Masquerade

Are we really happy with this lonely game we play,
Looking for the right words to say?
Searching but not finding -- understanding anyway,
We're lost in this masquerade.
Both afraid to say we're just too far away
From being close together from the start.
We try to talk it over, but the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play.
Thoughts of leaving disappear each time I see your eyes,
And no matter how hard I try
To understand the reason why we carry on this way
We're lost in this masquerade.
We try to talk it over, but the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play.
We're lost in a masquerade.
And we're lost in a masquerade.

- George Benson

If Albee had been a romantic....'Virgina Woolf'...might have been thus shaped.

I bought 'Unless' by Carol Shields today. Paid a ghastly amount for it but since I was locked out of the house...and consequently out of my half-read material...
I'm half-way through it and it typifies my reading preferences. Plentiful use of metaphors, some form of intense, psychological 'wrongness' and for all its rich verbosity...strangely matter-of-fact. Seriously, in most of the books I read either someone ages backwards, or sits on a street corner wearing nothing but a sign reading 'goodness' or whatever.
I also have this thing for extra-marital stories, instances being 'The Bridges of Madison County', 'Lolita', 'The Maid's Request'. The first is a bitter-slightly-sweet romance, the second a gorgeous narrative on obsessive romantic and sexual ideals and the third is a silent, attentive awareness between an ageing artist and his maid...apparently having tangential reference to Da Vinci.
The anonymity of these relationships attracts me. They are extra-marital sometimes in the sense that neither party is married, sometimes where one is or one marries merely to be close to the real object of desire. I abhor unfaithfulness and not even in 'Bridges' is that word mentioned. It isn't glossed over either and it pleases me that neither character refers to marriage while discussing the outcome of their own relationship.

Another day in Nerja with lots of meat and cheese and alcohol. The local cigarettes really suck. I am as yet receiving e-mails which promise to increase the size of my penis by 3". Perhaps the senders are eminent psychologists who are convinced that I am suffering from an extended Electra complex.

I just checked out some artwork by Dave Mckean. Let me confess that I am no art connoisseur. I find images in words and am rarely able to do the reverse which is probably why symbolic art attacts me. I love swirls and shapes and wonky stuff. Mckean is wonky. Scary-wonky. I was looking at some images he created for the Skybox Master series. I'm putting up the link so have a look. My personal favourites are The Bee-Giver and The Scary Man.
Adios.

The room was tiny,dimly lit by red-shaded lamps, inhabited by several Vague Human Characters. I was seated on a chair attached to the top of a steel pole about 8 feet high. My head touched the ceiling and when I looked up, it too was steel and my reflected face was huge and puffy, daubed with soot. All I could distinguish was a little, white scar cutting into my right eyebrow.
The VHC's asked me why I was there. I told them it was to make up for being with other people the rest of the time. They never looked at me or at each other...instead they looked at the reflections in the ceiling.
I had no shoes on...my feet were wrapped in dirty, mummy-like bandages and then re-wrapped in sheets of steel. The chair was a swivel, but it only worked when I looked upward at my reflection. The faster I spun, the more the VHC's disintegrated. Or at least their reflections did. My own face blurred. All except for the scar.
Sometimes it looked like a fingernail.
I decided it was a foetus.
My fingers were smooth, polished steel as I raised my hand to stroke it. The eyebrow curled and grew moist around them.

Hola de Espagna

Apart from nearly being arrested in Paris, I managed to reach Malaga without too many hitches. Had my first meal at Oh Calcutta! last night. Lovely mussels and some version of an Italian stew and chocolate mousse. As of now I am wrapped in a woolly pink robe having my hair vigorously towel-dried by Mum.

Nerja seems an idyllic paradise. The only businesses here are shops, restaurants and bars with the odd bank thrown in. No hotels...instead people rent apartments or cottages for vacations. This is actually my second trip here, but the first doesn't really count. I left 98% of me in Calcutta that time. This time I'm here completely. The strange thing is that there's no consciousness of being 'away.' Last time I gazed at the sea, upon sunsets. I gloried in soaking in the bathtub (which I still consider the ultimate luxury). I was the ultimate tourist. Ok, I didn't have any paella and this time I've deigned to 'be introduced to the fine art of wine-drinking' which I vetoed last time....but it's completely casual. No thrill at flying 11 hours or being on the Continent. I might as well be the bored businessman next to me on the flight who spent his entire time reading the Wall Street Journal and making copious notes on his air-sickness bag.
This time my thrills come from the electric mattress-heater in my bed, being put to sleep by Mum...oh and Mum's new pink-framed glasses.

A Toast

To J...and all the possibilities you are.
Congratulations!

The Sibling Diaries

E (kissing me on my temple) : I kissed your brains. Now you'll do well in your exams.

Me: You might have done this a week ago. My exams just got over.

E (thinking it over) : You'll have more exams won't you?

A minute later.

E: Tia Didi, I'm making my own skateboard. If you don't disturb me I won't disturb you.

Ode

I love my feet. I mean really love them. They're clean and size 5 with short, uneven toe-nails. The veins show up clearly and there's nearly always a blister on the little toe. The heels are usually dry. I've given up wearing nail-polish and now they just look strong and well-used. And they've served me pretty well so far. They've kicked vulnerable male genitalia, walked on mud, animal excreta and the roads of Pune...all while wearing shoes that are the opposite of polite.
I've been decorating them a lot of late. Right now I have a pair of thin, silver anklets and of course my magic toe-ring in which resides the wise, two-headed elephant-genie. Thank you again, Pigwidgeon!

Question: How do things stop mattering?

I went pujo shopping yesterday and finally bought some skirts. One outfit is totally Bunty aur Babli...or in dad's words 'jhakkas'. Anyway they're both lovely and I'm in one right now. I'd almost forgotten what it was like not to have my legs separated by layers of denim...and more recently in cotton linen. Feel skin on skin.
I'm getting 'short-tempered' according to my co-worker. I do blow off steam on him. Hee.

This was an exercise at the NSD workshop last December.
We were asked to lie down, close our eyes and concentrate. Music was playing. Sitar and drums. We had to let it penetrate us completely, let images build up. I saw the sea. I was deaf and dumb but I knew there was music playing. I was desperate....to speak, to let out. The music grew higher, I knew it did. I felt it breathing, tugging at my silence. Insisting that I wasn't in bondage.

Later, we had to perform those images.
I know my voice quivered....I know I cried.
I don't know how it ended...

I started taking a mock-S.A.T online last night to keep myself awake since I was working on 'Bookshop'. It was going pretty well...and then my consistent computer pulled its usual stunt and I had to shut down. I intend to keep going though, even if it's in fits and starts. And i'll post a new 'S.A.T word' each day:) Shaunak is absolutely right...my vocabulary really is pathetic for someone who claims to love words.

'Bookshop' is getting tricky. I've been trying to create a link on my blog, but my PC doesn't seem to want to. But there is a murder at the end and i like the way I've started building up to it verrrry subtly. Also, my protagonist does not have a gender so no pronouns. Hee. I am a terribly lazy writer. I'm at my best at night, and I'm perfectly willing to give up on sleep and college isn't a problem but I simply can't go into work half-dozy. I have less than a month so wish me luck.

I watched 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and loved it. It could have been a litle better edited, but then I watched it in halves. Anyway, the concept was ephemeral and radical so yay!

Mum's down with laryngitis and Shuchita is laid up with a slipped disc and Jivraj has viral fever which Mrinalini calls dengue!! Such preposterous goings-on.

S.A.T word: ameliorate(v): to relieve,as from pain or hardship

somethings

Did you know that.......

. I like to read chick lit?
.My lips curve inwards while holding a cigarette?
. I don't like the taste of alcohol?
. I get a faster buzz from one cigarette than a 60 ml shot of vodka?
. I know someone who has a toothbrush which has the exact shades of blue and white as the cover of the centennial edition of 'Atlas Shrugged'?
. I act out most of the scenes and situations that I write?
. I am a monster of solitude?
. I succeeded in pushing someone away?
. I drink scalding, black coffee when I'm angry?
. I love gypsy clothes?
. I am fiercely competitive regarding speed and English marks?
. I can consume 2 packets of Lays Magic Masala and 2 packets Kurkure Red Chilli Chatka in a day?
. I believe I would make a marvellous burglar?
. I love J because he is so many possibilities?
. I smell naturally like my dad?
. I love shurshuri?
. There are 6 people who I don't mind calling and receiving calls from?
. I am hopelessly in love with our mini vacuum-cleaner?
. I do get tired of listening and I do need to talk long and very slowly and there are very few people I can be honest with about it?
.

I'm in the mood for late-night talk and there's no one around and no one I can call.
I'm standing on the precipice of possibility and staring down into the abyss of hopelessness.

Did you know that I love Disney movies and i love 'Terminator'? Both are so relentless.

Tiffany....thanks so much for your appreciation. I'm sure you'll create a wonderful blog. Please do keep contact.
Love.

No Full Stops in....

I have just devoured a huge chocolate bun from Just Baked and am realizing that while the shop is pretty small everything it stocks is outsize and though the cream was a little stale it was delumpcious and scrumplicious ( read all the secret seven books if you don't know these words, they appear in one of them hee) and I am nursing it down with a glass of Amul Buttermilk which I recommend highly to anyone who is tired of aerated drinks and juices and I watched 'Lost in Translation' and 'School of Rock' yesterday and liked them both a lot especially the first scene of the former yes I know it shows Scarlett Johansson's pink panties but I think it's a beautiful shot and why do we speak of panties in the plural when we usually wear one and I loved Bill Murray's dry, wry humour and i think Scarlett has this heavy, decided beauty no not just in the first shot and I have become a total 'Salaam Namaste' groupie having watched it 3 times and having bought the audio cassette and dowloaded the ringtones of 2 songs and Mrinalini, Jivraj and Dipto are coming for a visit in December and now I've made it official in writing and I haven't used the phrase 'most probably coming' so now they'll have to come HAH but really if I can't go to Calcutta and TCS, let them come to me and I read 'Diddi' by Ira Pandey and it's ever so gentle and flowing and beautiful and I'm sending it to Thammi and sending 'The Oxford Illustrated Corbett' for Dadu and while I was looking for the books I realized how little I think of them and who they are and what they like and that you can't buy a book for a stranger even if it's for inspiration and comfort and I got all emotional and I got a lovely face and head massage and i don't care if my skin glows and my hair grows at the speed of light all i really cared about was being touched and i hadn't realized how starved i was nor why i was writing so much about it and it was cathartic and my obsession with physical touch is...what do you suppose it is?

I read a nice quote today. 'Nostalgia isnt what it used to be'. That'll go up in my room along with 'supernatural' and 'the mouse's lamentation' and Ankush's drawing.

I'm almost through 'Atlas Shrugged' and have been reading it in wonder and total infatuation. The desperate fight against mediocrity, the refusal to 'settle' is beautiful. Precision has received its reward in the book. It's so convincing that I'm not even shocked at how my love for the blurry, the undefined and the intangible is wavering.

Certainty stems from innocence. There is no power greater than the ability to choose.

As of now I'm reading 'Fountainhead', 'Babyji' by Abha Dawesar, Radiance of Ashes by Cyrus Mistry, The Boyfriend by R.Raj Rao and Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant.
I read 'Pig' by Andrew Cowan and loved it. Coming of age stories leave so much of scope for both the writer and the reader.

I'm working on a story called 'Bookshop'. I am sapped of eagerness and haven't chosen to recharge.

Mi said 'Loving and relating are not the same thing'.

Yashar said 'We say we see the light, but we do not realize that we see only because the light is there'.

I said 'We all need to be screwed with skill and consideration...but we also need to be on our own'.

Dave Matthews says 'GRAVEDIGGERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!'

Guess who just called from Cal after picking up my grades from BCL!! OOohhh, the woman knows how to get to me. Wouldn't I love to put her in an oven and roast her with hoi-sin sauce!!

I had very nice session at the Vaishvik art gallery where our creative writing workshop was held today. And my driving went well today :)........ :( still no betterment in mood.

I haven't written for the last few days...and now i don't know what to say. Mmm....I'm going to be working in this bookshop called Twist N tales starting tomorrow. According to my dad it's 'like asking a drunkard to guard a liquor store'.

If my skin was branded to mark me as being of inferior race, I wouldn't feel inferior. I wouldn't complain of the pain. I would feel restricted...helplessly categorized. Wonder how the African slaves felt. The Haitians and Cubans. Even the Jews with their yellow star during World War II.

I told Ankush that my art was 'somwhat restricted'. 'There's no such thing,' he said. 'I know you're a very passionate person, so i'm certain you have it in you'. All this in regard to his asking me to buy an olive-green T-shirt for him and paint it.

Ever heard of anyone getting an upset stomach by smoking after a meal?

scribble

Just bought 'High Plains Tango' by R.J Waller, Atlas Shrugged (thanks for recommendation, honeybee), and 'The Boyfriend' by R. Raj Rao.

What I wouldn't give to be soft and dreamy and reminiscent with J. But the sustenance of our slight interaction depends on caution and remaining strictly in the present.