I paid my price with solitude
But at least I'm out of debt
Every once in a while you look for a line that captures your mood and Bam! It (usually a Dylan lyric) just hits you.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Summer
It is so incredibly hot. Its the kind of heat where you can do nothing but lie on the bed under the too-slow fan and complain about how hot it is.
We have an AC. We spent about 15 minutes trying to get it to come on and another 10 minutes adjusting the settings so that it would actually start functioning as an AC and not a glorified fan. My sister and me took turns standing under it to gauge the level of cooling while my Mom issued comments from the couch which were chiefly of the 'I still can't feel it' variety. Finally, we got the thing going only to find that our constructed-in-a-hurry-with-faulty-wiring house couldn't sustain the AC for beyond 15 minutes. The power promptly tripped. Various combinations of appliances were tried till it was found that the AC and TV could last for a full 45 minutes together before tripping the power. The AC however doesn't have the power to cool the entire hall. Which is a pity.
Its that time of the year when bottles are shoved in the freezer, showers are taken frequently and all you want to do is jump in a pool but that requires trudging through the heat to IC and putting up with all those pesky kids. Though now I am old enough (duh) togo swimming at the much coveted 'adult time' which is after 6pm. Man I can still remember how we kids used to wish we were old enough to swim at that time! In IC however, if I go swimming for just one day, they charge my parents for 6 months. So I will have to plan my swimming schedule carefully. That also means its time for a new swim-suit..yaay!
My head is aching now and I have to write a response paper for a course I wish I hadn't taken (I guess there is always one of those). Sigh, I guess I better get started on this. Bleh. And Bleh-ness.
Its that time of the year when bottles are shoved in the freezer, showers are taken frequently and all you want to do is jump in a pool but that requires trudging through the heat to IC and putting up with all those pesky kids. Though now I am old enough (duh) togo swimming at the much coveted 'adult time' which is after 6pm. Man I can still remember how we kids used to wish we were old enough to swim at that time! In IC however, if I go swimming for just one day, they charge my parents for 6 months. So I will have to plan my swimming schedule carefully. That also means its time for a new swim-suit..yaay!
My head is aching now and I have to write a response paper for a course I wish I hadn't taken (I guess there is always one of those). Sigh, I guess I better get started on this. Bleh. And Bleh-ness.
Friday, March 26, 2010
IPL and Nostalgia
Wow two posts within hours of each other.
The IPL match yesterday made me remember and re-live everything that I so love about this city:
1. It was cool inside the stadium. I know its incredibly hot in the sun, but the temperature in the shade is always so much better.
2. There were a respectable number of Delhi flags in the stadium. All in all, Delhi was well represented. Its certainly one of the larger representations of the 'other' team which I have seen in a home stadium (possibly with the exception of Bombay matches).
3. The songs they played at the stadium included 'Mundiya toh Bach gayi', 'Kaala Chashma', 'Dhan Tana', 'Jinke Marina', similar funky Kannada songs (including that really popular Rajkumar song who's name I know but don't know how to spell), 'Muqabala' (the Hindi version), 'We Will Rock You' and 'Sweet Child of Mine'. I mean where else will you get that kind of diversity?!
4. The sun setting over the stadium looked beautiful. The colour of the sky was that brilliant turquoise which only the Bangalore sky seems to be able to achieve. (in a city I mean, this doesn't include hill stations and other pretty places). Truly, Bangalore has the best sunsets.
5. Anil Kumble. SO VERY HOT.
6. Looking at the other people in my stand. There were several Hindi speakers and what not. But they were wearing red and gold.
And that, in essence is Bangalore. Diverse, South Indian, porki, cultured, drunk, sophisticated, Indian, Westernized, beautiful, overcrowded....but hostile? Polluted? Conservative? Never, not as I have known it or will continue to know it. I cannot believe it is just three months more. I realise now that I will miss my Bangalore. A lot.
1. It was cool inside the stadium. I know its incredibly hot in the sun, but the temperature in the shade is always so much better.
2. There were a respectable number of Delhi flags in the stadium. All in all, Delhi was well represented. Its certainly one of the larger representations of the 'other' team which I have seen in a home stadium (possibly with the exception of Bombay matches).
3. The songs they played at the stadium included 'Mundiya toh Bach gayi', 'Kaala Chashma', 'Dhan Tana', 'Jinke Marina', similar funky Kannada songs (including that really popular Rajkumar song who's name I know but don't know how to spell), 'Muqabala' (the Hindi version), 'We Will Rock You' and 'Sweet Child of Mine'. I mean where else will you get that kind of diversity?!
4. The sun setting over the stadium looked beautiful. The colour of the sky was that brilliant turquoise which only the Bangalore sky seems to be able to achieve. (in a city I mean, this doesn't include hill stations and other pretty places). Truly, Bangalore has the best sunsets.
5. Anil Kumble. SO VERY HOT.
6. Looking at the other people in my stand. There were several Hindi speakers and what not. But they were wearing red and gold.
And that, in essence is Bangalore. Diverse, South Indian, porki, cultured, drunk, sophisticated, Indian, Westernized, beautiful, overcrowded....but hostile? Polluted? Conservative? Never, not as I have known it or will continue to know it. I cannot believe it is just three months more. I realise now that I will miss my Bangalore. A lot.
Two Drifters, Off to see the World
"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing, you'll end up looking at the sky."
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
Breakfast at Tiffany's the movie, is a glitzy affair, high on aesthtics..a lot about Audrey Hepburn in her Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn in general. The movie is touching and poignant in several ways, but its beauty is (at least I think) slightly overshadowed by the Golightly/ Hepburn cult following it created.
Breakfast at Tiffany's the book is however a different experience altogether. The book's jacket describes it as a glamorous portrayal of New York in the 40s. In my opinion, it is anything but that. The book strips bare the glamour and exposes the cracks, the artificial lives and the struggle to survive in a city of the rich and famous. Your heart goes out to young writer 'Fred' (who is unnamed in the book) and his purely platonic affection for Holly (For I was in love with her. Just as I'd once been in love with my mother's elderly coloured cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too. as he puts it). You can almost feel the pain of Holly's husband when he has to leave her for good. And of course, there's Holly herself. Larger than life, confused, trying to be something she thinks she is...'A real phoney' as her agent calls her. Truman Capote (who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers) writes beautifully and lyrically, the prose peppered with metaphors that draw you into the story and make you feel for the characters.
The reason I'm writing this post and reproducing the exchange at its beginning is because I've always fancied myself as something of a Holly Golightly, the essence of whom (and myself in that sense) is captured in those lines (and I don't mean as a fashion icon or anything). When I first heard these lines in the movie, I quite fell in love with them. 'This is me' I thought (or liked to think), 'a wild thing that can't be loved'. While I was no doubt glamorising myself (as we all are prone to doing at some point I'm sure), I have in general been averse to any sort of commitment, fiercely holding on to my 'freedom' and despising myself for growing dependent in anyway. This has proved to be a fairly reasonable (if not prudent) philosophy to have in life. However, I am wondering now if that was in a large degree to do with some kind of emotional immaturity. While there is still a lot of appeal in those lines, it is also someone I want to be, but whom I can't really be anymore (and it is quite hard for me to accept this). Maybe its time to 'settle down' in that sense and really figure out this aspect of my life, because I increasingly find myself longing for that kind of companionship. Or maybe I am too afraid to get attached, I still don't know, and I don't think I've quite struck that balance yet. Whatever it might be, while those lines continue to move me, they don’t do so necessary because they resonate with larger truths about my life. They touch me for the sheer simplicity of the comparison and the beauty with which they are written. They also really make me wish I could express myself that way. And yet, I still don't know....
Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear."
Probably.
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
Breakfast at Tiffany's the movie, is a glitzy affair, high on aesthtics..a lot about Audrey Hepburn in her Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn in general. The movie is touching and poignant in several ways, but its beauty is (at least I think) slightly overshadowed by the Golightly/ Hepburn cult following it created.
Breakfast at Tiffany's the book is however a different experience altogether. The book's jacket describes it as a glamorous portrayal of New York in the 40s. In my opinion, it is anything but that. The book strips bare the glamour and exposes the cracks, the artificial lives and the struggle to survive in a city of the rich and famous. Your heart goes out to young writer 'Fred' (who is unnamed in the book) and his purely platonic affection for Holly (For I was in love with her. Just as I'd once been in love with my mother's elderly coloured cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too. as he puts it). You can almost feel the pain of Holly's husband when he has to leave her for good. And of course, there's Holly herself. Larger than life, confused, trying to be something she thinks she is...'A real phoney' as her agent calls her. Truman Capote (who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers) writes beautifully and lyrically, the prose peppered with metaphors that draw you into the story and make you feel for the characters.
The reason I'm writing this post and reproducing the exchange at its beginning is because I've always fancied myself as something of a Holly Golightly, the essence of whom (and myself in that sense) is captured in those lines (and I don't mean as a fashion icon or anything). When I first heard these lines in the movie, I quite fell in love with them. 'This is me' I thought (or liked to think), 'a wild thing that can't be loved'. While I was no doubt glamorising myself (as we all are prone to doing at some point I'm sure), I have in general been averse to any sort of commitment, fiercely holding on to my 'freedom' and despising myself for growing dependent in anyway. This has proved to be a fairly reasonable (if not prudent) philosophy to have in life. However, I am wondering now if that was in a large degree to do with some kind of emotional immaturity. While there is still a lot of appeal in those lines, it is also someone I want to be, but whom I can't really be anymore (and it is quite hard for me to accept this). Maybe its time to 'settle down' in that sense and really figure out this aspect of my life, because I increasingly find myself longing for that kind of companionship. Or maybe I am too afraid to get attached, I still don't know, and I don't think I've quite struck that balance yet. Whatever it might be, while those lines continue to move me, they don’t do so necessary because they resonate with larger truths about my life. They touch me for the sheer simplicity of the comparison and the beauty with which they are written. They also really make me wish I could express myself that way. And yet, I still don't know....
Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear."
Probably.
Monday, March 8, 2010
On possible moves into a Dry State
Dreams DO come true.
HELL YEAH!
Provided you work your ass off...
But they do :D
I have no words to describe the feeling. I can only shake my head in disbelief and joy. And I have stopped trying to make sense of life..officially!
HELL YEAH!
Provided you work your ass off...
But they do :D
I have no words to describe the feeling. I can only shake my head in disbelief and joy. And I have stopped trying to make sense of life..officially!