Off to the City

Hi all. I'm off to Kolkata in about 6 hours, will be away till end-November. If you need me, mail me :) I'll post as regularly as I can, so keep reading.

Have a bright and safe Diwali.

Much love.

Mum..looking wined and dined

Of Linguistics and Anneishness

How thankful little Phil will be when all this examinating is over!

Examinating! I never heard of such a word.

Well, haven't I as good a right to make a word as anyone else??

Words aren't made, they grow.

From 'Anne of the Island' by L.M.
Montgomery

God! Somebody get me a bed quick!
Actually, I'm too zombied even to sleep. Transcription has taken its toll!
Yes indeedy, words aren't made. They aren't meant to be transcribed either I'm sure!

Tia cannot transcribe words. REPEAT! Tia CANNOT transcribe words! So why why why would they make me do it!!!!!

On the plus-side, I knew everything. I studied with a single-mindedness that was lovely. It's amazing when this one thing matters here and now, this moment, and all else falls away. I studied and mulled over notebooks till my body sank. And it was nice. The thing about English is...I've always been good at it. But it's been instinctive so far. I can interpret any text anytime and come up with ideas and concepts. My language is good because I read furiously. I've never had to prepare for an English exam per say.
Linguistics, being the technical part, is different. I have had lots and lots of new information to remember. And remember accurately. You can't get away with a clever turn of phrase in this paper. It's systematic, almost mathematical in its precision. So, I put in hard, academic effort. And liked it.
People so often look askance at me for studying English. As I told Boss the other day, why would I want to study anything else :)

Da-ba-dee-dah

Ok, so my head is crammed so full it's about to go KA-BOOM and spill linguistically accurate blood and little bits of syntactical brain everywhere.

I stayed up till 3 this morning working on my two Honours papers, and then had another session with P and V till lunchtime.

I'm supposed to be On A Break, but I'm in overdrive, so I'll probably just run on borrowed energy till 10 am Friday....and then get drunk.

P is my study-date extraordinaire. She's sexy and can bullshit real good, which is SO important during exam-time.

The good thing about being completely immersed in Freud and criticism and Semantics and Phonetics...is that you have no time to be disgruntled.

Yes I am dissatisfied with the way a few things are going, but the urgency of these two papers have kept me too dishevelled and excited to give them much thought.

Also, my basic instincts kick in like a thoroughbred during exams. I need constant food, constant fizzy drinks, constant sex...or constant sexual fantasies atleast, and constant bad jokes.

Reasons I don't need to buy joke-books

Reason 1

Mum: I got a perm and now I look like a palm-tree!

Reason 2

Dad: Hmm...I'm getting a double chin. (Looks round at me.) Heyyy! You're just like me..that means...YOU'RE GETTING ONE TOO!
Goes off gleefully.

Reason 3


E(solemnly): When you have kids Tia Didi, make sure you drink plenty of coconut water. My mother's friend told me that my mother drank lots when I was in her tummy and that's why I'm nice and plump.

Reason 4


N: Vidya Balan is a slut! Have you SEEN her body language?
Me: She isn't a slut. I like her. And what's wrong with being a slut? It just means she has a healthy sex-life.
N: PLEASE! She is totally the reason why Shahid and Kareena broke up.
Me: Whatever.
N: Sigh. WAAAAAH! I MISS RAHUL!
Me: Ok, let's get back to Vidya Balan.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net


I come up for air every two hours. Thank Goddess for comics.

Please read

http://rainbowraven.blogspot.com/2007/10/bhulbo-na.html

Thanks Rohini, for being so clear.
Bhulbo na in Bengali, is We shall not forget.
Let's remember that.

Happiness, thy name is...;)

Zara Gungunalein chalo
Zara Muskuraein chalo
Ajnabee sa ek chehra
Apna bana le chalo

Zara Gungunalein chalo
zara Muskuraein chalo
Zindagi se ek lamha
Phir se chura le chalo


Just plain old happiness for me. Could be that I wrote a paper on Organizational Behaviour and managed to bypass the entire section on 'Pay as Benefit.'
Maybe it's that I am madly, energetically in love. And don't go asking questions! Remember this is the girl who wanted to marry a furniture store, a book and now the Rudra-Veena.
Whatever it is, I am so glad this song is stuck in my head.

Quiet

Chrysalis heart and tender skin...

So writes Delia. The quiet around her is so complete, I'm afraid even to envy it.

I have been afraid of quiet for sometime now. It brings back old bruises. I make a lot of noise about my blessings but the bruises...they only come to be when I am alone.
I am looking forward to visiting my ashram again. Sitting on old, stone steps and letting my face grow wet with tears. There is always someone, some situation for which I must be brave. And so, my falterings must always be internal. It can be no other way, for there is no one, no one who I would go to with this hidden darkness. I pride myself on surviving the toughest, the most wrenching pain unaided, and it is this belief that has got me through. I face the world dry-eyed and proud, whether by dint of a smile, or the clenching of teeth. And every false smile, every setting of my jaw will catch up with me when there is quiet.
I need it. But I also need not to be alone with it. But that aloneness is of my choosing...

God it makes me mad. Because I know how much it means to him. It;s almost like I'm trying to make up for what I couldn't give, for the years I didn't know how to keep in touch.
It's not fair to him. But hell, you know what! You don't get to choose your family. You work with what you're given. And you damn well give back.
The sooner you learn the better. Childhood is no longer easy, so let's stop pretending.

Sigh. I tear myself up when I'm angry.

Pujor golpo (Puja Stories)

Robindro Shetu (Howrah Bridge)

Photograph courtesy: http://www.theamberwolf.com/

I miss the rambunctiousness that I know is laughing over Kolkata. The dhak-dhol, the spontaneous stalls where you get jhal deem (spiced eggs) and chilléd Thaamsaap. The crowds, the lighting, the notun shari people can't afford. The perfect, utterly sentimental, overflowing-with-hospitality bangaliness of it all.

When I was a little girl and Mum was in advertising, we would go for the Asian Paints Sharod Shamyan. A competition for the best idol. The most creative, the most authentic etc. We would go joyriding in a rickety old van. Go to every pandal we could fit into the night. Eat at the dozens of wayside stalls that blossom suddenly during pujo. Come home at five in the morning.
Even before that, I have faint memories of my mama's old white Fiat. Till date, it is the most beautifully maintained car I have seen. Some eight of us crammed into it, me half-asleep and squashed into somebody's lap. Driving around, everybody well-fed but still hungry(you don't stop eating those last five days of Pujo), cracking terrible jokes and stopping at every phuchka stall.
I don't remember much more. The people whose laps I sleepily occupied are strangers now. The family I used to spend those bright, faraway nights with has now been stretched to proportions I can't always reach.
I'm sure life wasn't easy or simple even fifteen years ago. I know there were disturbances and under-the-surface darkness. But for those few days, people let go. They ate too much, talked and talked and talked, laughed over everything and took spontaneous decisions to go looking for street-food at one in the morning.




Happy Pujo to all of you who were there.

Mmmm-Hmmm

You don't look twenty-two, you look much younger.
You don't think twenty-two, you think much older.
You don't live twenty-two...

Gee, I wonder what a less unusual twenty two year old would be all about,

The Tale of Chocolate Pudding, the Mahabharat and a Septagenerian Birthday Party

I have a very good motto.

When you are depressed beyond Sylvia Plath, do an Ogden Nash.

It's funny how you think you want to end something
And then you don't.
Don't want to think or to end it, I mean.
What do you do when you are desperately trying to end something
And you end up sitting in together in a room
Drinking tea and eating chocolate pudding and
Watching ancient epics made into terribly dramatic television mini-series
Do you say,'Umm...thanks for the tea and pudding, and by the way I don't think we should keep in touch?'
What happens when you are desperately trying to end something
And there is a septagenerian birthday party to attend
And you start thinking, 'Oh shit, what if the septagenerian hates you for this!'
God knows you don't need any more septagenerians mad at you
What if the something you want to end
Has its birthday next day
Do you pull out presents and say, 'Happy Birthday, and it's all dead?'
Do you pop out party hats and yell, 'This is your day and I meant to tell you, we're strangers from this day on?'
It is just so much easier to try and try
Or why not say, 'So what if the thing I'm trying to end makes my flesh warm! The thing never shuts up and wouldn't know Sensitivity if it became Nudity.'
Do you sneak into Reverse with your headlights dimmed?
All the way back into your fantasies of bursting in and yelling, 'QUIT WALTZING IN AND OUT OF MY LIFE YOU VICTIM OF A PERMANENTLY MALFUNCTIONING CEREBRAL CORTEX!'
Honestly, it's funny
how you think you want to end something
And then you don't.
Want to think
Or end it.

Copyright: Pomegranate Nash, 2007

feeling very small.

Opium days

I've been wanting to write a contented post for a while. So, I've been waiting for the right frame of mind. I rave and rant so much on my blog...just for variety, let me be quietly happy.

I've just finished the first of my internal papers, and it went rather well.
The last couple of weeks have been hectic. Vernen was here, so we made as much time with him as we could. There have been birthdays, hectic socializing and much drunken debauchery.
I attended my very first live concert in Indian classical music. Ran out on a dinner in my own home to watch Shubha Mudgal, Ustad Bahauddin Dagar and Vidvan T.M. Krishna perform.
And it was GOOD.
Shubha Mudgal was so incredibly energetic! Her whole body sings. And I could make out that she was happy. She was playful and glowing, just like her music.
Ustad Bahauddin Dagar played the Rudra Veena. I'd never seen one before, and I have to tell you, it is the most beautiful instrument ever! Just look at it!





I love all string instruments, but this is by far the most Yin! Rounded and long and agile and deep all at once. And full of old stories and secrets.

The Ustad himself was very intense. Even his hair was intense. He played slow and concentrated music. Music I would have appreciated much more had it not been 2 am. I am not used to music that demands so much from the listener.

But the most potent poppy in the field was Vidvan T.M Krishna and even more, his accompanying violinist Vidvan R.K. Shri Ramkumar. That violin had a voice of its own. It flew and dipped and wove shimmering shapes. It followed the singer possessively, challenging, overtaking, sometimes simply walking by his side. I don't know Shri Ramkumar has in his hands...but i want some of it!

So there I was, from 9 in the night to 5 the next morning. Ok, Weed and I sneaked out halfway for coffee and Coke, but we needed nourishment!
I don't think I want to understand this music. I don't want to listen to it and see Malhar and Todi. At least...not yet. It boosts my mind and leaves my body drained. I feel my skin straining to absorb. And I like the strain.

RANT

You know, i try! I really really do! Read texts written by shitheads which are recommended only because they have some link with the university.
Texts which blithely place fine arts 'above' mechanical arts and leave no room for argument.
I am not a 'literary' person. I love reading Red-Hot Mills and Boons, I adore chick-lit! Yes I also love the Brontes and Emily Dickinson and I can declaim most of Macbeth without peeking at the text. I read Toni Morrison and Meg Cabot within an hour of each other. I have no snobbery where the written word goes.
But, I refuse to read smugly written, patronizing textualized shit! Written by dried-up self-important old idjits. There is no scope for a literature student who reads such texts. There is no thought, no reason, no imagination...NOTHING! Just long sentences and a jumble of words put together to look important!
BLOODY HELL!

Images of Baramati

You Owe Me Nothing

I'll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it
I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need it
You can speak of anger and doubts your fears and freak outs and I'll hold it
You can share your so-called shame filled accounts of times in your life and I won't judge it
(and there are no strings attached to it)
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it's my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return
You can ask for space for yourself and only yourself and I'll grant it
You can ask for freedom as well or time to travel and you'll have it
You can ask to live by yourself or love someone else and I'll support it
You can ask for anything you want anything at all and I'll understand it
(and there are no strings attached to it)
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it's my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return
I bet you're wondering when the next payback shoe will eventually drop
I bet you're wondering when my conditional police will force you to cough up
I bet wonder how far you have now danced you way back into debt
This is the only kind of love as I understand it that there really is
You can express your deepest of truths even if it means I'll lose you and I'll hear it
You can fall into the abyss on your way to your bliss I'll empathize with
You can say that you have to skip town to chase your passion I'll hear it
You can even hit rock bottom have a mid-life crisis and I'll hold it
(and there are no strings attached)
You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it's my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return

-Alanis Morisette

SCREAM!!!!!!!

Hell is other people

Jean-Paul Satre


Hell is other people when you have PMS

Pomegranate

Courting Disaster

Pmgrnt: Hello are you Disaster?

Dster: You seriously want to know???

P: Yes I do. I've been looking everywhere for you. I really need you in my life

D: Err...I am in your life. In those overgrown misshapen nails, the sticky feeling in your skin, the constant need to eat....

P: You make me sound pregnant.

D: I am sorry. I'm not known to spread sunshine! And in a way, you are impregnated. You're swollen up with a few things you oughta let go of! Y'know, like they say when you're in labour? PUSH! PUSH!

P: Look, quit the counselling. I'm not trying to get rid of you, I'm trying to have a mature, committed relationship here! I like you for the nights i spend sobbing and the constant resentment you build in me!

D: Lady, I ain't the forever kind. I come and go as I please.

P: Yes well I'm not giving up on you!

D (edging away): maybe, y'know, you could go see my brother. He might be of some help.

P: A brother??? Who is he?

D: Name's Pandemonium.

P: I do not want Pandemonium!! Pandemonium! He is loud and show-offy! I can't be passive and masochistic with him around!

D: I really need to go. I'm...due...at...a gay bar real soon! See you!

P: NOOOOO...COME BACK!!


THE END

Tai to!