An-Incoherent-Mind

2009-05-10T18:33:00.001-07:00

So here I am.I really should frequent this place a little bit more ,considering all the gusto that went into it's making.Besides, it's one of those things that all mine, no one can stake any claim.All they could probably say is their's is the way they might have inspired me or affected me or rankled me, and it got poured into MY writings.So there goes it!

I have been reading, no judging ,nothing, just trying the new things I like.But one good thing has definitely happened.You know how people sometimes ask you "what's your kind of music?" or "Whom do you like reading?" and some people never know because to be honest it could be a little difficult to figure out these answers ,because you essentially also need to understand yourself.
So I think I have found my author.Yay! for that.She is a relatively unknown author, I guess it;s just her second book that is out.She goes by Holly Schumas. It started with me buying her second book first 'Love and other Natural Disasters'.I got so engrossed and fascinated by how real Eve was, I was glad someone finally tore down the general human nature to the finest levels of simplicity yet retaining all the complications which make us up.
I then ordered her first book off amazon ,"Five Things I Cannot Live Without".The protagonist Nora has to be ME.I mean she must have to be me ,a) the meta-life she lives in her head ?Well, Hello! b) She is fickle,confused at 29, impulsive and vulnerable and still stubborn .I felt I was actually reading about me, well that won't happen ,no one would want to buy a book on me.But the point is, it was a good feeling and also very freaky how eerily close we both are.
Even after finishing that book,she stayed on for a while.I like the crisp smell of paper of a new book, the journey you are going to go on with the characters, the nice escape from everything around you, the readiness to be inspired,surprised!
I have now started reading Jennifer Lancaster's 'Bitter is the New Black".This is a la Sex and the City and the protagonist ,incidentally Jen herself, could be anyone :Carrie,Samantha,Miranda or Charlotte, given the heavy designer setting ,but I am close to halfway into it and I ain't revealing anything ,don't want to be a spoiler.Oh and I also ordered Mark Haddon's "A Spot of Bother".I loved his "The Curios Incident of the Dog at Night Time".I am looking forward to reading it once Jen finishes her story.
I also went camping,a week back.That was really good.I enjoyed it,no tick bites so far,it was all I could have hoped for.I am looking forward to more campings.Today is Mother's day.I wished my ma but I have been missing her a lot since some days now.It will be 2 freaking years in july since I felt her warmth,her nice tummy and seen how beautiful she is.I cry sometimes, out of helplessness.And then stupid horrible life happens, and sucks me in it's over-powering everyday rigmarole.
But I will survive and come back here!

2009-04-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

So things have been okay! I have not answered a fabulous or great to a 'How are you?' in a long time and I think I feel much better answering its been good,not bad! This allows me to be discreet and truthful at the same time and gives away my general,over-all well-being perfectly.
I have watched a lot of good movies, one or two I watched again to just recollect just how excellent they were and how they deserve a special mention in my blog.Case in point is 'Monsoon Wedding'.Mira Nair is a genius,the way she ties so many story lines in this essentially huge Indian 'arranged-wedding' affair is incredible and pure magic.The family dynamics of a rich Indian family from Delhi, with the basic family bonding of a numerous uncles,aunts,nieces,nephews, the typical 'Dubeyji' like characters of real Delhi,making a living out of arranging weddings for the ultra rich and elite,talking them into spending more, the crass talk and gossip with his minions,the beautiful love story between the maid and the event manager,Delhi captured in all it's stunning realness ,the distorted image of happiness and fake contentment...I could go on.I think it's one of the best movies,it's more like an art.Each time I see something this brilliant I envy not being one of those involved in churning out masterpiece after masterpiece.I wish I were not just watching,I wish I made one one day!

And the other movie I am raving about is a spanish film,'María llena eres de gracia'(Maria Full 0f Grace) by director Joshua Marston. I have to say the protagonist Maria might be one of my most admired individuals, played so perfectly by the stunning Catalina Sandino Moreno.What grace ,beauty,crippling pressure to flee from a stifling small existence,what courage considering the background of the small Columbian town and the small confines,what a blend of beauty and vulnerability.I think it is one of the best films, it is kind of under-played,it let's the characters grow and capture you ,it does not grow bigger than the power of the characters, it is scary but it does not rely on grotesque scenes or violent images to do that.It just makes you feel.I would recommend it to every film buff who swears by a good film.(Thanks you ! for showing it to me)

I have started maintaining a small journal of events, sometimes I get sad looking at all the cynical and pessimistic entries but then I cannot fake anything else.I want my entries to follow a natural course, it makes them real.

I am going to have some tea, pat the dog, clean some, get ready for the weekly ritual to start with a Monday!

2009-03-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

dusting the laziness and the languor off this sad remnants of what I had once started,like so many other endeavors of mine which always start with a lot of enthusiasm and end abruptly without even the dying sigh they are entitled to.I do not understand what's this peculiar trait in me, to never take anything to completion.

Well I will try this time.I have been quiet,occasionally crying,out of bouts of an all-consuming weakness, separation,sad images ,desperate clinging to the past and the other infamous trait in me to create a reason to feel down.I think I let myself be taken easy and soft and downright pessimist sometimes.Well for anyone who has the potential to turn into a snap judger,I have to clarify that I am not unhappy,I am just cynical,but I do not shut myself out to the smaller happier events of life.I instinctively tend to think people might not mean good ,but at the same time I am the one who somehow magically knows when a person's vibes could be a genuine kindness or love.
I have fallen in and out of love sometimes, but I think I have mostly stayed on in love long after the real thing was over,sometimes from my side,very less from their's.I sometimes ruminate on what a wonderful ,whole lot of love we shared in this finite space and time continuum.
I have been reading some books,people's minds,sometimes even when they did not like it,reading subtle hints from things around me,have been having plans of doing somethings,writing a book,sharing my love stories(of course no one would read them if I wrote under my own name), have been thinking of marriage...wow I have to stop on this one...I have to confess publicly,I am getting ready..I feel I am.I am going to be 26 in another month and hormonal powers are taking over.Hmm...ya I have planned,a boy, a girl and mebbe an adopted kid.sigh :)
right now I am talking to surekha...I love that girlfriend of mine...I feel she is so secure in herself,she is so serene and her vibes all the way from India make me feel so special and loved.I think i am happy...i will trail off into quietness and try to come back here for often,not for anyone,for my own sake...

A reasonably okay day!

2008-12-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

So after a long time, I actually sat down studied the whole day and felt happy,not guilty.I still had that layer of perpetual worries eating me away but for a change they were not the most important things I had to worry about.I actually had a good satisfying day.I woke up late, had my cup of tea, studied, had Indian food, chatted with the nicer people and was also sometimes drifting away to unseen ,magical lands.

But I asked someone a question a day back, and it was not answered but I now my mind is more curious now not so much about the answer than if someone does really understand the whole situation which made mw ask that.
Well, we really cannot get everything out of people,or relationships.We just get what we deserve and sometimes a little more than it too.(sometimes less too, but I sincerely think I am not in the league of those fictitious women who wrote to Greg expressing their concerns if "he really was into them" or not!)

I am waitin for my finals to get over, cause feels like there is a lot more going to happen, a lot of changes which I have not yet anticipated or even thought of.I have to be much stronger then.
Hope I see myself through some of 'those' much feared times!

rueful writings..

2008-12-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I am alone in my room, in my completely disheveled room,( where a lot of dreams lie crushed and crumpled along with the clothes from yest or from the day before, where a lot of quiet sighs can be heard if one listened carefully enough, where you can also see some wet tears on the pillow cases from the crying I did last night if one looked hard enough for the tiny bedbugs which have made our lives impossible), I feel so strangely at peace with the eerie,ringing loneliness,helplessness,the looming uncertainty,the mess of heartbreaks, the silent accusations and the happiness tugging at me alongside too. I just throw my tiredness, my distress and my jacket and bag to a corner into a clumsy lump when I get back home, and lie down in the dark, thinking about nothing. So much has been happening, from the fall of a country's economy on which somehow I was banking (I would like to digress here and say I never really banked on an economy ,period.) to the whole 'I-left-him-for-him' guilt eating away my conscience to the everyday waking up to nothing,zilch. So much has been also fading into insignificance at the same time. Like undue worrying won't take me or you or us anywhere, life is following a certain pattern, which is beyond our understanding.We just happen to be witnessing some rough edges of it.And I don't think I want to preach by assuming things will be fine, for things will definitely not be bad forever.Everything has it's turn, good and bad.While we cry over here on our exams and everyday life in a foreign country, I cannot even imagine myself being in the place of those who are loosing their loved ones this very second, those who are poor and have nowhere and no one to turn to.I mean,this is the way things are!
And it's not like I am trying to sit here on a pedestal and give a sermon.
I might just finish writing this, go upstairs to my room and cry.Cry because I miss being a child to two grown-ups who could just take care of me and end my daily fight, cry out of longing to get away and not being able to because I do not have money, cry because I have no clue of what am I going to do once I am done with school.
I want to get done with studies, exams ,yes, but with school coming to an end,it will also mean the end of a time of familiarity and spoon-feeding and the forceful letting go off things you knew to things unknown.And despite what all the great self-help books proclaim, who isn't scared of the unknown?
And those guilt trips make things worse.It's been a while now.I did do what people are making out of the whole thing, but I did not fall out of love.I cannot and should not defend myself here, but I need someone to know that I did not mean to repeat a jinx, I did not mean to lower his self-esteem.I just realized a few things, and I feel bad it involved two people.I am sorry, I feel bad...

But as I write this, and think of so many things at the same time, it also dawns on me that all said and done, life has a very magical quality.It just suddenly elevates your mood and alleviates the immediate concerns,if not permanently,but long enough to make you happy.What can match the happiness at the prospect of a good lunch after a hungry long day, a good warm shower, a good happy,loving message or a simple I love you!.Nothing can.

So, it basically boils down to one thing- life is a pattern of things which have been happening and which will happen.We are not the exceptions, we might be some rules though.We might be some jinxes too,hmm!

2008-10-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

so, what's been happening with me, inside me, around me, in my world, in their worlds....God,I got no clue.I am losing track of time, I have forgotten the meaning of my existence, I feel like an intangible, thick layer has seared me from the world I would ideally ,perpetually like to be in.The world where dreaming hopelessly,about hopeless silly little things does not cost anyone time or money, where no one stifles you with their aggressiveness and complications..where one can just sit watching the sky,the winds heading a direction,stirring the leaves gently on their way, where I can take a long road trip in a old, creaky tiny car, head to the beach on a cold,rainy day and watch the quite sea-side houses ,the porches and the carved pumpkins waiting for the trick or treaters....hmm...How I wish !!
I have no clue when my days melt into my painfully long and at the same time short nights.I have forgotten how my mother feels like,to be held and snuggled against.I miss the tiny doorways corridors of my crampy apartment home ,back in India. I miss the times of useless banter, a whole day of doing absolutely nothing.Yes nothin..
..I lost my zeal to write....givin up on it now..

2008-10-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
My day is done
But I'm having fun
I think I'm dumb
Maybe just happy

Think I'm just happy..

(Lyrics from 'Dumb' by Nirvana)

hmm... simple words, and yet weighed down by the price of finding one's self ,finding what one wants..

2008-09-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

god, please end this...

this perpetual stress, my inability to not get affected...and my every night silent guilt trips to down there.

So, I am sorry now, does that mean I did not like it then?

and yes,I am happy now,does that mean I should feel bad about it?

Yes,and yes I feel very very sad,bad for whatever is happening with you,because it's because of me that you your life has turned into a mess, you have stopped feeling good about yourself and you are not looking forward to anything.And you think I am happy?I never feel sad?

My heart cries for you, but at the same time it's happy for me in ways no one will ever understand.Yes, I made a mistake of telling 'some people' ,who just took things as fun and blew it out of proportion and it came right back to you.Because I cannot tell it to anyone, I am the bitch in this situation and I feel ostracized.Yet, somehow that still does not bother me as much as guilt for having let you down.But still, I do feel sad.For you, for the person you are trying to become and the person you are leaving behind in the wake of something like this.

I wish I could take a break from all this myself, from everyone and everything.Escapism is not that bad a deal now is it?

matters of the heart ...so darn messed up..

such a gloomy,cloudy dark , competitive, day of lying it was.And such days,such situations make me uncomfortable and bring me face to face with the realization that I am not one of 'those' awesomely talented people whom other people would be clamoring for.I am rather one of those people, who can be so easily side-lined from life's 'big' events, big things.

Yes, my quotes explain my sarcasm,because I do not want those things,I am happy,very content with my small ,tiny life and my speck of an existence.But being forcibly thrown into it and being made to feel bad isn't what I want.Yes, I am still confused about my wants.I am 'Christina' from 'Vicky Christina Barcelona'.God I wanted to write a review for that amazing movie and it's lying somewhere in a pile of heap at the very back of my mind.I so much want to just skip the very important things for a day and just go for a walk on Hillsborough street, observe the sky, the busy streets, the ever moving people in their swanky cars, the twisted old man in his old rusty truck and think of new ideas in my mind.I just wish!!

and my heart wanders...to those forbidden streets,dreams and to a world free from banality..!!

2008-09-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

On my immediate wish list is

sleep,
sleep,
escapism,
some answers to the lingering questions

peace for the troubled
and
love for the less loved <3

to Myself

2008-09-18T04:50:00.000-07:00

I Love me. I see myself in an unobjective, unbiased light and I am a better version of me than yesterday.

I am telling this to myself in times of bad vibes from some 'characters' who just have to keep me from going. I need my own help in such times and while most of the people around are growing up to a piece of 'news' and making their judgements about me( cos apparently they do have time !!) , I need to brace myself for some allegations, denials, character analysis and tough times!!

haah, but life does go on, it has to, that's the natural course of life..and I am but a 'little Indian girl'.(not fat, not anorexic, just right there...in your face you!!)
A girl has to do what a girl has to do.

I love me and I love me for the right reasons,and this morning I promise to be good to myself because a lot of the shady characters derive a lot of their sustenance from deriding me.

I say again, in your faces!!

on a gloomy sunday evening..

2008-08-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

The sunday when you wake up late...had a lot to drink the previous night, had a lot to observe and learn, when you crashed in someone else's place and woke up sleeping next to a very traumatised and intimidated dog...
the sunday evening,when you stand by your window and blankly stare into the vacant sky,into the emptiness of everything...,when the trees outside look serene and a soothing green and you think of the many phases in your life....the sound of the wind,of the rustling of leaves,of the passing of cars,screeching of wheels,of the murmurs from the people you stay with, of the many wishes in many of our hearts....all the little unheard sighs, desires,sadness,joys...they form a kind of music,that plays like an under-tone to everyone's life....on such sundays...

I feel like I am having one such sunday...,I know it will soon melt into a monday morning,and all these other world ,calm,no sense in them thoughts will be over-shadowed by the more pressing needs,the things that we 'have' to do rather than 'want' to do...till a day comes by when you again lose track of time, of sense and sensibility.

I am the kind of person who's a dichotomy(okie I really wanna write about me !!).I am easily,happily over-whelmed by the tiny things,by smaller insignificant (for the most part) moments but at times the bigger realities,the ones that threaten to change your life in some ways....do not stir me up .I have not gone through a hell lotta shitty stuff to claim you know ,I have becomes stronger and yada yada.But I am strong,a realization that keeps elbowing its way into my world of thoughts often.I am a very laid-back ,country American spirit in an Indian body.Call this whatever you want,my attempt to break-away from the Indian image,or the Indian that I essentially am,or the false clinging on to American pride...but I keep realizing I would rather stay in the country-side, with a horse farm in my backyard, a porch where I can come out and stand looking yonder for hours and do work which no one would care about but which would feed me and gimme something...and just do pretty much nothing.
Yes,I am clumsy laid-back.(Deep) Down in me..I am a loner,I search for crevices when there are a lotta people around me,I need spaces to escape to...I was comfortable sleeping with the dog last night...he gave me some space on the bed,and given his trauma and abuse at the hands of human beings,he gave me trust.He gave me a chance.

but I have started worrying about one thing.....my fear of the 'thing' has resurfaced....makes me wonder if I should succumb to my fear and not go for it or just brush it aside.

hmmm okie,let's keep another day for this,I want to write about the new things,my cheerful colleagues at work.Thank you God for putting me in there,I could not have been happier I guess.New conversations,new terms,new ways of living life,the wish to no longer get back to the Indian grad student life of just working on your assignments,of just calculating one's expenses,of just thinking of a career to make and some fast money to build,of just talking of break-ups and hooking ups and equating them to the character of a person...and small time politics....,God,I don't wanna sink into that vortex anymore.Do whatever you want,say whatever you have to about what I write,I just want to go a few notches above all this.
Peace everyone btw.

I want my ma,for a while.Miss her.I need to see my father,my sub-conscious influence.I need to make that trip next week to meet, to do what i don't know but I need to be with this someone to be just there for a good soul..
But I want to run away too ,just drive a car to nowhere and pass places,people,trees....strange looking things...hmmm, and not be in reach...just be all mine for all that time.
But then I wanna come back to some people I know,I love,I can't define my bonds with but I would still need them so bad around me...

It's on such sundays, that nothing makes sense, that the remnants of a small hang-over refuse to leave you this quick and make you see crazy patterns in the seemingly orderliness of everyday life.

Their talks,her indifference to me,her sudden cruel indifference rather no longer bothers me...I just don't see a point in the pleasing-everyone attitude that this person can so strongly embody.But then again, to each his own.

lots more to go rambling on about...mebbe on another such day,when everything you have done so far,every person you have known all along..look sepia colored ,sad and unreachable anymore..

an year here.....

2008-07-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

An year ago, to this day
Left them standing at the airport gate..crying and dazed
Now ,when i look back,they still seem standing there...
waiting for the bird to fly back

It just seems yesterday,that the sky was gloomy and my heart was heavy,
One country was still waiting,and the other never left me..
I wanted to hold myself back from crying,from letting go ,from the mere exhaustion of leaving..
But I left anyway...left home....yes home.

My memory of that day still reeks of a ..hmm ....I don't know what,
perhaps sweat,heat and tears that could not be shed
Now this place feels home too...and I won't lie to you..
The empty streets,lonely roads and the secluded homes...they just let me be..alone

Everything seems right....just that,feels like time was the only winner,
it has that day,it has me,it has the power to make everything go and have it all..
And time will still go on,sadly,and that day would limp farther away from me,from them..
but no matter where time takes that day, i know I can still see them standing in the rear view mirror ,
waving their goodbyes and saying it all..

2008-07-16T18:35:00.001-07:00

hmm......after a 'short walk' in my backyard, things seem brighter and nicer and yes, happier!! touchwood.

I have been meaning to write about my life now,but to write, you need something ,you need that certain push, which apparently comes to me after such walks and those happy all-by-myself contemplations.
Every morning,I wake up groggy but the thought of going to work has never been this uplifting.I used to not like waking up in the mornings in India,and getting all ready for Wipro and the thought of sustaining through the day was a challenge.But ,right now,I feel refreshingly different.I get ready, walk to my office, have a nice cup of coffee and get to work.The nonchalant,easy going Americans have put to rest some of my pre-conceived notions about how someone should behave at the work place.
And after a long busy day,I feel even more powerful walking back home.I feel like I deserve that sigh of relief, the ability to not bring work out of the work-place and think happily about a mug-night instead and be a little relaxed in a long time.
And there's 'you'.I love talking about it all to you and more than me, it's 'you' who saw me through those bad times...This little achievement is for us.

There are some more people too!! And , it all melts down to one big ball of happiness which is right now snow-balling in a good way in my head,and it leaves me amazed.
I still am cynical,but I am a happy cynic.My adolescent lust for life and my hopes for its permanence have been replaced by an adult's just about enough love for a 'one life' and all the things one can do and not do in one life.The number one you see.

Today briefly ,I missed being young and crazy .Because I have been young but not crazily young, I have been a child with a brief childhood.My play time ended soon,my study times were longer and they begun when I still had young limbs and stupid thoughts and tiny dresses and dirty nails.
But it's never late,I think.

I want to be free and do something crazy silly and beautiful before I call it a day..

2008-07-16T18:14:00.001-07:00

God, are you really serious?

"Jaane tu,ya jaane na"???
doode it sucked,no wait it Sucked with a capital S.

And what was Aamir Khan doing producing this?

God, I went through this crap load .

What amazes me is, are such movies really made?I mean ,has not the audience grown up?Oh common??

I am seriously angry,absofuckinglutely angry!!

2008-07-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

Going to watch some of the first seasons of 'Friends',

Reminisce some Ross and Racheal chemistry, Chandler's wit, Monica's compulsive cleaning, Joey's goofiness and Phoebe's genius :)

I don't want to get affected by 'people' who are insensitive ,and mean..just mean..

I am good all by myself, there a lot of things I should be looking forward to...I will savour myself I promise !!

2008-06-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

If I could,
I would cycle down the road...wear a nice frock,let my hair down....yank the chain up and get going..

I would cycle under the sky,see the wisps of clouds....pray for some rains,
and remember a tune and sing out loud..

I would cross the old man and his tea stall,ask him how he is,
park my cycle by his and talk about his life,his grand-child Debby and his little house on the hill-side..

I would then cycle down , briefly stopping to gaze at the fields of corn,the tall grass gently blown by the wind...
then cry a little for long,long forgotten times...and ride away ,leaving places that will never know of the tears I shed behind..

I would meet the wonderful hippie,who smokes a weed and sings 'The world would soon come to an end..'
,I would smoke with him and make fun of the world and its ability to make something out of nothings and nothing out of somethings..
we would be delirious knowing we are above this world,and our spirits are not sold
to pride,wealth or to the pain of not being able to think beyond..

I would then cycle down...and reach the place at the end of the world..
taking with me people,memories,words and all that which can't be told..
I would come across the most beautiful sight of all..a rainbow arched across the sky..brilliant hues and standing ethereal and tall.

All the pains,the heart breaks,the feeling of failure and loss,would leave my body and soul..
what remained would be the defining meaning of life...and that would be all I would take with me..when I cross the end of the world,to the other side..

Being a Fim Critic (seems like my calling)

2008-06-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

After a long time, went for a movie last friday and after an even longer time, went with daddy in tow.Yes, he's come visiting me.All the way ,distance covering half our planet...having gained time,leaving time and India behind,he is with me now.I was not keen on watching it but then I was not totally averse to the idea also.Somehow, whatever little of the promos that I have seen of 'Sarkar Raj' made little sense and appeal to me.I am 'not very fond' of the much hyped Miss Rai nee Bachchan and the movie seemed to be more of a launch pad for the newly married power couple making their on-screen debut post marriage.
But yes I had immensly liked 'Sarkar'. I had admired,crushed on and fantasised about Abhishek Bachchan and his intense eyes.And so I went along.

Well, all I would say is 'not bad'.But mind you,I am not saying 'Good' as should have been the case.Its a one time watch,not entirely a waste if you are an Indian student spending some precious dollars from your un-interning life here in the US.It could have been better,crisper and Aishwarya Rai could have been played by anyone else too for that matter.The first half seemed to me as if they just asked Abhishek to maintain a forever angry,intense look no matter what be the case , Amitabh is Amitabh...he essays the role of an ageing 'Suhas Nagre' well and with a calm restraint of a father who is now more dependent on his son's handling of situations.Some of the scenes and dialogues before the intermission can be dispensed away with.The movie reeks of strong marathi and esp Mumbai politics and the very essence of the power the city's politics is made of.Ram Gopal Verma has his distint touches.The camera work, the close shots of the actors face highlighting their every contour is one of his isms.
Post-Intermission, things do speed up.Its like a sudden unravelling of a lot of plots.And the end throws a few surrpises too.From being a figment of imagination in Munna Bhai's mind as Gandhi, to playing 'Rao saahib', the staunch marathi respectable village veteran, Dilip Prabhalkar sails flawlessly across the two contrary roles.
To give Aishwarya credit, she looks good,with a certain age showing on her face and glow of a wise woman.She looks near perfect too(ouch!!). And yes,in bits and pieces you like her acting but like I felt, she could have been played by anyone without one noticing.
The film clearly belongs to Amitabh Bachchan who takes upon him the task of reinstating the Sarkar's power.No one could have snatched this role from him and done justice.Abhishek is good too,though he could have got a little more variety to his serious acting.Perhaps!!.But despite the good comments, I still feel the film was marketed on the coming together of the Bachchans and on the 'consciously dialed down chemistry' between Abhishek and Aishwarya more than the film's real strength,its story.
Of course, I am just one more curious on-looker who fell prey to their publicity.so!! :)

2008-06-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

procrastination has found a new home in me...This could be the only possible explanation of the huge , lingering gaps between my writings...but my blogging spirit is still as upbeat as it was the day this baby of mine was born.

I have a lot to write..
on second thoughts,nothing very specific which can be contained in some words.
But one feeling has been growing a lot in me..it has become way bigger than when it started about 7 months back....it has grown beyond words, sentences, my average comprehension...its been a nice quiet journey ...

and this time I do not feel alone.

I do not think there can words good enough to say how good it feels to.....have reached there,reached that place...and when you are not alone...

aah...love,its dances and songs,its thrills and its weird angles..!
the elixir of life....of my life for a long time now :)

2008-05-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

Its an important milestone...turning 25 and a day before I do that, I want to reminisce the 24 years that just ticked away.Not a publicity gimmick to garner happy bday scraps or wishes from people, but an earnest effort and a heart felt rendition of feeling good,connected to myself ...in whatever state I am in.

Life's an unsinking tangible dream,
a mirage..
death ,a perfect foil to this grand illusion
And within that contained are we all..

To all who are turning a leaf, a new chapter in their lives,
To those who could not...and to those who can but would not..
And to those who have some turning 25 to do :)

25

2008-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

and soon I shall be 25.

Incredible.
On looking back, everything seems like a dream.Time ran,it does have two cruel fast feet.
According to the old books, there are 4 phases in a man's life.

I think I am nearing the end of my first.
I am still awestruck by the whole process,from a foetus to a full grown adult...wow!!

Keeping aside everything else,however,

Happy birthday to me.

and they will never know...

2008-05-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

all of sudden i felt I should write about some of the faces which have ,which had attracted me a lot...and oh do not be surprised..I am speaking of girls..I do not need to clarify my sexual orientation to anyone ,but on some levels I do not understand why some faces have kept me fixed on them...I find them beautiful, mysterious and beyond my comprehension..cos I have seen very beautiful girls and somehow not everyone captures my attention this much...
First there was Gurbir.She's no more, and she knows I loved her, her whole being and even 9 years after her death, she still remains in my mind a 13year old school going , good looking girl...She lives on..
Then came this girl...she was his sister, and through my attraction for him I got this attraction for her...and she over-powered him and became a strange medium.., she became someone I could never be, a beauty,striking,graceful,quiet....Mebbe she's totally different than how I look at her, but I dont care.I do not even wish to go talk to her ever in this life,cause she may break my myth about her and then she would not be that much magical to me anymore...But she is beautiful ....and distant, way way distant from me,my world and my views about her..
Then this girl ....my liking had almost died a natural death..but then it sprung up again..and i found her somewhere, and i have stared at her face...She is less beautiful now than she used to be long long back....but she reminds me of my younger days, those halcyon days....days that will never come back...She is a very strong medium for me ...I wish she had a small inkling at times..i feel helpless..

I cannot remember anyone else...and none of the girls know of my fixation ...just confined to their faces and how I have built a whole new personality ,a whole new them in my mind...One has gone ,escpaped from her mortal cage and flown away somewhere...and the other are mere mortals...like me,like all of us...constrained by limited vision and thoughts..
But still bless all the beauties...

blank..

2008-05-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

each time I start to write something..I feel so intimidated and scared and bullied by the pressure to write all that I am have been thinkin about.
I am sad these days.Totally out of confidence and most importantly self-confidence and the will to still hope.I have given up on God.I feel the big He has side-lined me from his entire life.Or he has put me somewhere on the far fringes of his life, so that even if I do get to eat rather than being starved,sleep on a mattress rather than on the roads, stay in a house rather than being home-less ...I really do not get to do what I really want to do.My life right now feels miserable to me.I still argue with myself, mebbe its just a way of how you look at it.I could have been worse.But why can't I have better?Why can't I sometime be selfish and think on these lines? Why can I not get what others are getting, are experiencing and are so happy about?
Am i dumb? am I not capable to get what I am ranting about? And I know I know my interests lie elsewhere...not in this field..but if only God could be kinder still and instead of just making me clear about what i do not want,he could have told me what I want.

Everyday these days is just a prolonged ritual of feeling sad and hearing bad news and crying and wondering why,why not a happy news for some change.And while I write this,I am sure he is still working on shaping some lucky person's life ,delivering them a bouquet of happy surprises,new jobs,new ways of being so secure in a world where everything finally boils down to money.Sad but true.
Nothing nothing is right.nothing feels right, sounds more right.Everything about my existence is so nothing.And from where I am standing now,i can see no rainbows, no hope.Just a battle everyday.

.........................................I keep hearing people asking me to buck up and about stories of people who went through bad times and sprung back.But I feel , apart from their efforts,something worked for them too,that something on which they did not have control.And that something that is so missing.No clue where it is,or when will it come if it ever comes..
A weird place to draw inspiration from ,as opposed to beliefs that anything glamorous is hollow,but while seeing "America's Next Top Model",the series where Tyra Banks creates a super-model outta a bunch of hysterical 13 girls chosen from across the nation, I heard and felt anguish when a lot of girls spoke about where they came from...they wanted to come to prove a point to perhaps themselves that they can be better than what they were...and that this chance happened to them at a time when they were trying to break free from everything that held them back..
I am waiting to break free too....I feel stifled and very averaged and am waiting to be heard...

2008-04-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

This has been the longest that I have not spoken ,or written..
Not that I stopped thinking,thoughts were always there,suppressed beneath a layer of laziness and banal everyday affairs..
Ideas kept coming and coming and with them new epiphanies ..some good and some not so good
I am living a quiet, simple life,
nothing great breaks the simplicity of my routine
nothing out of the way seems to threaten of any change,
I have started feeling there is not gonna be that one time that every individual should have which is like the time which shapes one the most,
have been happy loving and being loved,
even love has lost its over-hyped image,but i like it just that way,simple,bare and without any frills,
Its more of like that warmth one feels when one is tucked inside a soft quilt,with the ability to alienate from the outside world and the everyday things...

But am still happy,
and flowing....and watching and thinking...and going on in the face of it all..

an adult and her school mood now..:(

2008-02-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

Searched a lot ,delved deep,too far into those long forgotten times..
my school days,those little innocent faces,those tiny hands and feet,
the blue dress,the red belt,polished shoes,dirty smelly socks..

after all these tumultuous years, the now big ,mature faces of distant times amazes me,
how we all grew up,rather how life made us all grow up..
making us learn what is right,what is wrong,
to know the taboos,the stigmas from the 'pure', 'allowed' indulgings
how we all picked up tit bits from those days till today,how we learnt how to condition our then free unconditional minds

How everything was our's,and how now those same things have trapped us,caged us and we are yearning to be set free..
from being taken care of, to squandering,to falling,to getting hurt and to learning to walk up,dust things off and walk again..

Of all those faces,one face has just fascinated me,gripped me...for absolutely no reason..
Now the face is a little less beautiful than what it was,...but the fixation remains..
It's like I am stalking a stranger,a strange thing...

With school,with that face..came tumbling back the smells,the musty smell of plastic colorful tiffin boxes,
packed with a mother's oily snack,but with love and with her tiredness of waking up at 6 in the morning to go through one more ritual a mother goes through..
sweaty faces and ruffled moods at the end of a day,the bad smell floating out of the urinals..

all seem wrapped up together in this fragnant tiny school bouquet..

One of the most important periods of your life,one of the earliest but also one that is forgotten for being early chronologically..
it lies on the desk of your messed up,fucked up life...under torn love letters,under crumpled papers,under the groans of adulthood...

2008-02-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

I think there is no Love,

there is love and there are phases,

well in my life I meant

so that there is always love with different people ,in different phases ..

I wonder if that makes sense...

and when I went from one phase to the other,what happened to those loves?

Would love ever get exhausted?In me?

Or will i run out of phases?

I have seen people go on,in love,and miraculously with the same people they started out with in phase one..

so it's not an impossibility entirely...just that it would not happen with me..

is it cause of the nature of things with me or the loving I give,take,expect,do?

hmm mebbe I am in one of my phases now..sighh !!

2008-02-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

Dark beginnings to the day
Uncertainty looming large
scary looking people,darker motives,the ugly under belly of human ways
guilt,pain and then relief

silent promises and teary joys

we seen it all,so early on in life

but then I think I want to just say 'Love you'
for good endings to this day of mine ...

longing.

2008-02-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's raining here,has been raining since quite sometime...

the pitter patter and the green,soaked wet life outside the window of my helpdesk here reminds me of pune..,sus road,of the times I lived there,of that numbing emptiness,and unreasonable madness and happiness..

missing pune,the highway,the highway as seen from that hill on sus road,the continuos stream of lights on the busiest road of india....the road which i always took to hinjewadi,

the tum tums,lazily dustily roaring by,the smell of a friday,two days of drinking,sleeping,eating,hang overs,pain and craziness..

aah that was bliss...and yet I was still searching....I walked out of the city one fateful evening in june...all i had to do was take a decision and it happened...

now,after all these months of sitting still,the memories occasionally flutter in their cage and I long to go back,....to wander on those same streets and roads..

But life ...damn life,it always does a reality check on me and jolts me back to this world,another happy and content world.I hope I make a pune out of this too...

was tagged..hehe!!

2008-01-23T18:36:00.001-08:00

wow..first of all thanks neha..I had never been tagged and so i feel happy about being tagged :)
and okie I have always dreamt of capturing a lotta sights,sounds,images,passing times,people,their pecularities,their lovely expressions,I am so fascinated by the sky,the stars ,the moon...I do not like the sun,I do not like people posing,I like shadows...okie so all this has not been captured..what has been does not really deserve to be a tagga-ble pic but I will still go for a pic I took of the moon,it was I think 4 or 5 in the evening in raleigh and I took Shri's new camera for this ,I would love to own one of those babies ;)...and the moon looks so divine and white and so alluring and also so close..u can almost hold it..

and i am yet to find more such sights.. and also I am not able to zero in on any picture dear to me right now,..will do it when I find one...

And I shall now continue with the legacy and pass on 'being tagged' (thanks again Neha!!) to Ravi,Anupam,Manoj,pooja..:)

2008-01-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

Reeling under

guilt and a sadness ,that sits silently in my conscience ,it has a feeble voice,I sometimes forget about it...but its power is its silence.It does never arouse me from my comfortable escapism,it is just there with me,in me and it looks helplessly at me as I have been trying to subconsciously bury it...for 'our' good.

Forgive me Anupam :( ...

Keep Learning
That no man or for that matter no woman can be fully trusted.The person you love the most can hurt you..so 'try not getting affected'.

That you can never know what goes on in a person's mind and if at all he has one.

That sometimes I merely magnified the problems when they were too trivial and even non-existent.

That no matter what I will always be bad at repartee-ing.

That I have all the makings of a Bridget Jones and (I love it actually)

That Love is good and not easy and definitely something to be in,always......always with oneself and sometimes with others too :)

Not to get carried away,the world does not.The world just noisily works away at climbing the ladder, bombing countries and killing people,drawing lines, not slowing down in the game of power and money.

Thinking of

A nice road trip,long winding country side roads,the deserted forlorn naked trees...standing in the cold,a song playing in my mind,a cup of coffee,a ' ' , some selfish peace and some retrospection.

Not being affected by people,and their actions...I just keep failing at this.It sucks me into its folds...blindens me.Does no one else suffer from this?Please tell me if its possible for detachment to exist in attachment?Is it possible to love and also restrain and still call it natural,from within?

Going to

Listen to songs.....some tamil,some hindi and some Dido,some Indian Ocean.

Be happy and less affected.

Blow a kiss at myself in the mirror.

Love myself a lot more.Period.

2008-01-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

Okie so a few days into the new year ,and so what if I am a little late..but resolutions ahould not be new year specific only,right?Actually everyday i make atleast 5 decisions and I end up not sticking to 6 of them..now please do not apply logic to me.I am beyond logic,or rather I fail logic.:) (haah!!)

Now some things Litun would love to do not just this year but in general:(and not in any necessary order(order fails me too)

Will get a nose piercing done for sure(damn you 35 bucks)-this has been like my desire ever since I saw the maharashtrian women sporting it,it turns me on,wonder what it does to the male species then.

Will brush my teeth everyday and take care of my natural and some acquired caps..(a cough)-well I have made some infamous trips to the dentist ,so please.I am good elsewhere ;)

will learn how to use mascara properly without smudging or without rubbing my eyes by mistake .hehe!!

will try playing badminton a little more and shed some 'extra' weight off me.

Have to read a few books,watch a few classics,read about world history,the world war-II,on American History,on the events that changed the world we live in,on some men and women who changed the way we think..

Be less affected by people and events and try keeping my eyes more on the oft forgotten 'bigger picture'.Try being even lesser opinionated about people and relationships.

try taking to their graceful end ,certain somethings :) ,well atleast try,forgetting the fact that I could be jinxed ..

(got bored mid-way..will fidget with some other things till i get more ideas and cravings,sorry)

2008-01-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

love does a lot to a lot of people in the seemingly small time frame..

For someone it is the rise of new waves,

For someone it is the crashing of the waves at the shore

For some it is a matter of the moment

For some it is the moment and beyond..

It is like a potter's clay...you,me,us and them and time come together and mould it

we then sit together and shape this abstraction to words,to a few shy blushes,to sleepless nights ,to peace,to unrest,to a few kisses,to touching of our bodies and meeting of souls ..

to that early morning sky,to those birds waking up to new day,to the full moon's glow,to the golden colour of twilight,to the hum of a distant sounding song from some unknown traveller's radio,to the mystery of the far far stars

Love laughs at our stupidities and plays along with our playfulness

We then make a honey colored,dew fresh ,intangible love pot of all the words we spoke,the songs we sang,the kisses we shared,the love we make,the fingers we held

Some then leave it at that.

But some let the pot dry under the gentle rays of the sun and keep it with them..

Some go on to make another pot with new people,new words,new moments,new kisses,new physical intimacies

tuck the old pot away in their hearts with warmth and make space for the rays of the sun on the new one...:)

(my inspiration for this was a mad repeated listening of this song...un-understanble lyrics,understandable music -http://youtube.com/watch?v=R8q9EsVrQDA&feature=related)

On looking back..

2007-12-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

On Looking back at the time frame that sped by in front of my eyes, when a fresh new time is waiting to spring into existence,when a Benazir Bhutto is shot at and also blown up in the name of religion,when God snatches away a good nice soul from the face of earth and makes us feel there is no such 'thing' really as God,but then when you find yourself with a 'Ravi',a 'Manoj',a 'Anupam',a 'Nandy', a 'Bhave',a 'Aishu',a 'Fulva' ,a 'amulya'(and a lot many more) and you feel not you but the people aound you are just growing good-er and nicer(why then would a God do that to you..),when coming out of a break up only makes you love people just for being there in your life,when some relationships change and catch you unaware and when some others slowly show signs of crumbling and you are unable to do much about them,when distances between you and your parents cover almost half of earth but the closeness to their hearts and the love just grows,when leaving a city drains away the life force out of you and then you know pune was never meant to be just a city..it was a refuge for all my madness and a getaway to a psychedelic experience,when working with friends became a more interesting thing and the highlight of your work place,and being able to sustain strong ties with them makes you feel blessed, when doing everything on your own..from learning to grow up and walk after each episode of tears and breaking lose of harsh realities to learning to be the little bird who flies for the first time from the nest with a little bit of fear but a lot more looking forward to,to learning to take decisions and knowing when you did not take a very good one ,to learning how many measures of water does two cups of rice take to cook,to coping with the whole sado masochist set up of the world...to planning for a MS ,to bracing oneself for the changes it would demand....to leaving behind the two people for whom you will never grow up .....

The second half of the year saw a distinct new side of life...it's still huge,things take time with me to sink in,....mebbe because I do not like them sinking in so soon and making things look banal,even the everyday things like waking up alive,watching through the half drawn blinds the amazing city of raleigh,the walking down to the university,the swell of pride in your heart when you know not many people really think out of the box(in all ways,in so many damn ways) and you know you have the courage to atleast accept when you were an arse and when you were a true hero,when learning different languages of your country and knowing about so many different kinds of people just made you feel weirdly happy about being one more of the teeming millions,when so many people liking you for what you really are made you wonder 'wow,i must be good'...hehe...

Things have been nothing short of good,rather a calm tumultous good.How oxymoronic but how true.I guess the some of the best finds of this year would be(not in any order):

People(mostly all around me fit into this category)

This growing comfy feeling with Daddy and ma (aah bliss)

This feeling of studying in NC State,being a wolfpack:)

So many songs..so many new melodies

My love for Tamil,kannada music

'Monica Bing'

re-runs of friends

Learning IP..(dont laugh for this)

Indyeah -one of the best things I liked saying about India is it being not just a huge populous colourful country but India being one big emotion for the big diaspora on this side of the globe re-discovering the patriotism

Communication (lots of exchange of ideas,of whole sorts,with everyone,just letting it out..)

Going out for a walk at 4 in the morning with ravi and sitting on the grass facing BK and seeing streaks of light break across the lovely raleigh sky

Oh!! the blue Raleigh sky

My incoherence( it's actually started making more sense..)

a cup of chai and also starbucks!!

My piece of mind and the peace in that

An after thought,is time continuous or sliced into frames as we have come to think of it?
..

2007-12-25T01:18:00.001-08:00

you just broke my heart..

I do not understand things suddenly..

am i wrong in assuming a lot??

Gosh,I really do need time..:(

2007-12-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

am feeling sad..a feeling of deja vu,something I relate to when I know I am on one lonely side of the fence and the whole world is on the other...everyone merry-making...on success,the whole lot being a notch higher than where we all started.Me being there,just there.

I am not trying to make a huge deal out of it,but then I am being sucked into it.

And you know you cannot start getting angry on people for this,you know its just between you and yourself.You have only yourself to get angry on,talk to and feel abysmally low about.

I should have known,I cannot ever be one of those few blessed people,always excelling in everything.

I am the kind of girl you would rather find blogging,getting drunk in some medieval bistro,writing crappy philosophy with a feather ,dreaming away oblivious to what everyone is busy doing and achieving.

Lately nothing seems to be going right in this part of life.I mean now half of my life has been lived ,if you saw that way.Mebbe I could jumpstart and make a few changes now.Those changes could require more than just me,myself to participate in them.

They would suck a whole generation's power out of me.You know I am not exactly jumping on a trampoline,so that I can claim for the stars.I need to hit my feet hard to get there.

I wish I really could do a lot of things I keep dreaming about.Like what was I thinking when i was dreaming of writing someday,go alone on the streets for a walk,just be...without any guilt,sit on a bench in a deserted road and blow smoke into the air,not care about what people think..of their opinions on things which would not make any change to my life in any single way...

I guess I will also end up being just one of those stories,sad,lost.One of those who wanted to but did not.Who wanted to sing,but just did not have the courage to look up and form the words..

All by myself-my song for the moment..

early morning musings..

2007-12-17T03:58:00.000-08:00

the blog i posted in the evening today was not definitely something I would have posted in my 'ordinarily' insane frame of mind.I do not know what was with me.But yes,then my mood was a straight-faced :-|
Now its kinda become a subtl-y smug happier :-},or perhaps a :-).The earlier smiley was a lil in ur face happy,but i am more of a silent happy.

At 7 in the morning,with a dim light on in my room,with a rumpled blanket lying at my feet,a current favorite tamil track playing not just on my laptop but also kinda playing in my head,having watched back to back episodes of 'friends' and still not having had enough,the vodka at sammy's and cold,numbing winds in raleigh making my skin break into little goose bumps,the mood in the air 'these days',a certain mix of wanting,urges,longing,waiting,eagerness,nervous excitement,the wanting to get angry so that you can be pacified,the stray sudden smile that breaks out in the bus stop when you are waiting for the bus,the absent minded-ness when you suddenly are talking to someone..
the sudden lightness in my life,of a whole semester's weight having been lifted off,the feeling of having completed a sem and looking forward to two more gruelling and fun-filled semesters,the sudden strong urges to just hold daddy and ma,poke a finger at their existence to make sure its a tangible fact and not just reduce them to two faces in some corner of the mind..all the loose ends make sense at times.

I wonder why is this song so stuck in my head..songs can do a lot to someone.
I feel so sleep-lorn and so excited right now..

I wish I could sing this song,damn the difficult language,but I feel the song's mine.

okie so where am I,aah there I go,lost again...dammittt:)

2007-12-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

my mood for the moment is :-|

No i cannot find the right smiley now to describe my mood....its all about bad grades,jealousy,making peace with whatever level of mediocrity I am, some minor mental tiffs with myself all the time..
perhaps a good coffee,some talking with myself will make me go from :-| this :-)

aah..one of those days when i feel just so angry with everyone and almost everything abt those everyone..
i dont know whats going on inside my mind now..its like this black cave,with bats flying all around and i am feeling so irritated.why??

..

2007-12-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

no no no...I should not get jealous,
I should not let those creepy slimy emotions come into my world now..,
when I am smug 'single',happy alone and married to only myself for the moment,
When I should be keeping things 'light'..

Do not make things happen to me for the moment.

we 'three':)

2007-12-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

"funny is all I have"-Chandler
I am told I am funny too..not Chandler funny mebbe but funny enough to appreciate his 'funny'

there was a boy called aiyappa,
there was a girl called anwesha,
they had family in india,they had money,time and all of it till,
they jumped onto the flight and reached the land of America

They landed,they were happy,
he missed his coorgis,while she relished the teriyaki moorgis,
till the day SRTP broke loose and their lives became all crappy!!:)

He worked at day and she at night,but only once in a week ,
he slept while she came to meet,
she faked head aches while he yawned at the screen trying to make sense out of it ,

they both became sad,his tusks no more 'jutted' out,
he lost the very essence of his fat being,
and she went from being crap to crappier,

Now we stand face to face with it,
its like a deformed half-formed monster,
me and aiyappa two mere great mortals,
but we decided to rise above SRTP
and now while he stretches after consuming scrambled eggs,
I attempt being funny,shake off the enthusiasm and kick back my legs.!!

sorry for the bad attempt,but aiyappa ,me and and aiyappa ,me and SRTP had to be immortalised .

things happening..

2007-11-30T04:20:00.000-08:00

a lot has been happening,unhappening....with me, to me..for me and of course some are happening because I am making them happen ....
I have been doing a lot of thinking, analyzing...I have been observing people around me, their mannerisms and their reactions to my presence around them...some just look through me(and for people who know this secret,they know whom I could possibly be speaking about,a chuckle)
some look right into me...the vortex of all this noise and restlessness..
some try but have not been able to ...with of course me shutting myself up to this happening ...
and Oh!! I love the faces around me these days..not cause they are pretty faces (naah!!)..but cause they are so interesting and they all have a story behind them..
everyone was born 24 years ago,some even earlier,some later(grrr..)...everyone formed some bonds with their lives...wrote stories to narrate to the people they would be meeting along the way..everyone fell in love ,fell out of it...everyone carried a few extra baggages of their past..and for those few who did not..well ,they should gain a few extra pounds atleast( another chuckle)

I love the days and nights here at raleigh...i love the spirit of this country a lot..I don't see sense in complaining...and baselessly accusing things to be different here,and lacking the essence of our country...I mean.that's why it is a different land...that is why we all made such huge mental calculations in our minds getting prepared for this big event,is not it? Please do not deny and state otherwise(again, people who know me should know whom it is meant for, grin)
I love the neon lights of sammy's tap and grill in the early mornings,the open and close signs flashing...all night long...that reminds me of sights I had seen long long back in the movie "Back to the Future-I"...I used to always want to be in such a place..where I could skate-board to happiness....be left alone and happy ,be able to sit all alone on a bench on the road side and look at everything around and not miss anyone...

I love the lil steps in my back yard,now filled with all the dead maple leaves...which broke free from the barren trees long back...where do they go,I wonder?
I love the drawn up blinds..and the sunlight filtering in through them...making tiny shapes on the carpet...
I love staying awake at night,doing stuff all by myself..knowing that I own a tiny little space ,which is all my own and I can just view the vast expanse beyond th space and not be bothered not being a part of it..

I am also sad ...because I am hurting someone very good a lot..and I am not able to relate much with it...I am just being true to myself..and I don't know if it's bad or good or means nothing at all..
Sometimes I feel the world is moving too fast and its become all mechanical and stagnant and getting depleted of the slow movers,the 'enjoying-the-moment' people..
But then,I stumble upon people during the most unexpected of times,in the most unexpected of places,in the most unexpected of dinners and I feel assured....Happiness is there..it just needs a little scrapping with the nail of your little finger...its sitting there...it has always been there,waiting for us to lay our hands on it..we get lost too often..This happy feeling assures me that there is something about this world.,this earth..its not just a piece of rock which got created out of the big bang!! It was not just scientifically the favorite to support life...
It was destined ,and there is some force..no not any particular God or face that I can think of..but there is something...and that something flows through all of us..it magically changes the quality of life...If it can make sadness excruciatingly painful,it can also change that into happiness which is too large to contain..

I always make plans of what to study,what to do,how to primp myself,be sexy and graceful,do something about the flab here and there,..not forget to wear ear-rings, comb my unruly hair..and baah!! I just end up not studying,doing nothing substantial(like that which meets the need of the moment) and still look as bridget jones in her worst laundry nightmares..and forget grace..its a far cry!!
But then I see myself in the mirror and I see a happy girl smiling back at me...happy in her bad hair days,happy in her silly combination of clothes,happy with her very own flab of fat and flab of that 'being-on-your-own' feeling!!!

What else can a Anwesha ask for ??:)

I love this society:)

2007-11-24T00:30:00.001-08:00

what a world a woman lives in...if she dares to be herself..if she wants to be herself,if she tries not to travel the roads a woman should not...if she wants to soar high...if she wants to be alone..if she wants to drink,if she wants to smoke,if she wants to keep the company of men she likes or leave the company of men she could not afford to hurt on a lie...

its so small..the world she is forced to live in...that's a big lesson I learn..and yet I unlearn..

only to learn again,through the grey of some wise people..through the eyes of a myopic few mortals..

a woman has to either play by their rules or be ready to live with the stigma of being a whore..
a whore for the so big crime of being herself..applause!!!,and how did she do that?all the men must be thinking,talking and dissecting..is not it?

when a woman suddenly feels bigger than her life,when she knows she can no more contain her happiness in her 'limits'...what happens?

her wings are clipped,she HAS TO part with a portion of herself...how else can she survive in this world..wont the moral force maul her with their big moral claws?

would it not be a matter of shame if she trespassed the lines that were drawn for her...without her knowing it of course?
would it not appall the generations of sanctity, loyalty,layers of lies that are built around her existence to continually enforce on her the rules...the duties,the spaces she can walk on..and the closed doors she should not knock on?

I totally agree with the world....I mean common,when all the bloody rules are made for her..why should she dare think of re-inventing them,why should she think of writing some for her own,just for her own...why should she think of turning the wheels and disturbing the balance that society has planned out?

I am with the world on this...,cos is it not stupidity?

so what if society has different notions of a thing and a woman has different ones!!
There is no concept of relative goodness when it comes to society..its either good,either bad ,or a whore's sorry tale!!

I pity my daughter who would be born into this world....so much has already been planned for her,so many rules already waiting to eat on her existence when she transitions from a girl to a woman....so many choices waiting for her...not so that she can select,but so that she HAS TO embrace them!!
Infinite spaces,limited free breaths.But Bravo!!:)

2007-11-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

....thinking of that day when me,daddy and ma had taken that flight together... feeling sad..
i cant touch them...their existence seems difficult to fathom...
its gloomy outside today...but this gloominess i do not like..

still have not had it...there is someone talking up there in my head..wonder who is it or who are they?

i want to hold my mother's hand and just sit by her side...
or perhaps sleep in ignorant bliss ,tucked inside a heavy quilt..
then wake up have tea,sit together on the balcony and watch the birds fly..

i was teased today about someone...and knowing that its nothing,made my heart leap..
nothing has happened and yet so much is happening..

everything seems illusory today...the faces,the voices,memories..as if they never happened...

daddy's face stands out though...that protective hand of his,his loving words seem to be there..

.......................am worried about something...i feel like sleeping inside my dark world..

missing you a lot..but the forces of my world have taken over...
dont look at me now...
Its quite possible i could be the darkness in you,..

some coherence now ...

2007-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

have I not been writing too much of incoherence off late?have my blogs been reeking of philosophy,an under-current of love,longing a lil too much?
has there been a little too much of the abstract??...but behind all this incoherence is also sense...a realisation of happiness and peace...a calm and soothing state..and some coherent thinking too!!

I have always wanted to write about my life here..all this sudden change from India to America..I have been aching to write of how I found not just friends,good friends.....but how I found 'people' here....How these people have made this huge mental transition process so much easier and smoother for me..

I want to tell everyone about this hectic but thoroughly one of its kind enjoyable graduate life here...where you do not know when days melt into nights and a lot of mental blocks,boundaries..have been pushed into oblivion for good..for our good....this life where all the time you are either going to a class, to a lab,to a fellow Indian's place to discuss or to your part of your condo to study in isolation and weave dreams of doing great research work,publishing papers,working with great minds..

This life will teach you to appreciate life's little things...the dingy little lanes of your sleepy little town back 'home'...of the aroma of home-cooked food,of piping hot tea and parle-G biscuits,of diwali and holi...of the unwanted dust and corruption...and of the aunts and uncles and the numerous cousins you grew up with...stray cows,street dogs....dirt,the gali fights,...naked little boys jumping into a pool of green ,moss covered canal......

My life here has been one nice dream...(touchwood)..I would not have been able to make peace with this change had it not been for the almost divine presence of such good souls...my room-mates...the quietness in the surroundings here...the immense inspiring power of the long oak trees,the lovely blue raleigh sky,the fallen maple leaves....the wanted anonymity ,the wanted space of your own..solely your own.....I have made friends with all of them...

One more thing this life ,this life away from your country teaches you..is...the power to appreciate the differences in your country in a healthy way...there are some arguements and some stubborness but the feeling of one-ness is all pervasive....here,the state boundaries no longer matter..you are an indian here..a desi:)...soemthing I have come to accept...

you come to know why rajnikanth is baba...why golimaar is so widely watched...you come to hum tamil songs and dance to a bhangra number...you eat rice,rasam and raajma...and even pickle and chutney with rice makes your day..we all come go beyond this littleness and become part of one of US's most thriving immigrant poplulation!! My univ boasts of 196 Indian students and 191 Americans.And I am happy not because of this demographic advantage but because we so nicely live in harmony...its amazing how this happens...

As i write this I have a lot of things running on my mind...two huge projects,homeworks,going and cooking something for lunch...meeting the prof....and basically being awfully busy..

but as I said..the blue of the sky,the green of the trees,the colors of fall.....come together to create that much needed magic in a seemingly mundane routine..!!

2007-11-04T14:01:00.001-08:00

aaah.....one of my worst ever posts....the one below...aaarrrghhh!! stupid sunday!!

irritability spurred me to write this!!

2007-11-04T13:29:00.001-08:00

some things that often haunt me ..

where did we come from?
where will we go to?

could there be life on some other planet,some planet in our universe,in some other universe?
Is the universe the outer most covering or is there something beyond it?
Are we the most insignificant speck of all or are we the ones who matter the most?(from conversations with manoj and aiyappa..)

Does Love finally boil down to some chemical reaction in our brains only or is it something really that happens and yet so intangible and strong?

Are we monogamous by nature?
(i think no..)

What is in our minds that turns around so many things?is it not a living entity too which injects so much force into us?

sometimes there can be so many realities co-existing at the same time,same space...

I wish I could go into someone's mind and see what's going on....( for the moment just your mind)

have you felt a strong sexual tension in the air ,strong enough to cut through your guilts and the beliefs holding you back...( i bet you all have..)

what is religion anway?..should it exist to keep a divide,to maintain a certain equilibrium of the world or should it be abolished to give way to more one-ness?

Have you ever hummed a tune in your head while you were being insulted,humiliated and you thought 'Oh crap..i should be sad'??

I have ,some nights back..

sometimes I wander...I could be someone I never ever wanted to be...and then i realise all those promises one makes to oneself about doing this..not doing that..do not matter much in the scheme of things...

sometimes...one easily accepts that one is capable of changing so much...and not feel awkward about the change in beliefs...

(i have this faint fear in my mind at times...what if you are so helpless of liking someone but knowing so fully well that nothing would come out of it..and yet you are not able to convince yourself of not breaking away...)

I had made a million promises to myself...I have not been able to stick to any of them..and I do not seem to mind..(Have I been a little too wanton in my thought process?)

Do you think anyone would be man enough for me?

I dont...so forget about what you think!!

for you!!

2007-11-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

a girl does destroy the friendship between two boys..

then one shuts himself up in his own world....and thinks of infinite sadness in his finite spaces..

But I want to know ,do three friends just mean three,the number three?

are they not three universes in themselves...? three vast big universes?

One can find unlimited reasons to be sad,angry,pained and stoned...but finding one's way through these sign-posts of life to clearer greener patches is what matters...

But then when you are sad,all that matters is your own universe...
and yet what he thought could have caused him pain was some selfish act of two people..

Selfish acts give rise to selfishness...is not it?
Just as pain gives more pain..

I was there a few days back..no a few moments back..but with so much beauty around,its hard to not fall back in love..

I hope someone understands the messages and the sign-posts..and finds his way through..

we all love you!! we can love you even while staying in our own universes...and not necessarily in one..

curtains fall

2007-10-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

yes...you are right..
you are nothing more to me...

(end of stage -I)

and i tell myself...

2007-10-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

i thought i will write to you...
but then i thought...oh what's the use...

some of your words still resound in my ears...may be they are not words..they are big huge beings...which sometimes disturb me..

they pull me away from being me and from being with you..
i suddenely feel like breaking away,breaking free...not showing myself to you..
but I realise...you would not care..just like I do not care for him....just like I let the guilt crawl away from me..
or not may be it's still inside me..but we are both lying low...we have made peace..

you and me will not live for a hundred years....we wont be even seeing each other or touching fingers in the next fifty...

but even then what matters is the million conditions that the rational mind has to offer and my silly heart has to ignore...

matters that matter..

not to me...but to you..

I am happy,smiling and have let myself flow away from expectations...but in some corner of my mind,there dances a sad little hope..

that someday somebody would not just take pity on my 'goodness' and walk away...

...

2007-10-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

...the golden of the sky splashed at dusk

the red of a new bride..

the fragility of a little baby's finger's in it's mother's hands..

the touching of finger tips between a man and a woman..

unspoken words...tangible silences..all under the same sky..

the long winding roads...the lonely small fern...

the hair resting easy on a girl's face...the drops of water sticking to her wet body...

when you lust for a touch and love being lusted...

the flesh seen mischievously through the saree....when a woman smells good..

the depth with which a man looks into a woman's eyes...the little things on his mind..

the dust flying off the blanket....the dust flying about under the light of the lamp post..

the night sky..the million stars...always there but never understood why..

man woman...then man woman child....and then man woman and a million conditions..

the feeling when you are just about to cry...the moist eyes...covering your vision..

spilling over..oozing from your wounds...

but life is life...it asks for nothing from you..it gives you nothing..if you chose not to take..

when i spread my arms ...life filled me with all these lovely sights and sounds...and men and women and happiness and pain..

i created a music of all these and i still sing it to myself...and i will sing it for you..if you open your arms...and embrace life...

2007-10-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

silence...

I want to change a few things about me: my honesty,my inability to control what I am saying and to whom,my thought process,my clumsiness,my thinking of the whole world as one big happy place and all people as friends,my friends...my unlady like demeanour..my having too many guy friends,my smiling from my heart always thinking all wounds would be healed with a heartfelt smile..

I want to be:quiet,secretive,clever,manipulative,not so open,i dont wanna share with anyone anymore..,try not to think out of the box but calmly accept what has been handed down to me from generation to generation...i will try being more graceful like 'her',will try gossiping like 'them',try being like a ice princess..

aah!! life will be so better,complicated and I would so much fit in with everyone around..

And you my blogging space...you shall be my new best friend(we shall devise new codes to discuss my stories,my secrets,my confessions,my romances,my fears,my insecurities,my helplessness and my happiness with..)from today its only you and me who shall keep secrets...let no one know what is happening,okie?

and to tell you my first secret....do you know,something stung me today and gave me a sense of deja vu?..oh you do know...hmm,will tell you more later..

i shall wait my dear for you....you..whoever and wherever you are waiting for me....please read me....read this and take your steps towards me....

a ha ha for me!!

2007-10-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

listen ....
is anyone listening?
to my 'insignificant' worries...oh okie i understand..
when you are thinking of mundane but important things,how can anyone?
a ha ha for me!!

for bing supremely foolish..

and you know,you know what i was thinking...about dancing on the clouds,about talking and talking,about the stars,about the universe..whether its flat or round like the earth..
i was thinking what will happen if we kept walking and walking from one point in the universe...
would we cross paths...would 'we' cross paths...?
are we not visitors in this time frame?fleeting?
and while i was looking at the clouds wondering of the bad things like love,romance,philosophy
the world was plotting against my types...by learning how to suvive in the world..being world smart..
a ha ha for me again!!(chorus if you may)

and oh no wait..it does not end there..
i actually allowed myself to blurt out what i think...as if the realisation that you think of 'other' unnecessary stuffffff (stress on the ffff..) is not a blunder enough(lady control your mind!!)
and it is followed by remorse,guilt,stupidity,random thoughts..which keep me away from 'important ' things again..

a big ha ha for me(this time all can change your pitch and chorus)

Song ends.A bow.

true incoherence...

2007-09-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

when do you think it happens,
do not question it,do not strain to hear it coming,for when it comes you will know....you see it happen,

(answering your question....)

we are all just a little speck in the universe,
we will all go back to where we came from..taking back our spirits with us...making one 'me' less..
so why not indulge in our weaknesses and love away,dream on and allow the spirit to take control?

( ...say something...)

is life just a series of events?
...what do your gods say about burning with guilt?
why does the human heart wander....?

did your gods help you know the answers...
My gods have allowed me to ask you....as they allowed me to learn with a many more...

memoirs of a guilt-less me..

2007-09-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

and so I told myself....
I shall feel less guilty,
less guilty about being excluded from some schemes of life,
for being pushed out of some dreams of mine,
for feeling bad about living a dream and being so happy,
for not loving............for loving...not one but many...

I just told myself one night,when the whole world was sleeping...
I shall forgive me the torture I have been putting myself through...
for obsessing with the way I am...
because I shall be this way...you you and you there may argue..
you may say I am being good to myself..
and did that in some weird way affect any of you?...

Like a maple leaf, being blown by a gust of wind,
I went from this man to this.....and I still have not settled...
But I must stop my mind from tormenting me...I cannot settle,I am a restless child..
the men i loved loved me back and should I forgive myself for obsessing with this..
i think about a he,that he and him and also him....
so why would you not say i have an immense ability to love,instead why should I think I am being wild...?

I forgive myself the fact that I am not able to please you,
but do you not read the ways I have tried to....
I shared love with you,you and you....and even you....but I wonder what happens to all that..
does it stop mattering after sometime....or does it stop mattering because it's with me...
and no wonder I am still obsessed with moments that have no value in the space time continuum...
but I still went ahead that night and promised myself,while you were all sleeping and...a strange fear was making me go numb..

Not for you,not for any of the men I loved...
I am doing this just for me,..my selfish pleasure...
I do not care what you may think.....
just leave me on my own...and let it be...
I have a few moments only to secretly treasure...

lonely..at 24

2007-09-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

I dunno what prompted me to sit up like a perfect aarse at 6 in the morning and ahem,I have not slept the whole night,to write something.Man,the girl does think a lot.I keep thinking of me and the age I am at now,24,I will be 25 and then i will soon be hitting my thirties and even before I get a chance to realize where I am heading to I will be lying in a grave,buried but still not dead..what I want to know is does a person really need companionship to go through a life?Cant someone grow old alone?I can sense a loss of my feeling for attachment and a need for companionship these days and its not because I am growing into a self-centric individual but its rather out of my so strong need for something which has always eluded me ....I have built up a system of defense inside me,where I am trying to shut people out and dont blame me...I feel so helpless and so friend-less at times...and I have people around me most of the times...so is this entirely my fault ,like,am I expecting hell too much?I am scared ,I am scared that I would not know most of the times what I am doing.I have just one life.I am fiercely protective about it....and does that make me selfish?I wish at times I would not look so lost into the far away and wish of things that would not happen for me perhaps....I am slowly gathering that I am not destined for a few things and that I gotta accept this as quickly as I can.I miss talking myself crazy with someone and knowing that that someone knows and understands me....I feel rotten writing all this on a blog,but hell-o this is me,always unplugged.

These days when I sleep,I invariably wake up with jerks ,with faces of my father and mother and their words and the thought that I cant touch them makes me desperate.All the moments I lived in the past 2 years always tug strongly at me....things like where have we come from,where shall we go after we die,what is life....and I have to force myself back to sleep.And I wake up dazed and disturbed,but have no one to tell all this to...who would care for a two-penny thought?Yes,I know most of you would not but I am asking 'that' person to care for me....he should,he must understand...he must not just say these things happen ,he must sit up with me at night and ask me,make me talk....make me get the stuff out of my system...and U know what...I am lonely...!!! I got no one,yes,thats the thing thats bothering me...No one would care.And can you imagine living a life where you know no one knows who you were actually...you are as dispensable to people in life as in death...And long long back,when I was 17 and depressed over a crush not having worked out(my nerves!!),I was never sad and even when I was miffed for an hour I had consoled myself saying ,girl you got a long way to go...you will meet lots of people in the way,fall in and out of love and dont worry at the end you will marry the right person....and now here I am 7 years later,still unsure ,still confused abt even marriage,forget the right person....with so much of bagggage of the past....but the difference being I cant suckle myself anymore saying I am just 24.The news flash is I am 24 and I am lonely.And though I had never expected I would be the girl who would think this way...its some hard myths being shattered Litun...you just got to accept it and brace yourself for the even lonely life ahead...
I have just dissolved into a lil lump of myself and ....nothing but myself...

a mind wanders...

2007-08-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

sitting on a chattai on a dusty sleepy town in rajasthan,
sipping garam chai and wrapped up in a shawl,
she looks into the far distance at the soon disappearing sun,
lost in the music of a late legend ustad nusrat fateh ali khan...

she walks upto the group of two women folk dancers and tries swaying her body,
to the music the turbaned man plays on his shehnai with elan,
and to the music inside her,
she wants to dance in stealthily slow moves consumed by some strong passion..

she feels like wandering into the strong sand laden winds ,
walk right in to the center of it all and never come back,
walking into the depths of her being ,she has lived enough from the outside,
she wants to come face to face with her life,the way it looks to her,her alone and with no one beside...

the golden sky of the rajasthan desert,
the colourful melange of colors,music,dust and longing..
she wants to lie down in the middle of the sea of sand and count the stars,
a cold sad wind blows making her pull her shawl closer on her,she comes more into herself and the rest of everything is now waiting,waiting for her to unfold.....

for the city of pune..for the city of angels ..

2007-08-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

From the past few days I have been missing pune,the city I had been living in for the past one and half years but which was not my city.It seems to be always in my thoughts though...colors,fragrances,faces,the green of the sus road mountains,the wet wind in the months of august and the rains continuing well into late oct...the slow and awkwardly moving tum-tums,the long line of continuos lights on the western express highway...seen from those benches on a high mound of sand and rocks ...the spirit of the city,the young enthusiastic faces moving with fast steps in the crowded fc and mg roads..the pleasure of having a cutting chai in a small tapri when its pouring outside,the freedom of being who you are and doing what you want .......Oh I badly miss the place...It was not mine,but yet it seems to have taken a special place in my heart..I miss the drunken nights,the GGs ;)...the harangue on abstract philosophy when high,the feeling of holding the stars and crying for things you have let go...those people..of sus road and beyond...the sad times,the bitter realisations,the resilience of my spirit and the discovery of new meanings of love with the help of people...who just happily held my hand and are still holding onto it....
.....amulya,me talking on life and love in our bedroom and watching that mountain outside our window,craving for gudang garam and weaving fragile lil ,hopelessly romantic dreams in our hearts....anupam just walking into our mischevous world brining along his effortless loving and simple charm,bhave,tushar,nandi,harish,bonas,rabya,angarish...fulva,arti,ronald,the aie of sus road who made me that varan and bhaat....all faces completing the picture...the under-construction roads,the dusty bike rides on the black pulsar,the weekend movie treats in e-square and inox and the careless spending of money and the disregard of the transcience of youth and the wishful thinking of it going on forever..I was always drunk there,drunk on life,drunk on the fact that I was in pune,on the sun setting behind the distant mountains ....dotting the horizon of the highway...on the power I suddenely found within me,in the meaning I discovered in the relationships I formed here,in the songs we sang as we stumbled together,as we mulled over the various ways that life makes us play this game...I am still amazed at the way I fell in and out of love with people in this place and yet never ran out of it.....the slipping away of boundaries,between me and the men I loved ,the bigger canvass always gaining prominence through little everyday learnings...the golden evening sky,the walking down alone on the roads with a sense of pride and blending in with the many walking by your side..............the place made me go into a voyage into the depths of my existence,into love and its complications and into the obvious glaring simplicities too!!........................I am coming back to live this life again...I am coming back not for the booze and the fags but for the highs and and the many revelations I had under the windy grey pune sky.And I silently raise a toast to the city which kept my faith...alive!!

excerpts from my mail to friends abt my experiences!!

2007-08-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

now this is actually the whole of the mail i had written to friends abt my experiences,thoughts and the whole big transition thing...i wanted to post something different in my blog,atleast differently worded but with the same spirit as that of my mail..but i am tired now...so here it goes..i am languor trapped alongside a hyper-active mind and restless soul in a body of average built..lol!!

hmmm...so frankly i am making a huge effort to write...cos dunno whats come over me...i have a lot of new things to write and talk and share but i am not getting that push and after some contemplation I feel ,that elusive push wont come on its own I have to do something to get myself started..So a week has comfortably passed by ppl and a lot..a LOTT has happened..all new ,wonderful and thrilling new things,with of course bouts of home-sickness and why-have-i-come-here sorta thoughts too!! But lemme start with my journey...it was a sad time cos the delhi airport didn't allow visitors beyond the outside railing and my parents and I were not prepared for so sudden a preparation to get separated...i mean we all must have thought of our lil words of wisdom and love to share at the time of the final byee..but the final bye came a lil too early..Was very very sad:-(.Then once I went inside I was on my own,lost in that chaos.Had my baggage checked in,finished my immigration and went inside and waited in the lounge for the flight.And then at 11:30 I boarded my flight,huge boeing carrier,and i had a window seat..yuhoo!! Well,I was aware of each and every moment as something new happening,like seeing even the american stewards and hostesses was like wow..I cudnt believe i was right there in that moment....And th plane took off and we were soaring high above,with the delhi lights becoming dimmer and dimmer..and the city faded into a black mass..and what was left was the sinking feeling of leaving behind a huge 23 years of your country and identity for soemthing so far unprecedented...!! I was always monitoring the flight path on the screen before my seat to see which all uheard of places were we flying above then...those places were magical..i mean cos I had never heard of them and also cos they had people who thought and felt and worked just like us..and yet we might never meet them in one lifetime..amazing isnt it?how big is the planet we live on.....and thoughts came gushing ,faces came coming to my mind...all the kind words and so far forgotten moments made me aware of how small 23 years can be..and we live in a day to day tiny hollow world of our's and we keep missing the big picture!!
..and i had good food,but since i dont know most of what I ate...am skipping that.And I fell into a sleep in sometime...and i distinctly rem waking up all of a sudden on many occasions just to see outside the window,to see what terrain we were over,was the sun up,to see the clouds..and after 14 hours of flying ,through the dark skies,through the bright ones,though anticipation,through hope and through the mental bond holding us to our families and our very own land....I entered the US of A.I know it sounds like I am glorifying the country..but hey make no mistake ,its just my silly habit of elevating the tiniest of things to the grandest of moments and living it as if the second after wud never come....at about 4 am in the morning Chicago time,the captain announced our descent into the city and i looked down....,as the plane glided lower and lower the shimmering lights suddenely came into existence and there it was...right there ,the moment I had been waiting for.....and man,that feeling was incredible....I was flying over so many high rises,millions of lights and over the kind of people I had only so far seen in the movies....;-)...we reached at 5 am in the morning sharp and then made way for customs,immigration and then baggage claim...and everything was so smooth sailing.And the O'Hare INT airport is so so huge...and dont worry,u wud never get lost,people would guide you through the end of the world for that matter.And there I saw people from all over the world,african americans,mexicans,chinese....korean..I mean the world suddenely expanded and contracted at the same time...u name them and u will find them here...and wud u believe we actually had to take a unmanned train to go from one terminal to the next...and it was slightly drizzling..the whole effect was so romantic...alone in the city with a bag and u dunno whats happening next!! just outta a james bond flick,lol!! anyway...then i had 5-1/2 hr wait at chicago to catch my next flight to raleigh,and that made me happy cos i wanted to have some time exploring the gargantuan airport...after checking in I saw a whole lotta places to eat ,shop,it and so I made my first purchase with the american money i was carrying..a cup of starbucks coffee and bagels..now i cudnt finish them so had to throw them away but have still preserved the bill!!:-)

Then i took my flight to raleigh,reached here at 2 pm ,raleigh time..now raleigh is an hour ahead of chicago and follows the eastern standard time(just FYI stuff)...and is it a hot place or what?? like pune...i cudn't believe it...But its very beautiful,lots of trees,lots of them to be precise and a quiet american city..almost everyone wud be like a 'have a good day!!' .Well after 2 days of some fun,I had to start the ground-wok for what I had actually come .My univ is good,i guess all the american univs look this way.Will write more abt this once i find out more.

I have been missing home,my parents but so far my mind hasn't registered the huge jump in terms of change of place,culture and identity...but I am sure I will encounter those feelings too soemtime for they would be inevitable,right?somewhere down the line....and I would still grapple with it and come out learning more about our existence on a whole..but for the moment I am basking under the carolina sun and wishing you guys lots of love and epiphanies!!

Hopi Prayer

2007-07-29T16:34:00.001-07:00

Read this Hopi Prayer in a book 'Life Messages'...the book tells stories of women from all walks of life who have weathered storms and tough times to grow into the strength they are now...I like the poem,it was on the preface.It goes:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there,I do not sleep

I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on the ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there,I did not die.

2007-07-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye has never come easy to me...and now I would be saying one of my hardest goodbyes ever.To my parents,my home,my country,the familiarity,the feelings of security and comfort and the necessity to ever think beyond one's lil world..now things will change.You may argue,that travelling abroad is no big deal these days and I will most certainly agree but the thing is I want to make it a grand event,so that the simple thrills,the pains,the transience and fragility of a human life gets magnified and I confront my thoughts over the whole matter exactly...Yes,I want to go through this process in its entiriety.I cant allow myself to be alienated from an event and the changes it brings about.I have been just blankly staring at the walls,the ceilings,the colour of the walls had never struck me before but now they are,the lil corners and the insects buzzing,the sound of the cicada in a quiet night,the horn of the train,the proximity of the tracks to my house,the floor,the pattern of shadows formed on the ground below,the clouds changing shapes every minute and throwing subtle hints...I wish I could capture all this unchanging beauty in my heart,yet this is so large that I cant take it all...I felt the cold wind on my skin now,the distant whistle of the watch-man from a far off neighbourhood....everything seems to have suddenely woken up...Oh,it feels miserable to just walk past all this,yet one must go.One cant keep hanging on to it,for then the beauty of these occasional ruminations vanishes...its beauty no more..it becomes a routine..soemthing which people wont strain anymore to observe..I have surprisingly managed to keep my spirits up and betah than they were 2 weeks back.Then I was in a sorry state but I am trying to inject good thoughts into my system,I want to be strong..I am struggling with this thing called strength.A new unknown land,an unknown future,love..everything beckons me..to come ..but holding on is also so good..why cant we go on holding on and never let go..?why isnt there a triumph in just holding on,lying down on your back and watching the golden sky with languor?..
Did some packing today,occasionaly was stumped by the fact that this wud be my last day at home....read a bit of 'The Little Prince'...spoke with friends,looked at daddy and ma..hugged them and felt them...thought a monstrous lot,saw blurry images of pune,of some people I met there,of some long forgotten hyd moments,of some good words spoken at some insignificant hour..and tried searching for meaning,as I alwasy do..in existence...Just an hour back ,read the Times Life supplement...Liked Benazir Bhutto's interview,the way she has braved a lot of things and candidly admits.."I have never found serenity.."...and then think ,have I? read an article called 'Making yourself Count',something about finding time for yourself amidst all this clutter and chaos and not feeling guilty about experiencing pure,selfish pleasure...good one too..made me want to jot down some things I would like to do..before I am taken back from this whole 'life thing'...Then also chanced upon an article on 'Constipation'..hehe!!..we could talk on that later though...read some good sentences,they made me feel happier and lighter about this whole existence affair...Anupam makes me feel so light and go easy on this whole loving thing..he really seems to know one very imp thing...how to love unabashedly from the heart and not complicate it too much with the whys,hows,ifs and buts..I wish I could love with so much of comfort and ease and feel happy just loving someone...life's short,perhaps one shudnt really think so much after all...if one did,there would be two ways...either a lot of philisophy or a whole lotta crap,dismissing which one can stay happy too...what one does with one's life is one's choice....and I frankly dont know how I came upon this thread of thought..
I just wish to say a heartfelt goodbye to the two people who matter to me the most,and be a happy soul..(quoting again)..Life shud always have the power of a thousand suns even when there is darkness and despair..!!!

2007-07-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

munching on a biscuit,grappling with sadness and excitement and with the numerous thoughts chasing each other in my mind,listening to 'waqt katte nahin ' from the early 90's movie 'Junoon'.does anyone rem that song?I had forgotten all about its existence till I stumbled upon it by chance one night on my worldspace.It suddenely made my mind feel so happy and I felt so alive with love and passion,a thrill of loving,being loved sprang inside my mind.Something which songs of these days rarely do.They are danceable and amazing too,but I find love more in the songs of the early 90s.Love Songs like 'mujhe neend na aaye','saanson ki zaroorat','mera dil bhi kitna paagal hai'...seductive ones like 'dekha teri mast','tip tip barsa'...songs from 'akele hum akele tum','dil','aashiqui','baazigar','qayamat se qayamat tak'..are magic.Their words make you think of you and your lover,under the rain,holding hands,smitten by each other,the trees all green and standing witness to the love between the two crazy besotted lovers..I feel so happy that I was born at a time when the songs still held meaning and a rhythm and an appeal to the soul...and yes,I also like the music of today,the beats and the foot tapping energy but where is the emotion it should be invoking,in a lover who's waiting for her beloved to come back to her,in a lover who's so happy being with the one she loves that she cant wait to sing and let the world know,in a girl who wants to seduce her young lover and captivate him by her subdued oomph.?where where?I think everyone must have a worldspace,tune into radio jhankaar in the late hours of the night if one wishes to revive some such crazy moments before the world takes over its all-encompassing grip on our minds again,day in and day out.If you love music then how come you dont have worldspace!! hehe,just quoting A.R.Rehman but hey what an apt punchline for an amazing thing like the worldspace satellite radio set.Man ,was I in love with it or what.Sad that I had to part with it,but it would always be my best buy so far,with my very own money.See I am lost already,and before I grope with ways to end this write up,my mind has scampered away to something more distant already.

my celebrity Look-alikes,;-) man surfing can lead you to whatt all things!!

2007-07-17T02:34:00.000-07:00

2007-07-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

I happened to search this song on youtube "Get into the groove' by Madonna(anyone who wants to see can see it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy9yaC62yn8 ) and with the song came gushing innumerable memories.I still do not know why I like this movie,I do not appreciate it much critically or I do not know its plot and most of the actors and actresses.Oh btw ,I am talking of the movie "Desperately Seeking Susan" starring Rosanna Arquette and Madonna.I must have seen this movie when I was about 7-8 yrs old,I do not remember having watched the entire movie as such but some vague memories do exist.I at once took a keen fancy to Madonna,then just a woman who was different from the women I had seen all around me and also from the women I had seen on tv.She was flashy,she exuded an arrogance and confidence,she wore revealing tops with her bras visible and she was nonchalant about most of the things in life.The fashion sense of the America of the 80's too was defined by leather pants,skirts and tights reaching lil below the knees,with hair bands and hair tied high up,the guys wearing their hair in tall ugly spikes and colours,cigarettes and booze and red lipsticks and it was all so punk.I was awestruck.The scenes of the movie opened up up a whole new world,where one could give a damn to anything in one's life,be high on life,and not be too preachy.I still do not know what had appealed to my senses so much,because I most definitely must not have had a heightened sense of thinking and appreciation back then.They created a pattern of colours on my mind like a kaleidescope and left a colourful,perky imprint on me.It was also the movie which showed me glimpses of nudity for the first time.I did not know what 'lay beneath' before that and it whetted my curious appetite.The naked human body seemed grotesque to me at first,it was unacceptable for me to see other people,perfect strangers at that stripped bare of all clothing and indulging in acts then unheard of.Now of course,its a whole new thing.People are growing aware and comfortable with their sexualities and getting stripped down is so much needed in a world where everyone wears a mask to protect one's mental deformities.If I happen to see the movie again I do not know if it would appeal to me that much as it had to a 8 yr old child whose way of perceiving was so different and simple.The spirit of the movie stood out in my mind as a character who cud have been utterly drunk on life,wanting to break free from some mould and one whose very existence reeked of the fierce maverick.I now wish I would have been in those times,when things were changing,old mindsets were being rocked and rebellious new ones being formed,and being yourself didn't need that much of an effort. But frankly,with due respect to the fine actors who starred in it,the only thing which comes to my mind when I think of the movie always is Madonna,her attractive street smartness and vulgarity and perhaps a little bit of sex ;-)

a song for a cynical me

2007-06-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

Have been listening to this song for quite some days now.It's one of the brilliant soundtracks of a personal favorite movie 'American Beauty'.The song is 'Dont let it bring you down' by Annie Lennox.What lyrics and what music.Wish I could write something this profound and powerful some day.I seem to have lost connection with my inner self,have been feeling quite cut off and rather disconnected.Just the perfect song for a person who's growing cynical day by day of the very purpose of life.Am bored.Bored with my existence,bored of thinking things over in my mind and bored of even having to go through the daily ritual of living.Yeah Yeah,life is great,worth living for,but what should I do of this skepticism and cynicism building up inside me.Mebbe I need help!! Anyone listening??

Dont let it bring you down(Annie Lennox)

Old man lyin' by the side of the road
Where the lorries rollin' by
Blue moon sinkin' from the weight of the load
And the buildings scrape the sky
Cold wind rippin' on the valley at dawn
And the morning paper flies
Dead man lyin' by the side of the road
With the daylight in his eyes

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castle's burning
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around

Blind man runnin' through the light of the night
With an answer in his hand
Come on down to the river of sight
And you can really understand
Red lights flashin' through the window in the rain
Can you hear the sirence moan
White cane lyin' in a gutter in the lane
And you're walkin' home alone

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castle's burning
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around
You will come around

2007-06-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Aryil,the little kid who stays next door.All of 2 years,mebbe a lil more than that.Every

morning and evening (and sometimes a surprsie visit too!!) he makes it a point to come

visit my parents,my mother being his favourite.Well,I was not staying at home during the

time he was growing up and registering things about his immediate enviroment.So,he has

not surprisingly actually,taken my sudden appearance well.The undivided attention that he

was enjoying till yest has suddenely been divided now.And let me tell you,he's not happy

about it.
He always wears a little vest and shorts,his hair is all curly and brown.He looks

absolutely adorable.I just cant resist pinching him,but he detests me.Maybe because I

squeeze him way too much and also because of 'some' attention I get for being the

daughter of his fav aunty.He loves wearing ma's bangles,bindi and likes playing with

things like cookers,pans,empty boxes,switching lights and fans off and on.It's a delight

to hear him speak words that he listens to.The words sound broken an innocent attempt to

grab attention.
I also make him angry on purpose.For I like the angry look on his face.He tries pinching

me hard with his lil fingers and nails.I being a lil stringer:) ,love to fight him off

and come onto me even more.And when he knows he cant do much with his tiny frame he

simply screams and vents out the sudden enemy presence.Haha!! My mom and he are great

pals.Sometimes my mother wonders if this lil guy will even remember her when he grows

older.Will she be just a blurred memory covered under sheets of newer ones?? I feels ad

too.For my mother has become a new mommy again,nursing him,feeding him,carrying him.I wish

he doesnt forget her ever.And ma I love you too!!
Aryil thank you!! For being around.

a reality that was once!!

2007-06-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

Have not been able to comprehend fully the things that have been happening over the past few months.Like my leaving home almost 2 years back and going to hyd,then attending the training sessions there with an entirely new bunch of people,sharing room with two girls ,earning for the firt time in my life,living off that meagre income,having a first taste of that financial and emotional independence,then all of a sudden taking a decision to change place and go to pune.Well of course the reason being an entirely different one,but in retrospect all seems to fall in place,then living in pune.It was always my dream,my wish to work in bombay or atleast in a place where the feeling of being closer to my dear city would be realised and there I was.It all happened soon,till the day I left pune I was not able to understand the reality that I was in the city,living,walking,singing dancing,humming and then the last 4-5 months..Ohh ,they were hectic and amazing.My office life was good,was getting to learn a lot.But most importantly I was observing the ways of the world,trying to understand life.Now when I am in my own home,far far away from pune,from the feeling of possessing bombay and the fast moving crowd,I still cant seem to fathom the past one and a half years that sped by.Images flit in my mind,of pune,of people I lived with and grew happier with,of places that sheltered me,of the spirit of the city that had a human form for me and everything seems like a different reality altogether.Something far beyond my comprehension.I dont know if I will be able to come back and live this life again.And mebbe the charm lay only in living it once but is life really just a series of happenings that occur,leave an imprint and then become a blurred image in one's mind?

My Very First Post

2007-06-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

wow...I feel a kick writing this.I have finally joined the elite bandwagon of bloggers.I have always so wanted to do this,write and let my thoughts out.But God,I dunno why I was not.I mean,words were right there,I just cudnt frame them into sentences and man it does take patience to really face your thoughts,those lil elves running around,those secrets hidden somewhere and the real YOU.I am happy however I did make a start.I thought a lot about what to name my blog,and for me this seemingly 'lil' process took a long time cos I wanted to make it special too..Oh me and my ways of elevating every silly thing I do for the first time to the highest levels of preparedness and importance.But hey I am fine with me,hope someone reading my ramblings would not complain either.I will post more later,am hungry and am hungry to write a lot.Yuhoo,a blog,a writing space all to myself.And on I go,but my foray into this has just begun....and i will come back!!!