I have been attacked by Glenn Beck. There will be consequences.

Photo of the Day at JEEVIKA

Woohoo!

One of my photographs has been featured as 'Photo of the Day' on the JEEVIKA website :)

http://jeevika.org/photo_of_day.html

Check it out!

And don't forget to check out some of the excellent work the organisation has been doing.

Visit: http://jeevika.org/default.html

Till the next post,

In which the writer begins to realise what a web-log's primary purpose is

-1:53 AM. I begin writing this post.-

Just got off the phone. The other end of the line was sleepy.
Fair enough. So I said "Goodnight!"
and terminated the inter-state call at the press of a button.
At the press of a button. Gloria in Excelsis Technology, yes!

Now I'm feeling lonely. There isn't any one I can call up at this hour or any after this.
It would be great to have a fun conversation online if not over the phone.
There are people online but I don't feel like initiating conversation.
I will read a book. I was told recently there are no 'best friends', that the concept is a redundancy or something to that effect, perhaps in other words. To be fair, I was told that it was said individual's opinion and therefore does not by default apply to the concept in general.

Way I see it (this is my opinion), there are best friends. Books. It doesn't matter if it's 1:52 AM or 3:33 AM or 4:56 AM or corresponding PM's for that matter. I have always been and will always be able to read a book whenever I feel like it. And so long as there is a sufficient source of light, and as long as no one complains about the light, I can read for as long as I want to at night or early morning whatever you will.

Oh, it rained today. 12:24 AM by my estimate. Ran down two flights of stairs and out the building, loose pair of shorts notwithstanding. Turned my face up to the heavens. And I knew then why they called it the heavens. After the heat, the soothing cool. Farmers will be pleased. That is an understatement. Watch the documentary 'Nero's Guests' directed by Deepa Bhatia.You will understand.

Do we, as a race, put too high a premium on conversation conducted over the phone?
Perhaps dot-dot-dot.
Do we, as a race, read enough books?
No full-stop.

I am going to read now.
'Tis by Frank McCourt.
'An Equal Music' is pending. I always do this. Always.

If you like me, get me a Kindle or an iPad.
But only If.

-2:20 AM. I finish writing this post.-

on the streets of Paharganj

in delhi big beast

capital city
land of democracy
and here

liquor
cheap hotels
and lust and

I believe
redemption
is there

as an occupant
of a dirty dusty
dingy damp
room for rupees
three hundred sir
better rate nowhere
else

shining beacons
beckon
the foreign invitees
welcome welcome
you will be welcome
with dope and cheap clothes
for dollars and your
valued
patronage

here

come

there is ice cream and
cigarettes and
more

dry blood beast

So it's been a while since my last blog post. I had another blog before this one. It was alright, not too bad, nothing great either. But I wrote a lot more there than I do here. and while I mostly post poems and the like here, I used to open up back there. Be frank. It's not hard for me to be open these days, but I'm not used to it, so writing something like this, though spontaneous, isn't easy.


I think it is time to take stock of my life over the last few months.
I think I've been slowing down a lot in the recent past. Getting sluggish. Getting complacent.
I have found that there is a difference between complacence and satisfaction. The difference is this - Satisfaction feels good and continues to feel good even after a while.
Complacence starts out with making you feel good, but its like a radioactive element with a short half-life. begins to decay and when it unravels - pardon the complete messing-up of scientific phraseology - suffice to say it doesn't give you a reason to smile.


I have been complacent. and I need to remedy that. but how? Maybe by finding things to do. I'm helping an old friend out with her grad. film and that's given me a day of something to do. I read books. so far so good.
Some content-writing here and there. a few hundred rupees are made thus. I don't have many friends, but considering my attitude towards friendship, that is not surprising. I don't make many efforts to maintain friendly relations with people around me - I do want people to keep in touch with me, but am not willing to do so myself.


but.


what's one to do? we are who we are, eh? It's not that I don't try. It's just that my 'best' is too less for most people. so I don't bother too much anymore. call it Sour Grapes Syndrome if you like. Individuality!
My liege.


Even as I type this, I tire of it. Last night as I was returning from that old friend I mentioned's place, I stood by the roadside and watched the twinkling lights of the high-rise buildings about half a kilometer away from me. There was a full moon. Together, they seemed like a cold mother. This city brings out the worst in me, and that, my friends, if channelized right, might just bring out the best.

We have assembled inside this ancient & insane theatre

To propagate our lust for life & flee the swarming wisdom of the streets

The barns are stormed

The windows kept & only one of all the rest

To dance & save us

W/ the divine mockery of words

James Morrison

The Project: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

the tale was told
as show and tell

hissing on

steadily uncertain

energy-

its lack

energy-

curtain

backstage

hands readied an Other

bound to enforce causality

Image of Image

There was a time, and that time was now. Swish past it, passed it and this continued, continues. Trying to make sense of it all, tenses abound, continuing the past, perfecting the future, offering little but variation in perspective. The point that is closest to being, just being in the moment is the moment. This is not a pleasant read, this is not simple. More often than not, an abstract is associated with a concrete, or a material with a colour, when it comes to describing something that exceeds the limits of normality. Pitch black, red hot, silence that can be cut with a knife. Futile similes and pointless metaphors. Silence that can be cut? Such are the times, and such are the parallels drawn. Silence, get this, is not dissimilar to bread. Following that logic, time is sushi – chopped up into digestible bits, wrapped up and rolled into small portions and menu-carded into calendars and clocks to be sold. This is not skepticism, this is cliché and thereby, fact: time is money.

But there is a certain area, with bubbles of sharp jagged rock and cold uninviting snow, floating way above industrial city and modern town. In this place, commercialism tries to live and make its home, but finds that it can never have more than just a house, a temporary residence. In this place: mountains. Great beings of stone power, aged beyond one's capacity to measure time, for whom time means nothing but a few centimeters up or down. Over the centuries, Tibetan lamas, European explorers, Nepali Sherpas and other miscellany have climbed mountains, walking unmade paths, feeling awe while learning humility and this one fact: mountains defy metaphors. Every time that a description has been attempted, all that is left to show for it is utter failure.

Mountains are like…
The view from the summit seemed as though…

No, nothing could come of it. For how is something quantified, that does not relate to numeric values? Where time does not apply, neither does timelessness. The mountains don’t offer much but disappointment for those who go there hoping to gain. Relinquishing the self in that place is not sacrifice; the mountains couldn’t care less. Traveling there is always a pilgrimage – done out of choice though it takes several and then some trips to realize why the choice was made at all. Peace, quiet, solitude, are adjectives that the mountains might evoke, but do not contain within themselves.

Somewhere in the mountains, a climber proceeds, knowing that even as day becomes night and though the watches on a billion wrists tick on, all that may be found there is a photograph -

Semblance of timelessness.