I’d like to quote Fiedel here – “History Geography will absolve me”. I have no great affinity to live by the sea side. I did that in Vishakhapatnam. And a beach facing home worth its alkalinity is a big no. I don’t want to do a paint-job on my car every year. And leak-proof my walls. Buy marine ply and do my interiors. And father tanned kids.
In fact, I’d prefer a quaint little hut with a thatched roof. And bamboo briars in the backdrop. With dew drops streaming through its shoots. And accompanied by muted palm trees rising up over the yellow sun. And some dust. Dust that is more of an ornament to the bliss. And all this, over a mountain top overseeing a water body.
My head aches. The pain isn’t much but i do feel some kind of a feeling in the area above my right brow. It’s like the chapter. 6 of school physics. Resonance. That steel bar experiment. Resonating frequency. Being held somewhere between my epidermal cells. And the moment i shake my head in slow-swoosh the frequency increases. If i mallet-tap my forehead it subsides.
May be the right side of my brain is overworked. There’s some hard reasoning pinned over my scalp. Right side top. I need to get rid of those.
And i need an ENT. Or a poem. I need to cheat the head ache somehow.
Half-asleep and droopy eyed, I sit down to explore my mood on paper. A mood that’s hooked on to my thoughts. Thoughts young and old. Playing hide and seek. Lying somewhere in my mind – unseen, unheard. And then one vague thought grows. It grows till it reaches a limit. But strangely, when it gets there, it doesn’t blow up and burst. It doesn’t subside either. It moves quietly through the last inch of nerve. The last millimetre of aura. And then nothing seems worthwhile. I give up thinking. And go to sleep.
I sit down to explore my mood on paper. A mood that’s hooked on to my thoughts. Thoughts young and old. Playing hide and seek. Lying somewhere in my mind – unseen, unheard. And then one vague thought grows. It grows till it reaches a limit. But strangely, when it gets there, it doesn’t blow up and burst. It doesn’t subside either. It moves quietly through the last inch of nerve. The last millimetre of aura. And then nothing seems worthwhile. I give up thinking.
I’m a sailor
tied up to my mast
biting the stars
tearing the skies
chasing the horizon
and weaving memories
with my words
that take me deep inside the ocean
between the waves
so high and wide
i cant even see
all that I believe
and it makes me wonder
how much deeper can I go
do i really need the shore
that’s wailing
and calling my name
searching me in the sands
washed and jettisoned
under the blue
inside the hut
with hinges split open
and blind men all around
as I lay under the sun
with treasures I have found
Of all the things google has taught me, I love doodling the most. It’s an art. An art that interprets, “Sapne Sajao. Khud mein kho jao” as Gulzar would put it. Sorry Gulzar Saab. How cool it would be if he really becomes the guest blogger on my unknown and unheroic (if there’s a word like that then fine. if not then I just created it. Get it) blog. Or how about I be Gulzar Saab for a moment. At least till the post is done with. Which means I could be a little more than what I am but then I would be a little less of what I am.
Do you think you would be Okay with that. Me being Gulzar. English Gulzar. Or do you think you would want me to be a little more of what I am and therefore be a little lesser than what I am. Am I doodling or what? Do we really always have to end up the way we are or do we have a choice of ending up like something that we are not. English Gulzar in my case. Quite artistic I can be. Where were we? Doodling as an art form. It’s like clairvoyance as I look at it.
Got a question here now? Am I better at interpreting surreal art than others. Does surreal art purport to being understood or appreciated. Thinking Thinking. Thinking. Thought. Is appreciation an inverse function of understanding? My mind says, we all walk alone and yet we try to act like we have a group. That’s cheating. My mind says that the night is coming along every now and then to destroy whatever little sanity has been spared by constant interaction with reality. My mind says, “the more I see, the less I believe”.
Now I really need to talk some sanity. That’s another question? Is sanity the highest common factor of mediocre brains? And is it important to a person that doesn’t have it? Like me. Or things that don’t give a damn about sanity? Like money. Can money be more like sanity, where you don’t care about it if you dont have it? Infact, can a lot of other things be more like sanity…health, companionship, friends, looks…life?
Do I and you really care about sanity, or do I just want someone to listen 
Too much insanity for today. More later. You see I havent written in a while now. And in these posts I am not trying to join the dots. I am just loosening the lines on my forehead.
It’s been darning 9 months here. I used to love sea. The breeze and all those little things that fascinates a person living on a smelly creek-side. A Mumbai suburb in my case. I came to Vizag (henceforth in this post, Vishakapatnam will be refered to as Vizag. or y-zag) in october of 2008 with hopes of finding the thrills of staying by the beach side all day long. But till this day I assure you I haven’t got an ounce of that thrill so far.
First things first. This aint copa cabana. Forget copa cabana, the entire beach seems like a huge kanjeevaram silk factory. And the preferred language is telugu of course. No hindi. Even the horses on the beach agree with that.
So what’s with hindi speakers and south Indians. I say lots. Don’t ever discuss the Aryan and the Dravidian thing. They don’t like it. English is fine as long as it has the telugu influence in it. And how do you get that?. Simply add “Ra” or “Aa” at the end of each word and you get your shot of glory.
Now the kocchana (Question with “Aa” ) series . If probed “How do you like Vizag?” say “Nice Ra”. So “Ra” is your trump card here. Mothera, Sistera, Fathera, Schoolaa, Collegaa, wifaa and ITra, H1Bra are the common words used while conversing in English.
The brotherhood between native speakers can put us northies (any one with a fairer skin tone and no coconut odour is a northie) to shame. No amount of loyalty can reserve a place for north-indians in the heart of a hardcore southie (all of them hardcore), but the language.
I met an extremely liberal telugu fella from the US (if it’s H1B and if it’s IT it’s gotta be a Rao or a Reddy or a Naidu or a Babu. Add any bhagwan ka naam as the first name and add the alphabet “A” in the end. Like Venkat will be “Venkata” and Arjun will be ‘Arjuna”. Get the drift?) here at the local eatery while sipping authentic south Indian kappi. Eventually we ended up discussing the language bit and how it works in this part of the country. This is what he had to say.
The more precise English you say, the worst it gets. Say broken English. Or say broken Hindi and they will pity you and eventually do your job. Nothing works if you act “Mr. Yo” or Mr. know-it-all. Acting stupid is the only way to get smart here”. I was like….yea…right but something similar happens in the north as well. Either you are with the culture and the dialect. There is no OR whatsover. Goras are an exception though.And it’s ubiquitous in India. Dollars speak louder than Rupees. Damn Indians are an opportunistic lot. No body waits for the traffic to clear-up. But every one wants to jump the divider and move against the oncoming traffic only to reach faster than the car’s behind. Damn.
After a few rounds of buzzing and shots we decided to nail the conversation before we broke the bottles on each others head. Just before my telugu fella left the place he said in Vizag people say “off the light”. I said in Mumbai people say “close the light”.
Good night ra. Gimme another round babu. (Babu is the best word here. People just love it when you address them as “Babu”. It’s the Mumbaiya equivalent of “Boss” or the Ahmedabad equivalent of “Seth”)
Have been twittering a lot lately. Have also connected with a lot of twittafolks. No body knows me and I don’t know no body. At least when it comes to the subject that I usually look for. But nonetheless I am connected. I get insights. I share knowledge and learn and unlearn. You can call it the slingshot of folksonomy.
But like every one else I have been sold to this twitter hype. The kind of stuff where the noise to signal ratio is way too high when it comes to twittering. And the temptation to tweet for the sake of tweeting is even higher. Why do you Rakhi Sawant is on twitter? Call it a classic case of distraction disguised as an art form. Every second person that follows me and vice-versa is an SEO. Or a co-founder. Or a change-maker. Or an evengelist. Or a VC. Or a turn-around specialist. Or the next big thing. Think Jehangir Art Galaery if every painting in it had “picasso” or “dali” or “warhol” scribbled at the bottom right corner of the canvas. It’s the same on twiiter. Every one is a Scoble, a Kawasaki, a Rose. Some of most interesting people in the world I have followed on twitter write less. In fact they are not even on the radar. Iranian Protest on twitter however was one thing that I loved. Likewise the PR by Starbucks and the Mayo Clinic and others is something that I really admire. That’s the power of a communication tool. Efficient, handy and now.
The tweet on my radar says “going out with my son for shopping home-made chocolates”. Dang. People say a whole lot of personal things that they dare say in real life to you, me or any one. So what am I supposed to do? Follow them and stir their quasi-isolation. Arrgh…I cant call time-wasting a social idea. For me twitter will always be a handy business tool. Period.
So till the time I start exercising my personal choice, here’s a twiiter chronology of events from my perspective. Reading between the lines should do the trick.
meerasapra Abhishek ki to aish hai
zaibatsu Reading: The Top 10 sexual mistakes made by women http://bit.ly/4n91o
meerasapra Abhishek Bachchan praising Aishwarya and claiming she is a better actor than Priyanka Chopra #fail
Bhutanese women use condoms for facials http://bit.ly/ilAmc
zaibatsu 3somes, 4somes and moresomes within a marriage http://bit.ly/16dKqz
Keep the law outside the bedroom http://bit.ly/n50Fy
Jackson to be buried without brain: Report http://bit.ly/AdMfy
HTTweets
Monsoon. It’s a nostalgic season
Memories arrive slowly with tender rain drops, under the pregnant cloud and in the solitude of night.
Bittersweet recollections of moments like cloud bursts from the times gone by, and realisations of things that could’ve been.
Little souvenirs frozen in time, wrapped in smiles, laughter, whispers, smelling like an old book and tasting like black coffee with honey. Monsoon is a real land of magic. It’s the moment behind closed eyes. Gulzar’s unwritten poem, like a full-blown rainbow. But as the cigarette ends, it’s just another butt in the ashtray. How random I can be? In advertising this is called freewriting.
Next.
Currently listening: Turn the page by Bob Seger.
There is nothing to do here in Vizag. Yeah pretty much. So this sunday I sat on the shore and finished reading a book by Richard Bach (yes, a descendant of the composer J.S. Bach ) called Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. The story is not a parable in the genre of Coelho’s “The Alchemist” but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
It has this thing called The Messiah’s Handbook- Reminders for the Advanced Soul. I’m picking out a few quotes from this handbook which made me kinda “hmmm”.
- Learning is finding out what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.
You are all learners, doers, teachers. - Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.
- The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing?
Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. - Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world – even if what is published is not true.
- Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
- There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts. - Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.
- You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however. - Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully. - The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. - Every person, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.Happy reading folks.
There is so much to write about now. Virtual remembrance. Holidays. Friends. Fiends. Gambles. Candles. Love. Business. McCann. Beer. Past. Future (oh yes). Mind probes. Music. More music. Poetry. Anarchy. Money. Loads of money. Revolution. Mundane. Hi-tech. Home. Home away from home. Beaches. Idols. Culture. Bad hair days. Bad hair nights. Bald days. Bourbon. Babudom. Language. People. Fish. Solitude. Steel. Photographs. Sweat. Cars. Train travels. Last minute Air travel. Phone calls. Missed calls. Lost numbers. Ads. Films. Energy. Ideas. Books. Networking. Not working. Breaking news. Solo travel. Dole days. Joy. Lost contacts. New contacts. WordPress. Old blogger. TV. Dead ones. Newborns. Dreams. Midlife. Life.
There is so much I have missed. There is so much to catch upon.
