tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247034772012-01-27T14:57:59.855+05:30Word, MusicJ.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.comBlogger1141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-3732585441770371922011-11-10T13:37:00.003+05:302011-11-10T13:44:48.230+05:30

रहम को पनाह न देंगे अब,कि ज़लीलों में बस जाएँ;आग वो दूसरी कहती है,कहीं फिर न तरस जाएँ. Raham ko panah na denge ab,ki zaleelon me bas jaayen;Aag vo doosri kehti hai,kahin phir na taras jaayen.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-55594346382811867252011-05-05T17:26:00.002+05:302011-05-05T17:31:58.612+05:30

यार मेरे, इन सियाह शामोंकी ढेर लगा दें तो कितनी ऊँची होगी?इतनी, कि सारे बिखरे रिश्तों से ऊँची?यार मेरे, इन सियाह शामोंके दाग लग चुके हैं,तुम्हारे लम्बे से लम्बे हाथों कीउलझी हुई लकीरों पे,और इस चादर पे.एक ऐसी शाम आए,जब ये सियाही दस्तक देकेतुम्हारे अधखुले दरवाज़े कोपार कर, चौखट से मुकर जाए,तो इन दागों को देखकर खुश हो ना तुम.और जिस फुर्ती से ये भीउतर उतर के एक कोने मेंइकट्‍ठा होती जाएँगी,उस तेज़ी

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-81882469850445111302011-05-05T17:19:00.002+05:302011-05-05T17:23:24.846+05:30

कहाँ से आ रुकती लबों पे यह बातहोती न आज दिन-ए-मोहलत की यह रात खौफ़ के खौफ़ से जो रिश्ता ही थम गयालौट आया वो लेकर बर्कत की यह रातहोती न आज दिन-ए-मोहलत की यह रात इस साये की भी होगी कहानी कोईपरछाईं न उठाती ज़हमत की यह रातहोती न आज दिन-ए-मोहलत की यह रात आलम की सफ़ाई में कर्वटें लेकरजो, चलती ही जाए चित्त-पट्ट की यह रातहोती न आज दिन-ए-मोहलत की यह रात

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-84550631482453166812010-12-30T16:16:00.004+05:302010-12-30T16:26:04.955+05:30

आज मेरे हाथ से हल्दी की डिब्बी छूट गई,देखो, शायद मेरे हाथ पीले हो गए.कहाँ कल तक आप मुझसे पूछा करती थींकि खाने में क्या बनाऊँ.अखाड़े में काई जम गई है, अम्मा,अब वैसी धूल ही कहाँ, जो हमारे घर मेंसिंकते बैंगन से उड़ती चिंगारियों की तरहउड़ा करती थी.यह रसोई पता नहीं किसकी है.आँगन से कुछ बच्चे न जाने क्यों मुझे उसी नज़र से देखते हैंजिसमें मैंने शायद आपको बहुत साल क़ैद रखा.इस बड़े से घर में मैं भूखी हूँ;

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-17470598505009410922010-12-04T03:25:00.003+05:302010-12-04T03:28:31.468+05:30

For you have been at the back of my mind, and the front of my mind,for years,and for you the city is no more homethan it is for me,for we both wandered there,or away from there,for reasons sometimes sentimental. For going home is a process,for peace of mind and a piece of memory to check on,once in a while. For you complete me,you with your way of changing,ever so often. For you are home.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-56621884222105008112010-11-21T03:34:00.004+05:302010-11-21T03:43:19.933+05:30

The snake catcher has come.Does this means there are snakes here?Did someone call him,or did he come unbidden,uncharacteristically?He brings old lore,baskets.Now catch your snakes,and then disappear again,like you do,your basket full for now,and leave us on tenterhooks,though we know you exista word or two away,maar-geer.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-5095877363833344712010-10-14T17:12:00.005+05:302011-05-05T17:26:19.328+05:30

Because you are dead to me, I cannot hate you, I should not speak badly of the dead. Because you have killed me by your indifference, I kill you back, you emperor of stone and king of primates, this is my revenge — I will make you public; you are no longer mine, no longer secret. Go on, with wist after another life, mine is too risky for you, I renounced my unsure self for you, and became a

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-46143750759640450762010-09-28T00:13:00.011+05:302010-09-28T20:42:37.806+05:30

This is how I begin to fall in love: it all starts with walking with him, in a sparse moonlight and scarely more drizzle, some ganja, some music, and small steps. Little things. This is how I hold back: walking three feet asunder while he asks, 'Do you know what is going to happen?' This is how I fall out of love (a): a phone call from you, far away, telling the story

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-29805733263333601572010-06-17T02:06:00.001+05:302010-06-17T02:09:59.581+05:30

Over the years they shared a silent space — sparse words were spoken in the early hours of morning while everyone else was still asleep. Even the house sleeps at that time, the mosquitoes drowsy from last nights’ drunkennesses and the air moist and warm, thick with used breath. Over the years they shared a silent space — she had her own day to begin, and he his own. Ever so often the years would

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-31418606380626211762010-06-17T01:58:00.003+05:302010-06-17T02:05:50.133+05:30

When a long lifetime was ending she woke up to find all his words tacked to the crumbling walls, and all in different languages, none of which she spoke. They were paper cut-outs, some sepia, some gold, some interminably old. Others light, carefree, new, in a sense — but like newspaper clippings of Godefroy’s flight, were dated to long ago. Some also, were eaten by moths in slow degrees, she

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-89556110033121164442010-06-17T01:54:00.001+05:302010-06-17T01:57:43.720+05:30

Look, what I say means nothing, or less than nothing — among the native Americans nothing is an entity. We in the Orient invented the zero, it seems. To call my words nothing is to give them shape. The feeling that a child must have when he wants to say something and simply has no vocabulary (or worse, we cannot recognise his language) for it. But you know Ghalib might be on my side, it’s easy

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-26359504163299672222010-05-19T18:45:00.001+05:302010-05-19T18:54:00.049+05:30

Let me long again:White face, fear not,Whatever's left is what you've got.And this shall not be the last time:Blue face, don't scream,Maybe it was all a dream.For you are the mimic:Green face, don't misbehave,Someone else has what you crave.I am the mimic:Black face, juju begone,This madness must not carry on.Let's play mime:Pink face, be happy now,Or have you forgotten how?Red face, kindly

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-33115978501104248802010-05-18T16:44:00.002+05:302010-05-19T02:25:21.908+05:30

It's been about a year since I wrote anything new on this blog, and it was a strange, slightly ghostly feeling to sift through old posts, and even older ones, which had passed the test of previous weeding-out sessions, which I force myself to undergo (and inflict on most of what I own) periodically. The last year has been, well, tumultuous. A lot of things have changed, a lot of ideas I held

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-86201649852130153442009-07-18T20:21:00.007+05:302009-07-18T20:43:22.856+05:30

Home, I said, is a grey in the morning, a cup of tea to hold; A door, at will, to close or not to close. A story told in fights and makings-up, and fights some more - an elixir of life it seems, when we begin to forget the others' ways. Home, I said, is where we begin to fly, even if it's like bats, In the nighttime, stealthily, when no one is watching us. The first cigarette, the first swig

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-11919056018707661042009-07-17T11:24:00.003+05:302009-07-17T11:50:33.462+05:30

She cried for joy, my mother. I was no burden, a bundle of joy, perched on her shoulder. He cried in ecstasy, my love, I was a burden, but a bundle of joy, leaning on his shoulder. They cried in sorrow, my kith and kin. I was but a burden, no bundle of joy, sleeping on their shoulders. (Sushila Subramanyam.)

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-18511459260813262132009-06-18T21:20:00.002+05:302009-06-18T21:25:52.039+05:30

When they finally meet again, she says Why didn't you ever say so? To which he says, Didn't you ask me not to? And she says, Don't you know me at all? And then in a pause filled with the vacuum of things forgotten, leftover things, she looks at him. He looks at her. She says, Anyhow, this is my daughter. Which one? he says. This one. In pink. She's moving a little, so it's a bit blurred. Oh,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-29027226695703958132009-06-10T23:47:00.003+05:302010-05-18T16:37:48.163+05:30

Come home, he said, But do not bring Your friends who smoke or drink, Or anyone our neighbours will look at and stop to think, “Oh ho, just see How progressive These people want to be.” Come home, and sit With me awhile Till old is dead and gone, And then remember: When you still are young you can be wrong; but in old age – you know too well – Tradition saves your life, and when you’re torn

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-42947349849240837992009-06-03T22:35:00.003+05:302009-06-03T22:39:48.085+05:30

Green baize under the cover, so it wouldn't go THUD. So it was a standing after all. Not a grand. And so out of tune that she was forced to open the lid and peer inside, trying to put her fix-all skills to use. But there were just too many knobs. Too many. The middle octave said C to B and then an un-note that made her mouth taste sour and the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up and try

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-89373973647347542132009-05-29T09:57:00.002+05:302009-05-29T10:01:46.260+05:30

Who having into truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie She combed her hair gingerly; she had never really believed it to be her own. Even her children seemed unreal. Anything of her seemed so unlikely even now. Her daughter walked past, her reflection passing behind her own in the mirror. Her naked midriff made Julia cringe. The sight of bare skin

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-66088016701093156042009-05-29T09:31:00.003+05:302009-05-29T09:44:51.974+05:30

There will be some this year who will remember The sixteenth of this month not as the day general election results came out but as a long phone conversation from an airport departure lounge; a friend leaves. There will be some this year who will recall running down the streets of Rome and jumping fully clothed into the Trevi fountain; Even if you support ManYoo, who cares, just take off your

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-55007035111218145332009-05-14T19:24:00.003+05:302009-05-14T19:37:49.094+05:30

To woo a footsoldier had never been her ambition. It had always been the pilot who had captivated her, the great myths of flying aces. She was in Paris in 1919, when Charles Godefroy flew under the Arc de Triomphe. She would never forget the sight; his face became a constant object of her conjecture. The face she had never seen, that of the buoyant audacity that came, perhaps, with the knowledge

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-64834969933164451052009-05-14T19:14:00.004+05:302009-05-20T00:53:13.953+05:30

Running It was all the running. She had been running all her life, which is why her soles were always worn down to a thin sheet separating the ground from her feet. Why do you like ruins so much? he asked. Never thought about it, I don’t know. Because the walls are crumbling. She had been running from walls, the same ones, perhaps, that rose up between them. For twenty-odd years it had been

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-39116402491959126432009-05-07T16:33:00.001+05:302009-05-07T16:34:56.328+05:30

Riddle me this Riddle me that Riddle away a night more The Riddle is a personality trait with you You are defined, a phantom, by an absence: Riddled me an unanswer. If riddling were a game of chess, my friend, You would be grandmaster. In the divided realm you inhabit, they would put away their Cynide pills, detaching them from their arms, And would ask, again, to be part of your coterie. But

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-3764340662490578332009-05-07T16:11:00.000+05:302009-05-07T16:13:12.247+05:30

There was a dream I used to have, it was set in my bedroom, the big old one in the block of flats, number 11. There were snakes on the floor, and scorpions. Not that I have ever seen one, but I knew what it was. And most of the floor was on fire too; everywhere you could step there was danger. A was talking about Kukrail the other day, Lucknow’s crocodile park. How could I forget the dreams, the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-54867308124790308112009-05-01T01:14:00.004+05:302009-05-01T01:31:01.402+05:30

Meeting an old friend From here and there, Unshared memories spill over into cups of tea; a cigarette and a half on the Tube: Busker made a choice, got arrested the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Meeting an old friend, No memories in common, So much more to swap Like casettes, before CDs could be FedEx-ed across the oceans. Meeting an old friend, Pipe, hookah, shorts and corduroy,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-19650599548506174122009-04-20T14:57:00.006+05:302009-05-21T09:53:03.607+05:30

The stars lined up obligingly, The moon sang a thousand tunes; There is an old garden, overrun with weeds behind the place: a retreat further than the old mansion itself is, an anachronistic rift in time, vantage point to hide in, and watch in secret the world as it flits away. Hidden in pools of light, like ghosts we wandered, precarious footholds and crumbling walls. Somebody

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-78970030078200567772009-01-05T12:12:00.008+05:302009-01-05T19:17:30.059+05:30

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE from New York Times, 23rd December 2008 This article appeared in Hindustan Times today, back page; and got me wondering whether the usual sports news there was a better way to fill that space, or was this? Why am I linking it here? What does that say about me? My friend is doing a project on Islamophobia. We were talking about this prescribed topic and its

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-26179991495773575752009-01-04T16:11:00.002+05:302009-01-04T16:46:15.508+05:30

Death comes to the North by inches Like frostbite Turning everything black Starting with the ear That hears the news. Far away from Coimbatore, Where most of the family lives and dies In a place called Vanaprastha; an old age colony, very popular. This stage in life - and the next - Is for meditation, concentration, renunciation - In the forest, only bare essentials. You mean Concentration

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-44766609600311034382009-01-02T17:15:00.002+05:302009-01-02T17:21:55.825+05:30

My parents were married in August 1980. My grandfather was in Sudan just before that, the next posting in line for him was Srinagar. His boss told him, Dekho, being a South Indian you may not want to live in Srinagar, but that is the only vacancy just now. Your son is to be married, you take leave for a few months. I’ll sanction three-four months leave for you. After the marriage, Thatha was

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-1055191492744126092009-01-02T17:05:00.004+05:302009-01-02T17:13:43.320+05:30

It was 5° C in the morning today. I didn’t believe Appa when he told me, but then at 10:00 am the thermometer outside said 8°C and there was no denying it. Yahin itni thand ho rahi hai toh Jammu hi na chale jaayen? The transfer order was long due. We moved to Lucknow in 1996. The first posting that made Appa move away, and made us a “split establishment” (which is what Amma says when she’s

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-72319966987242924212008-12-28T19:38:00.003+05:302009-01-02T17:25:04.491+05:30

I’m glad I got out; don’t care if I get worse. Stupid viral would just make me miserable if I stayed indoors all day today. This girl is really nice, but so lost in her own dreamworld. If I was just a little more lesbian I might be interested in her. I’m glad she doesn’t want to talk much either. We don’t know each other at all, come to think of it; but how could I say no: - I’m going to

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-10425530363987493382008-12-28T18:35:00.004+05:302009-01-02T17:25:04.492+05:30

Prickly. The little hair that starts growing in your armpit like a second after you’ve shaved. Maybe I should get waxed next time. Eek. Somebody else in my armpit. No thanks. I was slopping on some lotion, it was winter, anyway I’d be breaking into a dry rash any day now. Did I rub harder than usual? Am I just imagining things? I felt a lump. Right side. Only right side. Nothing on the left.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-54981970119968620092008-12-27T21:31:00.005+05:302008-12-27T22:54:43.472+05:30

Another stumble-upon find. Anyone familiar with this poet please quote some more! Not much pirated stuff of his online. Must go hunt for his poetry. This I found at a blog by one Eduardo C. Corral. Thanks Eduardo! The Dacca Gauzes . . . for a whole year he sought to accumulate the most exquisite Dacca gauzes. -Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Those transparent Dacca gauzes

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-71555869167914864592008-12-27T20:07:00.007+05:302008-12-27T20:29:40.963+05:30

Really, if you are looking for connections, they will pop up everywhere. EVERYwhere! As far fetched as this: (After having (auto-) evoked interest in Jeet Thayil, I look him up online. I find some forum, in which [verbatim]:) Jai Malhar Sep 24 2004, 12:38 AM What do you think of Jeet Thayil? I once wandered into a book store and there was some desi looking dude reading poetry

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-45054491949728918582008-12-27T18:46:00.007+05:302008-12-27T20:05:49.810+05:30

I went to a Landmark today, the Fox Books in India these days, it seems. My dad was promoted recently; what this translates to, in real terms, is among other things a car-and-driver at disposal. Anyone's disposal. The per day mileage limit is so huge that Lucknow could not possibly use it all up. We've even been to Kanpur and back. Anyway. So I had the car today, much to my discomfort; not

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-73315429497173183862008-12-04T19:59:00.011+05:302008-12-05T00:00:49.394+05:30

हो गई है पीर परबत सी, पिघलनी चाहिए इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकालनी चाहिए हर सड़क, पर हर गली, हर गाँव में हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए सिर्फ़ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं मेरी कोशिश है की यह सूरत बदलनी चाहिए मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही हो कहीं भी आग लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए। by Dushyant दुष्यन्त

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-71452992275974771582008-12-04T19:44:00.005+05:302008-12-05T23:29:56.488+05:30

They must have been grey. I never knew the colour of his eyes, but I had heard the soft cadence of his Urdu a thousand times, and once, only once, caught a glimpse of neat fingertips through the chink in the door. After Nana died, everything went haywire. So what if the girls were going to England to study. They were expected to respect the zenana there as well. God knows whether they ever wore

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-88963041649881014692008-11-28T23:35:00.004+05:302008-11-28T23:55:28.229+05:30

I'm afraid to write; what can anyone write today? When lives hang in the balance, I am at a seminar which discusses the reconciliation of multiplicity of meanings in the Postmodern condition, the versions of the truth, what is real and what is not. I go downstairs, my arms and legs shaking because in the notebook in which I was taking notes, someone wrote, "There's been another blast at Trident".

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-86745764510799768202008-11-26T23:10:00.003+05:302008-12-03T00:28:17.588+05:30

It was a book that he had given me, Old, but intact, filled with the anxieties of reading it for the first time. It was beautiful, poetry or prose, it was all music to me, I wanted to share it, Tell the world such beauty exists. What is the point of knowledge if you hoard it away in secret? So I gave it to my friend, who gave it to another Changing hands, the book aquired new character,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-55844695186511931042008-11-26T23:04:00.003+05:302008-12-03T00:44:06.777+05:30

Tears have been shed, It’s too late now, You cannot bring back the salty warmth, The truth. Locked away in the confines of your mind, There is the version of the truth that you liked best, The one with the least potential to injure. The old world is coming A few years staggered, to meet the new world, younger, more life than it remembers. The language has changed, The old cannot

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-3134042109290774702008-11-22T22:58:00.002+05:302008-11-22T23:08:44.419+05:30

From Thoughtcrime to Goodthinking Simulating Socrates: An exercise in rigorous logic Abstract: This project attempts to simulate a hypothetical dialogue in the manner of the Socratic dialogues. The subject matter of the dialogue is George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four, and the State of Oceania being secure against subversion by the Brotherhood, since no subversion can exist

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-42087728570227168352008-11-11T23:30:00.003+05:302008-11-12T00:51:19.105+05:30

She felt out of place at the Chemist's. Buying a home pregnancy test. For somebody else. So this is how it's going to be, she thought. Well at least I'm spared the agony, the deceit. If I can't do what I want in the open, why attempt to do it in secret? I want to be ready to face up to my parents if the condom broke and one little bugger got through and I did get pregnant. Well at least I know

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-36552672740147291482008-11-06T00:06:00.007+05:302008-11-08T03:21:23.086+05:30

Of late, he had caught himself, only too often, asking her the same questions he had asked and been asked once, long ago. What perfume are you wearing? Where do you go when you want to disappear? He felt the need to keep notes. Compare them. Place her reactions and the reactions of someone else, long ago, side by side and see how similar, how different they were from each other. There was no

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-28396072983973133232008-11-02T22:44:00.001+05:302008-11-02T22:52:03.523+05:30

I have resisted the strong urge to edit some very awkward sentence construction in this story, and a few terms (esp. “leftists”) which I seem to have used without knowing what they meant! I think the word can be replaced by “extremists”. I wrote this around 2004, when I was 15 or 16, it’s interesting to go back to old writing and see how, hopefully, you evolve! Déjà vu Things have changed. A

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-4805519494962743472008-10-31T23:09:00.003+05:302008-10-31T23:34:38.942+05:30

Incognito Dear Eugène, Before I die, I want to know that the family secrets are safe, my son. But by safe, I don’t mean to take all to the grave with me. It has often been asked: “Where did Monsieur Lacroix get all his money?” I know that my wealth has always been the object of much discussion, to say nothing of envy. And now as I lie on my deathbed, I feel the need to make my peace with

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-35752553381663145112008-10-31T21:13:00.007+05:302011-02-03T19:11:09.741+05:30

Click on images to read. Text not typed out for copyright reasons. I wrote this short story for an on-the-spot thing in 2004, it got selected in a national contest and happened to win. Sigh. I still bask in old glory. Drat it. No new glory! And please excuse the couple of typos. No editing allowed, you see. Click on images to enlarge to readable size.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-85882278302523368952008-10-31T20:26:00.005+05:302008-10-31T20:48:47.557+05:30

THERE AND BACK AGAIN (This was a report I had to give in to ITC, my sponsors, to which company I had pledged brand loyalty until I started reading Marxism in college! I unerathed this at home, while looking for something else in a CD promisingly labelled "PC Backup". I wrote this just after the trip, so that was sometime July, 2004. Funny.) [ December 16, 2004: The first time I hear of the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-30113450987363283762008-10-14T13:47:00.002+05:302008-10-14T13:51:11.014+05:30

This is a piece I wrote for India Today but the version that has appeared in the magazine is an edit that I did not agree to. It's not clear to me how that happened since I edited the longer article down to this final version and sent it in to them. But the magazine is out and I am both angry and saddened at their careless editing of ideas that are particularly under siege at this point of time.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-81179320802829851382008-10-13T15:04:00.014+05:302008-10-18T22:49:28.603+05:30

[ Much as I wanted this account to be as honest as possible, it didn't seem right to extend that transparency to the lives of those about whom I was writing. The details about my family are all true, anything marked with an asterisk (*) has been changed to protect the identities of those mentioned. The issue of why I felt the need to make this change can fill many more posts! ] Seher

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-13663849967161249052008-10-13T13:51:00.004+05:302008-10-13T15:01:03.738+05:30

We exist only in each other's arms, as the world flies away, dustily, mirror image memories of longing fingers and salty lips. A long ride, to the edge of reason and back, to where convention will always bring us. The choice was made practicality over passion, chance over design. In other words, status quo. Someday it may actually be expedient to love, and our stolen, intermittent meetings

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-68898230995394666382008-10-12T22:44:00.002+05:302008-10-13T11:24:59.799+05:30

(So) how are we to free our selves from what the Pa rents said? (The) Pa rents rule our lives when li ving; ev en when they're dead! (A) me ri cans can talk to shrinks, and hosts of break fast shows; (In) In di a we live with what we get un til it grows (Un) bear a ble to des per a tion, and we mis con clude (Ki) "Am ree ka hi theek hai, boss, this coun try is toh screwed!" * *

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-70238990546515597142008-10-08T20:13:00.004+05:302009-06-20T14:24:57.630+05:30

24.02.08 The answer need not be no, or yes I really want to hear what you think The question is simple, "Is it possible?" I don't want to know "Is it workable?" "Is it probable?" You say (or feel, at any rate) It is a problematic definition It is a question epistemological I don't want to know the theory behind it Not today, not now, when I can think nothing but the smell of your cigarette

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-74612761516576159182008-10-06T11:52:00.006+05:302008-10-14T11:22:32.769+05:30

[I would hesitate to call this verse. Khair,] The drawing room is clean now Little dolls' sofas the mandatory glass-top coffee table piles of scattered books have become rows in a shelf I know this house inside out My mother phones me to find things even with bifocals. The first grating sound in the morning is my grandfather's bathroom door. Appa honks once, very softly , politely.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-61674843382027515632008-09-25T01:43:00.003+05:302008-09-25T01:48:14.877+05:30

To explain why I sing may take (at the very least) years. The queen of the night is a flower How can you expect me to forget its smell outside the window. Endlessly, we lived in this place that has come to be called home. Death, sickness, puberty. Children. Loves. We learned, unlearned There are rules for everything. We lived out of suitcases cartons of unpacked magazines spawning new mice.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-58592824858322147222008-09-23T05:06:00.004+05:302008-09-23T05:10:51.260+05:30

Long, torturous conversations devoid of body language, all wit and pleasantry till we started to feel. Stories came out, secrets and not so secrets. We fell not in love but into memory which is older and richer.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-26588767660794799392008-09-12T14:00:00.008+05:302008-09-23T05:14:43.064+05:30

Here is the tale of a composition, and how it overtook its creator. The song opens with the composer doubting its very existence, "Einmal ist keinmal", meaning "What happens but once might as well never have happened at all". Influences on this piece are various, ranging from the books of Antoine de Saint Exupéry and Milan Kundera, to the music of Eric Whitacre and Béla Bartók. But most of all,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-89058286706846451142008-08-17T21:07:00.003+05:302008-08-17T21:32:59.842+05:30

Come, come, sit. How sweet, of course it's a Ladies' Seat But come now, how often does a man in a Delhi bus give it up? I don't care, I'm not political except in passing (I wonder whether I should get to sit when I pay the same as the standing men).So I sit down, Eight thousand rupees' worth of music in my ears and obscure novel in hand. Hand, hand. No, no, it's just his polythene bag Come

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-91470816488469751702008-08-09T00:23:00.009+05:302008-09-23T05:19:16.173+05:30

I had started telling, about a month ago, the story of my liaison with the kids at Ehsaas, the NGO that SK and I volunteered at this summer. We heard of it by word of mouth, it was SK's idea to go check the place out. We made an appointment with Shachi Singh who runs it, and turned up at the Charbagh branch. It was there that we really got to know what Ehsaas does. Charbagh is where the railway

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-36988590743887795712008-08-04T03:11:00.006+05:302008-08-04T03:33:54.583+05:30

22.3.08 The world began to cloud Till I could see nothing except the bored eyes I had only a passing interest in women Aesthetic. Rarely sexual. i did not even find her beautiful. She was languid, dirty, rich, and virtuous. She was slow, could not take her liquor and had a flabby stomach over wonderful legs She combed her hair with a vengeance Kept secrets no one cared to know (as if her

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-90397170398453411672008-08-04T02:51:00.004+05:302008-08-04T03:11:09.236+05:30

A dream with structure rich in detail, I could see all the smoke wisp away and hear the irony in the man's voice, ringing over his white hair and the distinguished din of his jacket. He put out his cigarette at the challenge. The children continued to fly. Children I can never remember. Their faces are too soft, too new to make an imprint on my mind. I felt his hard chest against mine, it was

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-80806771244392315272008-08-04T02:43:00.004+05:302008-08-04T02:58:18.946+05:30

What is it to you What do you know What do you know, my love when your words the secrets I gathered from long conversations and your remarks about me which spoke more of yourself than of me those words are etched on my walls and on paper I wrote them down some as they were being spoken some later, a year or two some I never wrote you who were so afraid of being pinned down; discovered, (no,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-32078759134963792902008-08-04T01:46:00.005+05:302008-08-04T02:42:57.101+05:30

I never fought in a war I never even saw one My life never knew hunger Or having no roof over my head I complain No one understands me The kid on the street Asks me for my Pepsi And I laugh My children will be callous More than me They will be smart, though. They will know all there is to know And will not ask me Loudly "What's a condom?" They will not grow up and say "Every generation should

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-44046511978849351272008-07-07T01:22:00.005+05:302008-07-07T03:04:14.856+05:30

My friend SK and I were pretty jobless these hols. Well, I had my opus to compose, but let's not count that right now, that merits a fresh post! It's in vogue to work with an NGO, isn't it? Social Work. Yeah, you know the prerequisites for that scholarship aren't specific at all, they just say the applicant should have a well rounded personality and care for the welfare of his fellow being. That

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-87623340718165229352008-06-23T11:06:00.004+05:302008-06-23T11:11:51.668+05:30

Where does association stop and synaesthesia begin? While listening to music, something often experienced in isolation (as with headphones on), it seems to me a natural reaction to imagine the video which should go with the song. When I saw American Beauty, I was very young, I don’t remember much more of the film than one scene in which a misfit boy is showing his girl a video he shot. There’s a

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-47085104398314696732008-06-21T15:38:00.003+05:302008-06-26T23:26:29.694+05:30

Benoit Mandelbrot, one of the first to conceive of the all-encompassing nature of Chaos theory, was an outsider in his discipline. Which discipline was that? He was an outsider in every field people tried to fit him. He was of what he called the rare nomads-by-choice who are in the end the ones called, in retrospect, pioneers. I run into some people sometimes who can appreciate the awe that a

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-76532152625567192532008-06-11T12:56:00.007+05:302009-06-20T14:24:57.631+05:30

I was watching a kite as he desperately flapped his wings for a breath of warm air to lift him up; someone asked me why I was standing there. He escaped, and in that split second I knew, once again, nothing about him and his flights of futility, searching, anguish in his heart, for a whisper of the familiar truth. "Metaphore, metaphore", they cried to him, and no avail. *** Neruda wrote of love

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-78998650345161356732008-06-10T09:49:00.004+05:302008-10-17T00:52:52.038+05:30

Why exactly I wrote this I have forgotten, it's been a few months since I finished reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. But it really hits you, the novel, despite the multitude of references, cross-references, obscurities. The plot is brilliant, as is the Plan. Terrifyingly so. It's a scary book, especially if you are like me, and like your regular little dose of fiction. If you must read

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-55250633531108141812008-06-07T13:00:00.016+05:302008-10-17T00:53:19.469+05:30

I just saw a Persian movie, Abbas Kiarostami's award winning Taste of Cherry (1997) (Ta'm-e gīlās or طعم گيلاس) today. The first time I heard of him was recently, some time last year. I was at a huge bookfair at Pragati Maidan (one of the largest exhibition grounds) in New Delhi; I can't remember what section I was in, but there were a lot of books there of the type you would find in the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-41939055297306573292008-06-05T18:01:00.007+05:302008-06-05T18:45:56.927+05:30

This is one of the most haunting songs I ever heard; Harry Nilsson's (1941-94) Remember, which I heard on the unforgettable soundtrack of You've Got Mail, a movie I have seen so many times it's pointless keeping count anymore. P and I have had dinner-time You've Got Mail quizzes, everyone else looking on with a mixture of disdain and amazement. It's the kind of look you'd imagine the archetypal

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-87464608766892152332008-06-02T14:03:00.010+05:302008-10-16T23:39:59.945+05:30

Last term we had a New Girl in the hostel. It's easy in a hostel of 300 to spot a newbie. She was tall, lanky and not pretty, but nice looking. Oh, and did I mention she was white? Rebecca and I got talking because when I said Hi and she noticed I was reading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. She turned out to be a well read, fairly well travelled Tasmanian with a British father and passport

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-21233052047336123622008-05-31T14:07:00.010+05:302008-05-31T16:24:11.747+05:30

My mom says I roam around all day with a bottle of Colin (Reckitt-Benckiser's brand of cleaning fluid: I use no other). This is true. She also says I clean so much that someday I'll swipe her clean too and never even notice. This cartoon was just begging to be drawn. I haven't drawn in a while, here goes nothing:

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-23844745907255430592008-05-31T01:47:00.008+05:302008-10-17T00:40:53.778+05:30

Last night I found on Youtube a couple of scenes which were deleted from the final release version of Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love. I felt a little cheated (no pun intended!) when I saw this bit. The two of them are in the hotel room, wondering how "they" managed to make love; and them finally doing it themselves. [This link is un-embeddable] Some of the charm of this film lies in the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-66154385628850845862008-05-27T13:08:00.009+05:302008-05-27T14:49:17.160+05:30

If you've never lived in India, or, to be precise, north India, somewhere not urban enough to exclude pushcart-toting vendors (various wallahs, as our English masters used to call them) from the landscape, you have missed one of the most sublime joys of the Indian summer. It goes by the humble name of phaalsa and is a tiny little bluish-reddish-purple bruised-looking berry that grows on trees in

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-5136874331536059802008-05-25T00:59:00.015+05:302009-06-20T14:24:57.631+05:30

I don't know if I will ever be able to finish The Unbearable Lightness of Being, since all I seem to do is find "fortuitous" coincidences all around me and then blog about them! But this is one for the books. I was editing my Interests field in my Blogger Profile, and as it happened, most of them were written in my usual longwinded manner. So it

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-72743995460293637892008-05-24T22:51:00.013+05:302009-05-21T09:53:03.607+05:30

My best friend just got out of a four-odd year long relationship into which she had, as she does, poured her heart and soul, only to find that the guy she thought she loved had been lying to her all the time, not just about somebody else he was also seeing, but about tiny little inconsequential things, all of which added up to one big pile of white lies so tall that she had to quit, not being the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-85248323251701664542008-05-16T12:42:00.010+05:302008-06-10T11:53:26.543+05:30

There ain't no such thing as Basic Infrastructure. Infrastucture, by definition, is complicated! Over twenty years ago, around 1981-2, in Kanpur, a decrepit town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, when my dad still held a pilot's license, he and my mother met a couple of slightly older, much more worldly folks called David Drury and Asifa Kanji, who had been married a few years, while

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-90041385864593069842008-05-14T23:30:00.002+05:302008-05-14T23:58:45.848+05:30

Funny how certain memories centre themselves around certain people. When you are a musician, you realise how possessive a singer can get about 'her' song. I've been pianist for so many people, and I've learned some beautiful songs this way. They always remind me of the person who sang it 'first', as it were. Cry Me a River is not Ella Fitzgerald, Twist and Shout is not the Beatles, I Feel the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-42240341965462810022008-05-12T11:32:00.013+05:302008-10-16T22:47:47.585+05:30

Blogger has a lot of bugs. This is rather maddening. To publish this post took me over two days, because it required digging out all the literature for all these events (both what I pick up at venues, as well as hyperlinkable info online). Plus, my computer has a nasty habit of rebooting of its own accord; something which extensive troubleshooting has put down to overheating, which cannot be

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-57670260743113115692008-05-12T00:58:00.005+05:302008-10-17T00:50:46.424+05:30

"There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison. Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the sun poured into space A mite makes the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-48436186132538968152008-05-10T12:24:00.014+05:302008-10-17T00:48:38.164+05:30

20th January, 2007 Theatre at Kamani Auditorium presented by National School of Drama and Sanskar Rang Toli Premchandki Kahaniyan: two day theatre festival of Premchand’s best directed by Devendra Raj Ankur 2nd April, 2007 Music at India Habitat Centre presented by The Delhi Music Society, Artsahimsa and the India International Centre Laura Goldberg (Violin), Amy Lieberman (Soprano) and

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-85340959541840514062008-05-10T01:41:00.008+05:302008-05-12T01:32:24.786+05:30

I was looking, still, for The Elusive Curio that has dogged my footsteps snd haunted my days and nights. I opened the plastic bag that housed the remains of my many years of solitary play in Barbieland. Wow, that's it? There were a million memories in there, the American Bazaar in Lagos where we bought lots of random Barbie accesories, which reminded me of the My Little Pony Shetland and

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-83652670608539769422008-04-24T12:16:00.011+05:302008-10-16T23:38:53.623+05:30

This is on my favourites list since I saw it screened at the India Habitat Centre as part of the 13th European Union Film Festival, India 2008; a festival which lasted from 1st to 30th April and took some twenty-odd award-winning European cinema and documentary to New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Kozhikode and Pune. On Sunday, 6th, I watched It's Spring in Prague Every Year, a Czech documentary

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-80375495750828651552008-04-24T01:57:00.005+05:302008-10-17T00:43:26.760+05:30

Tobacco makes me sick. And no, I don’t intend this as a diatribe. I mean it literally. We had a wonderful day, the other day. Watched a movie called Juno at PVR Saket, and UC made a big fuss and didn’t let me or SM pay. So we bought him lunch at Nirula’s. The movie was lovely, the day was perfect, I was at my hippie best in my rubber chappals and big orange pyjamas. So we were hanging around in

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-55777677342688207902008-04-23T12:03:00.005+05:302008-10-17T00:48:38.164+05:30

One of the most unforgettable concerts I have attended was by a band called Ziskakan from French Réunion Island. Réunion is a curious place, to put it mildly.From Wikipedia, edited: Réunion (French: Réunion or formally La Réunion; previously Île Bourbon), is an island located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about 200 km (130 miles) south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-45704201765709072092008-01-06T00:40:00.003+05:302008-10-17T00:52:05.486+05:30

"Cow [sic.] is a useful animal. It has four legs, one tail. It gives us milk..." Sound familiar? This is the beginning of the standard essay entitled "Cow [sic.]", which every school student, I think, in India has written at some point in English, Hindi or some other language. The archetypal Cow was a saviour of sorts for me when I was a child. Of course, the whole theory was never really tested

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-2934235037815766672008-01-05T15:47:00.001+05:302008-05-25T00:33:14.041+05:30

"And summer goes, falls to the sidewalk like string And brownpaper; Winter blows up from the river There's no one to take her to the sea"

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-67407725666671107562008-01-04T19:08:00.000+05:302008-10-16T23:33:46.737+05:30

There are people in my life whom I call soulmates. I was told by one of them that my definition of the word itself is something too different from what this world defines as a soulmate.It strikes me of course, as another, yet another loophole in this theory of mine that this person should be only a few months old. Before that he did not exist in my world at all. In the system that favours the

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-86530741424769451532008-01-03T13:06:00.000+05:302008-01-03T13:16:03.320+05:30

15.11.07 There is something dimensionless between sleep and waking, which sometimes comes upon me like bursts of colour, sometimes like lucid images of the sort I had never imagined elsewhere, sometimes a shifting, changing landscape of images. They tell a story. No, maybe that is not right; they speak. Words, but not any kind of story which sounds familiar. In a sensuous game, the colours

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-66055909382894822602007-12-30T03:20:00.002+05:302008-06-05T12:22:28.487+05:30

In the cold and colder winter nights I spent in solitude, Out of my tired mind there came a vision of life wasted. It was mine, I know, though never saw a face to remember. I'd searched so long for songs to make it worth my while to exist; The songs never came; they only left me waiting in the dark. Far too late, I understood that they would never come to me; I had to go to them

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-14133476735351532022007-12-30T01:54:00.004+05:302009-05-21T09:53:03.608+05:30

The Old City begins to speak every night, when the whole world sleeps. Restless minds like mine prowl the streets, insomniac, searching for the lesser known, the secrets of this ghost town wrapped between sheets of fresh concrete. Twenty, Barakhamba Road is a ruin. It stands stranded between high rise buildings that can see further, and the underground trains that hear deeper that

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-8711114322914093342007-12-29T11:35:00.002+05:302008-10-16T23:22:12.902+05:30

I wrote a 'paper' on Catch-22 just over a month ago. It won a (negligible) prize at this Paper Presentation contest we had at college during Litmus, the English Department fest. Now here's the deal: a. I wrote this for a lark b. I had not been able to finish Catch-22 ever before, having started to read it at least thrice. It was a challenge. c. I wanted to see just how much I can use my

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-12518445641074948902007-12-11T13:56:00.000+05:302007-12-11T14:24:28.010+05:30

Part I This morning I found myself in a lecture hall listening to Professor Hans Günter Dosch, a (quantum, among other things) physicist from the University of Heidelberg; he had been invited by the South Campus of University of Delhi in a collaborative effort by the German Embassy and the Philosophy Department of DU. His paper was titled “Un-noticed Perceptions of Leibniz: A Basis for

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-7351124536405171252007-11-11T22:16:00.000+05:302007-11-11T22:45:42.673+05:30

The world has come to a place where the cosmic questions are not "Are we alone in the Universe?", "Does He exist?" or "Is there such a thing as Happiness?". I said in Philosophy class the other day, "I think most of Philosophy is just semantics." Well then. What DID I think analytic philosophy was?

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-60869729750588874862007-11-10T19:58:00.001+05:302008-10-16T23:29:45.250+05:30

My Quest for the Elusive Curio is under way. Meanwhile, I spy a softie guy just outside Regal. 5 bucks. It says 'Strawberry' and 'Vanilla'. So I ask for one, saying 'vanilla'. The guy takes out a cone and has it poised under the orifice (why that word, blech!), then suddenly says, "Madam, Vanilla Strawberry mixed hai, chalega?" To which I nod. It tastes only of ice anyway, so I don't mind. I

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-60416212984310960962007-11-10T19:44:00.000+05:302009-05-21T09:53:03.608+05:30

20, Barakhamba Road. Accesibility from south Delhi best by M-13 or 440 bus. Get off at Scindia House ( Last week, I wanted to go to Janpath. Very strange quest. Looking for a curio which I ultimately did not find. This woman on the bus did NOT let me pass on Scindia approach. She stood in my way and said, in English, "Don't get impatient!" Ok. I was stuck between so many people that I couldn't

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-73472069462062176262007-10-30T03:23:00.001+05:302007-10-30T03:30:57.883+05:30

Not only is it possible to fall in love with merely the idea of a person, it is, more often than not, the case. How sad that to you I am an idea of such grand proportions and great potential, when to myself I can be summed up in a few words. I made you, all your flaws and all the magic included. Then why can I not let myself be made? For truly, nothing would make me happier than to know that I

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-11467774918902842182007-10-29T23:53:00.001+05:302008-06-05T12:25:45.430+05:30

There are no voices in the night. No sprites emerge from nooks except critters that fly about and bite you in your sleep. My sleep is dreamless. Dreams, I think, do not dare enter the bottomless pit of my troubled slumber. Around me and suddenly, there are smells which fill the air and turn the room sour. Foul reeks and odours bring putrefaction into my house on the backs of nightmare creatures

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-38857857180665876202007-10-29T23:49:00.002+05:302008-06-05T12:27:36.053+05:30

I stood naked under the stars, swelling with the knowledge that no one could see me now - I was invisible, free, I was dust. Far from feeling aroused, I felt as if a dead weight had dropped into my stomach. The night and I, we were the same. Both came out silently when no one was watching, and joined each other in a sordid embrace.

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-56432370886343415222007-10-29T23:15:00.001+05:302008-06-05T12:29:24.503+05:30

When you have stood namelessly in the afternoon as it slowly turns to evening to dusk to night, and watched the sky change to colours that make you want to paint; when you have felt the sultry breezeless twilight wrap about your neck and ankles with clouds of mosquitoes sharing your very blood, it is not possible to be closer to any man, to any city, or to your children than you are to Lucknow,

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24703477.post-76311539402339260672007-10-09T03:16:00.001+05:302008-10-17T00:43:26.760+05:30

I can remember saying all this as if somebody else was speaking through me: I could stand and light a cigarette on Chowpatti after dark, shut my eyes and try to listen to the sea over the traffic. And from inside my shut eyes I could see myself on four continents, feel the ocean lick my toes with its salty tongue, and lose myself to the endless water. When would I ever find where I belong? I

J.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04869136867472682558noreply@blogger.com0