Hyper-linker

• I've been listening to Cake as I write this. Cake is an indie-rock band, and they're so-so.
  
• I found a quiz on the India Uncut website. (And what a website it is! Super stuff; congratulations Amit Verma, for writing and managing so well)
• The quiz led me to this page. It doesn't make a very great read, but did you ever know the line was so bluddy long?
• This is a good online newspaper. Better read, I find, than a lot of American ones. (While you're at that, if you wanna know where some of the flashy, dripping-in-your-face-with-colours-and-eye-straining-graphics Indian websites get their ideas, check this out.) It has been around for a while, and is a regularly updated, often used website. I found it when I read an article that talked of legislating against the underwear-baring, lower than low baggy pants that are worn almost everywhere around USA now. I also happened to read about the zoot suit riots. Good stuff.
  
• I used to regularly read the curious gawker, but I had not once visited the other, casual, more personal blog of his. It is SO good. I enjoy his style a lot. Check it out here.
• And because I may have told you to read my blog and you come and see this bulleted list of links instead, and that irks you, you may want to read Kaushik's blog. I disclaim any responsibility of your well-being for after you read the blog, and also, don't hold anything against me :)
• You may want to leave a comment. Just so.
  

The pursuit of philosophi (Will Smith took my y)

I enjoy writing. It's one of the few things I truly enjoy engaging in, and when that doesn't work out well, like it didn't - so many times over the past year, when I'm at a loss to find words to string together to explain what it is that I'm feeling, I would be so terribly bothered by it. Because, well, it's not just about a pastime here. It was more like sustenance, I used to blog a lot more from home and after that, everything just got so disconnected and, um, random.

So I decided to do a blog post about that today. About the story when things started to go downhill for me, when I wasn't aware that I was indeed on top of a hill, when I had so much that I never knew I'd bargained for, and how...uh I'll save the punchline for later.

(Isn't there a justify on this thing?)

Yesterday I decided that there was a significance to the address of my blog - blackframedspectacles, although until now, I myself deemed it to be a random, get-people-to-wonder-bout-it sorta name. Yesterday, I decided upon its significance. It's a nice story, even if you don't know me personally. In fact, all the better for that.

Mom bought me those frames, I think the rage was Sania Mirza coupled with Kal Ho Naa Ho, that made mom acknowledge those hideous frames and bring them home because I was too lazy to go out to the shop and select some for myself. Let me say this for myself, or at least how it was then, that I was no great judge of appearances, accessorizing or the other appalling a's. I just went with the flow (of course, I did have judgments to pass on certain others, but they were none too scathing, and none had any effect on my general attitude) and didn't really find them much too bad.
But they were bad. In fact, the colour of my skin made it worse because of the contrast it created - thick black frames and sometimes alabaster-white skin. (I have tanned excessively now, but ANYway...)
I got through NUJS, came to Kol...blah blah, we know the story, and one night when I went down for dinner, I revealed them to the world. Everyone, as a rule, detested them. They didn't say it to my face, of course. People are polite when around I years. But that made it worse for me, because I tend to imagine, and speculate and ruminate and brood and just run myself to ruin solely with my thoughts. It's amazing how I can actually manage it, but I have created situations, problems within situations, the loss of a solution to that problem due to a turn of events within that imaginary situation and spewed the anger resulting from that on people. My alcove-mate was witness to one such hysterical outburst, and I asked her, very uncharitably, to leave my room. But I digress...

The spectacles, of course. I did have a different pair of spectacles, decent, thin ones but I lost them very soon, while I moved to my assigned room. So I realized I was stuck with this for a long time, and I didn't mind it much. Or so I thought.

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Day by day, there was a growing alienation between myself and my peers because of that introspection that I got lost in much so often, and it wasn't even that much fun. I would want to go out and have fun without a thought and yet something really strong would pull me back to my chair and keep me there.
And then a day came when everyone decided to tell me how much they hated me and those ugly blackframedspectacles. How they even hated my blog because of it, and they spat on my presence in cyberspace. They told me how they wished I was never born, and why I should get away from there as soon as possible.

----------------------------------------

Now, this situation reminded me a lot of my time in kindergarten (not the paragraph directly above this, that's just bull) when I was mostly observant, very quiet and sometimes given to being bullied.
That kinda happened. And this year, I came back with new spectacles, and man, have things changed.
Life is very different now, here. I suppose my blog was just meant to stand as testimony to the role those spectacles have played in my life. The past they brought to life, the present that they made me value, and the future because I will turn them into a laser gun and burn anyone I look at through them.

Please take your seats. We will begin, now.

Harold Pinter's wife's name is Antonia Fraser. They are, legally, married. She just didn't take his name. (Of course, wiki says she has a 'married name'. But wiki's just bullshitting, we all know that) As didn't Anne Hathaway. Is there a connection?
Who knows? Is there any way to find out? Ol' Bill lives no longer at Stratford Upon Avon, it got too crowded with tourists and visitors after an "immortal bard" made the little place famous. Woody Allen was right in mentioning that one must always notify the post office if one is moving, unless one doesn't care about posterity. While on the subject (Woody, P.O., etc.) Kommie's a lucky man.
He will be receiving his very own copy of W.A.'s complete prose. Soon after I finish reading it.

I have been reading a lot of plays lately. It began with Edward Albee's 'Who is Sylvia?'. A brilliantly scripted play (which Plabs' [as Flavia Agnes puts it:] hypocritical morality couldn't stand) that deals with some of the lesser discussed issues, for want of diverse practical examples, academic thoughts and practical influence. At the bottom of it, it's just a spousal spate of bickering. The entire tension that the play runs on is because of its controversial theme - which is the fact that ultimately throttles us. That something that can be looked upon so "sanely" takes up a lot of space in our taboo lists.
Do you have taboo lists? I guess I do. And in my endeavour to run away from run-of-the-mill taboo lists, I have quite a unique one, the desire to post which may hopefully lead me to blog the next time around.
The thing with me and blogging is that I wish to maintain my habit of writing. It is so long since I've used 'I' and not in short messages or IM conversations.
It's almost taken over me. My time in the day is consumed so much part of it, by intermediary things like travelling, speaking on the phone, 'making arrangements' and replying to messages.
I digress.
I was talking about plays. There's a play 'Exit the King' happening at Rangashankara, and I'm not even being paid to advertise. But an interesting "uncle" at a relative's place who works with TFA has been helping out with the backstage part of the production. And I'm gonna watch it tomorrow. That's Thursday for the Calendar-ily challenged.
And then I picked up a book of three plays by Henrik Ibsen which I still haven't read.
I did read some more by Albee, such as 'The American Dream' - a work which lies almost wasted, as in the middle, the orientation is slowly lost (maybe on me, maybe on the author. Who knows? Tch, woody's right) and it looks like it would turn into a shouting match.
One play I would not want to watch.
And I read Lolita - as an adaptation by Albee, (which is incidentally pronounced, Ol-bee, like the a in all. You would've guesssed right?) and not the original by Nabokov. Which I want to read, since I would sincerely like to use words like Nabokovian. I haven't had ocassion to use Kafkaesque yet, although I have read a little bit of Kafka.
He didn't write plays though, to the best of my knowledge. Or I haven't read them. (Amazon reveals that he wrote two plays: 'Kafka's Dick' and 'The insurance man")

And then I read some Shaw. I had borrowed a book from Jhelum, which I've hopefully returned. Man and Superman, Candida...

I thought I'd read some more. I did read a super play by Tom Stoppard which had a lot to do with Marxism and music and it was interesting, until I lost the thread somewhere.
Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is nowhere available. Not on the net, at least. Treat if the reader can find me a copy, anywhere.

Will be updated later.

Not so tragic, then

I was, as I'm afforded the rare privelege of sometimes, surfing the net and reading some blogs that I hopped along on with links and such. There were jounal entries there, heart-wrenching tragedy stories and people piping up with acknowledgments, and what's more, claims that 'their' story is exactly the same.

I've led a happy life, everyone. Yes, I've had tales of domestic violence - but somehow, I feel not quite in the usual direction. There were taunts and tirades, but the final blow-up would even things out, where might was right and mother's not particularly weak. Something happened to me these past months to block out the impact of any pain of those fights I've witnessed and incidents in the back of my mind as a painful reminder of reality and things like that. But I don't feel the pain I used to, anymore. I remember having talked about it with four different, and close people in my life and it all resulted in my exaltation as the bearer of pain - but after a year here, heck the memories aren't there almost.
I thought extensively today about the rigidity in my jaw. How characteristically it's taken its place in my face after all those years. I used to be really quiet and observant back in kindergarten and a few years after. I remember because the people I used to travel in the auto to school with would treat me like a statue, call me stone and make jokes about the silence and rigidity.
I've chubby cheeks and victorian features (fair-skinned, full lipped and curly brunetted) and I've noticed that my attitude couldn't be said to suit my face. But yeah, I do have bigger problems than that, thankyouverymuch. It just feels a nice mix, and an odd botch-up of things like values, perspective and my life; to have to treat a face-attitude anomaly like some "real" problems people have.
It's absurd. And that's my flavour for the season.

Thanks to TC (couldn't find anything closer) , for the dramatic introduction to the concept.

P.S.

Serenity. With Lisa Gerrard on the speakers croning the Gladiator soundtrack.

I see I've become dictated by noms. Things are worth anything only if their name is recognizable, only if its title is catchy and it has an intelligent ring to it.

How mournful I always seem. That has been a recurring theme on this blog hasn't it? Something that talks of old memories, lost days, lost loves, things that make me feel a sort of voidlike feeling that I express in my stunted vocabulary. Memories are great to blog about. It starts off with the fact that one would have to compress days, months and years of feeling and thought into little boxes of memory back in your head that you can't even swim in for a long time. Memories are punished, relegated and put away.
One must 'move on'. Into the same everyday; into the same people - for most part, into the same places - for most part, into the same you - always.
Into the same mourning, the same black veils that don't change their texture or film-like transluscence. Into the same bright, open sky, with the same 'buildings in the distance', the same people you sit next to on a lone bench and look at with a lost gaze in your eyes - speaking of another day dead and gone.
Does a day die when it's over? One can't stop time even if they stand in much the same way, with the same person and hope with all their might that the moment will not pass them by. That a cell-phone will not ring. Afraid that a teasing voice will call. That the sky will suddenly swallow up the sun. And the day will be over. And what will remain is something that you can tamper with, if you dare to, if you need to.

I think I blog (or used to) because I wanted it to remain somewhere else besides my head. I wanted to surrender the power that I had to alter my memories and at the same time evened out the high of reliving the moment by transferring it, converting it into a bunch of words and pushing it down on virtual paper.

I guess I also blog because Bhavin kept persuading me to. Thought it was only fair.
After Tia Maria.

Mysore's an eyesore.

Alright,
not quite.

Eyesore's for
the bored.
Else it's a city
of lore.

My city, of all cities.
That will remain my own
for few will claim it.

Shuttling between various
towns, in trains that carry us,
these vacations keep me
actually hoping to see my city.

Chennai, it was first, where I met
dear Kommie. Was a day, so didn't fret.
Bangalore, next. And fulfilled some duty.
But came back home with a grin all toothy.

Goa, the holiday spot - the bitch was
at the beach. And two days did pass.
Karwar, next. Memories were made.
Stopping at B'lore now. "Home!", I cry, all said,
and done.

But why and what I do there, I have not explained.

• Traverse forgotten public parks and play on the swings and the see-saw and slide.
• Dig up random numbers on the phone and meet with so many homies who're still home. And get them to buy me lunch or coffee. Oft unsuccessful, but trying's always good, nevertheless.
  
• Sit in the darkness of my house all day and either listen to blaring music on those distortive, old speakers and gallop across random sites on the Internet with dear old StumbleUpon, or, in our huge hall on the couch, read the newspaper, get a friend to come and sit with me while we munch away the snacks in the big red box and watch TeeVee (I still say that) and complain about moronic politicians and stinking filmstars.
  
• Go to Planet X, drink beer, play air hockey. Does one need more to life?
  
• When parents are around, moolah ain't much of an issue. That's one thing I love about Mysore. No budgetary worries. Width worries are due, though. At the hip ain't hip.

Addendum: I need to find topics I can work on for an Economics project that must have
to do with a legal perspective upon it. Any websites or links or any such help
of the kind will be so appreciated you'll be sorry you're just an Internet friend
of mine who cannot actually get the better of the me in flesh-and-blood and
receive an embrace in gratitude and more.

Bawd's Bawls

I was tagged, as I usually am this time of the year. When people get off work for longer stretches of time, and they find more and more engrossing uses of the Internet - and check their address books - it's time to tag!
So I was supposed to write about 5 things that I love doing in a city that I love.
Now this will require some thinking, because up until a while ago, I did like Mysore - but besides the fact that the place bugs me at the moment, I probably wouldn't be able to think of 5 things I pursue that are very different from each other.
And I wouldn't write about Calcutta (although that has been home for almost 4 months now - because a majority of my activities happen within campus and it just wouldn't be fair on the reader to indulge in stories of activities therein. Also, Bhavin wrote of Cal, I will be slightly different.)
Baud, do I have to write about 5 things I love doing only in one city? Since I don't seem to have cherished memories of even 5 things in a single place, I'll do a random 'things I like doing in places I've been' thing, shall I? I should actually be let off even without reprimand since I revived this blog that had received the dementor's kiss a hundred and more days ago.
But y'know what? I'll do the tag in the next entry. I'm home for the holidays right now; after a hardly gruelling semester at college - and am perpetually on the net. For days, sometimes. I have to find something to do too, like those intellectuals with their keyboards and their address books. Next blog entry will be more interesting. Stck with me, kay?