Bengaluru Diaries! #1

(This is a very long overdue post, I guess I have been just too lazy to put my bum on a seat open the laptop and write; but as they say right, better late than never :) )

In the midst of pathetically long working hours ( mostly during MSU), booze drenched euphoric weekends, the frenzied pursuit of a fleeting happiness, dazzled by the new-found liberation of being alone in a different city,overwhelmed with the liberties that come hand-in-hand with the seemingly menial reponsibilities ,which seem humungous right now; I realise being alone teaches you a lot about yourself.

I for one, realised that it is not easy to come back to an empty house at the end of the day; actually realised is a mild word...it hit me with a bam and I fell flat on my face with a swollen forehead. I tried desperately to grab on whatever came on my way, I was looking for anything that might seem constant in this flurry of activities...and ahem well... let's not talk about how that turned out to be. For all, who do not know, I ended up sitting on the side of the road with a rotten egg dripping down the side of my face ,the invisible hand pointing and laughing out loud mouthing the words "I Told U So"(almost literally!).

Yeah, I realised being strong takes a lot of courage , it is way much easier to depend on someone else and just let go; but well there are repercussions which one must be prepared to face.

On the pros list, I learned to cook, yeah maybe not a thousand delicacies but well the basic stuff to make life easier and spare my taste buds from South Indian horrors...but yeah there is still a long way to go, and I am going to enjoy that route.

I have started loving taking walks, particularly alone. A walk in this mildly chilly bangalore weather through the beautiful, well-maintained localities of Whitefield with/without music playing in my ears gives me a solitary moment to enjoy with myself.It renews the much-needed faith in myself.

I have eaten out at a restaurent alone, and it does not feel as shitty as i always made it out to be.

I am yet to see a movie alone and see how that actually feels like, I was always under the impression creeps do it;but now I am more open to new things.

I have realised I prefer coffee shops than pubs any day, though I am in utter lack of company in this respect.And I want to go to second hand bookstores, I miss that dusty smell of books that are going yellow, burdened with time but not age.

From the start itself, I have hated Bangalore: I have always felt proud of the heritage and the intellectualism my own city boasts of and in comparison Bangalore did not hold any ground.I did not realise then it is not essentially the culture that makes up a place home, it is always the people.And for finding them, here, I am eternally grateful. It was entirely a rose-tinted view as I am making it sound, but atleast the view was there...and now it is just time to try on a new pair of glasses.

Bottomline, I still do not like the place. I still do not like boozing on weekends like maniacs, but I still do it.Adapting may not be fun, nevertheless is necessary.

:D
 

Tinge of Blue!!

I am really sad and in despair. I have this sudden urge to rewind my life just before I moved to this city, life was freaking perfect back then. And now, I have one less thing to believe in as if there was enough, ever.

I am not sure what or whom to blame for this turn of events. Maybe , myself!

Or maybe, this is not a game of blames, maybe i am supposed to accept that shit happens in life, a lot...gotta take as it comes. I am not sure. And I dont think I will ever understand, now is the phase for all those ifs and if only s.Which never helps!

I have always tried to be someone who does not judge people, particularly bacause I am not in a position to dictate how people should act in their own lives, convenience does matter for everyone, a lot! But now I am not too sure whether this indifference of mine is a virtue to be prized and possessed, or is it just a convenient way to avoid making choices.

About him, I have always thought fondly, and I still do.He is the only person I consider in my memory untainted, as the person I Love!And i had always blamed her for the loss.Now , when I am in the receiving end I realise She made a choice, a choice to stand up for what she feels to be right. My shaky morals and the desire for convenience do not permit me to do the same.

So I do not have the right to judge any person, when I have myself smiled at the earlier stories and not even bothered to tell them it was wrong to do it!And when also, in future, I will end up doing the same. I choose convenience over everything, and indiffference is the right filter for it.

So yeah, shit happened and i am left to deal with it. I will manage, as I always have.

Its just it was not worth it.

this was a summer like noother,
a summer where i had to leave home.

a summer of memories, a summer of nostalgia... more importantly a summer of love. i reminisced , i rumi-nisced.i brewed up some weird concoctions, and enjoyed myself. i looked back, got hurt and got over it. Somethings remain, but it is better that they do.

i cried at failures, i recovered for better.

it was a summer of chocolate cheese sandwiches, of caramel custards. i will miss the gate 4, the moments of bunking classes when i had rushed to attend them, fag point- my endless occassional drags, my numerous quitting and the ultimate one.the friends i lost, the sister i loved and him.

i think of the rain drenched walks, the unspoken intimacy, the overwhelming love. i remember the endless trips to ccds, the innumerable times of sharing and caring, the friendship i cherished, the lobby i lost.

And the person i have grown up with, the moments i can share with no one, the places which will not feel the same without her.whom i can still call up late at nights when i feel suffocated with panic, who knows my petty jealousies inside out. yet, loves me as i do her.

i will miss it all, all the gains and the losses in it's entirety. here is to friendship. love. companionship. here is to change.
touchwood! :)

futility of contemplation

A few days back some people, just trying to make conversation, asked me what is interesting about me that I would like to share with everyone; and I was at a loss. I realized that I had to come up with some answer in order not to look stupid in front of people, everyone was telling about their hobbies and well so did I. I said I loved to paint and I like photography. And now when I am in front of my laptop in the safety and comfort of my home without any anticipation of embarrassment or humiliation caused by a simple goof-up on my part, I feel it was not true…what I said.

I mean yeah I do like to paint, but nowadays it has become more like a stress releaser, I let out my anguish, my frustration, my anger through the reds and the blues and occasionally on the yellows or maybe I try to. I am not saying it works, but it’s what I do.

And photography, it has actually been ages since I have even touched a slr camera…hell I think I might have even forgotten half of the technical stuff. It is easy to say I want to hold a camera, take pictures of whatever I want, capture moments, freeze memories, walk on the ghats with the morning slanting rays bouncing off the walls…but to go ahead and do it, that is altogether a different matter. Funny, I don’t even remember what holds me back.

Before I ramble on and get completely off-track , what I meant was there is nothing interesting about me poring over a piece of paper and doodling with colors, same goes for photography; if I can take the liberty I might call them hobbies I indulge in occasionally. But what is actually interesting about me? What would I answer to this question honestly and not in a room full of strangers?

I cannot sing or dance even if my entire existence depended on them. And let’s see I do love Spanish, I think it is the most beautiful sound in the entire world but then I am sure so does many others, it is a beautiful language after all.

i guess i have a rather simple method of dealing with all my shortcomings, i imagine. i imagine them away.

Erm. Slight problem though. Though I agree being able to utilize my imagination and fantasies at an extraordinary level while being utterly awake is indeed worthy of being deemed interesting about me, yet will I ever say this out loud in front of people( forget strangers, even friends)?

Hell no!!

So I guess after hours of contemplation and soul-searching I am back to photography and painting, with an everlasting fear and paranoia of being humiliated publicly. Pity I can’t imagine them away! Damn.

real as hell! and always.

I once had a family!


U will say so what?Everybody does.
The difference is this was a family i chose- a sister i loved dearly, a father i cared for, gay uncles who meant much to me, a cousin who was my partner in crime and a grandpa i respected more than anything.


Yeah, maybe i messed it up. I would very much like to apply my new found principle of osho which supports doing what the heart wants and attribute all failed relations as mere casualties of my free will and it's doings.


And yeah that is what i do.Usually.


Except at times when i wallow in loathing and anger , i blame myself. and certain others to some extent.


But probably the use of past tense in characterizing those relations is not utterly justified, remnants remain. Like vestigeal organs. Not dead but useless burdens to oneself.


I can live without them, but i choose not to.


I just put on my bulletproof vest and close the windows.
I'll see you soon in a telescope lens.

salmon fishing in the yemen

A few days back i was reading magic seeds by naipaul and i was touched by the strange subject matter of the book, still at times i had to struggle to complete it for the book took me on a journey through the mere mundane into a rather profound realisation, too profound for my tastes it seemed. The next book i had from bcl was salmon fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday, it was a random pick-up from the library that i had just thought of trying for a change from Kureishi, Kundera and such big names. Surprisingly enough, i loved the book and found it to be considerably gripping...i actually had trouble to put it down even to go to bed ( rather a surprising act for a person like me if not a rare one).


The theme of the book is rather simple...it is belief, hope or in the words of the author faith!


It starts off with a Yemeni resident, a big-shot-crammed-with-money sheikh coming to Scotland and trying to start a project involving the breeding of the salmon fish in the deserts of Yemen to start off the popular sport of fishing there. He employs an attractive manager named Harriet and a fisheries scientist Dr. Alfred Jones for the same. It is through this interesting and seemingly impossible attempt that Jones, the protagonist, learns to believe . He sees a way out of his loveless marriage, falls for the immensely attractive engaged-to-be-married Harriet and starts to see himself of having some value, some worth in life that earlier he used to measure with the yardstick of his publications on some larvae fish thing.


There are like a thousand things that i loved about this book, one is this entire idea of faith, hope and love ; also the political angle to this entire fishing affair that the scottish politicians saw was amazingly brought out, For one, the mental picture that   the Scots had of the prime minister holding a freshly caught salmon in the deserts of Yemen, engineered by the brains of their own instead of a war torn, blown up into bits image of middle eastern countries with the help of their troops exuded confidance in them and helped to strengthen their goodwill. 


I was struck by the simplicity of it all.One picture, worth so many words.


So the entire project due to it's potential political mileage was trapped into a whirlpool of  whimsical profit-seeking bouts of government intervention. 


So one man's belief in divine intervention, faith in Him motivated an atheist logical minded scientist to believe, not necessarily in God or some religious bullcrap, but rather in oneself...the entire story at some point ceased to be just a mere fiction borne out of one's imagination and became the story of Fred's journey to find himself...to understand the true value of love and companionship he so took for granted till then.


In the Sheikh's words the silver fishes glistening in the water were capable of making a change, even in human beings!

chuck lorre and i :)

"I believe I've spent my life expecting people to behave in a certain way. I believe that when they didn't behave according to my expectations, I became angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful. I believe these expectations are the reason I've been angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful more than I care to admit. As a result, I now believe my expectations are the real problem. I believe that everyone has this very same problem, and they ought to start acting accordingly."


chuck lorre production.