The Child

This morning i met a child. he tugged at my skirt and drew my attention. paradoxically, shy and commanding at the same time. i was touched. i was moved. he was so sweet, almost ephemereal. i bent down to his level, to smile and say hello. the next thing i knew he'd shot up to the sky. towering. a hero. six feet (1) tall. before i had time to be surprised i was struck by awe. he was so beautiful. so different. so familiar. was he a distilled reflection of all the best parts of myself? or an angel from the above?. then before my eyes he changed again and became a monster. dark clouds. ugly rotten insides. putrid smelling dwarfed thoughts. ugly. petty. underdeveloped thoughts. collapsed reason. mayhem. madness. blindness. who was he? was he so different. so familiar. was he a distilled reflection of all the best parts of myself? or an angel from the dark?

The Bogeyman

I had a child. after she came home from school, i gave her lunch and put her to sleep. i tucked her up under her favourite fluffy blanket, put her to sleep. I had lots of work. It had to be done right then. Urgent, important grown up work. She was fast asleep. She was a deep sleeper. She would be safe here, I told myself, and went to the study to do my grownup work. The bogeyman came by that afternoon. He passed by the window, next to which her bed lay. He had balloons, of many colours, round, shining. And flowers. And chocolate. And he smiled at her and talked of many things. Fairies, clouds, stars, people, the world, love, loss and rain. All the things that fascinated my little girl. She must have stared at him in wide eyed wonder. She must have cried a little to think of all the waste. She must have stopped and shut her eyes every now and then. She must have taken reality checks. She must have called out to me ... but I had been too busy to here her call. The bogeyman put a spell on her. She must have slipped out, somehow, through the grill that gaurded the window, inspite of everything I had done to keep her safely in. I was still in the study when I heard her cries. He made her come out and left her crying on the sidewalk. She stood there in the afternoon sun. bawling like the idiot she was. Crying because he was gone. She had thought he'd take her sailing on a cloud. They would float above the skies. Drop handfuls of rain on people below. Paint sunshine in the skies. Laugh thunder in the night. Was it typical of my role that at that moment anger battled sympathy? fear battled love? How do you take care of a child? How do you bring up someone right? How do you teach a wild, crazy, dreaming idiot ... the difference between right and wrong, the important things in life, the ways of the world, self respect, survival. its hard. its very hard. and it will get harder as time goes on.

55 Words (Disclaimer: Tagged)

Was tagged into this by Parna, so here goes, in my bungling (55) words:

"He was excited: this was a break-through in his field. He'd be a national hero. The phone-calls started coming: newspapers, journals. A loud ringing sounded. A man in grey approached and put a peremptory hand on his shoulder. He frowned at the gaurd; then sighing, followed. Inmates of the assylum werent allowed outside after dark."

"The child kept crying; could she sense that her doting Papa would never return? She rocked it gently and thought: her love, would never come home again. Far away, the man sighed as the black mask was pulled on. His lawyer had fought hard, but they still gave the death penalty for child rape."

She glowed with excitement. She was going to meet him! She had to be careful: if someone from her family saw her, there might be trouble. She had waited a long time, believing there was someone, somewhere made just for her, and now she had found him. She met him on her birthday: her 60th.

"Unlike her home, this place had everything she might need. A smiling face bent down: her new Mummy. She swallowed her fears and smiled back. She missed her Ma's soft wrinkly face. She had to forget Her and love these people now. Ma had explained everything carefully after the accident they had both died in."

Now i have tag a couple of people ... dont kill me: looking forward to reading what u will come up with (not to mention, would like to spread the pain ;@))

Vie
Austere
Anumita
Belzeebub
Peg
Ash
Maddie



Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/09/55-words-disclaimer-tagged.html


Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/09/friday-blues-indigo-skies.html

Letters to that boy

do u ever feel totally lost and confused
as to kya kar na chaahiye - kis disha mein chalna chaahiye
i mean kaam ke baare mein
and u wish ki koi hota jo humse bara hota aur samajhdaar hota
and we could trust both their being more samajhdhaar than you
and their commitment to you
then u could tell them ur doubts and take their advice

maybe I'm just talking about Faith :)

u asked me the 1st time we spoke if i have anyone to talk to
i said no
i know it probably sounded like i have no close friends ... but its not that
my life is crowded with people
who love me - but cant say why - or give gaurantees - or live upto them
and with people also that i love, or am very fond of - but cant lean on, even a little bit
cz i dont trust them enough ... and when i say i dont trust them i mean that

trust both their being more samajhdhaar than you
and their commitment to me

Random Notes

Its just idea's that we long for - inverted ghosts: shadows of the future,
or of our dreams, our imaginings. or echoes and footprints of past.
of lives lived. things felt.

we look back, and dream forward, from here, where we are frozen ...

we look at each others mourning and marvel at the diff sounds of
our cries and diff shapes of our tears ... but in the end theres
only one fact that remains ... death the lowest common denominator
and an end: of all that was and could have been, of all we were and
could have been, and wont be, nay, will not allow
ourselves to be, ever, ever again.

i'm sorry. i guess i'm just a nasty and cranky and vitriolic.
like a bitter old man who's been a gatekeeper at the further
outpost of the fortress walls for way to long ... strong,
lonely and frozen


Is it really (like being inside my thoughts), I wonder ;@)

u should always remember that u never know what another persons
thoughts are. u just see what they show u and that might

have nothing to do with what they are or are thinking :)

Remember my comment on one of ur recent posts to this effect?
we talk in riddles and hyperboles. its like we are all sitting
in a pressure cooker. u dont want to let out everything thats inside.
u let out little wisps of steam now and then. u were thinking of
something then, it caused u to write something, but not eactly what
u were thinking. and reading that i inferred, guessed at,
something, which again might be something entirely diff.
moral of the story: we can never be inside anyone's head ... thank god.

aaj chokh chhol chhol
mon tao durbol

shimaana haariye gechhe
poth phuriye gechhe

baari pherar poth,
aaj nirjon.

baari but baar shei baari khaali.
shob dhuloye dhoshiye gechhe!

reading, writing, music, people, texas, uk, kolkata, silence,
contrasts, confusion, contradiction, diction, cognition, the brain, psychology, philosophy, sociology etymology, ai, systems programming, networking, mainframes, history, literature, history of literature, movies, humour, satire, meanings, invasive question games, thought, devil's advocacy, curmudgeonliness, pessimism, ennui, ego, pride, power, love, sorrow, depression, narcisissm, pain
Empire art Kolkata invasive question games silence thought experiments devil's advocacy Curmudgeonliness, Pessimism, Ennui

people life texas kolkata silence contrasts contradiction cognition psychology philosophy systems programming history literature meanings bloviation

i think its always the person own choice ... yet we hve to be prepared to take consequences for our choices ... sometimes thats hard. specially cz payday is usually so long delayed ... ur a diff person by then and so u sometimes
feel like ur paying for what someone else chose, bought and consumed. now theres nothing left - the person, the purchase ... just you and the bills

This is another concept I have struggled with for a long time ... dont shoot me, just saying what I have wondered ... if you love him and he loves you and if you're so good together, does it matter if he is unfaithful ... I mean there will be something wrong with everyone right ... they say no one is perfect
and everyone will have some fault ... the fatal flaw, though
all else might be perfect

i know where the problems are. i know, almost, what the problems are. but i dont know how to fix them. i know what i want eventually, but i dont know how to get there. it seems so far away ... a trembling leap across an awning chasm and the clock ticking behind you.

someone asked me to clarify these and it set me wondering. These are the type of things I am always weaving neatly into elaborately circumlocuted lectures and parables. With a little sister ten yrs your junior, you learn to 'lecture' with panache (a bottle-ful of sugar). Today, got totally confused!
I think the "do as I say not as I do" policy was better!

how do you "be friendly" without "being friends"

how do you keep "what you feel like" and "what you
want" clearly seperate in your head


"my greatest lovesprings from my greatest hate" anais nin

of all the people i like, if they get to friendly with u i hate them for it. if they hate u, i hate them for it. so the only way i can survive is to keep the two worlds scruplously apart. but ur in me, my love. i carry u, inside, wherever i go. every love, passion, friendship, relationship ... fades before the intensity of my hate for u. is it love. is it hate, i dont know. at 10 yrs of age, ur too young to decide. after that u dont dare to know. to look. to think. i hate u.

if i was untrue, hope u knew, it was never to you

week after week flashes by. nothing to say, really. nothing that hasnt been said already. the things that need telling, i dont know how to tell, or indeed, if i should, or ever could. how to find the words? the heart? the courage? dil mein taqat, jigaar mein haal kahaan?

anyway, shifting to another gear, i felt a little bad abt the press release by R where he said 'they obviously knew who was the best' and narry a mention of the other 4 companies the contract was jointly awarded to, but then maybe it doesnt matter.

The bull is apparently running like never before and even i am making some :)

No football this friday. No rowing this weekend. No invites. No friends. No phone calls. Just me and Java. Need to start studying. Honest - this is pathetic! Its steppenwolf's fault, cz he has me in his grip - major distraction.

In the blog world, another one bites the dust, another old blog friend closes down his blog. Reasons are familiar. Vie, ur a wise one. The thing is, the min something is written by someone u know, someone who is a friend, the reader reacts to it like its a friend telling u something abt their lives. ie, they look for the person in the prose. which is something which will invariably frustrate the writer if he is not concerned with his person-ality but rather with his prose ... ummm ... bah! i got lost somewhere there. Maybe its the same with real writers as well, bcz i remember having once read some cribbing to the effect in immortality (kundera)

I was browsing through the old blog and came across my first post ... the way we were! And life goes on; in endless circles; drunkenly overlapping and overrunning eachother. it takes a lot, i sometimes feel, to stay faithful ... to ur dream, to ur self, to life. to stay, true to life. Song in my head ...

By now, I have worked in 3 continents and in 4 offices and this is my fav amongst all my work environments. Just for the simple little traditions they have which make things a little bit cosier. Also, the dreaded C word is not such a dirty word here. or maybe i should say 'yet'. No horsing around apart, i like the people here. Theres something very sweet and warm and even genuine abt them

Outside, its fall again: my favourite time of the year. The tree's begin to blush again. The roads are littered with discarded leaves. maple leaves? another one for the series? :) i go to a bench behind the office to eat my lunch. as i munch through my lunch, i watch a leave swirl and dance lazily down to the grass. if i asked you, as u stand tall, swaying gracefully in the wind, why did you pick this leaf to discard, would you answer me, or stare at me with doe-caught-in-the-headlight eyes? later, as i walk back to the office, i saw a little bird lying on its back on the sidewalk. it was white and blue and grey and very beautiful. it was obviously still alive, but each time i tried to go near it, to see if i could help, it would scratch out with its claws. maybe it could sense that the end was near and was saving me the trouble? Song in my head ...

Come September, its that time of the year when i miss cal the most of all ... pujo? Nyet! founders day. the joys of going back to school and getting sloshed on sponsored booze along with ur gods of yesterday ... priceless. Some people never got over 'Nam or the night their band opened for Nirvana. 'Someone' never really got over Charlie. Most Martinians, I think, never get over School.


Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/09/if-i-was-untrue-hope-u-knew-it-was.html

My Dear Phantom

betrayed
discarded
thrown away
little baby
pls dont cry
princess in the garbage bag
everybody's angel turned to rags
thrown away
taken home
thrown away
taken home
little baby pls dont cry
one day,
u'll sing urself lullabies

round and round
time after time
the bells ring out from the distance
echo
shivers through the cold air
and the rides the waves of time
falling on my skin
like the cold clammy clinging fingers
of the wet caress, of a fast rotting corpse
apologies ...
for the sordid pitures!
but i'm tired of apologising.
sorry if i scared u,
im so glad i hurt u.
maybe now
u'll know how it feels
and im sorry i took it away
what i had once lent you
see how emptiness feels.

theres a crow in the parlour
glossy, black and fat
its crying out all day and night
glossy wings v laid back
all lay down and get ready to die
all lie down you'll love to die
no time to cry
the dance is over
no time to sigh
the song is over
the game is done
for this round
the sun has burned itself to dust
theres just a battlefield, in the cold and dark
littered bodies on the ground
rotting bodies all around
whenever i reached out to look for u
my hand met a decaying i love u
no more games
or i love yous
no more trials
no more searches
time to give up the eternal search
time to lay down and say goodbye
watch hope fly
away in the sky

Orient Express at SPE

Stumbled upon this looking for the author of a interestingly written review! Quite the same way as I'd stumbled into Pico Iyer a long time ago, but thats another story. The Orient Express used (probably still does) play at Someplace Else (SPE) in Calcutta. At a time when good live music was at a premium in Cal. Loads of memories. SPE, ofcourse, have written enough abt it already in older posts, and Orient Express.

I read this today - Guess who's the likeliest candidate!!!

Quite out-of-words, specially after the immense comment i left on a certain persons blog - which was almost as long as most posts i've written. yikes - maybe he will ban me in future!

Why do I like him? I'm sure I dont know. Maybe its just my villain-of-the-moment-philia :)

Couldnt sleep last night - which means that I was starving all day today. Whats the connection? I dunno. Its always like that for me. Tried to sleep till 0100, then gave up and went for a walk. Why does the world feel so different at night? Went to the river, its very near my house. It sounds nice. Standing at the bridge, looking down. Added benefit: In the dark you cant see how dirty it is :) And I thought about how long it was since I have done that. Not bothering to go to bed on a weeknight. eating choc cake in the middle of the week. Come so far, barely noticed, from the old days. When did I become so conventional, so grown-up, so practical, so scared? The just right before dawn brings so many memories ... but the strongest and first is always Barbie. Most days around five she'd still be in her room painting. By around then we'd have our fill of our solitary and reach out. All night chats. Sense & Sensibilty, Siddharta, Hi-Fid, does the cat really love us, do you want to steal some choc cake. Miss you so much little one.

Was left speechless by someones thoughts. So much belief, faith. So honest. So clean. So simple. Why you like this little one? And u've lived even more years ... does it get better, then? Or is it just 'you'

Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/09/orient-express-at-spe.html

Dhhuya

shabdo mein kya bayaan kare
sannata kaise goongta hai
kissi ko kya bataye
laashe kaise jeetee hain

na umeed ya asha
na roshni ki chahat ho
jo ghar kabhi basa nehi
uska kaisa chiraag ho

barsaat mein, toofan mein
jo deep jalaaya
roshni ki kadar na thee
toh dhaage ko kyun jalaya

bedard, bedil,
bewafa, aap kahaan?
kaafir toh hum the
jo has ke gum le na sake

hum to subha se hi
badnaam, be-jaat, be-imaan the
phir bhi kuchh the,
tere baad kuchh na rahe

bahut dur jali aag
bahut paas utha dhuuya
bahut dur jali chita
bahut paas koi jala

jab se hosh tha, bas tera bharosa tha
jab se hosh tha, tera bharosa tha
sharam se aaj sir jhuka ke
tere baad bhi hosh bacha hain

Face in the mirror

standing,
in knee deep clutter
of broken pieces of
the face in the mirror

the parts,
that the image of myself
has separated into,
falling,
have jagged edges that cut

scattered junk crappy poetry
and still born prose
while the sun starts to begin to start to set on my days
im still frozen, like a deer in the headlights

and u flew dancing by
gaily coloured carousel
father son holy friend
burned my eyes to watch u gaily spin

achingly, bleedingly
ringing wind in hollow walls of my heart
so runs through my head screeching ... the fatal desire
to let go and fall

look over the ledge
shaking hands, grip the edge
on and on the voices run
let go. hang on

just then, the phone rang. didnt have the nerve

funny! since monday i've been looking for "the post i wrote after watching frieda" ... found this and also, this, but neither said what i was looking for. Theres a weird thing that either happens to me or i imagine happening to me, often-times. I'm not sure how to describe it but its something like at times after I've been thinking about something, quite a while, i 'bump into' a movie, or a book or even a song or person, which seems to suggest an answer, an insight, or is just like meeting someone else who was wondering too. bah! cant explain. but felt like that this weekend watching Salvatore Cascio in Cinema Paradiso. at work, a pat on the back! however tiny ... been a long time & feels so good. the heads races season and our club has a race planned! Classes start again next week. Atlast, the month has ended and I can eat again - days of broke-dom ... bye bye! Mum AND Dad due to visit this month! Have a feeling it wont work out! Its a family tradition ... pre-planned trips somehow never work out. I remember this trip to Puri once where the junta (parents' friends) had come over for a general friday night meal and suddenly they decided to go to Puri and and were off before we (the kids) even figured out what was happening. Is it nice when ur being sweetly sarci and people dont even get it? They yell murder when ur not being sarci/cold/aloof but when u r they dont even get it ... thank god! Though I hate it when I've been sarci, leaves a bad taste. As does losing it and letting the all out. Then what to do? Must we always sweep every feeling under the carpet? I dunno; but its pretty pointless if you cant 'explain' it, at the end of the day; by explain, i guess, i mean succesfully getting the point (and the point behind the point); but perhaps, you dont have to explain everything to everyone, or even, anything to anyone; as long as u understand. Updated my wishlist ... not that I'll have money to buy anything for a while, but whats the harm in wishing ... Have just flipped over the all new 'skillport' ... there's consolations for being in the top 10 by 10 lane - it has the complete complete reference (Schildt) online ... Im happy :)

Originally posted @
http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/08/just-then-phone-rang-didnt-have-nerve.html

Akela

na shikwa hai
na gila hain
na aur kuchh kehna hain
na aur kuchh sunna hain
andheri raat mein gunjti huyi
bas ek akeli siski hain

na zarurat hain
na tamanna hain
na koi yahaan dost hain
na koi kahin apna hain
dil aaj bas ek khaali makaan ka
toota hua saaya hai

peechhe koi saaya
na waqt ki koi parchhayi hai
na aage koi raah
ya dur koi manzil hai
bas ek pal hai
bas usmein rakha ek kadam hai

na koi aur sapna hai
na koi aur chahat hai
jo jeena tha kal jee liya
bas rukna baaki hai
saanjh tak ruk na hai
raat se milna hain

i wonder if they know ...

song of the day: knife. the old one. yeah - blast from the past.

very lazy weekend. the most vigorous exercise i got was from the bed to the sofa. well, almost! did go for a walk sometime late on saturday night. the stars hung low. the water gurgled after the rains. the roads were slick black stone.

ate some store bought curry on saturday night (lamb madras)
they called it hot.

listen to fireworks, at the festival. lying in bed, in dark room, if you close ur eyes and imagine with all ur might, u can remember calcutta thundering.

read last night eats, shoots and leaves and Carlyle's House the day before.

Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-wonder-if-they-know.html

Losing

at times it builds up gradually
starting with a slow spreading helplessness
then catching to fast spreading burning rage
you are trying very hard to ignore it,
but its like a snarling dog,
that you have dragged away with
a heavy iron chain round the neck
to the bedroom, at the back of the house.
you have locked him in, for now.
but slowly his barking, his demonic teeth gnashing,
his horrible cursing howls,
seep out through the crack under the door
and attack your ears, grate ur nerves,
threaten ur sanity, ur life, ur whole being,
and worst of all, ur focus on this moment, on behaving,
like nothing is happening.

sometimes it comes like a kick in the gut
in the centre of your stomach
where your its softest,
and gentlest.
sudden. sharp. hard.
so that someone seeing you from the outside
doesnt see any blood at all.
sudenly you just double up,
while they watch in innocent awe.
ur breath just goes
ur senses go
for a moment its like u were ducked under water
then it passes.
u hold still a while,
then go on again eyes still a little wet
but controlled, for all appearences

sometimes it comes,
like the fog comes down on sea salt,
and leaves you in a puddle, on the floor,
yeah - like in the james bond song.

its such a far away land
where people go to when they leave you
you want to run after them but the head start is too big
too clow to react, as usual
before i knew what was happening,
u were gone ...
the little lame boy
is left crying in the street
spoilt now, for town
for life, and for him

at other times theres no pain
just a emptyness
that i hope wont fade
i hold on
to every tear
desperately
the last traces of you
in my life

u dont love me anymore?
so they say ...
how do i belive you
how do i go on?
everything, poor substitute
like you'had once said
how do i ...
slate my hunger
with plain still water

what am i writing about?
how do i learn,
to live without you
where do i find
meaning in anything i do
or dont
when it was all for you
theres nothing left
that matters
everything the hold up
as sorry excuses, substitutes
so sorry
want to fling them to the floor
how dare someone hold themselves in ur place
and say live for me?

dont want to live for anyone
dont want to go on anymore

dont want to get past this blow
of losing you again

dont want to lose my grip
on the cutting sense of guilt

its the last trace of you i have
left now in my world

dont take the pain away
dont take the rage away

under construction

dolly_8_8_2005.txt


it was four in the morning. he stood by the water, leaning on the side of his car. the crickets were just begining to break through the silence, taking over from the daytime noises. everything else was deserted and quiet. quite nearby an industrious spider spun busily away. there were a few drops of rain stuck on the web. they glistened in the moonlight. why had he never noticed how pretty they were. he'd just been paranoid of ever getting near them. he wasnt scared of the spiders but he felt some nameless paralysis at the mere thought of walking into a barely material curtain unawares and feeling it rest slowly on his face. dolly had always pulled his leg about it. daddy is scared of spiders. daddy's a scaredy paredey poo. the stupid silly things she used to say. all at once his mind froze on that thought and came to a halt. its strange how one part of ur brain starts a thought and suddenly, in a delayed response the rest of ur brain latches on. in that strange way, the whole of his mind registered that a part of his mind had used the past tense for the first time. he didnt feel anything. he wasnt the feeling sort. just a kind of clenching in his stomach. like something went all tight for a second and made him hold his breath. then it passesd. it wasnt hard to deal with this. all he needed was not to close his eyes and not to think and to be left alone so that he could do these things. he didnt want to forget. he didnt want to 'heal' - whatever that meant. he didnt want to be happy. he just wanted to be left alone. for now, atleast.

was he being unreasonable? overreacting? how much reaction is okay when your only daughter dies leaving u nothing really except a numbness, a feeling that nothing mattered.

he wasnt the only one in the world who had lost a child. he wasnt even the only one in the world who had lost this child. her mother, his parents, her parents, everyone loved dolly. everyone was saddened by her loss. they were being far more rational than him, he knew that. yes, he knew that. but somehow, it felt like his case was different from all the others. he 'knew' at some level that it wasnt really so, but still, it 'felt' that way. what was the difference? did he love her, sorry - had he loved her, more than they had? not really. perhaps the difference was that he had never loved anyone else. he had not been very human to begin with. she had melted some tiny corner of his heart - just enough to make room for her little little self. now that she was gone and that room was empty, and it felt like his numb, frozen heart would cave in a fall into itself, into the empty room. she had taught him to feel things but now that she was gone, he didnt know what to feel. he was in a no mans land. neither here nor there

he spent hours by himself in her empty room.
and he felt like he had just been hung out in the cold. he couldnt go back to what he was a nd feel nothing and he didnt know waht to feel either.

she had not been his reason excuse to live, she had been but a reason why he could not die, could not want to die

he thought now, while she had lived she had always blindly adored him. whatever her daddy could do no wrong. her daddy was her biggest hero. her daddy was above all things. beyond all things. better than everything. now that she was dead would she have found out everything about hikm, all his hidden sins, transgessions, mistakes. all the times he had fallen, had not been able to help himself, had cleaned up and come home to her later. shining in his daddy armour again? would she know? would she still love him? did she hate him now?

why hadnt he come home. he had known she was ill. her wife had called the station frantically about a doxen times. dolly is burning with fever. dolly is acting strange. come home. scome home come home. but he had kept putting it off. he hadnt taken it seriously. now he couldnt bear to look at his work. couldnt bear to walk into the little office. sit at the desk.

my love wasnt enough to keep you

nor my pain enough to bring you back
and neither my guilt enough to take me with u.

all iwant is darkness
all i want is sleep
backout
oblivion
all need is lethe
i have no right to mourn u
i didnt love u
enough to hold u
i didnt car
anough to be there
i have no rights
to anything
all i want
is a final exit

actually everything was beyongd repair now. his work, his marraige. with you, he thought, i have betrayed everything. when i turned away form you, my eyes burned the world down.


he was getting better, he supposed. everyday it got a little number where there was just raw pain before at first. everyday he lasted a little longer with out closing his eyes to see hier laughing mockingly at hiom. not his baby gentle laugh. a adult, sinister, cruel laugh. that seemed to say - who's sorry now.
without suddenly out of the blue efeeling her dead weight of her tiny, limp body in his arms gain. like a dead sparrow.

Guess I'm going through Changes

trying out something here. the old blog has moved (back) to http://recerche.blogspot.com again :) bear with me ... gypsy feet. I dont know (my favourite sentence). I was kind of spring cleaning. Read a LOT of old posts. Felt surreal. Have you ever met people and then totally forgotten about them, and then suddenly bumped into some stored recollection of them in some dusty corner of you mind, while looking for something else? I found some old selves. Had I really been that excited about reading red tails in love a year or so back? that bitter after the appraisals a month or so back. Guess in some ways the way I am is so fleeting that i lose track of all the me's i pass through. Why the sudden change? What do you do when you get to the end? u start again, right? I feel like I've run out of words. Run out of things to say. Like we hope at times, that changing something outside will change something inside, Im hoping that changing the blog will change the words inside it. Having said all that, I might change my mind tomorrow. Change is such hard work.

Its beautiful weather here right now. Not too cold. Not too warm. It rains, but only at night. I sit on the floor, by the window and watch.

Finally saw Chokher Bali on Sunday. Also saw, in one sitting: Kaal, Dhoom, Dil Malamaal, Chokher Bali, Blue Velvet, Silkwood and a old Harry Potter. The problem with online rental in the UK is the stock is much less than netflix or something like that so, what usually happens is you have about 300 movies in queue and u dont think too much about the last 100 or so cz u it feels like forever before u'll get to them, but everything in the first lot is invariably out of stock and you get something totally unpredictable. Wanna buy HOURS, though. And Motorcycle Diaries

Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/08/guess-im-going-through-changes.html

Pretty Words

all i have is pretty words.
multi colored.
and i weave
kaleidoscopic pictures,
with wild fancies
and stray dreams,
or inconsequential wishes, and thoughts
of my silly heart

all i have is pretty words.
to paint pretty pictures,
or sing pretty songs of love or pain.
What i want is to make them fly,
and all i want is to see them soar,
and all i want is make them roar with everything they need to say
make something real out of them
make them into something real

for example,
if i could use my words
to tell u how i'm feeling,
this minute,
or how i wept, last night,
hidden behind the half closed bathroom door
spilled over on the tiles in the darkness
hiding from demons
that were waiting in the bedroom,
under the pillow,
to sneak into a war dance
as soon as i put my head down.

or i'd tell you how she haunts me
everytime i close my eyes.
i feel like an orphaned child,
with nothing left to live for anymore,
and a feeling,
that this feelings just gonna grow.
that i dont belong to anybody anymore,
that nobody belongs to me anymore.

or, for instance, if i had the words to tell u how,
my life feels lived and behind me now.
that for every thing of beauty,
that i see outside or find within me,
theres nobody left out there,
that i'd care to show it to.
or no one to come home to.
image to live up to.
nothing to look forward to.
noone to hold on to in the night.
no love that comes without a price.

but i dont know how to say these things.
i dont know how to say anything.
if i did i would then tell u
how i think i'm falling for you
the way i wait for u to call
why it hurts when my hopes fall
and i realise
it would be wise
not to risk so much,
or anything as such,
cz though my heart,
the codeless gypsy,
the wild wanderer,
the arrogant conqueror,
the curious adventurer
the hungry dreamer
my blind foolish ambitious heart
my brave strong reckless heart
whispers urgings in my ear
time and again, i try not to hear
cz i know some risks are just too dear
cz life has taught me to fear
love, friendship, childhood,
and other pretty words.
and how they burn, and dig, and cut,
when they turn around.

i'll always be there ...
but no one's always there.
i'll always be there ...
noone's ever there.
in the night, when the demons dance
ur always alone by some freak chance
when the wind blows and sucks out ur soul
when the guilt drills into ur bones
by some happy or unhappy chance
ur always alone when the demons dance

How

how can someone abusing u
sound better than someone silent

how can one person, make the whole world
seem stupid and ugly and boring

how can broken faith stand again
how can i fall in love

My favourite writers

There are many people who write but of all the blogs I have read till now there are three writers who I really love to read (apart, of course from my fav - pogie)anytime, everytime, eachtime. I wrote a lot of things but then I deleted it all. Sometimes I just run out of words.

Met a girl at the body shop yesterday who said she loved India and Shah Rukh Khan. She said she had gone and lived in Madras for a long time. Told her something weird - dunno - a slip? Not freudan I hope?

Reading Steppenwold atlast. Have had it forever but have been putting it off as I was scared of the big depression descending.

On my wanted list - trying to get hold of The Book Against God and some other books. Have it in my basket in amazon but never checked out. Somehow ran up a bill of almost 70 pounds and Im at my brokest this month. Phone bills mostly. As usual.

TGIF again. Looking forward to 2 days of sheer blissful blank. Toying with the idea of North Berwick this weekend. Or, I might go and finally check out what happening at the festival.

At somepoint I have to start thinking of certifications again. Need to choose from FPC 2, oracle or Java. Dont wanna do any of that though, which I makes it that much more exciting to look forward to.

too little too late

Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
Where were you when I was hurt and helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of lifeand the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the waiting had begun
And headed straight..into the shining sun


Been ages since I heard Floyd. Seems fashionable (?) to hate Floyd and go for Terrapin these days ... or does it! This reminds me always of another VERY different, and as controversial (in our circles) song ... ghulaam ali, no less

Dolly (Part 1) (version 2)

it was four in the morning. he stood by the water, leaning on the side of his car. the crickets were just begining to break through the silence, taking over from the daytime noises. everything else

was deserted and quiet. quite nearby an industrious spider spun busily away. there were a few drops of rain stuck on the web. they glistened in the moonlight. why had he never noticed how pretty

they were. he'd just been paranoid of ever getting near them. he wasnt scared of the spiders but he felt some nameless paralysis at the mere thought of walking into a barely material curtain

unawares and feeling it rest slowly on his face. dolly had always pulled his leg about it. daddy is scared of spiders. daddy's a scaredy paredey poo. the stupid silly things she used to say. all at once his

mind froze on that thought and came to a halt. its strange how one part of ur brain starts a thought and suddenly, in a delayed response the rest of ur brain latches on. in that strange way, the

whole of his mind registered that a part of his mind had used the past tense for the first time. he didnt feel anything. he wasnt the feeling sort. just a kind of clenching in his stomach. like something

went all tight for a second and made him hold his breath. then it passesd. it wasnt hard to deal with this. all he needed was not to close his eyes and not to think and to be left alone so that he could do

these things. he didnt want to forget. he didnt want to 'heal' - whatever that meant. he didnt want to be happy. he just wanted to be left alone. for now, atleast.

was he being unreasonable? overreacting? how much reaction is okay when your only daughter dies leaving u nothing really except a numbness, a feeling that nothing mattered.

he wasnt the only one in the world who had lost a child. he wasnt even the only one in the world who had lost this child. her mother, his parents, her parents, everyone loved dolly. everyone was

saddened by her loss. they were being far more rational than him, he knew that. yes, he knew that. but somehow, it felt like his case was different from all the others. he 'knew' at some level that it

wasnt really so, but still, it 'felt' that way. what was the difference? did he love her, sorry - had he loved her, more than they had? not really. perhaps the difference was that he had never loved

anyone else. he had not been very human to begin with. she had melted some tiny corner of his heart - just enough to make room for her little little self. now that she was gone and that room was

empty, and it felt like his numb, frozen heart would cave in a fall into itself, into the empty room. she had taught him to feel things but now that she was gone, he didnt know what to feel. he was in a

no mans land. neither here nor there

he spent hours by himself in her empty room.
and he felt like he had just been hung out in the cold. he couldnt go back to what he was a nd feel nothing and he didnt know waht to feel either.

she had not been his reason excuse to live, she had been but a reason why she he could not die, could not want to die

he thought now, while she had lived she had always blindly adored him. whatever her daddy could do no wrong. her daddy was her biggest hero. her daddy was above all things. beyond all things.

better than everything. now that she was dead would she have found out everything about hikm, all his hidden sins, transgessions, mistakes. all the times he had fallen, had not been able to help

himself, had cleaned up and come home to her later. shining in his daddy armour again? would she know nknow? would she still love him? did she hate him now?

why hadnt he come home. he had known she was ill. her wife had called the station frantically about a doxen times. dolly is burning with fever. dolly is acting strange. come home. scome home come

home. but he had kept putting it off. he hadnt taken it seriously. now he couldnt bear to look at his work. couldnt bear to walk into the little office. sit at the desk.

my love wasnt enough to keep you

nor my pain enough to bring you back
and neither my guilt enough to take me with u.

all iwant is darkness
all i want is sleep
backout
oblivion
all need is lethe
i have no right to mourn u
i didnt love u
enough to hold u
i didnt car
anough to be there
i have no rights
to anything
all i want
is a final exit

actually everything was beyongd repair now. his work, his marraige. with you, he thought, i have betrayed everything. when i turned away form you, my eyes burned the world down.


he was getting better, he supposed. everyday it got a little number where there was just raw pain before at first. everyday he lasted a little longer with out closing his eyes to see hier laughing

mockingly at hiom. not his baby gentle laugh. a adult, sinister, cruel laugh. that seemed to say - who's sorry now.
without suddenly out of the blue efeeling her dead weight of her tiny, limp body in his arms gain. like a dead sparrow.

No more goodbyes

my love was not enough to keep you
my pain is not enough to bring you back
my guilt is not enough to make me atone
my regret not enough for it to last

they come to you with affection
they come to you with bitter balms
i dont want to make it better
i want my pain to go on and on

all i want is darkness
so i can concentrate on you

all i want is to be left alone
so i can focus on the pain

all i want is to run behind
before you reach the banks of lethe

all i want is to understand this
how can you forget me

all i need is to believe this
that you could ever forget me

i have no right to mourn u
i failed u too often

i have no right, to touch ur soul
all i want is to run behind u as u fade away

all i want is to follow
or let it end this way

incomplete. maybe will finish someday.

this morning when i woke up
i was a child again
threw the day i grew up
as i waited for the rain

slowly the seasons change
nervous anticipation
nervousness becomes fear
fear turns to numb cold
as the sun rises the col unfreeazes
the day dawns with unincredulous happiness

excitement

Like Repels Like

He was bored. It was his study hour. His father had locked him in the library, till he could say that he had finished his homework. He stared out of the window for a while, but soon grew bored with that. He stared around at the high walls covered with books, making the room look like it was dressed in brown and maroon leather, and it depressed him all the more. Giving up, he crashed himself sulkily into the chair at his appointed desk, and wondered what he could do to entertain himself, without incurring his fathers wrath any more than he already had. At one corner of the desk he found two magnets. The magnets looked big and powerful and important. first he played with the magnets and a lot of little pins lying around, making each magnet pull pins and then peeling the pins off. soon he was bored with that. then he brought the two magnets together. they kept pushing eachother apart. first this one then that. first this way then that. yet when he pushed them together he got a funny wobbly connecting feeling between them run through to his hands. this was fun. he kept pushing them together but he couldnt make them meet. first he was challenged and intrigued by the problem. after a while he got irritated and angry at its sullen and continuous impetinence in refusing to be resolved. Finally he got fed up with the whole thing and threw both the magnets away. They hit the corner of the desk and feel to the floor broken.

incomplete. will complete someday. maybe

this morning i met a child. he tugged at my skirt and drew my attention. paradoxically, shy and commanding at the same time. i was touched. i was moved. he was so sweet, almost ephemereal. i bent down to his level, to smile and say hello. the next thing i knew he'd shot up to the sky. towering. a hero. six feet (1) tall. before i had time to be surprised i was struck by awe. he was so beautiful. so different. so familiar. was he a distilled reflection of all the best parts of myself? or an angel from the above?. then before my eyes he changed again and became a monster. dark clouds. ugly rotten insides. putrid smelling dwarfed thoughts. ugly. petty. underdeveloped thoughts. collapsed reason. mayhem. madness. blindness. who was he? was he so different. so familiar. was he a distilled reflection of all the best parts of myself? or an angel from the dark?

Orange Skies


orange skies, originally uploaded by prerona.

Sunset: In Edinburgh, on the 6th of August: the end of the days.



Originally posted @ http://prerona.blogspot.com/2005/08/orange-skies.html

TGIF

very long week. but didnt even see it as it passed. the festival is here. was supposed to go for something yesterday but couldnt make it. another week of 5am to 9pm. everything is blowing up everywhere. will have to come in tomorrow. im looking forward to the coming week. a bit embarressing. but atleast it should be quiet.

with the long heads season coming rowing will be something to look forward to! the festival will be amazing. am i lucky to be here this time of the year. u bet! im so excited!

saw an exquisite suit at Zaara. I will buy it. Havent bought a new outfit in ages! I think I finally 'see that I'm like all the rest''. (pom - beg ur pardon sweetie - wherever u are).

really looking forward to a long weekend of less work and more sleep! Will go out one night atleast. Will treat myself to a good steak and some good whiskey. I havent been out since dad left and that was some weeks. And its been a lousy 2 weeks. Its just when I met that guy at the makepovertyhistory that I realised I am in danger of becoming a hermit - whose idea of excitement was a 5K sponsored race!

By the way, remember my race, I raised the highest sponsorship amount in my team. And I think my time wasnt that bad for my first. So Im actually very proud of it :)
Doing a 10K next. Coming up.

It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse
Is this pain in here
I can't stay in here
Ain't it clear that
I just don't fit
Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit
And when we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.

me

And it's me who's too weak
And it's me who's too shy
To ask for the thing i love

I am walking on the bridge
I am over the water
And I'm scared as hell
But I know there's something better

I am not the person who is singing
I am the silent one inside
I am not the one who laughs at people's jokes
I just pacify their egos
I am not my house, my car, my songs
They are only just stops along my way
I am like the winter
I'm a dark cold female
With a golden ring of wisdom in my cave

And it is me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence

I am carrying my voice
I am carrying my heart
I am carrying my rhythm
I am carrying my prayers

But you can't kill my spirit
It's soaring and it's strong
Like a mountain
I'll go on and on

But when my wings are folded
The brightly colored moth
Blends into the dirt into the ground

bogeyman

i had a child. after she came home from school, i gave her lunch and put her to sleep. i tucked her up under her favourite fluffy blanket, put her to sleep. I had lots of work. It had to be done right then. Urgent, important grown up work. She was fast asleep. She was a deep sleeper. She would be safe here, I told myself, and went to the study to do my grownup work. The bogeyman came by that afternoon. He passed by the window, next to which her bed lay. He had balloons, of many colours, round, shining. And flowers. And chocolate. And he smiled at her and talked of many things. Fairies, clouds, stars, people, the world, love, loss and rain. All the things that fascinated my little girl. She must have stared at him in wide eyed wonder. She must have cried a little to think of all the waste. She must have stopped and shut her eyes every now and then. She must have taken reality checks. She must have called out to me ... but I had been too busy to here her call. The bogeyman put a spell on her. She must have slipped out, somehow, through the grill that gaurded the window, inspite of everything I had done to keep her safely in. I was still in the study when I heard her cries. He made her come out and left her crying on the sidewalk. She stood there in the afternoon sun. bawling like the idiot she was. Crying because he was gone. She had thought he'd take her sailing on a cloud. They would float above the skies. Drop handfuls of rain on people below. Paint sunshine in the skies. Laugh thunder in the night. Was it typical of my role that at that moment anger battled sympathy? fear battled love? How do you take care of a child? How do you bring up someone right? How do you teach a wild, crazy, dreaming idiot ... the difference between right and wrong, the important things in life, the ways of the world, self respect, survival. its hard. its very hard. and it will get harder as time goes on.

wishlist

so much to be done. so little time. how will i fit it in! woke up late this morning. lost my prescrition. had to change my lenses but cudnt remember which power went with which eye. got home really early last night. 7 pm. was in bed by 8. still overselpt. its getting cooler again here. thank god. i cant bear too much sun. im addicted to these cereal bars and the strawberry milkshake now. so as soon as i wake up i start dreaming of breakfast. which, actually i do anyway. wanna buy another laptop. cant decide which. theres something wrong with clothes suddenly. i cant remember when i last saw a decent outfit. in a shop oir even on someone. have they suddenly stopped making non-shabby, non-paati, non-gross clothes worldover? while im at it I also wanna buya diray, a big office notebook, a new phone, a new pair of sneakers, a running belt, a new grey suit, with a new black shirt and new handbag. also wouldnt mind going into amazon and just ordering everything on my wishlist there ;) but its gonna take money ... a whole lotta precious money. so its gonna take patience and time. to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, right?
theres much to be said yet
and much to be done
much to be mended
lot to be won
then why do you say, again and again
theres nothing left to live for
everyday, every breath,
every morning, every star
the sun the moon the stars
birdsong, rain fall, cool winds, hot sun
flowers, smells, smiles
and more than all that friends and lovers
so much left to live for
dont throw urself away
dont throw ur life away
how do i reach you?
how can I talk to you?
how penetrate through
ur walls


u lie on my doorstep
in ur drug induced coma
ur smoking ur life away
ur hallucinating in purple
how do i reach you
how pull u back
i wish i could tell u
theres still so much to live for
they r not worth it
there's so many orphans
u can pull urself out of their muck
run away my caterpillar
fly away butterfly
spread ur mangled, tiny wings
fly away without a trace
dissapear in ur purple haze
after five days of entering the office at 4 am and leaving at 10 pm, i was exhausted. saturday i just slept from 8pm friday night to 12:30 saturday morning. finally when i woke, i couldnt resist the hunger pangs anymore. the pr5v night id been to tired to eat. so gobbled some choc cake and coffee and sat down to watch my movies of the week ... primal fear (they made a mistake - i didnt ask for that - but they sent it to me anyway) not my type but tolerable, torn curtain - ok, a very long engagement - dissapointing, rome, open city - goodish. then went over to sandeepa's place for lunch ... at 5:30. ate so much she had to make extra rice while i sat at the table. then we went out and chilled at the hard rock cafe near my place. after which i dropped her home and walked back again. that was 1:30 am. read some (woolf - sketches - first ed) usually i never read those about the author sections in the beginning but she just fascinates me. sunday morning, called home, friends watched some more movies, went out - took some photo's along a new road. another walled, paved, blaclk stone road near the botanical garden. came back watched shabd. fell asleep. today came late to wokr. 5 am. this weeks gonna be a killer too. but thats ok.

1000 miles away

theres so much people know, have learnt, i wonder where they learnt it from. a lot of people come here and read posts sometimes ... if any of you have a answer, tell me. where do you learn these skills that our company is always giving presentations to teach you, send u to company organised 'camps' in vagues and beautiful places, that life skills gurus make so much money out of ... cz u dont need to be an expert, but u need to understand the basics. team spirit, communications, leadership. how to not mind losing, or atleast not let it show, how to accept that you make mistakes, that ur not the best or even as good as u ever thought you could be. or atleast not show it. crack jokes when u fck up, how to let the manager know that there was no fcking time, that there were too many bloody obstacles ... how not to fck up at work, how to ask for tech support and while making urself look like a cool dude ... some people seem to know it all. i figure, they were out learning these things when they played in groups of building kids way back when. it probably all boils down to the same thing. how to relate to people. how to handle people. how to focus. how to collect ur thoughts and get them across. keeping in mind what u want to say and what u want to other guy to hear.

i cant do these things but im trying to learn. sometimes i wanna learn if it'll kill me. sometimes i wanna say to fkc with it if thats what it takes. i stammer. i shut up. i hide. i start to cry. i get mad and wanna kick them down. burn the world and everything in it. i lose my temper. with clients. with managers. with gods. i lose myself in day dreams halfway down every sentence. i have no control over myself. i cant make myself do what i want.

and you ... this is not who you were last time i knew u. suddenly i looked at u and this is what i saw. how did you get this way? how do i fix you up again? for so long u hv been all i had. i dont know how to live without u, i've forgotten the me without you. i left u. i thought ill leave u for good. but, today, i bumped into u again, after a year and a half, and it was just the same. to be with u, be close to you ... how do i learn to live with u? ur black skin, ur simplicity, ur power. can a spool be beautiful. theres a magic in familiarity. wouldnt even curse cobol anymore ... all i know is miss u ... while ur a 1000 miles away.

Love

how can u love someone you dont even know?
i dont. i dont know ...
but even so, when i look at you,
im so confused, forget everything i knew
its silly, that i know
whenever u are near me, i feel like u can hear me
like every thought in my head, about u
just echoed out across the room. everyone heard them too.
like my heart, the stupid heart
fell into my eyes
and i feel so scared, helpless
start acting like a fool. with you

Sweet dreams are made of this:


Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's lookin' for somethin'.

Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you.
Some of them want to be abused


an old song stirs up so many memories. how the heart clings to everything old. old memories. old friends. old books. old poems & journals. t-shirts. ashtrays. stuff toys. perfume bottles. greeting cards. photographs ... somewhere in linda goodmans love signs, a tattered copy of which i still have at home, which was carefully brought down and furtively & very seriously re-consulted, through the years, with every new childhood sweetheart, somewhere in that much loved (old) book, she says the Scorpio must try to overcome its tendency to make a scrapbook out of its life and live it. i wonder if its true? dont really care ... love reading her stuff cz i love the glorious picture she paints of Us!

had a nice weekend. rowed after ages on saturday. at the park. in an eight. went with all my library books and a list of errands - usually i just come home and crash in bed for the rest of the weekend and then none of the weekend work gets done, none of the outside work like paying bills and returning library books. no chance during the week as i leave home at 5am & get back after 9pm most days. they say the road to the bed is paved with good intentions, so i just came home and crashed in bed for the rest of the weekend. finally posted my sponsorship money from the 'race for life' - i dont blv i raised more than 300 pounds offline alone! i think i will cancel all my monthly donations now and only run races for my fav charities ;0) went for impromptu dinner party - lamb curry / rice at friends place on saturday night. walked back alone at 12:30. very exciting. but got blasted after i got home. cleaned the house on Sunday. watched my usual lot of movies. this weeks movies were Room Mates, Falling in Love, Shadow of Doubt, Beyond the Sea. Beyond the Sea was special, as it showed some of the shooting of my fav funny movie (Come September). Shadow of Doubt I didnt like that much. Falling in Love was cliched but sweet. Could watch ANYTHING with Streep. Realised for the first time that De Niro looks hideous while kissing. Room Mates, I fell in love with. It was very sweet! spent a couple of hours doing nothing, lying on the sofa, on my back, staring out at the sky out of the window, behind the new orange flowered plant. waited for darkness to come all the way home, before i got up and put on the table light. read someone special, and started steppenwolf.

Updated 'verse'. Kind of ...

You should've known better sweetheart

u should've known better sweetheart

the moon never comes alone
the moon brings along his friends
faded, jaded memories
tidily packed away

the wind never comes alone,
the wind brings its friends
forgotten feelings
from dreams and yesterdays

the rain never comes alone,
the rain brings her friends
songs in your head
mind distracted

love never comes alone
love brings along his friends
love never comes alone
doubt and misery. suspicion and jealousy

if u love you also hate
want to destroy and be destroyed
see him crashing to his knees
make him cry with tenderness

watch him smile when u tease
torture. then put at ease
push away. pull back
run away in sudden fear

it makes ur heart
but first it breaks ur heart
it makes u smile
it makes u fart

now, standing in the freezing wind
on the terrace, i stare at the moon
wondering if ill see u again
wondering if there'll be someone else

eternities run between two days
worlds tumble when i see ur face
everytime i close my eyes
i feel like i can see u smile
everytime i put down my head
feel like i hear u call my name

and yet, u r now gone, they say
a stranger unto me, my ways
i left u and walked away
yes. i remember. wont turn around and say
u should've known better sweetheart

and now u say i broke ur heart
and pushed down a stony path
and u always said u knew me so well
but yet u blved my restless feet ... u really shudv known better sweetheart

one of those devils that catch ur neck and wont let go till put down in words ... needs to be completed and finished and reworked. ironically, had atleast 3 non overlapping crushes at the back fo my head

the weekend vist

my father came over to visit me last weekend. i had been depressed before he came, bcz two days always feels like too little, but once he came we had a great time and i forgot about it. i went to glasgow to pick him up from the airport. he had been coming straight to edinburgh, but he missed his flight from manchester to edinburgh and had to come to glasgow instead. i was sure he wouldnt be able to find his way alone from glasgow to edinburgh, so i went over to pick him up. it was a mad rush. i came to know at 7pm. had to rush home to dump my gym things. then run from home to waverly, buy a ticket and literaaly run to the train and stumble in. luckily, a train was getting ready to leave just as i reached the platform pantin and i hopped in. reached glasgow at 10pm, ran to the buchanan street bus stn, got a bus to the airport. bus was empty. there was an old chatty driver in charge & we chatted like old friends all the way. he said his daughter lives in edinburgh. she's a doctor. when he suggests to her, he's not well & he might come over to edinburgh and stay with her for a few days, she tells him she will send him a prescription by post. he thought it was very sweet of me to come rushing to glasgow to pick up my dad on such short notice. i told him i hadnt seen my dad for the last 6 mths or so and then too for 2 days. and that id grown up seeing him on holidays. which made us all, as a family, value our time together a lot more. we were more friends than family. i reached the airport at 10:30. we took a bus and by the time we got back to the city centre, i knew we wouldnt be able to catch the last train back ... 11:30. so we parked ourselves at the busstop and waited for the next bus. we had to wait for one and half hours. the place was deserted. we sat on the floor in front of the coffee machine and chatted about everything. reached edinburgh at 1am. the whole of princes street was deserted but there were lights on inside waterstones and a long queue outside and lights in the castle across the road. it was for the release of the new harry potter. they had done up the castle as hogworths! it must have been wildly excited for the little potter-manics who visited. dadda thinks harry potter is a load of crp so we didnt spend much time discussing that! got home at 2 instead to a starkl empty fridge! had thought will busy some chicken on the way to airport but then he went and missed his flight. had a bad time explaining the logic behind my eating program. i live alone, so i buy everything into four. mondays i fast. weekends i eat out and go crazy! i have set menu which NEVER varies all week. it makes me feel secure having a set pattern to follow. over the next two days we cooked and ate the craziest things, went to every pub in town (or almost). got drunk. chatted till 4 am. watched sarkar. cried over our old, accepted problems. ranted against the unaccepted. laughed over old family jokes. talked about common concerns. its so nice to talk to him like this and also just to have someone i know in town to go out with and talk and laugh together with. it was a glorious weekend. we did so many little things that it would take for ever to catalog them all. we talked about my plans. rather my persistent dreams. he said i should really go for it. that he would be there for me, backing me. but i still dont know if i will ever have to guts to do it. go back now, in this old age, start all over again! we laughed over how ill be thirty this yr! its spooky thinking about it. i still feel thriteen at times. he left on monday, early in the morning. i dropped him to the airport and came to work after. worked in a daze. was half asleep. good thing just had some fairly mechanical stuff to do. not that ANYTHING i have to do at work can be called anything but. i feel at times like i studied architecture to become a tea boy on a building site. or whatever. i dunno. i guess its ok, this is what everyone does and id probably be cribbing whatever i did. i HATE application programming. always did. anyway, i was half asleep. skipped rowing in the evening. but im going out in an eight this saturday. its been a long while. im looking forward to it! its back to the grind. gym, french, work, rowing, and empty rooms with just my music and my books for company. teetotally boring. but not so bad after all. it could be much worse. im reading tender is the night. f. scitt fitzgerald. its good till now. these i cant read everything. once i could even ANYTHING. in india, we have paper packets made out of old newspapers. i have even read those in emergencies ... if u know what i mean. its like a smokers thing. addictive reading on the pot. but these days i cant read something unless i like it. definitely i can no longer even bear to listen to music i dont like. i think im getting cranky :)

I'm lost

there was a small terrace, outside the french windows in the drawing room. Beyond the terrace, the little dead lane, paved with black stones. An old lane, in an old city. Whenever one of the ladies who lived in the apartment block came home from work, he could always tell, by the tone of the swift beat of their heals in the lane outside. Click-Clack Click-Clack Click-Clack Slam click Slam. He knew just when they had walked in from the main road, into the stone paved lane, entered through the two outside gates and walked into the building. On the floor, near the window, his long body sprawled, his whole being poured out in a puddle of brown skin and blue checked cotton the sound painted him a picture of the world outside, so alien now. It drew pictures of a corporate world. uniform blue, grey and white clothed moving pegs, relieved with the occasional splash of deviation. a certain something, in the angle of the head, in the rythm of the steps, in the stride of the legs. the incredible and the incredulous. the pretenders and the buyers. like a self staged drama to entertain the self. or was it? in hindsight, the path of the running looked hypnotically circular ... but then, everything was always transformed with perspective. His mind fumbled for the reference: it was something to do with Einstein, and Relativity ... but he forgot easily these days and he remembered hard. Or rather, he remembered a lot, but it was not what he wanted, when he wanted. It came and went at will. Like movies, splashed on sporadically. On a deserted, rent free, naked screen. One big free for all party for sadistic ghosts. Sometimes, at night his brain went mad with thoughts. They wrestled each other, he and his demons, amongst the tangled sweat moist sheets, under the sarcastic eye of the slow ceiling fan, humming down at them with laughter at their futility. His thoughts crashed around inside his closed mind, spinning wildly in every direction, lashing out against each opening, looking for some answer, some light, and at the end, a tired brain, succour hungry, wanting just to black out, to go to sleep. A long rest was what he wanted. A long rest at the feets of the gods. Gods which he had set out to build himself; for that, he thought, was basic human need ... Feet, to rest weary heads at. When all else fails; comfort, joy, pity, support ... when their isnt enough faith and humanity left in one to take comfort from a fellow man; when you cant bear to have anyone close enough to you to touch ur wounds to balm them; when their is nothing left in the grains of all or any of the myriad web of inter relations woven by man, between ourselves, we need Feet, to silently rest at. So he had set out to build himself a godhead. Scornfully selective, he had picked, bits and pieces of the best he had seen in mankind and collected them, like a child picking flowers, in folded hands ... but now he had tripped and fallen, and all the god-pieces lay scattered, at his feet.
Im looking for anyone studying art in the UK at the masters level. i have to collect info. its for someone who has just finished doing a bachelor of art degree, in english from calcutta univ, india if anyone reads this who has any info pls tmail me.

Hazy Thursdays

Theres a strange sensation, I dont know if I am the only one or it happens to others, but the brain seems to remember things in sequences. For example, if the first time I heard "sometimes when we touch" was followed by "long and lasting love", or if the first time I ate raajma, we had kulfi next, each time I here "sometimes when we touch", my mind seems to be about to start on "long and lasting love" just as I "subsides ..." echos out

Why is that? Is it like the instruction queue pre fetch cache?

Why does this excite me so much? Its like being in love with a star (Cussack) out of reach high in the sky. and its not just the distance and impossibilty of getting there, its the star that looks SO f cool from here, will burn you into nothing if you get near. This is who I am, this is what I am.

I cant give up my voice, to get new legs, to dance the prince in love with me. If I cant talk to him, he's no use to me.

"If you cant find your hearts desire in your backyard ...". Its been a long time (Frieda, All over the Man) since a movie hit me like that (Angels in America and Bloodstain). Not brilliant movies per se, but there was something I that hit me. All over the man was actually not in that category, it was more of a vindication ... "a little bit like you, a little bit like me".

When I ramble like this, even I dont know what Im talking about.
Happy Thursday :) Song of the day ... "Don’t know if I’m comin’ up or down
Am I happy or in misery?"

Mosaic Gods

there was a small terrace, beyond the french windows in the drawing room. Beyond the terrace, the little dead lane, paved with black stones. An old lane, in an old city. When one of the ladies who lived in the apartment block came home from work, he could always tell, by the particular tone of the swift beat of their heals in the lane outside. Click-Clack Click-Clack Click-Clack Slam click Slam. He knew just when they had walked in from the main road, into the stone paved lane, entered through the two outside gates and walked into the building. On the floor, near the window, his long body sprawled, his whole being poured out in a puddle of brown skin and blue checked cotton. The sound painted him a picture of the world outside, so alien now. It drew pictures of a spinning corporate world. Drab grey and white covers with unbelievable prices. A certain something, in the angle of the head, in the rythm of the steps, in the stride of the legs. the incredible and the incredulous. the pretenders and the buyers. like a self staged drama to entertain the self. or was it. in hindsight, the path of the running looked hypnotically circular ... but then, everything always changed with perspective. His mind fumbled for the reference: it was something to do with Einstein, and Relativity ... but he forgot easily these days; and he remembered hard. Or he remembered, but it was not what he wanted, when he wanted. It came and went at will; and it came hard. Like movies, splashed on sporadically. On a deserted, rent free, naked screen. One big free for all party for sadistic ghosts. Sometimes, at night his brain went mad with thoughts. They wrestled each other, he and his demons, amongst the tangled sweat moist sheets, under the sarcastic eye of the slow ceiling fan, humming down at them with laughter at their futility. His thoughts crashed around inside his closed mind, spinning wildly in every direction, lashing out against each opening ... looking for some answer, some light, and at the end, a tired brain, succour hungry, just wants to black out, go to sleep ... a long rest, at the feets of the gods, gods which he had set out to build himself, for that, he thought, was basic human need ... Feet, to rest weary heads at. When all else fails, comfort, joy, pity, support ... when their is nothing left in the grains of all or any of the myriad web of inter relations we human have woven, between ourselves, we need feet, to silently rest at. So he had set out to build himself a god. Scornfully selective, he had picked, bits and pieces of the best he had seen in mankind and collected them, like a child picking flowers, in folded hands ... and now he had tripped and fallen ... and all the god-pieces had scattered, at his feet.

saturday sunshine

Peaceful, bright Yellow weekend. Went out with some friends on Friday night. Nothing like being done under to kick in a weekend. A sunny saturday, took a look at 'princes gardens' -was laid out with more bodies than Id seen leaves few seasons back. Not being overly fond of crowds, ate a HUGE pizza, potato skins, garlic bread AND two huge glasses (?) of coke (yeah, i eat LIKE THAT) and then came home to snooze the day away with hysteria and the new book. Cooked myself loads of chicken stew and rice and lazed the two days away. Saw Springtime in a Small Town , madame Bovary, True Colours and Armaan. Was briefly tempted to ditch Cussack (old love) for James Spader (potentail new love) then changed my mind :)

OST - The Floating Friday

In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine! Can't you just feel the moonshine! Maybe just like a friend of mine, it hit me from behind ... Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

Walked down to Lake Gardens in the wet winds. The trees on the bridge were on fire. And they swept down to the lakes to have a drink. The sun set on the baby island, where the gardens hung. Met Addy. We walked back. Talked of this and that. Took the metro from Kalighaat to Park Street. Met up with Chatts. Went down to Junction. Pulled her leg. About that time in Junction. And her new haunt. She's hanging out in BED now! Juls came over. We hung out for ever. Then we hitched back to Sharma's. Stuffed our faces with paneer-shashlik. Drank Thums-Up. Sitting on the edge of the pavement. Then we came home and watched the sunrise from the terrace.

Yes, Ive gone to Carolina in my mind ...

Feel like falling in love. Feel like missing someone. Feel you in my head, like a itch which I cant place but I need to scratch so bad ... its getting me outta my mind. Comeon, comeon, now you need me too. Give me a clue. Stop making me blue. Its lonely out there without you.

Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again.Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again. Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am young again whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am fun again. However far away I will always love you.However long I stay, I will always love you whatever words I say I will always love you

Feedback ... theres nothing more boring than a reformed wildchild! And the fine line between hypocrisy and sparing the audience, glimmers and teases, and is very hard to keep track of. What would you choose between honesty and their shock on your consciouns? Its you who have to choose. And its the choice you have to stick to. "Oh no, I've said too much! I haven't said enough ..."

Had loads of work today. Its a pain ... documentation, UTP's, test evidence ... hate that stuff. And why amd I so easily distracted? Wish I could focus more ... would solve all my problems! Its a OS problem. The memory for context saving is very limited. So naturally, the slightest degree of multi-processing, means the system runs out of memory, starts swapping, and thrashing sets in. To make matters worse almost all interrupts are non maskable. Which means that critical processes cannot be protected from interrupts. Also, the incoming priority module of the scheduler has and major bugs! Can I get a new OS? Can I send the OS back to be fixed and upgraded? I fear an impending system breakdown.

Talk about your woman, I wish you could see mine! Every time she starts to lovin'
She brings eyesight to the blind. You know her daddy gave her magic, I can tell by the way she walks. Everytime we start shakin', The dumb begin to talk. She's got the power to heal you never fear. Just a word from her lips, And the deaf begin to hear


Theres something which I have always wondered which was brough back into force yesterday ... am I my brothers keeper? If I see my neighbour eating chicken and Im scared he might get bird flu ... can I walk in and break his kitchen, to save him, ofcourse from birdflu. Would it matter that I walked off with his (stateofart) coffee machine on my way back? Its a muddle as usual. I cant put anything right, but what I mean is, is it "none of your b business" or is it "only for ur good". Also, it all made me think of those political thrillers. Nothing is as it seems & who knows what is.

songs and bombs

It may seem to you that I'm acting confused
When you're close to me
If a tend to look dazed I've read it someplace
I've got cause to be
There's a name for it
There's a phrase that fits
But whatever the reason you do it for me


Listen to the song in your head. It might be trying to tell you something ...

Read about the blasts in London this morning, and thats all that Ive been hearing about. Its strange. Its really feels bad, doesnt it? Doesnt it?

Will be rowing on Saturday after ages. Lunch time run cancelled today. Am I sad? (Ahem ... )

Bought some music after ages of poverty ... "In Utero", and a book, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". It sure feels like rain today. Feels like a storm on a desert island. Feels dark reddish-purple. When we fall out of touchg with someone who we love very much, just like that, casually, it leaves a funny sort of emptyness that keeps pushing its head up. Best friends as a concept should be outlawed. Love is harmless. Its the friendships that kill you.

I was just thinking today ... my top five really scary songs:
1) two steps behind (sounds like a stalker)
2) imagine
3) blowing in the wind (its just so Fg cliched)
4) hotho se chhulo tum (jagjit singh - sab jita kiye mujhse,main hardam hi haara)
5) last christmas (semi-stalker-ish)

Days like this

there are days like this
when nothing fits
when life is like
a little boy
dragging his feet
on his way to school
on just another,
ordinary day

there are days like that
when everythings right
the sun keeps on shining
like ur smile
the songs keep playing
in your heart
and if you close your eyes
you can feel yourself dancing
on just another,
ordinary day

the lonely house

lying down on sun warmed grass. face down. feeling the warmth of the sun behind me like a blanket. in the distance, somewhere, faint smell of wildflowers. from time to to time, a hot wind blows. Far away, the crickets buzz, a droning song, comforting in its monotony. nearby the hum of the airconditioner in the house. and somewhere behind me, the house. the house that stands like a lone sentinel of the desert, in the stark, empty country spread around it. dusty, grey, thristy hills, thrusting sharply into the sky. An almost unnaturally bright blue sky. Nearby, the knowledge of the cold, dirty sea, tauntingly blue, mockingly gentle, as it laps the stony shores. the smell of eucalyptus.

friendship

cannot concentrate all my friendship on any single one of my friends because no one is complete enough in himself.
--Anais Nin

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
--Anais Nin

have you ever felt like eating something, when actually you are not really hungry, but maybe bored, or sad? have you ever felt sleepy, when you're not really sleepy, but tired, or bored? If you have, then you have felt a need that raises its head, disguised as something else.

why do we feel the things we do? Why do we think about the things we do? why is it so hard to know ourselves? and harder to show ourselves? and yet so fascinating?

the inner workings of my mind, complicated, exquisite, hidden, secret, drwas me in a fascinated spellbound spiral and I go round the dark and misty bylanes of my mind ... falling into myself. Introspection. Addiction. The mind compels us. Atleast mine compels me. The more complicated, the more attractive.

But coming back, to the first paralells, why would we feel "I wish I had a friend"? when we have so many? What is the desire, or need that comes in this guise? Is it that you miss a particular person, or who they make you? Or someone to hold your hand? Or someone to unburden your mind to? Or someone to have fun with? Or someone to pull you out of yourself?

Though I never really miss home, at times I do think of my friends who are back home. my family and other friends, those I have adopted over the years. There are two kinds of missing. One deals with meories, that come when we call them up. And then theres the other kind. That comes like a sudden sharp stab, like a intruding smell floating in across ur defences, that which is a sudden need. A sound of a voice. The sight of a face. The smile in an eye. The touch of a hand ... Why do we miss someone like that? What do we need from them, get from them, that we miss? Is it just someone to hang out with, someone to dump on, or just sensible conversation? fun, support or rapport?

So what is frienship? What do you think is friendship?

got you on my mind

In a rush, been at work till 9 pm 2 days in a row and havent been to the gum for ages now. still, going for the lunch time run tomorrow and the salsa lessons next week. Theres so much to do but at the end of the day it seems like nothing is done. But when Im asked, will it be done in time, I somehow never gather the courage to say the TSD is b%@$s and it wont be done till nxt yr ... im deeply dissatisfied with my cowardice. on the flip side, i am getting better all the time ;@) what i need to do is concentrate. as long as i can remember, thats been a problem for me, keep focussed dont drift off. just a thought, did i have ADD, alongwith my falling sickness, but was born to early (it wasnt even know as a disease then?)

I saw "Angels in America" and "Md Butterfly" this weekend. Also saw KILL BILL 2, felt sad that the died, though the 5 point thingie was brilliant to watch! Md B was poignant, sad, poking old-truths in the eye, yet a bit tiresom to watch, I personally found. Maybe it was just that it was 1 AM on a Sunday night that I started to see it (with gym in 4 looming across the horizon)

Looking forward to Angels in America part 2 this weekend and will write about it after.

In the news, Kashmir Reopens, dont veto the veto and dylan comes to starbucks

Song of the day - "all my friends and lovers"