m f husain...

Our national senses must indeed be in dire straits. We were a people able to see God in the stones as we worshipped. And now just because a band of intolerants calling themselves 'Hindutva' activists can see only the nudity of a woman where the artist can see the Goddess, we come to an impasse. And instead of reigning in the ignorants, we banish the good artist overseas for decades and only now get our panties in a twist over his Qatar citizenship. There's not a blurring of the acceptable and unacceptable, nor an absence, but a complete reversal. We are sorry,as we ought to be, but only for our loss.

another wedding....

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i am pretty set in my routine... eat, study, sleep... the places i visit and the people i see also revolve around it... the library, the raddi-wala, various culinarily gifted friends and relatives... yesterday was a little different...

it was barbie's wedding reception... though he did not really invite me to the reception per se, what with my candid confessions,  his bride thought the confusion cute and invited me over... probably curious about the genius i am... i went with a few 'mutual friends' from college days... it was good 'catching up'... they swore they hadn't seen me since i left the college... but it didn't matter.... i love the way i can catch up with them and have a conversation like we'd left off just that morning...

i love dressing up... ever since i was a kid... my aunt had a tough time keeping her make-up collection to herself... there was no nook or corner i wouldn't search and dab the stuff on... the problem was i didnt really know what went where and make-up is more scientific than science... and with my persisting chronic case of 'mis-assumptions' which go horribly wrong, harmless adventures did not end that way... like the time she cleaned me up all nice and good and warned me to be clean coz some friends of Uncle were visiting... i wanted to be such a good girl, i went in and dabbed on about half a bottle of the oily moisturizer all over my face and thought accenting my eyes would be a good idea and used mascara where eye-liner would've been better... well, if you're unable to keep up with the little make-up lingo that makes up my limited vocabulary, you're probably single... ;)... anyway, to cut a long story short, i got such a thrashing that day that i didn't venture into anything nearly make-up for a good twenty years...

where the hell is the story going... anyway, the friends pick me up, one of them a little miffed at my reluctance to walk even to the street end where they could pick me up... he was in a t-shirt and jeans... and i had half a mind to drape him in a similar 6meter saree , put him on 2-inch heels and ask him to prance along...(my explanation for the reluctant walk)... anyway, we reached the place... the happy couple smiled uncomfortably for the pictures for a full fifteen minutes before noticing our presence... so then, we had to go to the dais give our gifts, smile politely and all that... i got my into my usual, unimaginably nervous state under the glaring lights... the smile i'd practiced didnt hold up and i now look plainly petrified in the pictures for eternity... barbie looked constipated and menacing(i know it's a rare combo) as he thanked me cordially for coming... i could well understand... and was just glad for the abundance of people around me... his bride looked more comfortable, chatting away amiably in her shiny saree that i said looked like the Milky Way galaxy (and assured her it was purely a compliment just as she slipped into second thoughts about inviting me... i can't imagine how it could be anything else!!)...  she complained that it weighed 5 kilos and she'd been standing in it for hours...and it wasn't even the first day... as she explained the whole itenirary of the wedding and receptions all over the country, i couldn't help but feel for the 'happy couple'... it's hard work getting married!!

then, it was time for the foods... i slowly made my way through the stalls and had dinner mostly of ice-cream and rasmalai... we exchanged old stories, promised to meet up again... we probably were the last ones to leave... and only because the wedding party itself was leaving... and then i got dropped off at my house and crept up slowly to my house...

all in all, two more good friends cross over to the 'dark side'... certainly a remembrable day... :)

tensions...

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we each sulk in separate rooms in the 1BHK house we live in… which is kinda hard…not the living… but the sulking… but we manage…    i get the living room… she gets the bedroom and the out-room to sulk in… the bathroom and the kitchen are the no-man’s-lands… there’s an automatic truce applied when either one enters that… reason for sulking???

it varies… the oldest is probably the veg-non veg issue…
my argument, “If it doesn’t kill you, it cannot be wrong…”
her argument, “not everything you can do is right… what if everybody went around killing everybody else…??” she always takes things to extremes… one of those ideologists… but i kinda like the idea… haven’t you gone into one of those “just killing someone” moods… she looks at me like i’m going to do just that right after i put on that weight i’ve been trying to…. for the past lifetime…

most recent one…. the kannada film industry… i try to explain away the fanaticism of fans who go on arson sprees every time their ‘hero’ dies a most banal, natural death…. i don’t really dare express my views so publicly where every moron can access it… i am not too afraid of justifying my views to her… however mad she gets… but it’s hard to argue with fools… they drag you down to their level and beat you by sheer experience….(okay, i didn’t say it first… and i don’t know who did…so, there…!!) so if you get into an argument with me, and i give up just so easily, you know why…

and many an argument has gone by… i can’t remember any that got resolved amicably… usually, i call it quits… she’s got more stamina at her end than i can ever manage… even with all the swimming classes i manage… so i usually do the ‘time-out’ symbol, pronounce, “Let’s agree to disagree” and slink back… she gives me a disgusted look which says a particularly foul fowl’s name and walks away…

until the next argument unfolds…

tryst with dentist....

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just back... had to go home... a tryst with the dentist... i'm not afraid of the trip to the dentist per se... i mean, what's the worst that could happen??? i've definitely met worse things and survived... so my pep talks work and i go settle down in the chair... there's a movable tray with all shiny, steel instruments that he pushes so it now blocks my way out of the chair... in case i decide to make a run for it... i prefer not knowing what instrument's going in next, but the doctor insists i keep my eyes open... he says it is coz he'd like to know if i've fainted out of fright, pain, exhaustion, boredom, etc... but i just thinks he loves an audience... things wouldn't be so bad if he didnt want to do so much talking... for eg, this time, with the pokers in place in my mouth, he looks deep into my eyes and asks me how tough these civil service exams are...
"hmm... hmmm" i reply as elaborately as i possibly can ...
"because you know, PG for dentists is tough and instead of spending 2-3 years studying for that, i could've become an IAS officer in the same while" he talks to me or himself (it's unclear) and is convinced of this infallible logic...
"hmm... hmmm", i thoroughly agree.... only coz disagreement would've meant more words than i could manage...
"so, which are the easiest subjects???" he waits for me to answer....
i look blankly at him, my mouth agape (not because i'm surprised... work's going on...)...
"how about public administration??" he offers a choice...
"hmm... hmmm" i agree without thinking....
"which books do i read for that???" he wants to know....

by that time, thankfully, the drilling, filling, tightening is done and i have regained control... it feels good... but there's a distinct after-taste from the disposable gloves though.... oh!! he'd asked something.... a book??? i knew i had that book...somewhere.... top shelf in the big-open-racks in the bedroom.... no! no!!! in the desk drawers in the living room.... naaa! not there... i just went through it last night... i didn't see it...

wait, what did he want??? oh! the pub-ad book... i look blankly at him... i've forgotten!!! the name of one of the most important books i need to study.... and i've forgotten the author's name!!! i could kick myself... it's hard when i'm stuck in the chair with a restraining tray on top of it... but i give an honest attempt... forgot the author!!! and i'm supposed to remember names of obscure, never-use-them-again names like the IMF heads... oh, i remember that one... Dominique Strauss-Kahn...french... may run for president in 2011-12?? against Sarkozy....my train of thought escapes me again... i assure the doc that i'll look into it first thing when i get home... and walk out of the chair... until next month!!!

observations...

hey!! how are ya??? what's up??? not much.... how abt you?? howz life?? job?? still hectic??? oh.... how abt the weekend??...sorry to hear that... really... you're kidding!!!...

sound familiar!??!

haven't you frequently thought of how you can have one of these mundane conversations all by yourself... without the presence of another human being altogether... actually, sometimes, i think i have more lively conversations/disagreements/lively banter... all by myself... i can tell myself a joke, make an observation and 'wow' at it... call myself names and then reprimand coz i'm not allowed to bad-mouth(a few rigid rules i still follow... well most times, atleast....)... it's one of the reasons why i took up writing the blog... i figured if i let all the nonsense out, there'd probably be nothing for me to ardently discuss with myself... i'm not sure it's working though... i catch me still talking to myself...

anyway, the newest thing on horizon(for me) is the discovery of 'Farmville' on facebook.... it's a mind-numbingly slow game that requires you to plant crops, harvest them, etc... i find that some people have made the discovery much earlier... and have risen to high levels(40s...)... i'm already on the 10th level and making steady progress...  it's so boring i can't even write another word abt it... so CUT!

hmm... another weekend... let me go find out if i can 'catch up' with somebody...

a study in books...

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i try and update 'weRead' application on Facebook... just to try and keep a tab on what i've read... i remember an obscure application which i used earlier... but since i've forgotten the site, let alone the user-id and password, i guess it's time for a new list...

i read quite a bit by most general standards... anything... everything... fiction, non-fiction.... bookers, cheap romance... children's books, war sagas, philosophies, physics... it's hard to segregate them into any particular boxes... they haven't followed any particular train of thought or genre or trend... anything i could beg, borrow or buy has generally determined my reading habits... and since i'm practicing my analytical skills for a job interview, i decide to practice it on myself...

1.  Books I wouldn't want to be found dead with.

let's get the embarrassing stuff over with first....
like... if i were caught in a train accident and identified as the reader of one of these, i think i'd die again... examples would be -
- a couple of Mills & Boons (i borrowed from a friend (L), who has a more incriminatory bigger collection!)
- the whole series of Stephenie Meyer's vampire-bella-werewolf drama... no excuses here... but in my defense, i read the whole thing in ebook format(!!) so no money wasted there!

2. Books that most people would love to be found dead with.

you know those books that the more 'intellectual' of your friends discuss seriously and suggest 'it's a must read'??... and then you scout for the book... rent or buy the book... only to find it makes absolutely no sense to you whatsoever... like those stereogram pictures where everybody but you can see a taj mahal in the middle of all the scribbles!!! or your father insists on showing you a particular constellation in the sky and keeps pointing at it... but you just don't know which of the myriad of stars to look at...!! before i go recollecting every little thing that made me feel demented, back to books... that is all we're discussing here...

 - there was 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'. i think i understood the story per se. but if there was some 'deeper meaning' to the whole deal about the Americanized Pakistani guy who returns home, i must have missed it...sorry AA!
- then there was the 'Siddhartha'... a 'philosophical' book... which 'everybody' loves!! and swears by... and all that jazz... i read it... cover to cover... just so i wouldn't feel guilty... (those were hard times...)... but i couldn't squeeze a drop out of that philosophically juicy book....sorry PP!

3. Books that I loved while reading but five years down the line I cannot seem to recollect much.

it's happened with so many books... i loved them when i read them... and now, i cannot recollect the plot, the writer, the protagonist!! one of the reasons probably is coz i discussed it with no one when i read it and so, it such seeped away through my memories... i miss them and keep planning to read them again...
 - Catch 22 - dripping of sarcasm, the tale of Yossarian(?) winds through some World War(?)
- Catcher in the Rye : The easily likable story of the young boy who runs off from school to his home(?)
- To Kill a Mockingbird - two kids, father's a lawyer who defends the black guy accused of murder(?)

4. Books that I loved so much, i dare not read them again.

mostly found on accident, i fell in love with them at the first read... they were so real, so beautiful, so sad... they drove me into a depression which lasted about a fortnight... so, i decide to never read them again! but there's another reason too... atleast for some of them, i'm afraid i might not like them as much if i read them again... my tastes change radically every five years or so...  (remember scheduling your activities around telecasts of "Shaktimaan" on DD1 in the days of yore???)... so, either way, i havent re-read these and don't plan to in the near future...
 - Gone with the Wind

 - Flowers for Algernon

5. Travel/Timpass/Toilet Books

most of my books belong to the category...
the first one and second categories are pretty much the same... only for differing purposes... just the light stuff you carry around when you travel in a bus, visit a bank or go anywhere where you might be kept waiting or might get bored... or the goodnight book for those who cannot fall asleep without a book... with a decent plot, witty dialogues you can re-use to seem smarter than you are... that sort of thing...
these books usually determine how interesting that bit of my life was... for eg: in some years, i've gone through scores of them... i probably read at least 50-60 books of this sort in one especially sad, boring year... but i remember spending a whole semester trying to finish 'Fountainhead' in kgp and getting nowhere...
and finally, the third category of course is an even lighter version, for the long minutes in the loo...

 - Dilbert Principle

 - Jeffrey Archer, Sydney Sheldon

- Robin Cook, Fredrick Forsyth

- John Grisham, Arthur Hailey

Now that is a very neat analysis that i'm justifiably proud of!!! (I only wish i could've written a VBA script to run a macro in Excel 2007 which would put it in pretty little tables and filter them...!!!)

until i find something else to slice & dice,
Adieu!!!

a little this... a little that...

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as i walked through those familiar cubicles, the tagged employees, the pillars, the chairs, drank the insipid tea and munched on a couple of chapatis with a brown liquid for side-dish, i wondered if i missed it... if i had missed it... if you could actually miss something you'd never liked... well, to make things a tad clearer, i was at a interview sort of thing at a big blue company and even before i'd been 'test'ed, i had such a strong urge to run away as fast as i could from becoming one of 'them' again...

anyway, moving on to lighter issues... my head's in a clamp again... probably coz of all the excel programming i've been indulging in... how i wish i still had that 'Lord of the Rings- Return of the King' game on my laptop...  i had to delete it during my exams... i got stuck at at the penultimate level and couldnt finish... no tips on the internet... no cheat codes... nothing helped... finally, i had to delete it in order to get some closure...

swimming's going great... since it's february and most normal people prefer to not shiver in the chilly breeze at 9pm, the pool's sparsely populated... never more than a dozen swimmers... of varying shapes and sizes... from the skinny ones to the rhombus shaped ones... young ones still in school to the old ones with kids in schools... some come for a casual swim, while some seem to be here for a 'purpose'...
we've finished the float and kick... now with the hand movements thrown in, it almost feels like swimming... we just have the breathing to learn....
as i kick off the side of the pool, float a while and begin to kick and swim, i find the only place where i can get away from the worries of the day... seriously... your head's underwater, you've probably snorted in another quart of water into your brains through your nose because you wanted to make your breath last longer and took that last gulp of air too late...  your only worry is to not fill your lungs with chlorinated water and floating leaves...and thus you reach that blissful state...

and now i'm back... i call up a couple of aquarians and wish them their b'days... talk to a friend who's partying and ask him to save some cannabis for future use... for me... he refuses point blank... says he's not comfortable with indian jails, where he'll land if he's caught... hmmm... yehi teri dosti???

and now i curl up on my bed, with my feet up the wall(warning: not to be attempted by amateurs) and read a little of 'Dilbert Principle'... it's like pickle... you can only read a few pages of it at a time... must read something else... maybe that book on China i've 'borrowed' from J's sister...

so, that's it for now!!!

swimming... sinking... drowning...surfacing...

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for reasons that have nothing to do with reason, i have joined swimming classes... though i know enough to not drown within the first five minutes, i thought i could do better than splash around like a baby whale stranded on the shore... but then i did something characteristic of me and chose the 9-10pm batch... what makes it so special?

well, a usual day goes like this... i drive down my activa to the pool... loiter outside the gate until 8:55 when the guard lets us in... change into the swimsuit... take a very unwilling cold shower, cursing the day i enrolled for the classes... and then step down into the pool... the damn thing's probably 4feet deep so my upper half starts shivering uncontrollably while i watch the clock on the opposite side of the pool drag its hands around... not half as fast as i'd like them to be... we have some exercises... float... kick...dip... the trainer, a hitler's cousin barks orders at us 'don't splash'... 'put your head down'... 'cut your nails'... etc, etc... finally when the clock does creep to 10, i race to the shower stalls... the water now seems much warmer... but the shivering comes back as soon as i leave the showers... i shiver as i dress... the 5-min exercise taking 15mins or more... and then, i take a minute or two to get the keys out of my pocket, some more mins pass as i try to insert it into the suddenly tiny keyhole and finally drive....the chill wind freezes my ears and nose... i cannot keep the visor down coz it's dark and lights kinda scatter on it... i've survived the last two days... maybe i'll survive a few more...

disappointments...

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the kpsc results come out today... though the interview panel gave me a 150/200 which people around had claimed was impossible without the regular bribing, my total adds up to a measly 958 because i'd screwed up my mains so bad... the last seat went to 1006 and though i'm almost unflustered, my dad seems to have taken a worse hit than i... he cannot imagine how his precious daughter could fail at anything... i convince him it's ok... there's always a next time... i wouldnt have taken up the KAS thing anyway... and finally after convincing him that the world wasn't coming to an end, i hang up... and browse my own list of friends to see who'd be best suited to get me out of my own dump... who'd feed the same BS to me.... and help me remember that life would indeed go on...

freeloading (part 1)

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just back from a hearty meal at an aunt's... another free loading exercise... i seem to have quite an expertise at free-loading, and years of experience has only allowed me to fine-tune it to an art...

for example, right now, i am in the big city, staying with a friend... she cooks most meals, gives me free career advice, wakes me up in the mornings, nags me into using trains (long story), etc... but on rare occasions she leaves me to fend for myself... (she's a career woman with loads of people to meet, parties and weddings to attend and in a relationship... whereas i haven't had a career in a while, don't understand the point of parties, am phobic to weddings and haven't been in a reciprocated relationship for... hmm.. hmm... )

so, i woke up today to the quiet house... dragged myself to make my ginger tea... and wondered what to eat... you'll be amazed at the huge portion of my brain that revolves around food... i vetoed all ideas that involved my cooking, drew up my chart of people i know who live close by... i was already quite ravenously hungry... so finally i chose my closest aunt(geographically, if not genetically) and arrived on their doorstep, announced myself, ate my meals... i then asked them for today's newspaper, read it... made notes on a borrowed book with borrowed pen, both of which i brought back with me... and then after i coaxed a light snack and coffee out of them and a little television, i bid them adieu! and thus, today's foraging for food was quite well accomplished...

free loading isn't all that difficult... some tips though if you're planning to try it soon... friends or murky relatives... nearly same rules... here they are... not in any particular order...

 - try to laugh at all their jokes... if you don't get them or you think they're not funny, drink beer until you find them funny... but stop drinking before you have to throw up...
 - act offended when they ask you plans that require your leaving their flat... like what are your plans for next month/year/decade/life etc
- in case of anything that needs your getting out of the apartment, do not walk out without a spare key... you might be 'accidentally' locked out... i have had bitter personal experiences...



 - cooking in their kitchen is ok(not on the first day!!!)... but they seem to take exception when you burn milk in three different pots on three consecutive days... i now have another vessel with about an inch of milk-carbon on it... i am not sure what the best way is, to show J that...

 - do not criticize them...no sitting in the another's glass house and throwing stones around... refrain from all constructive/destructive/creative criticism... not their food, not their pets, or their children or their other friends, their cooking, their choice in movies/reality shows/k-serials... NO! NO!!

 - try not break too many stuff... glasses, plates, spoons, CDs... if you do, pretend it was the first time you were seeing the broken pieces...in the same category, vases are dangerous... stay away from them.. if they have flowers in them, you might knock them over and as a result, you'll have
          1) broken vase with dangerous pointy shards
          2)water on the table which will drip down
          3) to ruin the most expensive carpet in the house
and while you run around to find towels to soak the water, hang the carpet out to dry and congratulate yourself on removing all evidence of crime, you'll discover
          4) the only copy of original divorce papers where some nincompoop had signed with the world's last fountain pen....


that's good enough for starters... if there's anything more, i'll probably tag on a second part later...

swimming binge...

yesterday had a little bump in the usual static lines of my life... we(J & I) decided suddenly that we'd go swimming... so since it was the first day of the month and the classes, we decided to join right yesterday... so we went shopping... for me... J already has a swimsuit... after sifting through a myriad of swimsuits... where most of them looked like they were dipped in barrels of industrial waste, i finally found something to my liking... and with a matching cap, i was rearing to plunge into the deepest pool!!

all that was needed was for me to find the swimming pool, pay up the bill and get the IDs which would allow us access... so, i set off on my trusted activa... drove halfway through before it coughed, spluttered and died in the middle of the road... i'd have gone into mechanical details but it just makes me neurotic to even think of the scheming, unreliable junk that is my activa!!! and after all that loving care... there's hardly a scratch on the damn thing... you'd have thought it would reciprocate a fraction of it... but no! it's only a selfish, brutal *#&^%... anyway, before somebody comes running with a bottle of sedatives, i shall finish the story... i called up my cousin and my brother... the latter towed the vehicle while i rambled beside cursing, stomping my foot and acted out the other theatrics... on slopes, he suggested i climb on, but i was so dissillusioned and disappointed with the whole thing, i wanted nothing to do with it...!!

so, there went my swimming classes... and today i have no partner to go... J calculated that Feb had 28 days... and with 4 days off(wednesdays chutti) we'd have just 24 days... and we'd already missed a day...

i was heartbroken... my brand new swimsuit... which had two designs and could be worn inside-out too... lying there in the cupboard, never to be taken out... i felt like a school kid who'd dressed up all nice and clean for the first day of school only to be told Vajpayee had died and so, there'd be no school that day!

i'm considering going today... but all that complex calculation about feb has me confused... will know only when i know...