welcome to the new breed.

our mothers were fantastic. admit it, its a fact. they brought us up- and heaven- or hell knows that we were peppery handfuls!

but we are a new breed, mom.

here's why.

...

walking down the road, the same familiar theme, the same scheme of things, the same old me. i let the cab go early today, needed to pick up some groceries and stuff. how hilarious, the men must have thought, women will be housewives! nah, come off it. better hussif than stomach upset. oh well. facts will be fact, no matter how you bend or warp the,. there they are, staring sternly at me, decreeing that i am my mother all over again.

no, never. not me, uh huh, screams something inside which i tamp down on. now is not the time.

it never is.

potatoes, tomatoes, bread, toothpaste, onions, eggs, etc later. a big bag, plastic, non eco friendly weighing one side down, a slim black leather bag swinging cheerily from the other. a strange silhouette winks at me- or wold if silhouettes and shadows had eyes. i see a lumpy form, short skirted, high heeled, with longish flowing hair, great hair, that, i think. oddly weighted. the slim straps on her sandals slip and slide and threaten to break but she gets home in one piece without accident- not before stopping to scold the dhobi about his tardiness though.

it is me, of course.

and that's why i'm not my mother. sorry, ma.

i'msoinlovewithyou:)

[disclaimer: this post is written by someone who is madly in love. pls take complicated prejudices elsewhere]

love em, live with em, leave em.

the new mantra of today, if bollywood and all the other associated woods are to be believed. even if taken with a big spoonful- a mere pinch won't do- of salt, the impression it makes on me is well, disturbing.

husbands, wives, mistresses, boyfriends (what are adulterous wives' lovers called? paramours? yuk!) the whole gamut of sleaze, sex and skin. how horrid. prudish that may sound, but that's just how it is.

call me old fashioned. i don't care. i don't believe in god or divine justice. i don't know much about my morals- or those of the world around me. i don't even believe in stuff like forever sometimes.

but i do believe in promises and keeping my word. 'and i promise to love honour and obey'...

call me old fashioned again if i say i wold not trust an adulterous man in his business practices. honour, hah. joke. same goes for the woman.

i know that all relationships- whether they've led to marriage or not- do not last forever. some sour, some crumble into indifference...and in some sad cases, people just drift apart.

loneliness is like a cancer. i know, I've been there. its a natural desire to want someone of your own, to have and to hold and make love to on cold winter nights.

not at the expense of your commitments.

I'm not old fashioned or narrow enough to think that all relationships should last forever. you cut off a gangrenous limb don't you [disgusting analogy eh]...I'm not an advocate of divorce, but if you must sleep around, do so as a free agent without fucking around with someone else's trust.

get a goddamn divorce, for chrissake!

[disclaimer #2- I've just seen life in a metro and more than disturbing me, it pissed me off. and like i said- take complicated questions elsewhere.]

my lot is an odd one.

i wish i could call myself a writer. but words fail me too often, and silence is all that rings inside my skull. he weight of the word frightens me. what, i, me, myself- if i exist at all- a writer?

a human perhaps, a person maybe, an editor definitely. but writer- that's one label that would scare the pants off of me if i wore any. ahem, never mind that.

writers, we are told, taught and made to remember are responsible. they [re]invent the wheel, they force social change and foster unease and unrest. they are activists, they are the zeitgeist.

they are dangerous. they can wrap you in coccons of the softest silk, they can ensnare you and guile you with words. they can lead you up to humpty's great fall. and leave someone else to pick up the pieces- they're far too busy picking up royalties, pulitzer's and contracts.

they cheat you. and you still love them and crave for more.

more stories, more webs, more enchantments. more lies.

bt then, what's so enticing about trth anyway? we've all lusted after it, sought it and thoght we had it, only to discover that it was fool's gold. no, truth is bleak and bitter. it may not ensnare you but it cannot enchant you either.

the scribe pushes you out into a cold, hard world. the writer pulls you into the comforting warmth of a fleecy duvet.

i know i'm committing the fallacy of petitio principii- arging in a circle...inclining towards the begining. but then, to begin is to end, and to end is to begin. period.

and the answer to the original question- i still don't know if i want the weight of the word resting on my puny [albeit rounded] shoulders. but then, that's life! to begin is to end, but before that end there must be a middle.

if i am at the middle, i cannot foresee the end. i will know it only at the end.

prior to that- substance is unknown and unknowable....and i suppose this, like death, is a question i can have no apriori knowledge of!

call me writer. call me ishmael. i don't care.

i curl up within myself and exult. if i had arms or legs i would kick and flail and make my presence felt and announce to the world- i exist! here i am, a microscopic zygote, the most important member of my little family, and there you go- my parents don't even know that i have been concieved, that i too am a blip on their radar. Parents!

Never mind that. I exist!

ignore the last post-actually don't. it might turn out to be the truest thing i wrote today.

if i were to say that the world was my oyster, i might be laughed out of court- yeah yeah sure, what the heck so it ain't- but what would i do with an oyster in any case? they don't make brilliant pets- no noise, no motion, no huggability- bo-oring! i suppose i could eat it, but why murder a family of mussels to vent your angst against your dumb unpettable pet? not much chance of finding pearls or making ornaments out of a single piece of sclocky-shcmuck either!

venting on oysters- bless their silent little souls- has completely made me lose track.

why can't i be me?

rag and bone- dog-and bone-hank of hair- lady fair.

[you asked for this one. It was bound to happen, sooner or later]

i don't want to be another t.s. eliot or virginia woolf sliding to her death with stones in her pockets. i don't want to be as one with the cowslips, reading or reciting poetry to a bovine audience, or stick my head in the gas either. i don't want to drink off the hippocrene and lull myself into escape, and writes odes to dejection and melancholy. at times, i sdon't even want to write a blazon to your eyebrows (heavenly though they might be).

i dont want to be daddy's lil gal sucking the life blood out of him as slowly as if it were my favorite sucker. i don't want to be your doormat and meekly do as you want either.

what do i want? i don't know. there- its out in the open. yeah i don't know what the hell i want to do in a year's time or five year's time or even what i'll wear to work tomorrow (i might be tempted to shave my legs and wear a skirt- but then again, i might not and hide the peach fuzz somehow).

don't browbeat me. i won't put up with it for too long.

i don't want to lose the I that I've been for 24 plus years because of an 'us' that may never be.

holidays are many splendored things. they can make you dance, leap, sing, jump, WALK- like you've never walked before, sleep, eat, doze, snooze- well, just about anything you wouldn't really do on a normal work day. and i have the sore ankles to prove it!

words would- well not be insufficient exactly, ut it would take me a good day to describe all our adventures on any sort of detail. and anyhting else would nto do it justice.

well proof- here are some snapshots.

drinking coconut water straight from the coconut, laboring under the delusion that there are no straws available. me havinbg the giggles and my plight. and setting everyone else off too. and then, after we had completely splashed ourselves, to discover (with only some chagrin), a pile of bright orange straws tucked by the vendor's seat.

deciding to be the real trail blazer and walknig across a river (by a waterfall) on a set of half sunken and very slimy rocks. with trainers that had NO traction. and slipping and sliding and then splash! falling into the river. and then realising that the river was crocidile infested.

spending 12k plus of shopping- at commercial street! my wallet would have wept tears of blood- if it could!

bingeing on sponge cake....ahhhh!!!!!!

i am on vacation until wednesday, may 23 with no access to email/voicemail. for assistance please contact XX@XX.xom [placeholder].

njoi banni maadi!

esse est percipi.

strange world, duble sided, twin faced and creepy crawly.

life is another walk, not the same as yesterday's that wouldnt be good no,change is the keystone-word-whateverthefuckyouwannacallit, thats how it goes. streams, no scratch that, reverse it wonka style, floods of consciousness, and there goes jim porter's old landlady again, swinging on those bloody churchbells- i must look up camelias and graduation gowns. who da fuck- you da girl, ahem ahem thanks all very bhery berry much indeed.

i am hungry. end of rant.

indian bureaucracy may have come a long way since 1947 but indian delays are still the same.


it will be done today ma'an

it will be done tomorrow maam

i PROMISe it will be done today!

and a week's gone by and i still don't jhave my internet connection.

india inc. zindabad!

cresent moon, silver shoon.

a broken nail and a ripped heel.

...life!

a headache is a curious thing. it comes on gently like a lover sometimes, like a violent wife basher sometime else. it can color your vision with a pretty golden (although painful) haze,but it can also deaden sensation, make every digit feel leaden and tinge your vision mustard, puke green or angry red (depending on your own personal reaction to one).

sometimes it makes a light footed couple dance a conga inside your brain, but usually its like two sumo wrestlers and a piano gone crazy. or the hulk, the undertaker and king kong playing smashing pumpkins real hard. or like jethro tull gone mad.

i think i'm hallucinating.

ek garam chai, that's what this day needs, with a stiff shot of whisky coloring it.

the world is an illusion, the realest one you ever did see. bhang colors it all, and that it does with truth. everything else is maya!

there's something in pain, they say. nothing, nothing at all, say i. there's no glory in ignominy, and nothing celestial or even quasi divine about lying in a pool of your own excrement, rats nibbling at your toes- an honour once reserved only for corpses.

there's nothying in pain, no end of silent suffering.

i was sick and tired of everything; when i called you last night from Strasbourg [Bangalore?]
all i do is eat and sleep and sing[ work?]
wishing every show[ day] was the last show [ditto]

funny, isn't it, how old songs intrude on your consciousness when you're at work on a public holiday, making you feel festive and restive and wishing you were anywhere but here...

but i shall not rant. many others share my fate. i do wish they had told us that we could wear casuals though. the sight of jeans is making me feel all sad [for want of a more forceful word; i am feeling very dazed and sleepy right now].

something someone once said about my blog comes back to me- its so you, they say. well, and who else would it be?