My excuse for a hundreth post.

"Put anything in quotations and suddenly you feel like someone important said it."

-Sharanya Nair

A 100 posts!

Can i get a woot woot!?

The Creative Conundrum and Daft Buyers

I thought it was about time i went back to having pretentious titles thankyouverymuch. (The alliteration adds that extra touch of lilpinkyup attitude.)

It sure is a conundrum-this being creative business. I mean its not just sitting in a corner pouring your tortured heart out onto a piece of bark anymore, it is now business-not to mention risky (note lame reference to movieofsamename). Its trade plus industry plus however tiny and idiotic an idea that has the potential to become a global business.

Obviously this rant is keeping in mind the boom of the internet. I love the internet and all but sometimes it just pisses me the hell off. I mean, you can't think of anything without going online, googling it and finding out that some kid in war-torn Iraq or upscale New York has already done it, made millions and had a few babies since then. Can you compete with that(would you dare?) Its already a heaving BS-spewing conglomerate-the original guy probably isn't even in charge and the bunch of suits it keeps close to its heart of stone will sue you to within an inch of your life if you attempt to say 'feck it!' and go ahead with 'your' idea (with a different name of course). Its conglomerate-eat-small-fry out there. Trust me. But also be ballsy enough to have a go at it anyway. So what if there's a Calvin and Hobbes out there. Go ahead with that comic strip about the little boy and his tiger. So what if there's a Miley Cyrus out there!? Go ahead and sing and make vlogs and.....waitasec. We don't want any of that. Stuff it.

Also, recently I have come to the conclusion that people will literally sell anything out there. What's crazier is that people buy that shit! Its like this insane need to not conform by making daft retail choices. Or maybe its just a hook for conversation! Coz lets face it with the internet we have the option of thinking awhile and then speaking which is impossible not to mention absent) in real life. People don't have time to just sit around waiting for your perilous/pearls of wisdom. If you're not witty you're screwed my friend.

Like recently I saw a T-shirt with the words "Wonder drug - fuckitol" on it. I mean its not like I find the thought of taking drugs to numb the 'pain' fascinating or even want to literally follow the charming advice (because its impossible as well as 'risky business' :D with all those nasty stds). I jus thought it would be hilarious. I even went so far to imagine Widegrin or Dubba looking at it and cracking up. Ah! Saved from at least five and a half minutes of staring and 'dragging'.

Being the black sheep is cool and all but you don't wanna be the pink sheep with the bohemian hairdo and wooden clogs that says "bLaaahhh" alot. The line is fine, but its there people!
And i realize that my rant on the death of the creative turned into a rant on people who buy crap.
-runs to add to title-

Sabbatical ends

A day after April Fool's day (that passed by unrecognized by me) and more than a month since i last blogged. Anyway, here i is.

Oh wow. A string of events that have/will change my life and perception of people forever. In a good way.

And even better news! Dougies BACK! And he's brought a friend. He appears to have been on recon in my room and has found it satisfactory and hence has begun to "bring in the men" so to speak. I tried to snap a few quick shots but the wily coyote skidaddled to neverland before i could switch my camera on.

I say "thank yew!!" to my guiser (geyser? geezer?) everyday as i leave the loo. Why? (you ask stupid question) because the geyser (guiser? geezer?) plug displays the words 'Attisundar'(very pretty) on it. And i am a stronger person for having the blessings of my geezer (geyser? guiser?)

I download a trillion movies a day. Literally a trillion. I watch them compulsively also. Recently my bloodthirst has been slaked by Resident Evil 1 2 and 3. 1 is seriously a movie I can watch over and over and over again. And not only because Mila Jovovich is hotness and i enjoy watching mechelle rodriguez die, but because its an amazing movie! And obviousy i have to watch shawn of the dead again now because it just kicks ass.

I learn and (thereafter immediately forget) to play songs on the guitar I need not say more yes?

Morning Runner- Burning Benches.....on repeat
Let us make amends, we’re not overly good friends, but its not Heaven without you. You can have it all, we’ll see Mountains fall, but it’s not Heaven without you.
It’s the symphony distorting, when were not talking, but its not Heaven, without you.
There’s just something different, With the air about you, The signs, the shapes, the numbers, none of them give me a clue You can have it all
and im not Burning Benches cos the ash would make me choke It was me who always spluttered every time we spoke, you can have it all

Apupa's gone. And ever since that black Valentine's, I've been wondering how to proceed on this blog. I couldn't write about him at all for a while and I couldn't write anything else on this blog without paying him a tribute. So here it is. A tribute of sorts. I've mashed together stories i heard about him, stuff i remember. Feelings distributed themselves evenly among everyone he knew. Good feelings. Warm fuzzy ones. Respectful ones.

Too little, too late.
I wish I'd hugged him more.
I wish I'd sat with him a while or been around more.
But even enough of it all, now i know and believe,
wouldn't've been enough to console me
and make me not 'wish' anymore.

My earliest story about him that i used to tell people with exasperated affection was when we would be far off in a different state and living our important lives and we'd spare a few minutes on the phone for him. His conversation on the phone would be punctuated with millions of questions about things that i thought were silly. My favourite was "Have you remembered to turn off the gas?"
My most recent is him pestering my grandmum to within an inch of her life with the same repeated question said with varying levels of emotion-accusatory, casual inquiry, in-passing, in all seriousness etc. "Are you taking care of Sharu?" usually followed by "Have you fed her?"
When we lived in Bangalore he'd suddenly turn up at home in the morning after we'd left for school or office and my mum was alone at home. Just to check on her under the pretext of having breakfast and then he'd rush back home because all he'd said there was "I'll be back in a bit". Everyone knew of course.

I'm told he was a very soft-spoken man so much so that when ever he raised his voice, even to call out to someone, people thought he was angry. He once gave a speech at a HUGE family gathering, a powerful mic under his nose, and not one person beyond the second row heard a word of it.
He was the only man i knew who literally carried a walking stick. Not once did it touch the floor while he walked. It's like he had it along for the ride.
Once for my mum's birthday he brought home a mini-amusement park.
You knew he was in an affectionate mood when he pinched his bottomlip between his teeth, smiled and patted you on the shoulder.
If he was ever in Charlie's chocolate factory he'd run them outta business. He had the biggest sweet tooth you could never imagine. He'd have dessert before lunch.
He'd blush furiously and giggle or swat at us if we kissed him on the cheek.
He never failed to say 'mind your head' when i walked past the stairs.
Everyday for twenty years he locked the three foot high harmless front gate. Every day.

How can you stay dry while writing an obituary for such a man. I didn't. But i sucked it up. Like I do everytime i leave the house. I feel guilty for wanting this feeling to pass but nevertheless it will. Life goes on after death. It always does.

Did she, I wonder?

Story mentioned in She's Gonna Break

Paying it Forward

*desperately looks for something else to hyperlink. Fails to find anything. Leaves*

Frankie! Wahayyy!

"Startlingly offensive" at times.

Ad libbing. At. Its. Best.

Frankie Boyle on Mock The Week.

She's Gonna Break

(A very apt title from one of Less Than Jake's songs.)

I wrote something in class today that I am half disturbed by and half deliriously joyful about.

It was gory and bloody and so unlike what i stick to. I'm usually subtle about violence-depicting the aftermath or events preceding it. This is because i know that nothing make-up and write can rival a person's imagination. So i take the more effective (yet easy) way out.

Point in fact- its not my style to write something that includes the words 'bloody stumps'. Apparently now it is. I feel like its a barrier I've broken. And it feels good.

But of course, as some sort of unconscious response to what I thought was non-existent societal pressure, immediately after the disturbing piece I wrote a 'normal' one. (Well, for me anyway)

A dent in my momentous 'toeing the line' incident.

Eh, I'll live with it.

Ol post

The following is something I posted ages ago(March 29, 2008) on my Minglebox blog. I read it and in the vain ways of myself found it hilarious. And it also reminded me of that dreadful time in college when it happened. Coincidental that the 'friend' I mention is Yakub. The boy always seems to be laughing his arse off at me.

Here eet ees!

Kind sir, can i have a plate of embarassment please?

Hmph, street urchin! Embarassment is dessert not a main course!

Oh, then can i have some anxiety-induced memory loss and then the embarassment?

All right. Coming right up!

The psychology practicals were bad. They were really really bad. I mean, not the I'm-saying-this-coz-actually-i-SCORED bad. The actual BAD.

I haven't had a chance to let in sink in for the long term. We had only two things to do. Conduct an experiment. Do a stats sum. Not difficult eh? Well, leave it to me to screw it up as royally as i can. I FORGOT, yes forgot, to do the stats sum. i was so relieved that I had done away with the experiment that I gave my paper a cursory look, got up, deposited it with a smirk at the teacher's table and then left the room confidently.

I found out later from a laughing friend that the teacher held up my paper, laughed at it (a few students joined in), and asked who the brilliant person was. Every single person in the room now knows my name. cheers!!

Thank god there's a few days break before i have to go back. But no matter, I'm sure they're laughing at the next idiot already. (i hope. I desperately, hope)

Interesting thing i saw yesterday.

On the back of a cute little green Medicine Van: "Khuda Hafiz"

Here's your medicine, see you on the other side!

Updates

Can SOMEONE please write in my guest book? Its a sad cold world out there.

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I was in an auto on my way to college and I happen to see a boy on a bike-complete with helmet and gloves. Except one of his hands was halfway inside his helmet trying to stuff his cellphone up there. You know, into that little hollow round your ears. Stupid child. I laughed quite a bit actually. Early morning laughter does not require too great a reason apparently.

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"10 Rs extra!"

I wanted to kill him. Instead I got into the auto while muttering "Painful you'll are."

"What?" he said.

I froze like salami in a freezer. And then in an act of brave stupidity or stupid bravado- (whichever) I repeated my cuss.

Luckily he repeated "What?" so i got away with that one.

Phew!

*Ticks 'staring death in the face' off her list of things to do*

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Yakub and I were in the bookshop. I was pestering bookshopuncle for change when Yakub suggests i buy one of those greasy sweets that bookshopuncle often stuffs per force into our hands. I ignore.
Meanwhile girl next to me asks for greasy handful.
Here Yakub feels the need to ask "You don't eat all this or wat?"
I look, pause and then say, "NO!" so vehemently and with such disgust that bookshopuncle and girl turn to me, hands awkwardly frozen in the moment. (The greasy perpetrators staring me in the face.)
I cower in embarassment while Yakub tip-toes backwards and laughs his gut out.
I sneak out a little "sorry!" to the girl but i am met with a cold withering glare that gives me shivers to this minute.
But we laughed at that one for a while too.
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Endana indeed.

I was youtubing (as usual) and I came across a song by The Fray called Vienna (didn’t care much for it). I scrolled down to the comments and read a particular one that made me think. “My future funeral song.” it said jovially. Morbid much? Well, I didn’t think so. And you probably don't think so either. Its common-place for us. (The only reason I have not chosen one for myself is that I have decision making problems when it comes to choosing one out of a trillion possibilities.)

My grandmother on the other hand, happened to read it over my shoulder and said (after a shocked exclamation) in Malayalam “But why would someone say something like that?” She was very concerned about the person’s well-being and also went so far as to delicately ask if they already knew that they were dying.(!)

Needless to say it took a while for me to get it through to her that the person was probably all right and that often people listen to songs and say such things to express the magnitude of the emotion they attach to it.( I did not mention I was one of them. Whatami crazy?) All my explanations were interspersed with the occasional “Endana?”(But, why?) that my grandmother said in wonderment to herself. She finally trundled off, unsatisfied by my explanations, while saying something that roughly translates as “This youth is so morbid”

We're morbid apparently. The youth of today.

Caution: All too long a postscript to follow.

PS

And after this entire sploosh (don’t ask and I won’t have to make something up) of a blog it just struck me: Am I still in the youth category at all? I mean, ever since I was fifteen I was shooed into this 'youth' and it’s a comforting yet uncomfortable place to be in.

At this point when people said things like 'the future is theirs' or 'change is up to them' I knew they meant us; my generation, as a collective. And obviously I gloated at our good fortune of being in the limelight for that millisecond. And I gloated; every time some kid in a vague corner of the world created a working model of the universe, or became the first 'youth' to take part in a world greenpeace seminar; or became a graduate summa cumme laude in business and management or even managed to become a star at 16 (for widely unknown reasons). I watched them all and gloated with a shared sense of victory. (“Any victory of theirs is surely a victory of mine?”)

And so obviously I've gotten comfortable with the category. There are throw rugs and comfy cushions of 'ambiguity' and 'confusion' and 'silly decisions' all over the place (don't forget the humongous mattress of 'lazyarse-ness' in the corner) and I'm not sure I want to leave. But then again I don't want to be the old maid who wandered in, refused to leave and started taking over the place with her vaguely formed ideas of responsibility and maturity. (and millions of cats to add to the confusion) And so....

it’s officially over for me. Prematurely, some might say but hey, when you feel it honey, you gotta deal with it. (Too forties film dialogue like? Eh, whatever. I’m all growed up. I’ll do whatever I wants to!)