You can run but you can't hide,
Don't you know you're goin' straight to my backside?
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Zehn mein hai ki..
Hum khush hain to kya hua,
Har mulaqaat ka anjaam judaai kyun hai?
Ab to har vaqt yehi baat sataati hai humein..
- Talat Aziz, 'Zindagi Jab Bhi' ( from the vintage 'Umrao Jaan')
Har mulaqaat ka anjaam judaai kyun hai?
Ab to har vaqt yehi baat sataati hai humein..
- Talat Aziz, 'Zindagi Jab Bhi' ( from the vintage 'Umrao Jaan')
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Kaanama Poiten
Lost
Amidst censors
Censure
Runorders
Rain drops on leather seats
The reek of paan and roadside bhel
Amidst censors
Censure
Runorders
Rain drops on leather seats
The reek of paan and roadside bhel
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Feelings?
Feelings feelings
Everyone talks
About them.
My gut knots
Like an intractable
Scout's rope,
Digesting biliously
What I feel
When you walk by
Swaggering
Content
In your syrupy
Moral universe.
Why must I be bound
To your hard heart
Your tight-shut world
Why must you
Be my closest comrade
And still draw your spear
At my 'frailty'.
I am a girl
You are boy
And we play dominoes.
Not house.
I have another for that.
Everyone talks
About them.
My gut knots
Like an intractable
Scout's rope,
Digesting biliously
What I feel
When you walk by
Swaggering
Content
In your syrupy
Moral universe.
Why must I be bound
To your hard heart
Your tight-shut world
Why must you
Be my closest comrade
And still draw your spear
At my 'frailty'.
I am a girl
You are boy
And we play dominoes.
Not house.
I have another for that.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Oh if heaven was a place on earth...
Yeah sure,when people told me Kerala was God's own country,I had that "yes-I-have-heard" look quite often.But thanks to Amma's new Hyundai Santro and Guru's initiative(ok well,we forced him to come with the "guys"),we landed up,during my New Year break, in this place called Nelliyampathi (for more info do a google search you couchies!).It was,to say the least,breathtaking.
The drive down was ANYTHING but uneventful.I got to take turns riding pillion with each of the guys.We came across an elephant which was in the middle of having supper.I was told very convincingly to get into the car with the "other women" while the guys took the bike.I was very upset,whiny and gnashing my teeth.But Guru and Co got their way.I had half a feeling they did it less for our safety and more so they could escape on the bike if that thing chased us down the narrow hill road.$&*#!!!!
Meanwhile,some other stupid tourists anyway got off their cars,but left the lights on and kept honking!So,our party had to run,because ermm..we can't handle trouble as big as that because of some twits who don't know how NOT to act around wild animals.The "chivalrous" males of our company didn't even manage to get a decent video or snap of our soon-agitated friend.Bleagh!So much for not being boxed in a car and for disallowing spirited young women from exercising their natural talent for filming.Humph.
But I got back on the bike soon enough because of my sheer stupid stubbornness anyway.It was wonderful.My heartfelt thanks to the very silent but sweet and accomodating Vishwa whose bike I rode on.
Here are some snaps I took.The place is wowie!I wanted to go closer and get the valley below,but you know mothers. :-)
There are others Guru took below them.His are better,because atleast he got to hold his camera.Mine was hijacked and filled with pictures of people acting like clowns.
My snaps:The top of the Nelliampathy hills and the valley below.
Guru took the following.
A view from the Pothundi dam nearby(Funny,I thought "pothundi" was Telegu?!)
Atop the hills,the winding road leads to the summit(Yikes,waxing poetic)
Misty view from the valley.
The drive down was ANYTHING but uneventful.I got to take turns riding pillion with each of the guys.We came across an elephant which was in the middle of having supper.I was told very convincingly to get into the car with the "other women" while the guys took the bike.I was very upset,whiny and gnashing my teeth.But Guru and Co got their way.I had half a feeling they did it less for our safety and more so they could escape on the bike if that thing chased us down the narrow hill road.$&*#!!!!
Meanwhile,some other stupid tourists anyway got off their cars,but left the lights on and kept honking!So,our party had to run,because ermm..we can't handle trouble as big as that because of some twits who don't know how NOT to act around wild animals.The "chivalrous" males of our company didn't even manage to get a decent video or snap of our soon-agitated friend.Bleagh!So much for not being boxed in a car and for disallowing spirited young women from exercising their natural talent for filming.Humph.
But I got back on the bike soon enough because of my sheer stupid stubbornness anyway.It was wonderful.My heartfelt thanks to the very silent but sweet and accomodating Vishwa whose bike I rode on.
Here are some snaps I took.The place is wowie!I wanted to go closer and get the valley below,but you know mothers. :-)
There are others Guru took below them.His are better,because atleast he got to hold his camera.Mine was hijacked and filled with pictures of people acting like clowns.
My snaps:The top of the Nelliampathy hills and the valley below.
Guru took the following.
A view from the Pothundi dam nearby(Funny,I thought "pothundi" was Telegu?!)
Atop the hills,the winding road leads to the summit(Yikes,waxing poetic)
Misty view from the valley.
Where are the small pleasures?
Happy new year,o ye faithful (and few?) reader-friends!
Journo school is back to it's mad pace after my two-week long vacation back at home,where I did nothing except make trips to Kerala nearby and other places of interest in and around Coimbatore.
Coming back to Chennai was a drag.God,just coming back to the apartment and feeling the mad rush of the traffic hit my eardrums again.Felt like that familiar but necessary nightmare again.
It was somewhat comforting to see my fellow amateur-journalists at college,cursing the newly formatted computers in the lab and complaining about P.Sainath(Yes,Rural Affairs Editor,The Hindu) and his theatrical lectures on poor people.
I have even started a new diary.Pen,paper and all.Because,somehow I feel that this blog's become more of an impersonal journal.At times it feels like that,atleast.So,all the juice is in that leather bound diary:D
And,life is resuming normalcy.Well,almost.
I was on the bus yesterday and the conductor owed me some 50 paisa change.And,every time I asked him for it,he'd mysteriously not have one.But other people got their 50 paisa back.I asked him twice.Then I got so busy thinking about the 50 paisa coin itself,that I forgot to collect my change in the end.
About a couple of years back,a 5 rupee coin was a rarity.It was this cute,fat,ridged round thing the weight of which you could distinctly feel in your hands.And then,almost overnight,they became ubiquitous,and as we all know it,if one guy gets popular,he's edging someone out.So,the twenty-five paisa coin slowly started becoming less and less common.The ten paisa coin had already disappeared then.
The reason I'm saying all this is because,slowly,even the fifty paisa coin seems to have no value too.The conductor didn't seem to think that a well-off person needed that fifty paisa coin anyway.And,I dispensed with it very readily too.Didn't really mind losing it.In fact,it seemed to even out my accounts.
But the value of every unit of money,and I am saying this on a general level,not as an economic theory,is falling.
The 50 paisa no longer buys what it did a while back.If you're lucky you would be able to xerox one side of paper using that,or buy a small Mentos(the mouth freshener :D ) with it.The exoticism of holding and clanging small metal round things weighing like a feather and feeling like Midas are all gone.
When I read R.K Narayan's novels,or listen to my mother's tales of how they bought treasures with one or two rupees,I am fascinated.The little copper anna(I hope I got that right!),which I am ashamed to say I've never seen lost the battle.So did the ten,twenty,and the twenty five paisa(to some extent).Very soon the 50 paisa will become obsolete.
As the units of money become higher and higher,they will buy fewer things.And fewer treasures that little children can eye greedily at small tea shops.
Instead,little girls and boys today glance hungrily at the colourful and conceitedly high priced packets of Lays and Kurkure on stands.That is,if their parents deign to get off their a/c cars and step onto the dusty and non- existent sidewalks.
Sigh.The small pleasures of life.I build my life around those.No wonder I take a beating many a time.
Guh,no "self-flagellation":-)
ps:I've been buying kilo upon kilo of "ber"(Hindi) a.k.a "elandapazham"(Tamil) at the bus-stand.Apparently,this is the season.Still have no idea what they are called in English,but they are sweet and tangy.Slurp.
Journo school is back to it's mad pace after my two-week long vacation back at home,where I did nothing except make trips to Kerala nearby and other places of interest in and around Coimbatore.
Coming back to Chennai was a drag.God,just coming back to the apartment and feeling the mad rush of the traffic hit my eardrums again.Felt like that familiar but necessary nightmare again.
It was somewhat comforting to see my fellow amateur-journalists at college,cursing the newly formatted computers in the lab and complaining about P.Sainath(Yes,Rural Affairs Editor,The Hindu) and his theatrical lectures on poor people.
I have even started a new diary.Pen,paper and all.Because,somehow I feel that this blog's become more of an impersonal journal.At times it feels like that,atleast.So,all the juice is in that leather bound diary:D
And,life is resuming normalcy.Well,almost.
I was on the bus yesterday and the conductor owed me some 50 paisa change.And,every time I asked him for it,he'd mysteriously not have one.But other people got their 50 paisa back.I asked him twice.Then I got so busy thinking about the 50 paisa coin itself,that I forgot to collect my change in the end.
About a couple of years back,a 5 rupee coin was a rarity.It was this cute,fat,ridged round thing the weight of which you could distinctly feel in your hands.And then,almost overnight,they became ubiquitous,and as we all know it,if one guy gets popular,he's edging someone out.So,the twenty-five paisa coin slowly started becoming less and less common.The ten paisa coin had already disappeared then.
The reason I'm saying all this is because,slowly,even the fifty paisa coin seems to have no value too.The conductor didn't seem to think that a well-off person needed that fifty paisa coin anyway.And,I dispensed with it very readily too.Didn't really mind losing it.In fact,it seemed to even out my accounts.
But the value of every unit of money,and I am saying this on a general level,not as an economic theory,is falling.
The 50 paisa no longer buys what it did a while back.If you're lucky you would be able to xerox one side of paper using that,or buy a small Mentos(the mouth freshener :D ) with it.The exoticism of holding and clanging small metal round things weighing like a feather and feeling like Midas are all gone.
When I read R.K Narayan's novels,or listen to my mother's tales of how they bought treasures with one or two rupees,I am fascinated.The little copper anna(I hope I got that right!),which I am ashamed to say I've never seen lost the battle.So did the ten,twenty,and the twenty five paisa(to some extent).Very soon the 50 paisa will become obsolete.
As the units of money become higher and higher,they will buy fewer things.And fewer treasures that little children can eye greedily at small tea shops.
Instead,little girls and boys today glance hungrily at the colourful and conceitedly high priced packets of Lays and Kurkure on stands.That is,if their parents deign to get off their a/c cars and step onto the dusty and non- existent sidewalks.
Sigh.The small pleasures of life.I build my life around those.No wonder I take a beating many a time.
Guh,no "self-flagellation":-)
ps:I've been buying kilo upon kilo of "ber"(Hindi) a.k.a "elandapazham"(Tamil) at the bus-stand.Apparently,this is the season.Still have no idea what they are called in English,but they are sweet and tangy.Slurp.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
