on a more serious (?) note, when he tries to forget her by dating again, but cant get it together with anyone else, and one of his new girlfriends tells him, you ran away for fear of committment, but inside your head, you already are committed to her.

Not to mention the awesome soundtrack. The fact that he was a DJ reminded me of hi-fidelity. And the fact that he is narrating it, as well. There are shades of them in each other, but ofcourse, even rahul bose cannot ever come close to cussack for
me (you are what you like, not what you are like). Even otherwise, 'so exasperating but cannot help loving him' scale, this character is nowhere near the one in hi-fi. But the movie is fun.

Damn. Now I'll probably have "most of the time" on my head all day tomorrow!

My Madcap Collage



sweetheart, sweetheart, are you fast asleep? good.
do you remember me, how we used to be, dont you think ....
why dont you talk to me ...
is that a hint of accusation, in ur eyes?


I made this from all the syd barrett pictures i found online - None of these are mine, really. So if anyone has any objections, please let me know and I will take them off. Thanks :)

Rest of my Barrett stuff is here : recerche.blogspot.com/search/label/Madcap%20Series and here

disclaimer - none of these photos belong to me and i found them all on the internet. if anyone objects to them being used like this - please let me know.

Rest of my Barrett stuff is here : recerche.blogspot.com/search/label/Madcap%20Series and here.

Madcap Dreams

I woke up to you staring at me
Perched at the corner of my bed

I dont know your name,
or who you are, friend, foe, passing noone

You bring a touch of desperate restlessness
You tickle my gypsy feet

I wake up with a itch I cannot place
That I could not reach, that I cannot scratch

You are as unshakable, as you are elusive
As strong as you are nameless and unknowable

Everyday sensed, never felt
You are the uncapturable

If I could put my finger on it
I would know you, crazy, shapeless madness

Are you just madcap, come finally
I know he has many faces.



I can see the words frozen on your face.
You cant find the words, or strength,

to form them across the space between us
and i cant read, or trust in, what might not even be there

every now and then i think i see you
and then again time passes and its not there

it leaves me feeling a madness, a strange desperation
it leaves me with a breathless restless anticipation

i'm going crazy, but i dont know what of
You bring a touch of desperate restlessness

You play with my half mad mind
you make me dream of silly things, see phantoms in the daylight

i'm scared of this feeling and its growing
the underline of ecstacy apart

i need to get past this whirlpool un-sucked-in
in need to get past this night alive

i need to be calm and friendly
the underline of indifference is what's hard

chita

pata nahi kaise jali teri chita,
hone chale saal teen, ab bhi jal rahi chita

ek ek hawa ka toofan ayaa, aag dabi
aur phir chali chita

har ehsaas, har gum, har khushi, ke neeche tera gum raha
har ehsaas mehmaan ho aaya gaya, jab jab ghar khali raha, tera gum raha

khat

man ko apne bahut pukaara
khafa rehna chaaha
jo kabhi na tha humara
kaisa us pe rona
ab ki baar jo khat aaya
maine thaan liya tha
dar se lauta denge hum bhi
na lenge khat tumhara
be-imaan par dil hai bada
rah pe ja baitha
khuli ho ya band ho aakhein, dekhe rasta tumhara

strengths and weaknes

the thing i hate most about myself is that i cant say no. i have hurt more people more out of pity and empathy, than by any of my legendary tempers or frost sessions. i do remember how i myself used say that "the worst insult you can give another fellow human being is to pity them". that was the first of my great "sayings" as a friend used to say. but all that changed as i grew. guilt has many manifestations. the growing burden of remorse, or is it just fear? I dont know why, but each little bit kinder i get, in a way, the worse kind of person i think i am becoming

Not in Love

I wrote this a long long time ago and forgot all about it! Found it today cleaning up my hard disk. What was I thinking? lol. Dont even remember :)

I'm definitely not in love with you!
Infact, sometimes I dont even like you,
Too much. Or too much of you.
I get mad at most things you do
Though in I keep quiet
and Ignore it
It's not like I like You!
And I'm definitely not in love with you!


However, in the patchwork quilt
that makes each of us complete
there's random squares of you,
that I am funnily getting addicted to!
So thats probably why I think of you so much too
Or so much of you.
It's not like I like You!
And I'm definitely not in love with you!

It's just that when I go to sleep,
you and I always meet!
The world becomes a faerie land
And everything is sweet and grand
However, once I wake,
the magic always fades.
It's not like I like You!
And I'm definitely not in love with you!


Sometimes, I must admit,
I go out of my way, just a bit,
Just to be a little closer
Just for a little longer
However, I am sure it's a passing thing
Best ignored, like a chocolate craving.
It's not like I like You!
And I'm definitely not in love with you!

Looking for a new start, again ...

this is a new start
will this work any better?
does a new face bring a new voice?

chocolate amer: bitter chocolate

dark chocolate. bitter sweet. random thoughts. part verse. part lyric. part prose
can you hear it?



words strings. voices. echoes. memories. imaginings. colours splashes. feelings. looks. secrets. twins. ghosts of hear and now. ghosts of murdered dreams. dreams of murdered ghosts. nightmares. dreams.
soul songs. soul cries. soul laughter.



can you feel it?

amsterdam on my mind


checked purple flowers
Originally uploaded by preron.




purple tulips
Originally uploaded by preron.

its been a long time since the amsterdam trip, but for some reason, it kept coming to my mind today. maybe its because i was sitting in the garage and talking about paris and germany. i dont know what the connection is, just going somewhere, i suppose. we saw a whole lot of flowers. understandably, since we went for the tulip festival. but these two remain fresh in my head. this one reminded me of the roses my mom got back from chandigarh when we went for kishen uncles wedding. met vijay uncle finally. bizzare. after all these years, everyone seems so different.

requiem for a dream

i thought you had come home, when you stopped by the door
that you would knock, and with thundering heart
and trembling hands, i prepared, not to open the door.
how would i send you away? how would i stop you from stepping in?
into my horrible, dirty, broken house ...

but as you passed i realised
it was just a pebble in your shoe,
or else curiousity, in a new part of town.
and in the darkness i hadnt seen,
the shadow of someone else by ur side

its just like it was in the dream
everything u ever dreamed of, so close
and then dissapear. life is never as it seems.
u get some, you want some.
they never meet.

dont you ever wish you could command hearts ...
choose when and where and how?
dont you ever wish, you could give when asked
and to whoever the asker was ...
we could all live and love, efficiantly, and none of it wasted unasked.

A Good Day to Die

it was a beautiful day. they were a beautiful sequence of days. the sun was shining. it came and it went, but when it came, it really shone. soft and sweet. and once, direct, bang in my eyes.

but thats not the day i thought of it. i thought of it another time. it had been one whole sunny afternoon. the sun smiled, grinning in quaint grey corners, twinkling on polished old cobble stones. many dreams came true that day. thats when i thought of it.

i doubt that i will ever be able to explain it. its one thing to feel things, and another to shape them in words. have you ever lived a moment so perfect, so full of promises that you dont ever want it to end? a moment who's promise is so exquisite, pleasure so complete, that you dont want to move a step beyond it?

i remember flatliners. havent seen that in a long time, wanted to see it again. they are showing a bout de souffle, and atlast, double life of veronique at Edinburgh Film Centre.

whats new is a kind of letting go. there's a common thread to all the different types of courage i have found in the last few months. courage to open up and let people in. courage to try something new. courage to risk losing, failing, being rejected, looking stupid, being disliked. courage to close your eyes and step off the ledge, past the fear of falling, because you dreamed of flight. maybe it will be allright. i know that if i can only make it past this moment, this day, i will survive.

around the corner

it was a beautiful day. they were a beautiful sequence of days. the sun was shining. it came and it went, but when it came, it really shone. soft and sweet. and once, direct, bang in my eyes.

but thats not the day i thought of it. i thought of it another time. it had been one whole sunny afternoon. the sun smiled, grinning in quaint grey corners, twinkling on polished old cobble stones. many dreams came true that day. thats when i thought of it.

i doubt that i will ever be able to explain it. its one thing to feel things, and another to shape them in words. have you ever lived a moment so perfect, so full of promises that you dont ever want it to end? a moment who's promise is so exquisite, pleasure so complete, that you dont want to move a step beyond it?

i remember flatliners. havent seen that in a long time, wanted to see it again. they are showing a bout de souffle, and atlast, double life of veronique at Edinburgh Film Centre.

whats new is a kind of letting go. there's a common thread to all the different types of courage i have found in the last few months. courage to open up and let people in. courage to try something new. courage to risk losing, failing, being rejected, looking stupid, being disliked. courage to close your eyes and step off the ledge, past the fear of falling, because you dreamed of flight. maybe it will be allright.

crankpot

i'm becoming cranky, nasty, bitter
and perpetually, sweetly, deviously, sarcastic
do i watch out zealously to find in others
faults i cringe to see in me?
the thing is, you need a window, and a lot of blinds
and scattering of ventilators
and a couple of doors that can be opened from the outside
some NMI's? without ma and with baribe far away,
there are no more NMI's

a time of life

i've gotten hooked on to this song

,

and

.

Traffic signal is cute too! but not that great ...

the time is not yet right, to feel the things i'm feeling.
many things, but predominantly these: old, helpless, wistful, sad, spent.
i feel them in advance, bcz i can almost see it from here.
there's still a long way to go, before i can say i am so sorry i failed,
or that i didnt succeed more. didnt live a shade more vibrantly,
but i doubt that i'll be able to lift the weight of anymore milestones,
or the millstones on the price tags.
its watching these visions of dreams, heroism and romance
that does it. did i ever get there?
i'd thought it would last forever if it ever came,
but like everything else, glory comes in its time
and quietly whimpers away.
we live and die ordinary, grey, everyday colours and shades.

why do dreams ever flare?
teasingly, tauntingly, persisntantly,
why do the keep coming to visit nights?
technicolour, silly, grandiose,
love, ambitions and fairytales.

was life worth living, if this was to be how the end?
comfortable, loving, warm,
good, boring, insipid

is it true, the view from this point on the road?
is this the way we'll go? is it worth anything saying i wont let it?

yet i know i probably wont give up so easily.
but the thought of it makes me tired these days. such a long way

'long is the way and hard,
that out of darkness leads to light
'

we go through most of life alone.
we have friends we hang out with,
we have people to talk to,
we have things to do and places to go and people to go with,
so what is it that we are still left longing for?
what is that little extra something
which we so desperately, secretly, universally long for?
is it love? or is it just posession? ownership?
she, (my springs of life?) who loved me so much,
used to say love is the most selfish feeling ever ...
and a mothers love the most selfish of them all.
i wish i had seen what she was saying then.

maybe you had it right all along
it was a possession thing that it was all about

but life goes on, doesnt it?
life, or something like it.

like ghosts in the dark, and afternoon faeries in the woods
visions of fascinating, mesmerising, tantalising impossible dreams
and ghoulish nightmarish memories of daemons of the past
follow you through with equal ardour as you run through the woods
this is not why i came to the woods

the impossibility of the dream, does not dampen
the wild rush of blood to the head
the racing pulses, the fleeting madness
of one second, one breathless instant,
one single glance, one feeble hope, one fading dream
like the weak sunlight of the morning
that tries to clear the the still throbbing reality of
the dream that has been awoken, and hushed
but the echoes live on, all day, every day

ur thoughts are as all pervasive,
as they are stupid.
please leave my head!

love brings hope and sunshine.
love wakes the dead.
dying, the gentlest and sweetest of love,
becomes a haunting, empty numbness.

i dont know which i fear more:
the sweetness of your torture,
or the fear of ur fading.
what hurts more:
the pain, or its easing.
losing u is hard enough;
i dont want to lose ur sorrow.

isnt it sad when u seek out the cruel in someone hungry for some trace for real, tangible, human emotion, experience? or is it sadder that there always is some core of cruelty to be found. or is it sadder that thats the only emotion that will ever manage be able to cross the threshold of intensity of ur hunger, from most people?

what have i done

i'm sinking faster than a stone
i'll never get out alive this time

this would be a good place to stop
is today a good time to go

like a lottery - escalating
maybe its about knowing when to quit

in either way, in either sphere
it will never be better than today

Winter Break 2006. Home!

CALCUTTA













DUBAI










sister of my soul. and other ramblings.

still tired and nauseus almost all the time
under a couple of layers of miscellaneous excitements
is a layer of calm numbness
and beneath that a speechless panic that
next a layer of impotent detachment.

as it watches the rotating mind pass that spot again
where it knows a way of life has passed for ever
and though the table has been cleared
and the sorbet brought in,
i have no clue what i want for my next course
at the bottom, i think, is stinging angst
of feeling unsettled and unsure
and just plain missing friends
and their reality checks.

without you to give me a reference point
without you to laugh with,
without you crack stupid inside jokes with,
without you to talk about love, life and men with,
friendless, twinless, alone.
anyone else is too many words away
noone knows as much background as you
i could talk but who'd understand
half sentences, like you do.

watching Hazaaron Khwaishen reawekens the itch
and relocates it tantalisingly, teasingly,
just barely out of reach.
what who where is this thing
i ache to be.

outside, its a sunny day.
and i'm feeling much better today,
thank you. a bit busy (for polite non conversation).
brb. catch you. cheers. happy new year to you too.

love, or something like it

in most womens lives, there are atleast three men
the one she loves. the one who loves her. and the safest bet.
any or all can be manifested in one person,
be absent, be imaginary, yet to appear, in trial, or absent.

if a lot of people love you, you cannot
love everyone who loves you.

sometimes, some people bore you so lethally,
that however fond of them you are, or however sorry you feel for them,
or however much you want to, or however hard you try,
its impossible to love them.

i have often thought that some people have an aptitude for joy. they are happy whatever the circumstance. the reverse is also true.

i think the same is true for love, and in relationships.

its possible to oscillate between the two ends or,
live somewhere in between.

Open 2007

i'm back in edinburgh after a month
went home - dubai, then cal, then dubai
saw a lot of movies
partied a lot
met a lot of old friends and some new
it was a fun hols
now i'm psyched bcz i think i lost a cd case
i dont even know if i ever had it
like most people around me, i'm not exactly bored but kind of
outta things to say to the blog
so ill stop here before ennui turns to angst
till inspiration strikes again ...

happy new year everyone