Live and Let Die

its like constantly being on acid...

2008-11-02T00:38:00.003+05:30

I have never taken acid in my life...but I think this is how it would be...
My life is constantly out of control...is that a phase? Or is it particularly is my case?
I break friendships like as if there r all porcelain.....it’s like I don’t have the time or patience for nonsense and I do feel people have been giving me a hell lot of nonsense. So one day I am not talking to a friend...and again I am.....and then again I am not. and if I ever get too tired of it, there is always 'flooded floors', 'bankruptcy', 'maid didn’t come', 'water didn’t come', 'no food in the house'...
I think god should decide: either domestic problems or personal life problems or professional problems. All together is always bad for health.
All my life I thought I don’t want a routine life; it makes us lazy and mundane. Now suddenly I crave for it. I crave for routine, where every day I don’t have to wake up and dread what the whole day has planned for me... from nowhere will pop a forgotten job offer from people who never bothered when I was desperate, and just like that i dont need certain untimely confessions in the personal front will lead to earth shattering melodrama which will leave me completely bewildered. I don’t want friends who are insecure and eat away at me all the time. I don’t want to save anyone from themselves or from the world. I don’t want a quirky building which has too little water or too much, and I could definitely do with a little more money. And every time I puff away at a killer stick, Nandini reminds me that it is not stress it is just our insecurities which make pimples seem like stress. That is true, I have major blackheads problems and that gives me stress every time I look into the mirror too closely.
As I grow older I feel my closest friends not respecting me for what I do, and in retrospect for who I am. Because I have chosen lifestyle journalism as my forte apparently í am not taking my career anywhere. or my lifestyle is just well...to be smirked at... Yes, I am sure. Some people are jealous that they are not sorted out in their own heads enough...sometimes...for whatever reason I am too much for them... hell! Sometimes I am too much for myself!! i am who i am so to hell with you doesnt work all the time...
I thought I could never be professional but now I am, I thought I would never sort out things in my own head but now I do, it all works out you see...stress levels, boyfriends and lovers and even pimples. I am not sure about the blackheads but I haven’t given up hope yet. Maybe we are all insecure in our own ways, especially now more than ever before...because choices are more. You don’t necessarily eat healthy food...mc Donald’s is a choice that wasn’t there three decades ago. Now you don’t necessarily have your life sorted out before you are at an age where you can think straight...now you have choices of which, as always some are bad and some are good. Sometimes you feel like telling the whole lot to f off. And sometimes (esp. if u r me) you tell them too. And yet it all gets sorted out....because there is a greater good and bigger goal to achieve. And knowing that every little choice we make changes the course of our life history, we can’t grey our hairs over each one of them. Though I think the greatest choice that ever was and will be is between what our heart tells us to do, and what are mind tells us to do. Neither is wrong and yet they are always conflicting.

hating men...

2008-10-27T04:38:00.002+05:30

a dear friend of mine reminded me of how i have not written for a long time. its true . i havent.
There is not much to write about my life. I am a 24 yr old, nicotine addicted, mildly insomniac woman. I used to read and then I stopped. I used to travel and then I stopped that too. Now my life is about my work which is great though lowly paid. I am unbearably upset about certain issues that are too personal to be shared on a public blog.
I am flatfooted so I shall go through life without being able to wear heels for more than four hours straight. I remember standing out side a club in heels whiel my model friend was standing next to me in a four inch high pair of heels. Gorgeous but painful. I couldn’t care any lessand so I just had to ak “my heels are really painful...dont you ever feel uncomfortable?”she replied ‘its killing me”. There. It was that simple. For beauty we had to sacrifice everything. From hair to body balance, everything goes.
Anyways thats that. So in this pathetic state of affairs, I decided to go out and drink a pitcher of strawberry daiquiri with my girlfriend and flatmate...a. the martini glasses weren’t frosted, and the waiter didn’t even put the sugar around the rim till I asked him to. B. It was followed by a 3 hour chick flick : sex and the city that left us drunk on the Louis vuitton and the pradas...
c. it made me ponder. Why is it that any woman who has done more than one man in her lifetime is branded a slut. How is virginity proportionate to goodness and sex proportionate to frustration? If the right set of hormones are not taken care of at the right time aren’t we likely to be more frustrated? Why is it so easy to brand women? Into sluts and whores and prostitutes and I don’t know what else...while for men it just stops at assholes and bastards and sobs and motherfuckers and dickwads. And trust me its not enough!!!!!!!!!!!! Sobs and motherfuckers yet again is just an abuse for the women.
Arrgh. I hate men.
All of them should be castrated.
By the way for all you imbeciles out there by girlfriend I do not mean a lesbian partner...its my friend so spare me the oohs and aaahs.

jlt

2008-06-18T14:52:00.002+05:30

the rains are playing truant...obviously after i bought my pretty umbrella. i even got smirked at for not carrying my umbrella around enough. its not my fault, the monsoons decided to suddenly pack up and leave in a hurry.

i havent blogged for long and have been thinking wat to blog about. blog about wat? blog about wat? blog about wat? i refuse to blog about trains, they are just a part of my working life now, when i dont work i dont take the train. simple. trains r still full of rude ugly sweaty with an occasional exception or two. am the exception obviously.

so now everyone who has seen a swimsuit vending machine say aye!

and if u havent..its because your life is incomplete. in Atria mall, Worli, Mumbai there is something which looks like a soda vending machine but lo and behold, it is not stuffed with soda cans but swimsuits....

2008-06-12T12:26:00.002+05:30

it rained so much last night that i was sure that the ceiling will start dripping during the night. the lights went out but it was cold and comfy so i didnt mind.
my friend kept telling me to wish that the train lines would flood during the night but i didnt wish so because i knew the morning would be clearer and it was.
i felt very pretty in the morning. fresh, pretty, i liked what i was wearing, and i enjoyed the admiration i got from some other cute members of the opposite sex.
but then nothing lasts forever, and by the time i reached church, i was sweting like a pig in the train, my scalp was all wet with sweat and my hair sticky but the worst was yet to come.

the worst came by when i realized that i am smelling like foliage.
am not kidding, its the damp smell you get from shrubs and well other huddled up members of the plant kingdom. i still cannot believe am smelling of foliage..
i have stopped observing people in trains. am too busy looking proper and not letting the train journeys drastically change me into a vagabond.

everyday musings

2008-06-10T16:21:00.001+05:30

i cant help it but i have to mention this. i spoke to menaka Gandhi today. yes, just like tht. randomly, cloudnt eevn believe i was speaking to her. on the phone. not tht uphold her, she would hate me: i eat everything tht walks.

rainy days

2008-06-10T13:54:00.005+05:30

its been raining in bombay. continously. like a bad leak. not the nice monsoon showers that you can write poems on. the rains here turn the roads mucky and the stations muckier.
the drains overflow and the roads flood subsequentially with sewage water and that drives you nuts!!!! now everyday we stare at our ceiling. first it was a small patch and now its only growing. it has come alive and the day the ceiling drips and the fan stops working we have to move.
i dread that day. one measy dripping ceiling can change my own life around. we will have to move out of bandra because bandra cannot be afforded by anyone who's income is below 1 lakh/month. moving is an overwhelming experience. a different house and again the process of making it our home. streching our limbs, laying down our bed sheets, scattering our belongings...i hope the ceiling doesnt drip.

rain in Colaba is still beautiful. the roads are wide and ancient like the trees that line the roads. you can smell the green in the leaves and walk on squishy flowers.
i had an umbrella but jus-like-tht i decided i needed a new one. a big Mary Poppins one, complete with the handle.
my friend needed the umbrella, i was just feeling frivolous. we went to Ebrahim Currim & Sons , the chatawalla at Crawford Market. a tall, old shop smelling of umbrellas, all that you could see around were umbrellas and humas scuffling over them. one corner were the children umbrellas on the other side were the black ones for those above 45 and then there were the mary poppins ones. i was dazed. i have never been to a chata wallah. the realization of coming to the source of all umbrellas in mumbai was overwhelming. it was raining outside, and i was sweating inside trying to buy an umbrella. there was some funny irony somewhere but i just couldnt put my finger on it.
anyway we both bought the same umbrella because we both liked it...dull pink n blue checks, very subdued, very chic.
so with our chic umbrellas we stomped off. we got onto our taxi when a policeman came running. "ladki ne haath dikhaya, rukh gaya?" he was angry that the taxi stopped where he shouldnt have. thats a great thing about being a woman. taxis whirr past men and stop right infront of you, and they generally never refuse. which is why am never in a bad mood in the morning, i always get the taxi and the guy next to me doesnt. :)

the kind of books i like to read...

2008-06-03T13:48:00.007+05:30

social networking sites or random friends or job interviews, sooner or later the question pops: "what kind of books do you like to read?" then for a few seconds i stare at the screen or the person and this definitely has the worst effect in a job interview.
what kind of books do i like to read? not bestsellers. maybe when the same books age a year or two its worth reading but surely not right ofter its been named ' book of the year'. new books are not charming, they need to age with time; mature into books that have been named 'book of the year 1978, Pulitzer prize winner half a decade ago and all that...'
next, i cannot read fiction online. i do not understand the concept of e-books. i admit it, i do read the New Yorker and i loved the new piece by Vladimir Nabokov that got published but otherwise e books and the whole concept of digitizing everything around us drives me nuts.
certain inalienable truths need to remain tangible. like sea breeze, like literature and like tropical summers. literature needs to be pulled out of bookshelves, dusted and read sitting in the attic, away from everyone.
the reason i havent read as much or as many as my other J school contemporaries is because i re-read a book if i like it, till its engraved in my mind for a little more time.
i remember in my early teens every summer i would re-read LITTLE WOMEN, till i stopped relating to it. and then suddenly MADAME BOVARY made a lot of sense. and then i used to read a host of short stories and translations. one of the best i have ever read would be the HAPPY PRINCE, it was anything but a fairytale. i felt MILLS AND BOONS wronged us immensely, i read one of them and couldn't imagine that we as a species are capable of so much of stupidity. also it morphed my ideas about love and eternal romance. no wonder i am still single.
and then i discovered Camus, Sartre and Remarque and various other short stories till i started reading Steinbeck and Hemingway and the rest...
ours is a Bengali family where literature is served alongside macher jhol everyday. my grandfather was a mathematics professor and a poet. i still have all the birthday cards where he would write us poems. books were to be gifted, to be quoted in love letters, to be discussed over evening tea and sugar-coated biscuits but to be read in company of no one but the self. i loved the attic of my grandparents' house, it had a broken down cupboard full of books and diaries. that's where i discovered the 23 yr old writer that was my uncle and his personal diaries with entries about table tennis and occasional stray comments about girls. did he know two decades later on a lazy Sunday afternoon his niece would dig up his diary? did he consciously never indulge too much? i gave the diary back to him, i was never interested in table tennis. i don't remember if i kept his fiction pieces, i remembered them by heart for quite some time.
after the whole rush of alcohol in the past few years, my memory has got washed away in bits and pieces.
and then there was the wall aligned bookcase. that is where i met Hemingway and Flaubert and even Harrold Robbins. yellowed front pages with the owners name scribbled on, with the year next to it. it was womb like; the experience. the room was dark and damp and i remember climbing on the sofa to reach out to the books on the topmost shelves. somewhere some treasure was always hidden for me to find it.
when my grandparents passed away, the selfish me didn't want anything from there but some of the books. i never got them, somebody else rightfully owned them and took them away.
and then there the ones that i stole from there.
it was like stealing from a library.
ordinary books that i could avail now if i wanted, but i remember wanting only that copy with that font and that feel. i remember especially the copy of HAPPY PRINCE and other stories that i stole. my uncle's name scribbled on top reminded me of my crime like an apparition. but i read and re-read and today even if i had to give the book away, i would never forget it. the feel and the stories......
from what i remember that was the only book i stole. i couldn't bear to own a book with somebody else's name written on it. HAPPY PRINCE AND OTHER STORIES was the only exception.
even today when i buy a book, its like a love affair. a sense of possessiveness bordering on gentle obsessiveness. i write my name and the year, hoping someday, another sunny summer afternoon somebody would discover me in some broken down cupboard.

Amusing

2008-05-29T13:23:00.009+05:30

It is always an epic moment, every time i stand on the platform in my teak-tinted purple glares watching the train stride into the platform. there is a blue circular steel board stuck on the engine which indicates the number of coaches. today it said LADIES SPECIAL...the bright blue paint looking even brighter in scorching sun. coach after coach came in the ladies and i could see the men on the platform expressing their disappointment. they would have to waste another precious minute of their morning waiting for the next train.
The usual scurrying wasn't there. yet the train was completely full. it was crowded but a little less crowded. i got space to breathe. i watched the men and their upset faces as the train blurred them to oblivion.

When you travel by trains everyday for 80 minutes (40 minutes one way), you learn to enjoy certain things. you realize how funny life actually is or how sad. everything is fitted into like cogs of a wheel.
i prefer listening to music but while coming back home, its usually more fun without the usual background music. like yesterday i just couldn't put on the headphones. the ladies were chatting away about travels and shopping and picnics. there was one self proclaimed leader tad darker than her companions (am not being racist!!!! she was very dark) in bright cobalt blue salwar kameez and a gold watch on her hairy scaly wrists that matched her golden hairstyle. did i mention the shockingly-red lipstick? i remember one time i found a lady wearing a earring on her nail...yes, nail piercing...whatever you would want to call it, hanging from the tip of her horridly pink nails. i stared at her piercing shamelessly. it was just downright ugly and i couldn't help it.
anyway now coming back to our self-proclaimed-leader, who claimed to have all the answers to everything while there were the other more innocent ones which asked her questions like,
"so is passport for one country? or as many countries as i would like to visit?"
" all countries. tu banale phir december se tu bhi travel kar sakegi."
i was sitting next to them and almost burst out laughing at the prospect of one passport for every country we visit. but i respected her innocence. and so to divert my attention i looked out of the window, still refusing to put on my headphones. i simply had to eavesdrop!

but that's that about trains for now. i am addicted already as you know. am too new to be bored with it.
and then there are the taxis. taxis in Bombay only traverse in the downtown areas, they do go to the suburbs but suburbs have auto rickshaws which take away all their customers.
i always take a taxi from the station to the office. i refuse to take a share-cab because its my two minutes of luxurious privacy that i get after the frenzied train journey. its needed unless i want to quirk my nerves.
most of the taxi drivers are older, wiser and definitely a lot more polite. today i saw a big red sticker in my taxi saying NO SMOKING: RTO, MUMBAI.
i asked him about it but he phoo phooed it. "sab chalta hain..."
so the taxis haven't turned into non smoking zones yet. with my feminism fed adequately by the 'ladies special' , i was in a happy mood. and my happy moods are a little weird. before i could stop myself, i had already offered gum to the taxi driver who laughed and politely refused. i felt like a bum.

look what the cat dragged in!

2008-05-28T15:56:00.004+05:30

today was not supposed to be a good day.
i was terribly sick for the past two days, so much so that i suspected today will also get ruined in the aftermath.
i still dragged myself through the burnt wednesday morning and reached office in one piece.
and i was musing on the electronic highway, when a sudden rush of narcissism made me google myself.

sohini datta

i typed on the google search bar.
and lo n behold there were some odd 5 to 6 pages linked to me!!! browsing through them i came across one unusual link which bore something surprisingly familiar.

for a minute i couldnt believe it but yes, it was a link to DNA ME a magazine under DNA. which had published my story named MOCKTALES in their APRIL 22, 2007 issue.
i jus discovered it one year late.
i read it, and realized its a stupid story. for a second yr BA student, maybe worthwhile. but now, i think its just a poorly written stupid piece. yet its still one of the most precious pieces of writing that i would probably treasure for a long time to come, because of the way i discovered it.... or rather, it discovered me

http://digital.dnaindia.com/epaperpdf/2242007/21me-pg19-0.pdf
http://digital.dnaindia.com/epaperpdf/2242007/21me-pg18-0.pdf

variables and constants of human relationships..

2008-05-26T11:41:00.008+05:30

i have a frnd named A. he's a constant. and there is girl X which is a variable
=> X + A = eventually nothing substantial.
it all fizzles out sooner or later.
and then the variables get categorized:
x was hot. y was my first love, z was the love of my life, and u know it continues...
lad and ladies that is the true nature of relationships....of whatever kind whether its your petor your girlfriend.
there is always a variable or rather an entire set of variables and only one constant which is you.
and the combinations can be fascinating. while one is the love of the constant's life, the toher can be "jus a fling" and the some other can be " i dont know, i had temporarily lost my mind"...
anyway so almost everyday i hear about a new variable and the consequential relationship was/is.
i am one of the boring ones. i used to have juss too many variables and only one category : "flings".... now i have jus the constant left.

and then something else. he said "well you know, i like to appreciate beauty, so when i meet a pretty girl i go up to her and tell her she is pretty"...
much as he would deny it , somewhere its also taking a chance. after all i know for a fact he found the ex-love of his life tht way. so if it works, well good for ihim, and if she doesnt well, he couldnt care less. you see, 'he's jus admiring beauty'...
gone are the days when beauty was what you were born with and not what was chiselled in a gym or thru the numerous diets listed on google.
so gone are the days when admirers of beauty would write poems and grt literature would be born...

now pretty girls, dolce and gabbana girls, pin-up girls, not-so-pretty girls and outright ugly things...
why is it that the simple fact tht 'pretty is not beautiful and hot is not glamorous...' is something people just done get. is it jus another reflection of your poor levels of education that we suffer from terrible vocab syndrome?
have all the love poems been written ?
nw in the world of accosting strangers to express admiration.......has literature finally died?

a commuter's narrative

2008-05-23T11:22:00.006+05:30

as the morning matures, trains get more crowded. people hustling and bustling, pushing poking and doing all sorts of ungodly things just to get off or to board the train. everytime i have to do the same, i feel like quitting my job. the other day i was wondering how utterly dependent we all are on the train. my office is light years away. taking the road in not even an option. even if i had all the time in the world for it, i know i still wouldnt reach.
and mind you my dear lads n ladies, my office is in the mainstream commercial area. i dont even have to change trains! how lucky!!
what i cannot avoid is wondering whether i am going to die of a blast this particluar evening, whether that woman who just pushed her armpits into my face has ever had a bath, or whether my liver will pop out of my mouth due to all the pushing and squeezing in the compartment. i still prefer travelling by first class even tho the pushing and pulling is all the same everywhere. at least i know if i am abused i would understand and if i abuse the receiver will also understand. yes, i admit it i can only abuse in english.
another fact about trains : the fast trains always run slower than the slow trains.
if you are planning to buy a phone you must travel in the first class ladies compartment. in a compartment where there is no place to breathe, you will find all sorts of women; pretty ugly, fat, thin...with fancy phones talking to god-knows-who at that time in the morning. i never rem chatting on the phone at 9 in the morning. its just not usual. and there is always the pathetic radio that everysome loves to listen to. i tried once and realized that for ten mins some man went on ranting to the rj for the whole 10 mins about how he loves the channel, and how he loves his lfie and how he loves blah shah and the rj kept replying "hmm...hmm...hmm" and then he played the most outrageous bollywood song ever. so i waited all 10 mins for that song. i felt terribly wronged but there is no tribunal for such crimes.
and then there are what i call my train musings. today i observed the inconspicuous Hercules (if there was only a plural word for it) of our city and like ours in all other cities everywhere.
i see men gymming away a good part of their lives to lift nothing more than a glass of carrot juice or their size-zero women on steamy nights. and then i see vegetable vendors with their wares travelling in these crowded trains where people literally stand on top of each other. for some peculiar reason people do not let you get off the trains and they dont let you board. and in that process today i saw this fruit vendor with his basket of chikoos getting off. His basket fell with a thud on the platform, his chikoos rolling away in various directions. people stamped over and the chikoos bled their sweet juice. in his situation, i would have wailed and curse all our 108 gods, but he simple looked away. he stood there for a minute to let the train pass and then he collected the ones that were still alive. a man in his crisp white shirt and ironed trousers picked up some the chikoos and handed it over. he even bought some. whether he bought coz he just wanted to have chikoos this morning or because it was his good deed of the day i dont know. i believe it was the latter. he was a good man. i could see the vendor fighting the disgust inside. his was a distraught; arresting face. he didnt want this life and he didnt want to do this. some other lady came up, but i knew she really wanted to eat the chikoos. she picked and squeezed each chikoo till she found the ripe ones. maybe she even bargained. i wouldnt know coz i was standing at a distance watching him and feeling sad. his hands were rugged and his viens bulged dangerously all along his arm. his tension was carried from the darkest corners of his brain to every single cell all over his body.
but that is how life is, in one and a half seconds my train came by and i was lost trying to poke and pinch my way into the train. i left Hercules standing at the platform and carried with me only admiration that i am now finally pouring out.

2008-04-09T17:59:00.000+05:30

fussing over mint flavored cigarettes and occassional unfiltered ones, its time i look back.
there i stand three years ago, as jaded as any 18 year old college kid can be, all that mattered was make up, clothes and rich men.
i was on all social party lists, in a city like bombay i had no worries and i thot i am going to be in college forever.
i was studying in one of the best collgs the city could offer, i was going on foreign exchange programs, i was living the high life.
i lost myself so bad, that now when all that has faded away, i cant find the person i wanted to be.
everybody wants to be someone, i was the fat lil black sheep of the family. and then suddenly i was the pretty thing partying nights away with men swooning at my feet, studying in a collg my mother was proud of.
thats all i wanted and i had already lived it.
i look around and i have a cupboard full of cosmetics, rich perfumes, and expensive clothes: skeletons of that life i left.
maybe life would have been different if i had studied in xvrs. but i wanted to see india....i wanted to see bangalore.
maybe somewhere i might have even been inspired to be in journalism.
where did my days of pink floyd and empty dreams go? i dont rem last time i dreamt of something.
when i tell people i dont know what i want to do in life, they tell me to make a list.
but the point is....where is the inspiration? who do i want to become?
am i responsible for this death?

What happened on Mysore Road

2008-03-06T16:03:00.001+05:30

What happened on Mysore Road

They say before dying your life flashes by you. My life keeps flashing by me every time I am on Mysore road. It doesn’t scare me anymore, it only amuses. I have come to one conclusion I hate BMTC buses. I shouldn’t use the word ‘hate’. It’s perhaps the most abused word after love. I loathe; I detest BMTC buses. Firstly they rattle like tin cans. Secondly the conductors are the worst examples of manhood. And now that I have graduated to the status of a fellow traveler on a scooter; I can bet my life none of these drivers have passed a driver license test. That makes me happy. When my time comes, I shall NOT remain unemployed. I shall apply to BMTC, chew pan and sing BORN TO BE WILD and take on the great task of destroying every scooter on the road. As you must have guessed, I ride a scooter. It’s named Damian. It’s not even mine, it belong to my friend lea. I am just the pillion who needs to remain still for the duration of the ride. Any sudden movement can be too high a price to pay!!!! The feeling is almost like being stoned. Nothing else moves except the brain. Life flashes by over and over again. Curses fly every time there is an encounter with a BMTC bus and finally it all boils down to sexual politics: “men!!” bah humbug!!! I must say we are a fast moving nation; everyone at all odd hours is in a great rush. No excuse for being late shall ever be considered. I have witnessed the rush: our traffic leaves no opportunity to be late. Whether you like it or not, they will all honk and poke the noses of their vehicles and basically not sit still till you pick up pace. Lea has learnt now (you see we are rookies) she pokes Damian’s nose anytime anywhere. Our traffic policemen are there only to help handle this frenzy, so more than once; they tend to let go of all traffic all at once. I don’t understand men, thats the only conclusion I can gather.

footsteps beneath my window

2007-11-19T08:58:00.000+05:30

something's wrong. i want to put my finger on it but i cannot. i cannot do this any longer. i dont want to remember any of this. i can feel people looking at me differently. their pettiness saddens me. i want to forget all of this. every single memory.
i want to go home. i shall count the days like the prisoner does. i shall keep the voices in my head at bay. i will then go home and hug my mom. and i will cry.
i will watch lazy morning unfolding silently among morning walkers beneath my balcony. and on warm winter afternoons, we shall sit with our back to the sun and my grandma will re tell stories that she has told me a thousands times over. i dont remember a single story.
and then the stormy days. my mom will call from office and tell me to shut all the windows tight. i will. but i will keep one door open for me to peep out.
i dont want this. i dont need this. why didnt i die when i was 10? i never chose to grow up.
they made me.

hyderabad blues

2007-11-14T11:00:00.000+05:30

on a four day diwali trip to hyd, i clicked 300 photos. well, yes it was one amazing trip. we walked on foot and took buses from the second day after we realized that the autos want to buy our souls if nothing else.
but what i discovered is my secret love for my chosen career: journalism. i have dedicated half my blog trying to figure if it is worth it and meant for me. on my four day diwali vacation i realized it is.
i dont travel with blinkers on any longer. i travel with eyes and ears open. i ask questions and seek answers. earlier if i were to visit say the golconda fort, i wuld probably simply complain about the garbage strewn about. but this time, i asked questions. about the pathetic way ASI is renovating it, about the lack of security. i had the power to walk into the ASI office and ask them why are they not doing their job properly.
i went to mecca masjid and realized how vulnerable it still remains. knowing about the history of the bomb blast, what is funny is the metal detectors have been hastily placed and forgotten about. because they havent even been switched on. and people still keep visiting in hundreds leaving the place as naked to death as ever.
lumbini park gave me the creeps. hudrends of people and the smell of death looming in the air. you could see the laser show arena: closed, dark, out of reach yet the footpath goes past it.
yes, they had hiked up the security. all kinds of checking.
funny, my frnd has metal plates in his hand which never beeped. anybody hrd of self detonation?
funny.
how unsafe anything and everything is.
how vulnerable we are to our circumstances.
and then, suddenly. no more sunshine, no more rain, wet earth and pink flowers.

dangerous liasions

2007-10-29T13:27:00.000+05:30

i dont like this life. what is the point. its jus bloody hypocrisy. am a bloody hypocrite. thats all i am. let me tell you how it goes. well did u know about iodine deficiency diseases? am sure you do. but did u know that excessive iodine intake is hazardous to health? so only the right amount eh. well eating too much seafood can cause excessive iodine diseases. so next time u r about to dig into that lobster, THINK. same goes with vitamins, calcium, blah. too much meat is not good either.
r u environmentally conscious? am sure u r. however do u have an AC in your room/office? uh...remember that piece of writing that you crumpled and aimed for the dustbin but fell a feet away. i could go on.
we r all being hypocritical. we sit in AC rooms, and write pages long articles on global warming. and you know what here's a confession.
on a hot day, i want my AC. i want loud music (noise pollution) sometimes i think am so loud myself taht i cause noise pollution.
i like CONSUMING. i like computers and stereos and cell phones and when am rich (if ever) i wuld like to own palm tops and lap tops and well u got the point.
and the amount of clothes i own is not even funny. and am only 21.
i like all that is bad. and then i say i am environmentally conscious.
apparently everythin i eat is hazardous to health....too much of too less of any blah.
everythin i do is hazardous to the environment....
my life has lost its meaning.
unfortunately, there is a bigger problem on hand. i do not...and i mean it...I DO NOT want to die.
dying means i will have to stop thinking, stop consuming...there wont be any waking up to a warm sun or waking up to the sound of rain. there wont be any urban consumption spree. there will be nothing. jus a meaningless void.

DIVINE COMEDY

2007-09-25T22:25:00.000+05:30

for the average journalist, its (journalism i mean!) synonymous to selling your soul to the devil. we r well prepared, planned beings (did ja notice the careful exclusion of the word 'human') (sub human would suit better). so there is a PLAN A and a PLAN B. PLAN A is gettin story ideas. PLAN B is roaming around aimlessly, going to a nice place to eat, overeat and well walk around some more and come back home. somehow the PLAN B always works and the PLAN A always fails. it doesnt seem to affect me. its just the way life is. dont blame me. blame it on the devil, fate, reality, blah blah.

SO WHAT MAKES IT A NICE DAY?

eating pizza off the floor: if u have never done it, your life is not worth living. what is the point of wasting precious cheese, chicken, pineapple, sauce, pizza bread? wipe it with a tissue paper and hog.

fighting for your feminist rights: the first thing i do when i board a bus is, look around to catch any 'MALE' resting his bottom on the 'ladies' seat. and then i take great pleasure fighting for my feminist rights. not because i want to sit. but because am a woman of priniciples. it aches when i see little boys sitting. you cant do anything because unfortunately they do not ejaculate and therefore despite having similar organs they fall under the category of 'children'.

appreciating those who can multitask: i once met a busdriver who was also the acting conductor and when i asked for directions, he actually gave them to me. so busdriver-conductor-touristguide. i cant coordinate peeing and shitting together. i have tremendous respect for people who can multitask.

eating sandwiches and ice tea : aaah.

having hookah ; going to purple haze, eating sheekh kabab from a roadside stall : sheekh kabab from a roadside stall and eating pizza off the pizza hut floor is almost the same thing.

blogging : even here i cant multi task. if i switch on my music, i wouldnt be able to write a single word.

so by now u must be wondering, WHERE IS THE NEWSSTORY, THE INTERVIEWS, THE RUNNING AROUND.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

so what i dont have a news-story.

so what i think there r so many; that doing one is doing injustice to the others and there r soo many tht u cant possibly do all.

so what i ate too much so i cant think straight.

so what i anyway crossed my deadline.

so what since i have come here i have never read the newspaper.

SO WHAT is the real question.

they call it the inverted pyramid in journalistic jargon; the details r too boring to be explained.

however almost like egyptian slaves even we r maimed after building the pyramid. how r we maimed?

well its supposedly such an addictive career that once u r in it, you would be living, eating, shitting, barfing, farting stories.

welll welll welll.

hmm i wonder where the money comes in.

i am paying 2.7 lakhs. for...

for waking up at 8:50, rushing through morning 'stuff' (which will eventually lead to rotten teeth if i dont spend more time brushing....thereby increasing my dentist bills) and rushing through my breakfast (which will cause indigestion and chronic stomach disease by the age of 36 and thereby increase in ...u guessed it doctor's bills) and rushing through the newspaper which i pay for (another bill) and then reaching the college where classes continue till tea break (tea : hot drink: adding to the indigestion...u know..MORE BILLS) stress makes me smoke (lung cancer ; am not bothering bout the will, i wont have any money to leave).

and then on beat days, in the heat i walk around the city (pollution and the sun : LUNG AND SKIN CANCER). bumpy bus rides (tht has its negative effect on my organs...am so sure my stomach is where my kidney used to be....FURTHER MEDICAL BILLS)

i wouldnt have mind if i wuld have got paid for it.

the irony of my life is....am paying 2.7 lakhs to do this.

its a cosmic conspiracy. ;)

time...

2007-09-16T21:52:00.000+05:30

what is a good day?
the day when you spend the perfect saturday evening drowning away your assignments in alcohol and blowing away your parent's money in a pub?
or a day you walk around in muck, catch a rickety bus to cover a 'story idea', and feel all happy that you could catch all the buses to and fro on time.
today was a good sunday. because i got to do just that. walk around in muck. rub shoulders with all and sundry. pray all along the way that i dont get lice from the person sitting next to me. cursing the conductor for not telling me where to get down.

i went all the way to kormangla for my story idea. unfortunately i decided to meet diella at Forum mall.
first, to find her and i had to walk to and fro from one entrance to another, getting my bag checked 3 times. a normal person would go around the mall. but i didnt.
and then i thought of going shopping. but i didnt. i went EATING. everything possible.
(story idea?!! what story idea?)
but it was a good day, coz we caught buses faster than we catch mosquitoes. and we not only got buses all along the way everytime we stopped at a bus stand but we caught a bus that stopped RIGHT INFRONT OF THE HOSTEL. that never happens.

last night, there was a medical emergency in the hostel. i went along in the ambulance with the patient. this was the first time i sat in an ambulance. the lights flashed on the trees and signboards as the vehicle sped along. the ambulance siren echoed. i wasnt even dying but life flashed by. i missed grandma. i still cant believe she is not there any more. i will never meet her again. i imagined the inevitable. my parents dying. i couldnt breathe. i couldnt imagine. one more day closer to death. either mine or a loved one's. its all the same. they are all just another part of me.

"There's a silence surrounding me
I can't seem to think straight
I'll sit in the corner
No one can bother me

Where do we go from here"

quiet desparation...

2007-09-12T10:04:00.000+05:30

"Don't be afraid to care. Leave but don't leave me. Look around and choose your own ground. Long you live and high you fly And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry And all you touch and all you see Is all your life will ever be "

i woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. i thought i would be a sunny day but i was wrong. i thought it would be a sleepy day but i was wrong. i was wide awake in class but i didnt want to listen to the lecture. i heard words floating about in the air and tiny voices in my ears telling to me run away. i did. but i couldnt run away completely. my roots have travelled deep within reality.

i dreamt of bombay last night. its sad. i dont remember the scenes any longer. people talk for hours on phone every night. i dont. i dont want to. what is the point of ranting away the day's activites when the day has already ended hours ago. wouldnt it be nice to star gaze instead. i walked in the rain yesterday, and there was no one around me. it was only me and time walking hand in hand, step by step. i think i caught myself smiling. i wish i didnt have to speak at all. i generally dont like to talk about myself. what is the point. the average attention span is not more than 3 secs. how can i tell my story in 3 secs. i dont want to. friendz. i wonder what is the true nature of friendship. is it someone who can walk wit and listen to the sounds of silence? or is it someone you keep talking to for ages.

i like being there for people. as much as i can. but sometimes, rather most of the times am not able to be there. i tell myself am not needed. they are better off with others.

is it crazy to want to be alone and yet search for company?

why am i studying journalism? is this what i wish to pursue in my life? i dont even know what i want to pursue. i know i want to travel. see people and their awkward lives. watch them compromising on everything they ever believed in. i had once believed in God. maybe now he could have given me some company.

"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,Out of the corner of my eye.I turned to look but it was gone.I cannot put my finger on it now.The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb"

my mom

2007-09-10T21:22:00.000+05:30

today is my mom's birthday. she turned 58. that is more than half a century on this wretched earth. thats more than half a century working in and for the rat race.

she wanted to be an artist but life made an architect out of her. she wanted to run wild and free but life chained her to dad and me. dont ask me how many books she has read till date, many. she loved me through my red marks. she loved me through my rebel-without-a-reason stage. she loved me with my insanity. shes nature's own child. she is the happiest on a bright sunny day when shreds of white clouds adorn the blue blue sky. she used to have a sparkle in the eye but the pollutants of life have diminished it. she follows Kant unknowingly. she does her duties for duties sake. sometimes deep down she loves because its her duty to love. she transcends human emotions, she transcends our petty beliefs.

she believes in god and destiny. she has taught me to respect privacy. she has tought me to be alone and take my own decisions. she has seen more in life than anyone else i know and she has learnt to appreciate the rat race for its pettiness. she has left the great 'career aspirations' to follow her roots back and grow a family. she works out blood to make sure i live a life of a princess. she has tought me to be critical especially of myself. its easy, because she is never critical of me.

she likes to dance and listen to abba. she believes in dressing good and looking good. she looks gorgeous and i dont say it coz she's my mom. i say it because i admire the woman she is and i want to be jus like her when i grow up. at least, i want to make her proud.

love ya ma.

happy birthday.

Hostel Iijnm

2007-09-10T21:18:00.000+05:30

for shilpa krishnan on her birthday, from dielle and i.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Hotel IIJNM....(Happy Birthday, Shilpa!!)
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air.Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.My head grew heavy and my sight grew dimI had to stop for the night.

There she stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bell.I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell.

Then she lit up a candle, and she showed me the way.There were voices down the corridor,I thought I heard them say,Welcome to the Hostel IIJNMSuch a lovely place (such a lovely place)Many a room at the Hostel IIJNM, Any time of year (any time of year)You can find us here.

Her mind is differently twisted, she got no Mercedes Benz.She got just one pretty boy, who's her special friend.How they dance in the courtyard, sweet Mallu sweat.Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.So I call Mr. Noel. I said, "please bring me my wine."He said, " We don't allow that spirit here since 1999."But still those voices are calling from far away.Wake you up in the middle of the night, just to hear us say.

Welcome to the Hostel IIJNMSuch a lovely place (such a lovely place)Many a room at the Hostel IIJNMAny time of year (any time of year)You can find us here.

Stars on the ceiling. Large khodez, no ice.And she said, "We are all just prisoners here,Of Kanchan's devise."And in Abraham's chambers, where they gathered for the feast.Stab it with their steely knives,But they just cant kill the beast.Last thing I remember, I was running for the door.Had to find the passage back to the place I was before."Relax," said the nightman, "We are programmed to receive.You can check out any time you like.But you can never leave."

my sassy girl

2007-09-10T20:46:00.000+05:30

there is a girl i know. she comes from the land of the sea and the sun and she is a sassy lil chick. she perenially has bad hair days and she ties her hair into knots. she wakes me up everyday, fills my water bottle and drags me to class. she gets paranoid if we are not 20 mins early to class everyday. she lets me copy from her new quiz but she hardly ever knowz any of the answers. she looks like a squirrel and she loves to eat nuts. she steals all the cashew nuts which is why she is so nutty. she sings very well but she never sings aloud.

she drinks neat vodka and rum but never gets high. sometimes she gets completely drunk on one beer and falls face down on the dance floor. she likes pink floyd and mettalica and she can play only one song on her guitar. she gets bugged when people indulge in mediocre passtimes like gossip. she suffers from chronic disorders like ALWAYS having a filled water bottle. she thinks the dumb people are smart and the smart people are dumb. by the way, she thinks am very smart. ;)

she touches herself in the loo (or so i think coz she spends an awfully long time in the loo) she hates to see people crying coz she gets tongue tied when it comes to consoling people. she looks the cutest when she's upset.

she does all her assignments in time and she spends approximately 10 hours everyday e-mailing. she spends the rest of the day secretly thinking of a special friend. only thinking and missing him. and fidgeting with her cell phone.

she loves food and god. she believes in both.

she has very long eye lashes...which make her squirrel face rather pretty.

she lets you bully her.

she carries a tattered old school bag everywhere she goes. if she had her way she would even carry it to the loo.

she uses toilet paper.

she is the only one who ever bothers to read my blog.

her name is diella and i love her.

after a long time...

2007-09-10T18:14:00.000+05:30

i havent blogged for long. am not really sure why. maybe because i was too busy accepting the 'IIJNM PHENOMENON' or maybe just the people. from an intolerant cynical bitch, i have learnt to accept the lesser mortals that roam the campus. am not sure what made me see things in a positive manner. i would like to say that i have attained nirvana but i know its not tht. something more. somewhere i am happy to watch the whole milky way every night. i like when my voice echoes through the empty corridors of the institute in the night. i can feel the walls listening to my secrets. i like the ancient printer which prints our assignments. its a remnant of an ancient time. it makes me walk down a half lit corridor always wondering who is watching me from the other end where the light is too dark to shine. here the wind has a mind of its own. it carries your thoughts and whispers them to someone else. it has tought me to be more secretive; more reclusive. here you can dance in the basketball court with your insane friend and step onto her toes and not care. i dreaded spending an entire weekend in this godforsaken campus. but yesterday i realized tht it is not as forsaken as i thought it would be. the sun likes lazing around with you and beatles and your crazy friend, and it lets you wash the week's laundry without fear. i keep telling myself that i should be bothered about the amount of assignments they give us. but strangely, am not. the stars everynight remind me of the tiny space i occupy in this vast universe. my troubles are trivial.

bangalooroo blues...

2007-08-06T21:51:00.000+05:30

BENGALOORU CHRONICLES

“When you look at a city, it's like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it.”
It rains in Bangalore. Only when you forget to carry your umbrella. And the bus conductor asks for your ticket, just after you tossed it out of the window. Murphy was right all along.

So I had to get off the bus and take a little walk. There it was, the lush green Cubbon Park so famous for everything else but the foliage. According to the tourist brochure, Cubbon Park serves as the lungs of Bangalore as well as a popular tourist destination. Spread over 250 acres, the green park has various attractions such as the rose garden, children's play ground with toy train and several play equipments, the recently opened doll museum and an aquarium. The roads that cut across the lush green land offers an ideal place for joggers and walkers. And the trees and the bushes serve a haven for the Romoes and Juliets of this garden city.
However I have been long poisoned by urbanisation and gardens tend to give me goosebumps. So I headed for something overflowing with power, grandeur and filth: THE VIDHAN SOUDHA.
For a press student to enter the Vidhan Soudha is as difficult as morality entering into a politician’s blood. So I called a friend for somebody said once that today the world runs on contacts. Lo and behold, there I was, having fruit salad with white dhotied MLA’s. To further my excitement, I even got to enter into the assembly which was in session. They asked me to remove everything except my clothes. Sitting hundred metres away from the speaker, I wasn’t allowed to cross my legs out of respect. Nor could I make any noises whether voluntary or involuntary. I had to sneeze so I left after five minutes. The new annexe to the Vidhan Soudha called Vikas Soudha, is traditionally modern. Architecturally traditional and modern from the inside. It houses various public offices like Medical Education, Kannada and Culture, Food and Civil Supplies, Infrastructure, Ministry of Labor,etc It also has a very cheap canteen that serves the yummiest pakoras ever.

Next stop had to be the BMP – Bangalore Mahanagar Palike that is minimum rupees twelve by auto. If he charges more, it means you were taken for a ride (pun intended). So yes I found out that the Garden City has had no Mayor since November 23, 2006, after Ms Mumtaz. Now, the Administrator has been the acting Mayor.
The Members of the Legislature and the Members of the Parliament elect the Mayor annually through a general BMP election procedure. The Mayor is the candidate of the majority party, and is selected, generally, unopposed. Wondering why nobody wants to the Mayor of such a beautiful city, I ambled on for it was time to go to the Slum Clearance Board Office, which is in Church Street. This time I decided to rely on my sense of geography and walk it down. And yes, it was quite a distance. An autorickshaw ride was inevitable.
Bangalore city has more than 200 slums. Between 2002 and 2006, the HUDCO has spent Rs 170 crore on the slums. 4600 to 5000 houses are to be completed by October. The slums house immigrants from North Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. The largest slum in Bangalore is Lakshmananagar. Slum-free Bangalore: the target is to construct 34, 538 houses at a cost of 173 crores. Funding comes from the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, and would be 5,150 m long.

After all this, I had to go to the Electricity Office officially called BESCOM – Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd, and had to meet the Electrician officially called something I don’t remember. He told me something about safety policies that my mother has been telling me from the time I was five. The Company suggested steps like not touching snapped wires, not climbing electric poles, not to operate electrical switches and equipment with wet hands, and not tying animals to electric poles. It also advised people to take extra care during monsoon. I took a coffee break after this and watched pigeons answering natures’ call.

I then went and met the Executive Engineer of BWSSB (BANGALORE WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE BOARD). He said that there is no problem regarding water supply. But the reality I leave to the water purifier manfucturers. Do their “Aquaguards” sell?
At the BDA I had TC Kathayani tell me to research the net on BDA since she was very busy. Looks like the BDA has gone online.

After all the ‘beauracrazy’ I made my way to the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sheshadripuram, who was not available. Wonder what or whom he was fighting during office hours.
Mr. Ramachandran is the inspector of the all-women’s police station (pun intended) located in Sheshadripuram. In the month of June 2007, 30 women walked in with complaints relating to dowry, sexual harassment and matrimonial problems. Cases are generally solved.

Bangalore seems to have more vehicles than Homo sapiens and so I set about to enquire about the parking system in the city. The city cannot manage multi-level parking because the number of vehicles has increased drastically from 3 lakhs in 1984 to about 30 lakhs presently. There were 3390 accidents May 2007, of which 352 were fatal. Hosur and Old-Madras roads are the most-accident prone areas. I can’t afford a car but I decided to be more careful while crossing roads after this.
Then to see something I will never be able to afford, I went to do a story on the Golf Course. Like the people who play, the facts that confronted me were also rather boring. They use ‘treated recycled water’ (almost the same stuff cold drinks are made of) and refuse to divulge any more information. Around 8 lakh liters of water is used per day. Hadn’t the BWSSB said there is an acute shortage of water?

This entire assignment was food for thought. And it left my stomach hungry and dry. Avoided all national food chains and headed for bisibelabhaat and filter coffee; the kannada way.

madrasi blues

2007-07-30T21:35:00.000+05:30

well am in south india. i have got infected by this chronic disease: madrasi blues. symptoms are a weird accent, laughing without reason, extra smooth bowels...too smooth for comfort, consumption of very high doses of mint (ranging from polo to tic tac), aversion from COCONUT, serious intellectual impairment. i was rather excited about going national (calcutta to mumbai to bangalore) but unfortunately i kanndazied myself. its like walking in the rain without an umbrella. you love the fact that you r getting wet, but then again u dont like the wet underwear sticking to your skin. yes, i admit it, for me south india is madras and coconuts....and i also confess, i love it here.

graduate school - IIJNM

2007-07-25T21:22:00.000+05:30

there was a perception i had about graduate schools. like internet connections and hot men. electronic education: laptop presentations and well everything flashy and rich. hmm....and ya a huge big green campus. i got the campus alrite...and the entire big green planet with it. ours is the only little speck of civilization this side of the earth. there is obviously only one road....because ALL ROAD(s) lead to iijnm. because the world is flat now, this road leads to...well...we dont walk that far we'll fall off the earth. hmm now about the promised internet connections and hot men. didnt get the latter. wat other things we didnt get was the cell network, public transport and neighbours. there is a fort (so called international school) but there r no humans there. first day of graduate school: 12 hours. dont even ask. 12 hours says it all. sunsets and exotic birds, throw in one or two scorpions and snakes and few rickety buses that can b seen one in every 100 days......thats nityanandnagar. here, the moon in always blue

Middle of Nowhere

2007-07-25T21:08:00.000+05:30

its an new college. and its in the middle of nowhere.