Provisionally Resuscitated

After a long time, today I breathed again from eight in the evening till eight seventeen... now I must make like a wall plaster and study for mid semesters...

Oh well...

Appreciating Asmodai

There are quite a few people who are not just people… they are artists… and not your unshaved, shoeless variety… they are the real thing… they are where it’s at… and a smattering of them are soulless… for they are so absolutely topping at what they do that they’re sure to have rented their soul to the devil, if not to have auctioned it outright… or maybe even sold it over the counter at a 10% discount…

There is of course du Maurier… nobody could possibly question the authenticity of the fact that she had sold her soul to the devil… after all she is so darn delightful… there is also I believe Wodehouse, who in the enormity of his heart faced the world with a brave smile, not wanting us mortals to know of the vaccum in his gallbladder where his soul had put up a “To Let” sign and rented a summer cottage in the Hades… Christie I think leased her soul out at different periods of time… there are in her oeuvre occasional gems indicative of the truly soulless… Dickens and Hardy fancied themselves soulless and that I’m afraid has been their undoing all along… and one cannot not mention von Trapp – mere modesty aside: soulleast, if ever there was one.

To think all great literature and street-corner pubs are nothing but the indelible signs of the munificence resident in dear Ol’ Nick’s heart… the misunderstood unappreciated poor little dah-ling! Sniff!

Fifteen Dead...

That was the day before. Yesterday a girl tried to resuscitate a sparrow that had hit the fan. The sparrow didn't make it through the night though.

Actually, it's not so much about life or death. Love or hate. Or fanaticism. Maybe money, yes. But not entirely.

When push comes to shove, I think it's about deciding to let the athapookalam remain and to make the rangoli around it: it's about letting be.

The Day Joseph Kesselring Rode Again

Scene: Some day, some show, some kids... the mommies want the mommy-ers to lisp shaggy dog stories...

Kid A: There was a cat. No... actually there were three. No no... from the beginning ok? There were three ants. One was gray, one was white, and one was... uh... (the mommy responsible pssttss-ed from the third row)... yes... one was gray, one was white, one was green. A black ant (the kid in question was too young for arithmetic... but then, aren't we all?) asked the gray aunt why it was gray and the ant (the gray one and not the black) said it was because she ate stones (even the kid knew that an elephant would be a wee bit over-the-top perhaps). Ditto the green: because she ate grass. Punchline: the white: because she used Fair and Lovely. "Thank you".

Kid B: There were three ants. They planned for three days to eat a snake. The snake came and ate them. I want toffee.

I, for one, laughed. Fluoride and Old Bobbin, if ever there was one: with her heart in the right place.

La Famiglia

Starring:



Banquo, the Serenade-er... the resident minstrel... even if a little mistimed.





Manpreet, the Juneja... friend, philosopher, guide... they don't stuff 'em the same no more.

Daisy, the Closet Monster (in closet)... lending new dimensions to the phrase "stage fright".

Artist's Rendering (Garbetian School)... inspired by the hieroglyphic graffiti in the Parthenon... by von Trapp.

The Arctic Winter is a Saturday Night

Some weekend this was. To begin with, it commenced quite on schedule and rather hospitably volunteered to stretch till Wednesday – obviously an improvement. Then of course, after numerous calls of dithering, general lecturing, and chocolate chip cookies, the mountain came to Mahomet… with mirche ka achaar and lehsun chutney. To complete the effect and given the usual surfeit of weekend work (including assignments and laundry amongst the more diverting ones)… I remained inflexible, resolved, resolute, unyielding (etcetera) and as a matter of policy actuated by principles of high living and right thinking, buffed up my indolence to a finer point than even I ever thought possible. That again is always welcome… one wishes to add ‘change’ but lying to imaginary friends is not well-bred. My academic life of late has tiptoed as close to putting up a “To Let” sign as it possibly could without chipping a nail … al-most the novelty begins to keep continuously running off on coffee-breaks. It must, however, be admitted that this inactivity rounded the weekend off rather nicely… that and the crochet border.

Meanwhile, while I was away, a closet monster came to play and Manpreet had company over cocktails. The monster continues to keep dropping in even now and I’m planning to call her Daisy, after the cow. After all I can’t keep referring to her as “that monster”… it’s the same principle as in the case of mothers-in-law and potential-judicial-process-professors, only with more justification. Be that as it may, Daisy is almost family now… especially now that she has taken to borrowing my clothes without asking and forgetting to return them. Such affection reah-lly… sniff!

In passing: Whoever says cut-copy-paste is effortless and ‘easy’ should be flayed, impaled, hung, drawn and quartered after being made to attend Labour Law class punctuated with infomercials, with his/her eyes taped open. Socialism in projects is sound doctrine. So is communal authorship.

Snippets

A. It was P's birthday yesterday... so today's been a lifetime and a day of bickering... and in all sobriety I modify the past 15 years of "I'd have preferred the salamander" to read "No salamander makes chocolate cake as well as you do"... cheers!

B. Today, after a month and a half of exile, I was returning home. And then I wasn't. Now maybe home will come to hostel. Last bulletin awaited with bated breath. But then I haven't lived with my luck for the past so many years in an entirely clueless fashion.

C. I rediscovered why I am infatuated with older men. Not that after last night's Sean Connery extravaganza, I needed any reminding. But I did anyway.

D. Another birthday tomorrow. I feel so old all of a sudden. Not jaded you know... just old... in a now-I've-seen-everything sort of way. Which is very strange given that all the world I have seen is home, school and college... and two-thirds of these as instruments and vehicles of capitalist conspiracy to enslave the youth of today. Which would be okay if it didn't include me. Which is also why the youth of yesterday and tomorrow must rent their own spokespersons: the current rate seems to be two and a half bars of Milky Bar and one of Juditha Triumphans. What I need is a chocolate cake, a Maggie party and lots of coke. What I have, on the other hand, is a project in Interpretation of Statutes. Life, such as it is, goes on.

E. There are lots of words I like the sound of: there is salsa... I like the way my tongue rolls when I say it. There is also Michigan... I like the slight whistle that sounds. Then there is snippets. Point being I don't get to use these words everyday, in my day-to-day-oh-gawd-look-at-them sort of life. Also that perhaps my favourite phrase would be "Snippets of salsa in Michigan"... I'd like Chile certainement, if only I was sure once and for all of the pronunciation.

F. This is primarily just because... though the fact that three multiplied by two is six figures somewhere.

Learning from the Ostriches

The two things I haven't been able to get the hang of in the three-odd years of my adult existence are ironing clothes and saying goodbye: I keep wanting to put both off for tomorrow and keep hoping they'll come up with self-ironing clothes or sumfing.

The goodbyes will still remain a problem though. One could say au revoir: but isn't that like hiding your tooth and brushing it everyday anyway, when one could've traded it for whatever the prevalent exchange rate is in tooth fairy stocks? Pointless, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, until a breakthrough is made in this regard, I prefer to sleep through the goodbyes. After all, everything said and done, Ostriches have survived evolution just as well as we have. And they have better plumage.

Watch Before Sunrise and Before Sunset: in the latter, watch the last shot at least thrice. Not just because three is a good number.

Insomnia

In a world where it takes approximately 157.94 hours for a could-be to become a has-been, it’s a wonder that it takes ice-cream all of 7.49 minutes to semi-melt.

Little miracles such as this make me glad that I remembered to get chicken curry along for the long ride home.

(Alternatively, I could stay up and beat about frenziedly for the tooth fairy… we have a flutter going… I suspect she looks a little like Bugs, the Bunny while Banquo bets on Bevan, the Beaver. Let’s see what turns up)