Monday, October 31, 2011

The Bipolarity Paradox.

If one voluntarily chooses a life of manic depression, where the highs are extra high, and the lows are particularly low, citing the unnatural and overwhelming vividity of all human experience as the motivating factor, and the act of choosing that heightened quality of all emotion over plain old convenience as the guiding rational thought, the following catch-22 situation is fairly inevitable. The erratic behaviour that is a direct result of this disposition will eventually drive away all the people and things that make one happy. However, if it were not for this same disposition, those things would not make one happy enough to want them in the first place.  

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Assay,

My problem is that I keep looking for reasons. I always keep asking "Why?". And then I ask "What if?". And then, "What not if?. "Is?", "Isn't?", "Was?", "Could be?", "Could have been?", "Could not have been?", "Can be?", "Can never be?", and so on. For everything that happens, (good, bad or anywhere in the between), for the things that people do or don't do, I keep scouting around, taking things apart, putting them back together in every single permutation and combination, looking for answers. Not just any answers, but good ones. Valid ones, rational ones, fair ones, and logical ones. Because I believe that the world it based on those things, or that at least, it should be. And that being fatalistic is yet another form of the mind's corruption. And that if one is more or less fair in one's own dealings and actions, he can have just the right and equal amount of it back. And that if one always has a justifiable reason for his actions, most actions made towards him must also be justifiable. But as it goes, there might not be a justifiable cause for everything. People are not always rational, logical, or fair, and constancy of purpose is so very rare a virtue, it is disconcerting. Living in a world where it is so unusual and inconvenient to not be frivolous with one's loyalties, is so taxing on everything I hold sacred. I just keep looking for the right answers, when there just might not be any. Because I want so desperately to believe that in the grand scheme of things, everything is fair. So I haunt my problems, instead of it being the other way around. All the world's worth of philosophy tells me that one must stick to their ideals and their premises. My own tells me that it is of paramount importance to place the truth, and the capacity to assess it, above all else. But it now seems to me that the only people who ever survive this life are the ones who learn to evolve. And not just evolve, but do it most rapidly, smoothly, and efficiently. I'm afraid that I've wandered off so far out in search of these answers, that I'm about to fall off the edge of this world that still remains so very square. And yet, there are still no answers to be found.  

Friday, October 7, 2011

Tales of Gain and Loss.

September 1, 2010
10:00 PM
How wonderful a thing it is, to have nothing to lose. Care about nothing. Have nothing, Own nothing. Keep nothing. Only want. And let the "want" define you, in entirety. I miss it.
............................................................

September 1, 2011
1:00 AM
The best thing about my life at the moment, is that it is absolutely unscripted. I have nothing holding me back or keeping me in one place. People, places, jobs, the several institutions you are a part of... they hold you down. Everything you love, holds you down. I love nothing. Thus, I am free.
............................................................

Monday, October 3, 2011

Never attempt to cure an addiction through abstinence. Do it through control.
Control is the only thing potent enough to make anything lose its charm. 

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Clickety-Click.

I feel like this cold has crawled into my head, buried a warm hole for itself, and decided to nest in there for the winters.

In other news: Blackberry, Apple and now... Mango?

And flipping the bird at subtlety: This is both amusing, and an inside joke that 66.666% of me hopes, isn't understood.

As an aside: I fear that this blog has started to make too much sense, of late. Here you go. Problem fixed.

If that wasn't enough: I'm starting to believe that this man understood "all things macabre" better than any person who's ever lived. 

But then: There was this.
Etchings by Goya
Instituto Cervantes. 
I shall not praise the exhibit. Instead, let me just say that what you would have read about, had you  read the piece to be found at the above link, I came unbearably close to experiencing.


Alas! 'tis true. I defiled it by clicking pictures with a cellphone camera. 

Strangely, I read that story after the exhibit, completely by accident. That very day. The Universe has been pulling an awful lot of tricks lately. Sometimes, I wonder. If a "god" did exist, he/she/it would probably be tinkering around with his/hers/its doll house (The Universe), playing out moments like these(and more elaborate ones) with his/hers/its little plastic dolls(us), just to get kicks out of the sheer mind****ing potential of it all. 

And if that still wasn't enough for you: Then you, my friend, are exactly the kind of reader this blogger is proud to have had (and hopefully, kept). Drop a hello, and feast your mind on this piece of work.

P.S. If you seek an explanation: I don't do cliffhangers. I lure with trails of candy and throw 'em right over. Trippy, yes. 

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

All these years, and I'm still the kind of person who writes 2000-word emails, and hovers over the send button about a hundred times before deciding to let them rot as drafts. On the upside, in case of recourse I'll soon have an eloquently worded, impeccably punctuated, and obscenely dramatic epistolery novel ready. That is, of course, if apocalypse/terminal illness doesn't strike first. In which case, it would be just a whole lot of histrionics wasted, on a significantly lesser quantity of it. 

Saturday, September 24, 2011


R.E.M. disbanded. Such utter travesty. 
2011 is, indeed, the year of much heartache. 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Let me. Not be. That obvious.

From crest to dale (back around)
Wound, is interminable dearth
To the conflict of extravagance
To the dispute of mirth.

Measured out in quints
Would be remnants of fear
The marked need for something
To make my tragedies more sincere.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Quid pro quo, will also end up making the whole world blind.

Monday, September 19, 2011

An Observation (Updated)

SRK is the new Rajinikanth.
Edit all references accordingly.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Atalanta in Calydon

"Before the beginning of years,
There came to the making of man
Time, with the gift of tears,
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death."

-Algernon Charles Swinburne

Thursday, September 15, 2011

We drink copious amounts of coffee and debate the Rastafari movement; talk art and Balzac and new world order (if we're feeling particularly zany, of course), all while the world keeps turning and the sun keeps shining. But the fact that we can never entirely be sure that we're not figments of someone else's imagination just continues to blow my mind on a regular basis. And then it's Plato's cave, all over again. 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Monday, September 12, 2011

The air has been heavy. Heavy with poignance. It's been making it much too easy to float away, and far too difficult to breathe in. So I hole up in a room with endless spools of yarn and the comforting sound of two needles clicking away. The meditative nature of a repetitive exercise is grossly underestimated. Nimble fingers in constant motion, winding strands of wool in intricate patterns, creating more of something new with each move. Knit, purl. Knit, purl. Knit, purl. Weave it all in. The sounds, the thoughts, the dissonance. Bind it in the knots and weave it in, create something pretty, and let that be it. Years worth of grief will hang in your cupboard someday. 

And whenever too much is wrong with the world, I will knit. 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Dear 21st century,
What's with the crap music? Please bring the 90s back. Also, the reality of living in a world where Youtube comments exist, serves up a freshly brewed philosophical crisis with the daily morning coffee.  

Yours truly,
Among other things, a dedicated Aerosmith junkie

Monday, August 29, 2011

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

-T.S. Eliot
"Burnt Norton"

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Synchrony.

As we will never belong again.
Once is also a promise, you see. 

Move to the sound. We're trapped in boxes. Mine is glass, and the other is concrete. It's loud, and the sky is exploding. So don't stop. Too soon to say, and too late to do. Let's keep it all for later. Later, if there will be one. The summer never ended, and the flowers have all melted. I saved some but the bees are dead. There is water, and the sky is in it. So is the grass, and so is our world. There's quicksand, and I buried it with my own hands. So open your eyes and dream it all away, for we can still catch the rainbow in time. But we'll stay in our boxes, filled to the brim. With snatches of an old song, an awkward pause...

... and our own tragic flaws. 

Thursday, August 18, 2011

This Day's Blurb.

Bathos in a Bottle

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

General Observations: Jan Lokpal Bill Protests.

For years I've been saying that nearly every public scandal rolled out by the dozen is further proof that we're actually living in a totalitarian state masquerading as a democracy. For years, I have also been saying that our classes and masses are so ridden with misanthropy and apathy that if there is ever a need for another freedom struggle, there is no way that the people would rise to the occasion and justify what they gained the last time around. In the course of merely 24 hours, I've found myself proved right and wrong. The best part being, that the evidence is indubitable. Our government, by way of dishing out absolute nonsense, expecting it to be gobbled up by flaccid minds, calling the previously much-lauded Gandhian manner of protest "unconstitutional", and launching illegal arrests and mud-slinging campaigns, has stirred up such great sentiment and rage among the people, that pro-Gandhian ideology or not, they are united in their anti-corruption motivations and outrage towards the appalling behavior of the government. One can't help but compare the state of things with the recent riots a few thousand kilometres away, partly a result of the same social apathy and misanthropy, but the addition of decadent moral values. How differently things pan out, in a "developed" nation as opposed to a stagnated "developing" one. United in anarchy or united in rage, the masses can indeed make things happen. And after a very long time, they know it.  

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Work In Progress.

I could say that it's sudden abdication. And that it's a cruel thing to do to someone with enough abandonment issues to build a monument out of. I could do the flip and tell you that it's not renunciation, but abject fear in flagrant masquerade. Argue, I can, and you know it. But if I'm going to be honest, I might as well take the world down with me. My mind has been sick before, and so has my heart. And if we're fated to turn into each other eventually, then the promises you made are mine to deliver. Conviction is that simple, and sometimes I wish mine had enough to hold on to. 

Saturday, August 13, 2011

"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying."

-Robert Herrick
(To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time)

Friday, August 12, 2011

Cage III - Free Show

"The figure of Death presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs."

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Carrion.

We humans are quite capable of exhibiting behaviour guided by nothing in the vicinity of reason or rationale. For a person in possession of the faculty of logic, what is it that drives such an insatiable urge to go against all better knowledge? Impulse is the means, though often mistaken for the cause. So the real cause, being influential enough to supercede all logic, must be a greater force. If so, is it really wrong to succumb to the victor in the power play, as opposed to the defeated adversary. Can logic possibly be defeated? Or does defeat by an absence of things not count? 

What a mad world it is, when it goes against rationale to expect constancy out of anything. Even out of perfection. Does fleeting perfection, for it is all that anything can be, even qualify? Why do we choose to run around, setting ourselves up for failure? It's not perpetual equilibrium one desires, it's merely one stationary reference point to put the rest of the chaos and wild spinning world into perspective. Every attempt to do so seems to be an act of deluding oneself. If logic really bends in favour of chaos and whim, it really is a mad,crazy world indeed. 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011



I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So, I write like a manic depressive genius, who ruminated obsessively about the dark side of things, brew up insurmountably beautiful pieces of prose, and then proceeded to hang himself to death. Not surprising at all. 

I want to read Infinite Jest. I really REALLY do. But that's probably the only book I've ever chanced upon that I am truly afraid of. Something tells me it's more darkness than I can handle at the moment. Precarious times, these. The balancing act is hard to keep up as it is. Infinite Jest = the machete to my tightrope. Sadomasochism, shall have to wait. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

This Day's Blurb.

The Daily Facebook Fail

Note: I have, indeed, attempted to make this fine gentleman look like The Amazing Exploding Angry Bird. My list of acquaintances spews such gems on a depressingly regular basis, right on to my Facebook homepage. 

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Twenty-two today.
...and floating on metaphors.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

We're all born with death-wishes. It is our prerogative to live with them. And when pain is this satisfying, it only stands to reason that we give in to the impulse of desire. Desire that nurtures us, and the same desire that is fated to destroy us.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

On the Comfort of Doubt.

All my recreational distortions of reality, dramatic visualizations, and convoluted syllogisms aside, the truth is that when push comes to shove, I'm simply too decisive for my own good. Always certain, always sure, and very nearly incapable of experiencing doubt. I think part of that comes from a habit of stripping everything down to bare facts, and mostly from keeping it all very black-and-white in the head. But as it goes, the value of things is only known best to one bereft of them. Sometimes, I wish I could just loll around in a comforting stupor of perplexity before having to deal with the reality of things. Alas, as it goes with most of life, I skip ahead. Far ahead of myself, out past the forks in the road, choosing much too fast, much too easily. The decisions I make are never wrong. They just tread upon each other's heels and sometimes, just sometimes, they are meant to bring half my world crashing down. As I continue to skip ahead, I feel like I'm barely escaping the collapse. I'm going way too fast and I'm afraid that soon, in my dazed frenzy, I'll push the big red button intending to charge ahead. And then something would hold me back. 

Friday, July 1, 2011

green


Pictures taken on a recent trip to Manali.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Fully appreciating the irony of this statement, I'm fairly certain that there will not be a single experience in life that I will enjoy as much as I relish the feeling of being underwater. Given a bathtub, swimming pool, pond, lake, sea or ocean, all I want to do is swim to the bottom, perch myself there, and let my senses explode. The calm that comes with being surrounded by vast expanses of water and nothing else, is a rare and inexplicable delight. It's not calm bound by limits. It's the calm of being suspended in time, space, gravity and countless dimensions. Not the kind of calm that you touch and draw from, but the one that engulfs you in a cocoon and holds you still. Everything is blue, and green, and it paints you into itself. The muffled sounds, the rays of light barely piercing the water and the glimmering surface seen from below make it seem like a whole different world. A disturbingly beautiful one. So beautiful, that every moment I've spent under water, has haunted the years I've spent above it. Thus, the new blogger template. Because what I truly need at the moment, is something to remind me of the existence of that particular variety of calm. The one that holds you still and pervades the senses. I cannot wait to break the surface and dive right in. 

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The First in a Series of Irrelevant, Unnecessary, and Thoroughly Mundane Posts.

1. Torrential rains
2. Google+
3. Being locked up in a room with more books than I can count

As opposed to:

1. Nagging uncertainty
2. Comfort food
3. Getting a job

Hmm...

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

 "Every night and every morn
  Some to misery are born,
  Every morn and every night
  Some are born to sweet delight.
  Some are born to sweet delight,
  Some are born to endless night."

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The end of college has been anticlimactic, at best. A goodbye has no real meaning if you have nothing to say it to. 

Things have not been great. But that's a bit of a secret. A secret, because I'm no longer selfish and self-indulgent enough to not scoff at myself. Not all has changed though. I still grieve the loss of selfishness more than the fact that things have not been great. And then, there's this. There's more of a loss of things than anything else. The occasional presence, and perpetual lack of everything. Except for the writing on the wall, which is clearer than ever. Unfortunately, so are the claw marks. 

So, there's also guilty-pleasure-music. Here's a band called Dark Dark Dark, because I'm that obvious with my tastes. Guilt should be made of sterner stuff. 
And this is rather brilliant. 

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Grey Noise.

As much as a double-edged sword aspiration may be, it works well to have a few of those painted on you in indelible ink. But as far as all wonderful things go, we will hit the plateau sooner or later. So what if the stakes are high, and you now have things to lose, and risks to take, and the world to conquer and turn into your own personal TV room. It works well to stand by and reaffirm a love placed only in unattainable things. For all the countless things that you stand to win over, it works well to make note of the ones you lose. The balance tips much too easily, you see. Our beginnings never really know our ends.

Friday, April 15, 2011

This Month's Misadventures, Part 1 - Phuket and Koh Phi Phi.

The much-awaited holiday finally happened. I got to tour the islands and various beaches of Southern Thailand. And since there are a few experiences in life that you just cannot hope to draw into, explicate, or approximate in words, I'll just have to go with "AMAZING", and be done with it. Or, I could try this: 

Phi Phi Don

A decision has been made. I was born to live by a beach. No, really. Never am I happier than when I'm either underwater, or over it. And recently, I did both within in a span of 3 hours. More about that later. 

So, fully capitalizing upon a fateful escape from the traps of doom(college) and the supreme awesomeness of my parents, the most blissful, hedonistic, mind-numbingly sensational holiday was had. Braving the edifice that is the T3 terminal, over-familiar immigration officers, and the various aforementioned perils that come with air travel(the least of which is a plane crash), my flight descended on the island of Phuket, in the land of smiles and flagrant transgression. Now, most people who know me, are aware of my obsessive love for the country. What's not to love? The warm tropical weather, the beautiful untouched beaches, the extremely friendly people, the good life. But if I had to put a finger on the one thing I love most about Thailand, it would be that that it feels like the entire country is in a perpetual state of revelry and indulgence- bacchanalian, spiritual or otherwise. Thus, Phuket welcomed with sun, sand, surf, and this:


Of course, it was rather amazing that my hotel was a 5-minute walk from Patong beach, which treats ones sore eyes to the sights as refreshing as this:


 And this:

Where there were tiny, white crabs darting around everywhere in the sand. Pretty little things, those.

...and nightlife that no pictures will ever do justice to.But any seasoned travel-glutton will vouch for the fact that the best thing about a good hotel is the breakfast buffet. Which I was too busy wolfing down to take pictures of. Just let it be said that danish waffles will be the death of me someday.

Then came the Phi-Phi Islands. But before that, there came the ferry to Phi-Phi Islands. 
  

...and even before that, came the storm. (Notice ominous clouds). 
For the uninitiated:
Storm + Sea = Rough Sea
      Rough Sea + Ferry = Not-a-good-idea

Also, owing to the peculiar strain of irrational bravado that runs in my family, I found myself on the unsheltered top deck. Hanging on for dear life(literally). Without a life-jacket. The waves hitting the ship were so high, that they crashed ON us. On the 3rd deck. Now as exciting and once-in-a-lifetime an experience that may be, yours truly did little more with it than puke her way to glory, all the way to Phi Phi Don. I'll leave out the gory details. But on arriving, it was clear that it was well worth it. I'd do it a thousand times over. Why? 

Here's why:

Blue-green water. White sand. And because of the peculiar alignment on the hills and the island, the waves never reach the beach. All you have are soft ripples on the surface of what looks like a crystal-clear lagoon. Imagine that!


I may have known beauty of several kinds, but it's hard to beat one that you can dive headfirst into. 

Then there was Phuket again. And the Chalong temple. And Patong by night. Not to mention, the photogenic cat!


Chalong Temple, Phuket

With that ended, the first leg of the tour. Coming soon: Pattaya and Koh Lam.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Exam-Day Blah.

Every time I'm on an airplane, I pray to the forces that be, not to be seated anywhere close to any tiny human below the age of 10. Also, I try to understand why kids aren't sedated and shipped in cages, like pets are. I fail every time. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, and it taxis on the tarmac, I feel like I'm sitting on the back of an ostrich. An ostrich that just keeps running around, refusing to accept the fact that it would never take flight. And then, it does. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, I look out the window and stare at the ground below, and make special note of the moment when I can no longer spot vehicles moving on highways. In that moment, I feel very tiny indeed.

Every time I'm on an airplane, I imagine what it would be like if all the engines fail and the plane crashes. Which one of the people sitting around me would be the first to lose it, the ensuing chaos. And who looks like they're most likely to live, who look like they're most likely to die. Then I start thinking about karma, and thoughts like those are always interrupted by things of greater importance. Like crappy airline food, refreshment towels, and the stewardess with over-tweezed, painful-looking eyebrows. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, I make it a point to browse through every mode of in-flight entertainment, scroll through every movie available, pick the one that interests me most, and then proceed to not watch it. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, and am about to deboard, I am overcome with a very pleasant feeling that I don't really care to describe in words. It makes me want to never go back to where I came from, because I want nothing more than to fly so fast, that I can leave this life behind.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

A Little Bit of India. Everywhere.


Batu Caves, Malaysia
February 2010


The Current.

Bach. Wodehouse. Suspension in time.
Also, 8 days to Phuket. 

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Disconnected inferences are back.

Ever-mundane urban life lulls us into a false sense of security, where we never expect much to ever happen. So complete is the illusion in its surreptitiousness, that one fine day we're all just walking around with blind spots the size of football stadiums. And then we blame the butterfly for the hurricane.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Clarity.

Having spent most days of the past raised to eternity fumbling around for probable cause, or hoping to accidentally chance upon sporadic reasons to justify that which is bound by four cycles of the clock, it feels like a brand new set of your senses have been awakened when dreams are separated by dreams alone, and reality isn't just a desperate attempt to imitate imagination. Reality, after all this time, is imagination. Not through the blurring of lines that separate the two, but as a consequence of absolute clarity. When you view the world through a microscope, everything begins to look like everything else. In the end, it is only when you look very closely that you start to lose your differences.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Few things in life disappoint more than a drizzle, when what you really need is for the heavens to pour forth and wash everything familiar away.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Unbearable Vexation of Being.

A day in this city means running into about 5 complete strangers that I want to yell at for their appalling behavior, utter lack of common sense, and/or general misconduct. It takes a lot of restraint and a good portion of one's strength to suppress that urge, because it is irrational to complain about such things in this country. When being unreasonable, ignorant, and ill-behaved is socially acceptable, what can one do? And the suppression is exhausting. One must not have to live like this. A life of being in a constant state of anger and the need to scream one's lungs out. Delhi, I love you. But you're wearing me down.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

On Reality.

"What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable - now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech - and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in the shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. This is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates."

-Virginia Woolf
(A Room of One's Own)

Monday, January 10, 2011

Guilt.

Possibly the only distressing emotion that doesn't leave me feeling hollow. Definitely the only one that has me wishing that it did.

Dear Yesterday,
I will forever thank the universe for the fact that you went exactly the way you did. 

Dear Today, 
I wish I had been more considerate, more prudent, and less given to base self-indulgence(the crazy, demented, destructive, sick-and-twisted kind). 

Dear Tomorrow,
Be kind. Guilt alone is excruciating.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

...and I cannot believe it's been 11 years since the turn of the millenium. can you?

Rung in the new year in the absolutely best way possible. Family + barbeque night + dad's cooking  = silly-happy overfed me. Ate so much, I can't walk. A better strategy would be to roll around the house from room to room. Die, ongoing-exams, die!

2010 was quite something. It was the year of unexpected events. Of uncertainty, and doubt, and change, and rediscovery, and faith, and thrill, and euphoria, and love, and belief, and hope and things far more scary crucial in the grand scheme of things. Even for the sheer number of things let go of, and those gained. I don't remember being this happy. I don't remember ever being this glad.

Wishing you all a very happy new year, and hoping that the days ahead bring you whatever it is that you want from it. On that note, I leave you with one of the best songs I've heard all year. Goodnight.