on the turning away

i can now be found at versethanpoetry.wordpress.com

this blog is currently comatose.

instant messaging killed the in-person star

sigh... i too am part of the batches that were subjected to 24-hour internet and compulsory computers. not that i minded the convenience of it all. but the IM'ing thing really got to me. and i mean REALLY got to me.

and i can't say that perhaps the other life where people would have to get out and talk to each other a lot more is better or worse or anything, because i didn't live it. but i just thought the whole thing was phony (uh oh... i feel the holden caulfield in me surfacing).

and its not like one or two things about it was phony. i mean the whole goddamnned thing was out of control. group buzzes for missing books, chaddies and project group members. lame 'comp hijacks' proclaiming somebody's misplaced their vaseline. the stupid emoticons and the umpteen misunderstandings with (usually) the opposite sex because of my absolute refusal to use them.

i have actually been in crowded rooms where two people's (M & T, e.g.) idea of a quiet personal conversation was IM'ing each other from 8 feet apart.

thank god for AOE. now that was something i could online, and then get out and talk to my fellow players about over nimbu-paani/navycut at dadu's.

i'm getting a strong sense of deja vu... have i griped about this before?

Chasing pills called Alan Parson's Project with a drink called Franz Ferdinand

Do you have a bunch of witty answers for those most-commonly asked questions? I know I do. After I moved here a lot of people asked me what I thought of the place. And after a little while, a couple of weeks of getting acquainted, I figured a good way to describe it would be: "It's like Delhi with fewer cows."

It's all the better if these wise-guy ones tell a person exactly what they want to know. Now many of you have a pretty fair idea about what Hyderagood is really like.

Which really brings me to the most-commonly-asked-question-that-pisses-me-off-the-most: "Where are you from?"

Now don't be fooled by this seemingly innocuous question. This isn't a question that's asking where all you have lived, or been in life. For many Indians it helps peg you. Its answer provides a strong context to the tendencies you exhibit, and predicts the ones you are going to exhibit. Of course, it could also mean that you discuss the commonalities, should that be the case. This way you reinforce cultural stereotypes that have been built over time. "Oh, so you're from Delhi... dude TC is a awesome place...", or "Where in Bombay? Bandra? ALL RIGHT!... which college? XAVIERS?! ME TOO! WOW! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!"

Cut to the scene where the Delhi-ite meets the Bombaywala (or wali... wali is better, because the first thought that crosses her mind when she meets somebody "from Delhi" is "rapist"... or "slut"):

Male (from Delhi): So where you from?
Femme (from Bombay): Bombay.
M: Oh, I see. *Delhi chicks are hotter man*
F: What do you see?
M: Eh?
F: What do you see? *Is this guy dumb or what*
M: Nothing... whaaat?
F: Nevermind... You said you 'Oh, I see', but whateverrrr *loserrrr*
M: Oh that. Nothing, nothing... I thought I'd seen you in Delhi sometime.
F: *Delhi! No wonder. Rapist. And what a cheesy line! Best storm off now before he gets fresh*

*Exuent*

Okay fine, that wasn't quite how it happened. I did get the girl, and now we're happy together, but it's worth trying to piss her off about the Delhi-Bombay thing every once in a while, she's so cute when she's miffed.

But anyway... coming back the painful interrogative...

When somebody says where he or she is from, a whole bunch of things happen to us Indians.

Delhi Male - Must be rich. Doesn't know the reality of life. Dad's business. No cares in the world. Hasn't had it hard for a single day in his life. Disrespectful of women. Good to know in a fight, should have gunda & political contacts.

Delhi Female - Possibly poor sense of taste/style/fashion. Needs to look in the mirror. Possibly not very independent. Gets chauffered everywhere, home by 11pm. Alternatively, the other extreme: rebelious, colourful, slut.

...really, I could go on, but don't believe me: try it for yourselves, the next time you meet anybody new. Or just think about Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bombay, Marus... and those images these words conjure up are what we use as support in this world of shortcuts.

So what's got me so pissed? The fact that I can't seem to answer this question without people's minds going into overdrive, or them really needing to ask me a lot more questions.

*Ting*

Person X: So where are you from?
Me: Delhi
X: Raped anybody yet?

*Ting!*

X: So where are you from?
Me: I grew up in China
X: How come you aren't chinky?

*Ting!*

X: Where are you from?
Me: Moon
X: What's that?
Me: That's my school. I spent 12 years locked up in a building with only one window on each floor.
X: Oh THAT school! Hey, so could you gimme a loan?

*Ting-ting-ting!*

X: Where are you from?
Me: I'm a North-Indian mongrel.

*So now I'm a mangy mutt. Great. Ting!*

Me: I'm a North-Indian mixed-bred

*Great going, Tommy. Ting!*

Me: I don't know.
X: WHAT?

*Ting!*

X: Well?
Me: So my mom's mom is from Jharkhand, and my dad's dad is from Haryana, while the two surviving grandparents are..
X: Zzzzz....

*Ting!*

The worst part of it all is that every new person I meet, without frikking fail, will ask me where I'm from, because they can't make an educated guess from my name...

...and life is good again

So I'm beginning to feel that there might not be any great truth, any great wisdom out there. That life is just this: living. Rushta told me back in Codai that maybe we are too young, too inexperienced to understand it, but there's a good reason why our parents keep telling us to appreciate the finer things, the little things in life.

...and one of those wonderful, little things happened to me in the break-room at work the other day. The telly there is usually playing colourful dances with ugly, mustachioed, shaggy men and pretty, plump (or pretty plump) women, with the soundtrack in a language I don't understand, or violent scenes of Bhagalpur riots, or other current social or political disasters - again in an alien language.

So who could blame me if I tried to change the channel once (just once!) to get away from Gultland just for a moment, especially since there was nobody around... or nobody watching telly anyway. I surfed for a while, and finally settled on Tom and Jerry.

And then some people arrived. Discreetly I put the remote on a table in full public view to avoid being asked for it by an uncleji or auntji, or bhenji who's never visited a salon, or a gaadiwala ("Gaadi" doesn't mean car. In this city, it's used with its original meaning, as generic for "vehicle", but usually refers to a two-wheeler) who got through college on his fists alone. And sure enough, everybody was now curiously looking at the telly flashing violent drawings of feline and rodent tribulations.

And after a few minutes of this, the oddest thing happened. They laughed. Not just one or two of them. ALL of them - fine, so there were about 10 people in the room. At Tom and Jerry. Some who probably didn't grow up with a television, and had never seen a cartoon in their lives. Some who'd been taught and told that cartoons were childish and silly, and adulthood is about being serious and responsible and un-fun. It was heartwarming, really, to stand in a room full of strangers and out of the blue share and enjoy an experience which up until now I felt was me clinging on the remnants of a simpler time in my life. A time when there were no great questions, or attempts to answer them. A time when the little things in life were the most important ones of all.

Pan-galactic gargle blaster

In one of life's mysterious, unexpected twists:

There's a friend of mine (a catholic lady, the sort who drinks alcohol for religious reasons, among others) who has a shot-glass collection. She's traveled to many strange places, and picked up one in every city she's been to.

There's, of course, as such things go, another friend of mine (a muslim man, the sort who won't buy me a drink if he was taking me out to dinner) who also has a shot-glass collection. In his own words: "My parents would travel, and get me up the smallest thing they could buy."

The grass on the other side

Remember those initially funny, then really corny, eventually very irritating Mac ads that would come once in a while?

I guess this guy wants to show you what's on the other side... and man, is he pissed off.



Err... also... would somebody tell me how to put a youtube video directly on the my blog? I'm no longer as tech-savvy as I used to be...

Never mind; I did it manually though, pulled out the code from somebody else's page, and changed it and plugged it in here. Now, is there a simpler way? Jesus, had to put in the HTML for striking-through as well...

Lost focus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerpuff

Scroll through this entire page... then tell me if you notice something missing.

hee hee

On resisting temptation

Wanna guess which is the worst seat on the plane? No... not the one next to the loo. Nope, not a middle seat, which is claustaphobic without the benefit of a window... nope, not even the seat bang in the middle of 4 couples with 3 infants each...

It's an emergency exit seat.

Not just ANY emergency exit seat. It's the one RIGHT next to the exit.

So its got a lot more leg room, you say, right? It's the best seat in the plane, right? Wrong. True, your legs have a little more space to sprawl, and your knees aren't constantly rubbing against the guys next to you (because you never - as a rule - NEVER get lucky enough to sit next to a hot chick on a plane), but there are many other perils of that seat.

For one it doesn't recline. That's pretty bugging if you ask me. And what's the point of more leg room if your back has to be all upright anyway? To add to that, you don't have an armrest on the side of the exit. Yup. No armrest. Check it out the next time you're sitting there. And obviously the fat guy sitting next to you has taken up all of the other armrest.

What's worse is that the seat in front of you doesn't have a table that falls down in front. So you have to wake up Fat Guy so that he can get his Fat Arm of the armrest so you can get your table out when the food comes. Then Fat Guy eats so fast, and promptly falls back asleep so you have to wake him up again when Nice Lady With Too Much Makeup comes back for the trays. Now I wouldn't have minded making Nice Lady wait a while, but on this particular flight, I was fortunate enough to have Clean-shaved Neanderthal Male With Frown waiting on me.

So all of this is but natural, and not in the least bit relevant to the seat, and well, not so unbearable; and you're right. I haven't come to the best part yet.

You can't keep your hand luggage under the seat in front of you - it has to go in the overhead compartment. So I didn't have the pleasure of switching between music and literature on this journey. Unless I wanted to get up, wake up Fat Guy and the chap sitting next to him a couple of times in order to switch between White Stripes and Bill Bryson.

Not the best part.

The window next to this seat is a little square in the door the size of my palm, supposedly to see whether or not its safe to get out of the emergency exit in the case of a catastrophy. So, no pretty lights, no painted oceans, nothing by the way of aesthetic comfort during take-off and landing to compensate for being in a metal box whizzing through the air on the collective prayers of first-time travelers.

Nope, still not the best part.

The best part is that a nervous, jumpy, impulsive human being like me had to spend the entire flight sitting next to a door ---- wait for it ---- marked "Pull".

lacking passion; lazy; gluttonous; punctuating, punctuated, interrupted; self-centred; self-indulgent; self-fish;
shell fish
honest; proud
desire for acceptable, conflicting need to be unique
pseudo random
why am i writing this? why am i writing this? i should delete it, right? maybe now? maybe at the end. you (who's voice is this now?) know you're not going to. do i? am i not? i've done it before. maybe this time won't be so different.
mistakes, mistaken, mistake maker; spineless
sleepy & sleepless; paradoxial (dictionary says paradoxical); poetic license.
who's going to read this? would you want somebody to read this?
a writer, a scholar, a teacher, a dreamer, a wishful thinker; frustration; impatience; no backspacing now; too late, i've gone too far
nonsense, gain some sense! some experience! work, read, work, learn, cope, respect, low profile, tact, diplomacy, push, stretch, aspire...
wake, groan, grouch, grumble, sleep, cheat-sleep, groangrouchgrumble, shower-brush-pee, dry, clothes, milk, rush, work, lunch, work, meet, smoke, grumble, work, laugh, play, snack, work, when-we-going home, work, facebook, faff, home, dominos, tv, sleep...
dream of bombay, alcohol, foreign country, monetary donation is the extent of me doing my part for a better world, a better life for kids dying on the street
forgetful. amnesiac. longterm effect, i believe, who knows? maybe i was always this way. maybe not. maybe i have no idea who i am.

Black

Sheets of empty canvas
Untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me
As her body once did
All five horizons
Revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed
Has taken a turn

So I see her dancing with her boyfriend, ya?


I wanted her once. Something didn’t happen. I remember the times I’d sung this song before. To myself. To the mirror. To maybe an imaginary audience who weren’t listening anyway. To her.

Ooh and all I taught her was everything
Ooh I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands
Chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything
Oh the pictures have
All been washed in black
Tattooed everything

I see them now.
He’s like one of my closest friends. There isn’t a thing he couldn’t ask me for.
Some kind of contact dance. Hand-holding and twirling. Side step; deep gazing; twist; shake, scream, hold-and-bend, embrace, kiss...

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by
Some kids at play
I can feel their laughter
So why do I sear

We were sitting under this tree; Eucalyptus. If you’ve seen one, you know what I mean – tall, thin, white, the bark has engravings all over it – I pretended I didn’t want to sing it when I really did. It was night. No. It was morning. We talked. Today things are different.

Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin
Round my head
I'm spinning
Oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away...
And now my bitter hands
Cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures had
All been washed in black
Tattooed everything
All the love gone bad
Turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see
All that I am
All I'll be...

An age has past. And I see her dancing. And I see them dancing. That’s something I couldn’t give her.
And you know what? I’m happy. It’s the closure I never got.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky
But why
Why
Why can't it be
Why can't it be mine

The evening ends? I don’t know. But the words that play, Greenday albeit, are:
For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.

One way to fill up blog space

This is a distraction. Read the post below.

A tale of six colours and one very expensive bird

15/12 trip day zero 1pm. Question (to driver) : will we reach CraggySpur by 4pm? Bad Answer: No. We left too late. Good Answer: “Aaraam se” (and pray for a traffic jam) 5pm. Missed train.

There was Tash’we, Jalal, Bacchju, Windrea, myself (‘Kal’), and a hitherto unmentioned colour I shall call Foofy. We were headed to CraggySpur to catch a train to BrahmaSpur at 4.30 and were running late. Of course, Murphy wasn’t going to stop there and gave some of us near escapes from death-by-decapitation, followed by a traffic jam thru which our cabbie managed to weave in and out of in some insane fashion.

Phew… reach CraggySpur (or rgp as commonly known). Missed train. Well, c’est la vie! Got ourselves a good meal at Hotel Fark (and little did we know how rare that would be!) Bacchju thinks we should order one more starter. Over dinner I came to know that Tash’we might’ve been a doctor, and that Foofy had indeed had a girlfriend. Anyway, get back, get on next train to B’Spur. In the meanwhile purchase stuff to read. Between us, we covered every possible genre. TTs weren’t very helpful. Jalal and Windrea got stuck on the other half of the train for a bit in the middle. 16/12 Then J, F and I spent the night berth-hopping and contorting into unusual shapes to get snatches of sleep. Finally we get to B’Spur. Oh, and I procured in rgp. We get to our final destination, JeeSpur-On-C at about 8, check into Hotel C Cide Breeze (By The Beach), and head out for breakfast.

Breakfast was gooooood. We have again ordered the menu, including ice cream.

Who is Amrit Anjan? … Sitting on the beach with ChcknMnky after nice long re-acquaintance with my old friend. Wave after wave lashed against us and we laughed. The louder it hit us, the longer it dragged us, the more we laughed. Laughed at the awesomeness of the ocean, its sheer strength and our puny (or as some would say – older and in shape) bodies against it – a tribute to its greatness. Or maybe we laughed at the challenge, the feeling of combating, the thrill of pitting ourselves against one of the grandest forces of nature.

1pm. I now know what happened to my green pyjama. Fruits by the beach bplan.

Later that day, we started discovering that food in this place was going to be a problem. Lunch stank because the restaurant we went to took forever with the food and didn’t have half the things on the menu. Plus the food sucked. At another place, we were told we should order the food an hour in advance, and that we should do that for dinner. Spent the rest of the day with B and F walking around G’Spur… the trinket shops with sea-shell stuff (didn’t buy anything… hmm… I wonder why…), the light-house (where they wouldn’t allow cameras), back to the beach at dusk… a group of fishing boats were coming in, and we saw catches being auctioned off. Some of those fish fetch 1,200 bucks a piece, and sharks get 8 grand apparently…!

Some sight those boats. A lot of them in the water look like twisted orange and yellow and black flags, well aligned with one another. When one’s near the beach it expertly rides the waves to the shore. The fish, of course, are quite something else measuring several feet in length, strung together on a stick carried on the shoulders of two men, or in baskets by brisk-paced women.

Ho-hum… came back to our rooms. Our rooms opened out to the beach. Step out to the veranda and we could see the entire expanse of the ocean. I believe some more activity took place after a reasonably disappointing dinner, but I went to sleep. Hadn’t had much on the train.

17/12 Up bright and early! Went to BaculChillkuh. Had semi-decent lunch. Came back to G’Spur. Decent dinner at Hotel C Paarl. Kalled. Sat outside and listened to the waves crash against the shore. Ugh… all the Cfood made me sick. Actually the food got to almost all of us.

18/12 Another heavy breakfast! KneelCamel is definitely the best place to eat as far as our experience of G’Spur goes… and it’s a vegetarian establishment. Back to the beach, and this time B was giving swimming lessons to T, F and W. He failed. Instead we had running races. ChcknMnky stole my last djinn *pfft* and I was too lazy to make another one. Naah, no biggie. Rush back to B’Spur for train to rgp at 6. Got SOME berths this time, still W, B and I were next to the doors. 19/12 Train back home was the best, lots of room to crash.

Photo-taking credits? F...

This last one was taken by B.

Pebble Ripples I

NM road gives a most beautiful drive. On any given Sunday. Today IS Sunday. Aberdeen's idea about making songs about the Tok H customs in different countries was just processed by my brain. I still remember it after so many hours. And then there's the one with a park.

I'll scribe some of my own stories first:

(note: most of the following are not exclusive. More often than not, one trip is complete only with a series or a juxtaposition of several given scenarios. Also, do not take this list as comprehensive. Or expect your own personal kalluh experiences to 'fit' into one of these; they are not moulds or benchmarks. Write your own. Share with the world your wonderful life. And this list ain't complete.)

a) The park - serene green, sometimes brown, sometimes flowered, the weather an acquired taste - is almost always the my favourite place to be. At any time of the day or night; unless its blazing hot, or crowded, or unfriendly. And slowly I'm beginning to realise there are a lot of unfriendly places in the world.
This one outdoor experience happened next to a small lake in a infamous college campus. Mosquitoes, swamp-like conditions, still smug air.
My makeshift 'park' experience from my aerial residence in Ji'chovn in the terrace. A spectacular place to watch the sun set, Rushta and I have spent several nights charting the skies while kalluh and ooshkay spun their magic around us (see With ooshkay...)

b) The room - computer, speakers, tables, beds, clothes, shoes, unkals, bottles, empty bottles, tightly squeezed with another 50 of exactly the same composition (minus the kalluh) on the same floor - is where i usually find myself indulging in the pleasures of kalluh. Music soothes the intake and there are regular questions about who's getting the water next. Soon these degenerate into southpark marathons, movies, music videos, music, and, in the worst and most despisable case, sleep. (Rustha! Heed!)
Tonight has turned out particularly vegetative with Rushta and me discovering 24 (Season 1) and watching 5 episodes. it is now 4 am, and there is work to get to tomorrow. I am going to watch a few more, while Rushta sleeps. It's too late for me now.

c) With strangers. Kinds of strangers met: old dogs, young dogs, only kall when sherbing dogs, never kalled before dogs, claim to kall dogs, left kalling dogs, unkals. Old dogs are usually all right, unless they're proud, pompous and show-offy as shit. Nobody likes that kind of attitute whether he kalluhs or not. Young dogs are great fun to be with, but then I gotta make sure I don't act like the old dog I just described; however, I do see how it's easy to behave like that. But so far meeting strangers has been a good experience.
Sometime I want to say to anybody who's never kalled before: Do it with your own friends. Don't find random acquaintances who kall and get them to fix you. One particular chappie was in the middle of one of my djinns when he told me he'd never kalled before and wanted to try it. Felt like watching a twelve year old having sex with a whore. And I was the pimp. Yes, now you KNOW it's not that kind of a blog. Sorry to burst your bubble. I'm taking off the kid gloves for all you weak-at-hearts out there. Swallow it. You KNOW I'm doing it for effect. The message IS simple enough; the delivery brutal. So what's new? Another one wants a piece of sensationalist pie.
Most unkals are bad too. I can't tell what's going on in somebody's head. I can't read body language for crap. I barely understand English. I don't read people well. Even less so when kalled. So unkals are the worst of the lot in THAT regard; paranoia sets in early on, especially if you don't know the unkal(s) at all. My... condition... forces me to meet a lot of people, mostly strangers, and many unkals. Several unfortunate events have happened at the hands of unkals, and sober people in general. Jalal and Rushta were witness to when the dam broke over the field of Ja'yelt and the stars forever dimmed their light on me. Ah, that's a sherb story, though, and shall be told later.
Folks who claim to kall will more often than not decline when offered. Author suspects wannabes. This special category exists because if they do indeed accept, they would be filed under old dogs or young dogs. Folks who claim to have stopped kalling will more often than not accept when offered. Author suspects submission under influence of sherb, or liars for image sake. This is a rotten kind of person to meet anyway because even if he's quit kalling, he might really give you a bad trip about all the healthy shit he's been doing the last few years. Or maybe he'll simply say "you should quit. it's bad for you" or something as stupid and obvious like that. All while he's shooting ooshkay and fagging. I believe science. Kalluh safer than Fag.
Then there's the worst of them all.
People, as a rule, should not sherb and kall at the same time. The reason I call it a rule is because it's a exactly like one. Sometimes you follow it. Sometimes you break it. And sometimes you get caught breaking it with your jaw resting on a shitpot.
But the fact that one gets sick is not why I don't like strangers who kall while sherbing. Because they don't REALLY kall. They don't procure raw materials. They don't have manufacturing ability and/or inclination. They don't have finished goods. They're a falsely happy, extremely uncouth race of people who will smell kalluh a mile away, hunt you down and pluck the djinn right out of your fingers. And ask for more. And expect you to even provide them with more. Insatiable at best, such kind of people are abundant at ginwhetts and there's often very little i would like to do for such a large number of people on my own. This set is so close to unkal that I'm tempted to name them the quasikal.

d) With reebay, ooshkay, and other sherbs. Kalluh and reebay are mfeo. "made for each other". Yes. Laugh. Bastard. The conflicting, yet mild nature of the two produces most interesting effects. Like kalled talk. Terribly entertaining for everybody. One can keep 'em lips wet and smacking with the reebay, a nice chilled one at that + it provides energy. Kalluh slows you down and makes everything so funny. Dual notions of clarity of thought, even better. A certain loss of perspective leaves one in a communicationally Cubist universe. Kalling with ooshkay is very different that way. A regular quantum of ooshkay leaves one fairly incapacitated to appreciate the kalluh. Often heavy and headachy feelings of sobriety are experienced; unless of course, a slight miscalculation in the mix leaves you on just the other side of coin. But several nights were spent (2, precisely) in the company of a certain Mr. JD which hasn't completely left me anti-ooshkay on kalluh. Odkay-kalling was described in a horrible book I read once. I've tried it, but can't recall enough to record. I don't do murkay, so i know nothing about that.

* * * *

to be continued

Upcoming sections:

e) in comparison to sherb
f) with women
g) in the mountains
h) with food

More from One Night At...

Rings at Daybreak

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT AHEAD. PROCEED AT OWN RISK. I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO READ THIS. YOU WILL NOT BE DOING ME A FAVOUR.

I thought about the light. Everything's... different. Not wrong, just different. The shadows aren't formed; their vague penumbras are in the opposite direction from usual.

Joggers, strangely, walk. Perhaps they're done. Or they never started. How cliched.

Consciousness? How much is enough? Or how little is too little? My my my, I'm really on a roll today. I see a row of pigeons perched across a telephone cable as I walk under it. They're thinking about which one of them is the lucky one who gets a shot at shitting in my eye while I stare up at them apprehensively and walk on below them, perpendicular to their lofty straight line seatedness. Like a council of ministers from a bad movie. They're all even facing the same way. Too bad there's a godsend branch between them and me. The chosen one doesn't even try.

I think about a lot of things I've thought about in the past and have meant to post about. Like what I think every time I'm in a men's loo, peeing at the urinal. Is it okay to have a conversation with the other guys in a similar predicament? I don't know. Some think it's okay. Sort of say Hi and chat and tell you about their day, as if the occasion demands it or something. Same chaps who won't nod at you if they pass you in the corridor. And where do you look when you're peeing? At your weenie? Or straight ahead? Or stare upwards like it's some big load being taken off your shoulders? Is there an ethic, a guide for these things? There ought to be. It's extremely uncomfortable to not intuitively KNOW how to react in a certain circumstance. So I usually do all three... look down, make sure you're hitting the pot and not dripping all over the place; stare straight ahead and wonder whether or not it'll flush on its after you leave; and then sigh and look up, often to see misguided graffiti (naked woman, or better still a penis with 'wut da fuk r u lukin at' written badly next to it), or an advertisement ("Learn English in 24 days!"). Sometimes I see nothing, which is usually the best thing ever. Lets you sigh in peace. And I make a mental note of the location of that specific urinal, hoping no stupid sod comes and defiles what is as much mine as it is his.

Or do you, if the loos are terribly constructed, which most are, stare into the next one where your mate is peeing? Is that a done thing? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, DUDE! STOP THAT SHIT! Aw Jesus... those kinda guys REALLY put me off; THAT is one bit of etiquette I'm pretty clear on. When I was young and innocent and well, altogether a lot shyier than I am right now, this classmate who was the tallest kid peered at me in the next booth - "Haha, i can see your weenie" - stupid shit.

I usually turn the other way - call it whatever you like people, laughs on me - just to affirm that I am so completely not interested in his thang.

I think about how I'll probably summarise my thoughts in 5 short sentences then grope around in the darkness of more things to write.

I think about how i don't really care about this blog or what Ameya will think about it.

Or anybody, for that matter. A, please don't take offense. That is result of your hyperventilating about "pure shite" last night at flavours.

I think about Rilke. About what he said about finding beauty in ordinary life. Which is also pure shite. Because unless you can't express it beautifully, it remains what it is - toilet talk.

I think about Vatz. And then Shef. And I'm frightened momentarily that I might not think about anything else till I get home, but that doesn't happen. Then in rapid succession and in no particular order and with no particular criteria i think of people; Misha, Chica, Kaberi... KABERI? hmm... Mother Teresa, mother, Ameya, Bhai, random person behind the counter of a convinience store in... America? - the chinky guy from fight club! sachin, soumya, abhishek gupta the XLer, Tushar, Shweta, and a lot of people who might want their identities protected, sudhanshu kasewa, the worm, double hmm...

Stream of consciousness fades.

Some tales deserve to be told. Some don't. Some can't.

I'm a selfcentred egotistical fuck. A Leo no less, massage the ego, and you'd get anything you want out of me. This piece is fiction.

I don't care

I don't care

I have a lot of voices in my head

Maybe i'm trying to block them out by saying i don't care. i find my life so ridiculously simple that i loathe it.

Well, not so much my life, but my thoughts. I am stupid.

I take one last drag and blow rings at daybreak. Flick my ciggy, hits a tree and lands on the ground. Burn anything? I hope not, but I don't care enough to ensure that that doesn't happen.

If one heard everything that went on in his/her head, s/he would go insane. I'm sure of it. How does one choose?

Dada, maybe I'll read this 24 hours later and think it's shit. I don't care about that either. Not right now in any case. Cross that bridge when I get to it.

36th Hour

A peek into what's on in my pearl right now:

*Insert moment of inspiration speech here*

*Insert attempt at story, wit, or any thing blogworthy here*

*Insert picture to compensate for above attempt's miserable failure*

*Delete post before accidentally pressing publish button and exposing how pathetic you really are*

*sigh*

Echoes is stuck in my head. Not a bad thing, say I. Still dealing with inertia.

So my love Kria says you haven't blogged in a while *uh oh... this is turning into that speech*

Several times below a time died a girl not called uhsnahdus awesak.

I miss school. I feel stupider than ever. This is not my freaking diary.

What if your brain...

So that's the juice! My Winamp icon suddenly pops out of my monitor and animately screams at me:
"What the hell is wrong with you, you monotonous shit listening lowlife? Can you PUHLEEZ get over Floyd already? you've been playing him (sic) for days on end and all that twisted crap is making me sick - I feel like i'm flying through a pool of livid yoctoqwizms that gnaw away at any hanging plugins they can get their filthy wammoks on!..."

Yoctoqwizm: A very very very small Qwizm. So small, in fact, that even if you were flying through a pool of livid yoctoqwizms, their size (or lack of it) makes them so incredibly useless at the art of gnawing away at anything bigger than an electron that you would escape almost untouched. It's sort of the feeling a comb has after you've brushed your hair with it. Word of caution: Stay away from bits of paper.

yotta	Y	1024
zetta	Z	1021
exa	E	1018
peta	P	1015
tera	T	1012
giga	G	109
mega	M	106
kilo	k	103
hecto	h	102
deka	da	101
deci	d	10-1
centi	c	10-2
milli	m	10-3
micro	mu	10-6
nano	n	10-9
pico	p	10-12
femto	f	10-15
atto	a	10-18
zepto	z	10-21
yocto	y	10-24

Go figure. I was smart enough to do it.

I'm still googling wammok, though. Somehow I feel Winamp is making it all up, and deserves to be shot.

So I did. And now I'm typing blind. add o that the fact that my roomlight doesn't work (could it be the yoctoqwizmsz again? ), i can't even see the keys hat i'm pressing...

how the hell iam i going to find the publish bitton in this darkeness?

earlier...

was continuing to surprise self on how the mere prospect of a mere beer gets me drunk. shortly after was singing shineonyoucrazy (as i once heard thom say) loudly in bathroom much to chagrin of fellow bathers

Maamuh REMs peacefully. Tomorrow's a long day.

Okay, time to steal ideas -

My old poetry:

To Life

The expanse...
Three dots are far too little to describe this Unexplored.
My land till the horizon, dimly lit by the twilight.
Yet, I'm sure,
Through my travels I would've seen every bud flower -
Left no stone unturned,
Trod every path,
Sniffed every whiff of sweet lime from my playground,
Tasted even every pine that grows on the hills, every souring fruit in the valleys below.
Felt breezes and gales, mists and heat robbed off the desert.
Feeling, a sensual experience, but...
But, being fortunate as I might,
Would I have lived? Truly lived?
Delved deep into Nature's secret -
And coaxed its extraction for my own knowledge?
Would I have evolved, or would life still be meaning-
less, like air?
For this is my fear - to dig wells and never strike water.
And this is my fear,
For soon this twilight shall fade.

Hee hee... Kria will kill me for this

Hello

Hi!

Did you shave today?

What?

I asked, did you shave today?

N-no... but why do you ask?

I see. What's in your wallet?

Er...Money?

Just money, eh?

Yeeah... and a photograph... and couple of old bills and a few visiting cards and an ATM card and my driver's licence an-

How about in your head? What's in there?

My pink plastic pearl, of course! Everybody has one.

I don't.

*increduously* You don't???

Nope.

I don't believe it.

Mine's grey.

Oh really? And what proof have you got of that?

I'm omniscient.

(Cacophony! Things come crashing down as a certain lady in the outskirts of JNU smells the stench of badly plagurised ideas)

What rot! Come now, you don't REALLY expect me to believe that.

I do.

Oh... okay, then...

You should go to sleep.

Ya I should... why did you ask me if I had shaved today?

I wanted to know.

Oh. A wise guy, huh? And I suppose you also wanted to know what's in my wallet, right?

Why else would I ask.

How insightful.

*doubletake* What is?

The contents of aforementioned wallet.

Oh really... care to share these 'insights' of yours, my friend?

Nope.

*groans* You sick bastard.

You lousy scumbag piece of shit.

Stop fucking with my head.

I wouldn't if you'd just go to SLEEP already.

I can't now. It's already past 6am.

Ooh oh, right... you can't sleep if it's past six am...

Tell me... is it past six am at nine pm?

Er... ya, i suppose it is...

What about at midnight?

Well, yes maybe midnight is still after 6am...

Okay... now, do you think that 6am is after midnight?

Yes i can see what you're trying to do, you fiend! but i won't let you win, hardy har har

Fine, don't. I got what I wanted. Good food and a beer.

AND the knowledge of the contents of my wallet.

Of course. How forgetful of me.

Eternal twilight of the uncertain LAN

I have limited or no mobility. I don't know if that means i'm merely limping or completely bedridden due to hangover.

--------------------------------

Bacchju.

Aah! what a name! it's the first thing that every one of us individually pondered about on meeting the mahl'oo. Apparently he came to be thus known due to a slight miscommunication between the stork and the turtles.

Bacchju is not (yet) one of the inhabitants of Treeoven. He lives with an indestructible bubble called Shak'D, much closer to the Aerth in a place called Elvenix.

Maamuh arose while I chronicled. I suspect he won't be able to survive the day if he doesn't brush after waking up - even if it's only an hour-long nap. Ahhhh... good habits! the logic evades me...

Treeoven has seen a fair amount of activity of late. Currently, it accomodates 5; originally the domain of Maamuh and the bikjer Stydo, the latter was quickly replaced by Self at the beginnings of Being at Ecks L'rye. Tash'we has been here longer than i can recall; however, in recent time Rushta lost his ways along the galleys of Tridfluur and decided to call Treeoven his home, abandoning his fellow raamrawi Urek in Tridivonvon. To add to this gathering, Windrea moved her belongings up Ji'chovn to Treeoven over a strategic whitewashing procedure called Essipi.

Essipi also effected Bacchju, and he has temporarily relocated to Wentione where Jalal and his manic coboarder Jaikishen Furnando (also a mahl'oo) live.

And now, one Rising later, I return to tell more tales of Bacchju...

Bacchju had a fairly simple childhood in the south of Ynd, in the village Chinuk. He said his prayers, did his homework, and ate his sprouts and strawberry milkshake like the good little mahl'oo boy that he was. He didn't trouble the girls, or tie firecrackers to the tails of poor puppies, or do any of the naughty vile things that little boys are infamous for. No; he is Bacchju the Sober, so named due to his dislike for all things intoxicating, like desire, power, anger, and yes, Drink.

How he developed this zenist attitude to vice, can, well, be described better pictorally.
And so, there, in the depths of the cauldron, Bacchju's unmuddied infant brain saw vice for what it truly was: the corruptor of humankind. He tasted the poison like no other mortal shall ever know, and it swam through him and he through it till it coursed his veins as blood. From those depths arose Bacchju the Sober, Bacchju the Uncorruptable, Bacchju the Sticky, and he promptly toddled off to take a bath.

I love my kutti mouse

it has a blue light. and it's smaller than my cell phone.

---------------

*sigh* first post? did i get everybody all right? Having decided not to tax the pink plastic pearl rattling around in the cavernous recesses of my skull, i have resorted to cosmetics to cover up for (or compliment, you choose) incompetence.

Can I be the human? Tash'we is an elven thief, and Maamuh is giant grunting fighter who keeps dying and forcing me to restart my game. Windrea, strangely, is now a girl, a cleric, and a lifesaver when s/he is not trodding over Urek's genitalia. The Old Man, Jalal and the Fat Man, Rushta are actually the same person, or so this apocryphal chronicler says so: This is MY story, so keep your facts out of it. Which leaves the self-styled ABerdeen - a freak - to wrap up this completely incomplete list of Jolly Good Fellows who frequent my humble adobe called Treeoven.

We remain Kasewa.

And now we are tired. This creativity stuff shore drains us. 2bcontinued...