Hobby

A secret? Okay, okay. If you insist.

So I was flying back to Bombay from London, a good long nine-hour flight. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just come out. I'd bought the book the day before and painstakingly managed to resist opening it until I got onto the plane. I gazed at the cover art for sereval minutes, running my fingers over the hard spine, and finally opened the tome as the flight took off.
Three chapters into it, the man on my right spoke.
"So, flying to Bombay, eh?"
Aha. An annoying Indian uncle trying to make new friends.
"Yes." I mutter, nose deep in my book.
"Came to visit boyfriend in London? Heh-heh."
"No." A page turns.
And so it went on, my nerves shredding finer with every word he spoke. He was even chattier after the air hostess brought him his drink. ("Oh you don't know what a patiala peg is? Arrey you've obviously never been to Delhi then. Let me pour you one?)
                                                                      *****
The plane was dark. Everyone slept. Everyone except me. My reading light was the only one on, my mind was in the Ministry of Magic...
"So, you like to read?"
...and I'm snapped out of it, back in a too-small seat with no legroom.
"Obviously." Irritated fingers tap the spine of the book.
"It's a good hobby," he said, settling back into his seat.

My head snapped right to look at him for the first time, hatred in my eyes.
                                                                   *****
The rest of the night went quite peacefully. I even managed to finish the book.
"He's asleep," I told an air-hostess while exiting the plane. I pointed at the uncle-ji, his head slumped down, shawl-covered. "Do wake him. I didn't have the heart to."
As I stepped out into the humid Bombay air, I inspected my book.
I'm just glad I didn't get any of his blood on it.
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Fiction. But I do loathe the word 'hobby'. Reading is not a 'hobby'. No.

Girls.

Young, old, and whatever lies in between. 

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Side note: Technology has begun to irritate me. My Sandman files (yes, I only just started reading it) won't open in Comical for some reason. I am going to retreat into paper and printed word and new-book smell. Or old-book smell. And the feel of rough paper and the sound a page makes when it turns. 

Retreat into film and photos I can smooth my fingers over, and clear crisp monochrome without the confusion of colour.

Retreat. Regress. 

Reductio Ad Absurdum

Thanks to a friend, I stumbled across this book, which I am currently reading. What the poet does is quite simple and awesome: he picks a page of the New York Times and blackens it with a permanent marker, eliminating the words he doesn't need. The result is something that is art, poetry, and a tinge of humour.

Quite an interesting concept of creation. More than creating, it's eliminating, negating. 

I think I shall try this. 

It is 2.45 am and I am reading French for tomorrow's paper. I have been procrastinating the whole day (Will&Grace FTW) and now I decided I should get down to it.

Let's say it again. Cannot WAIT for these exams to be over with.

Meanwhile: I wonder what it is that stylists do with my hair that I can NEVER seem to reproduce. It is going to take CRAZY amounts of hair products, not to mention a powerful straightening iron (yes I know I've been going on a little too much about that lately) to get my hair to look like this again.

What a tragedy.

Cherish those moments when I looked awesome.

I am rather behind on my reading. I am not even halfway through the Bill Bryson, which I must return before I leave, though I am reading a quirky little novel called Adverbs. Look it up. And of course I have Wicked to accompany me on the flight next week, and I think I'll get back to that book on a history of rape I bought last year and never ended up finishing, yes?

Summer movie marathons are planned, yes. Foremost being a Disney marathon. Don't judge me, it takes me back to those times when my biggest worry was whether or not I'd get to go to Kay's place after school. Speaking of Disney, it's pretty cool that their newest work, The Princess and the Frog, has a black protagonist.

Many, MANY things to do over the summer. That is, of course, if I don't melt into a little puddle in the searing heat.

It is now 2.55. Enough procrastination, methinks, and back to le francais.

November Rain

For the past two days we've had terrible unwinterly humidity. Expecting the same today, I stepped out in shorts.

But what a surprise! The air was dry and blissfully chilly, with a breeze against my face. And a light drizzle.

So very blissful.

Lectures we had two. And after that I just HAD to go to Marine Drive to revel in the weather.

After prancing around, back to the Lit room to sit in on the reading of The Night of January 16th. It's a great play, really gripping. In the two hours it took to finish the reading, the drizzle had opened up into a full fledged shower.

I sat in the balcony wearing shorts and a hoodie, writing. It's PERFECT weather for scotch and smokes, but I have no scotch, and I don't smoke.

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Very excited for tomorrow. Why? Eve Ensler (THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES!) is coming to Bombay. And she's gonna be talking at our college! Thus begins my frantic search to find, download and RE-read the Monologues.

:)

I have a week of holiday.

And so, I'm in the parental home. This should be fun.

It's 2 am, I'm Halfway through Maximum City, and quite contented.

I will write, soon.

Bond girls

Isn't it just BEAUTIFUL? THIS is art, man. I'd borrowed For Your Eyes Only, and I was entranced by the cover. From this lot, my favourite by far is Casino Royale.

llustrator Michael Gillette was hired to produce 14 paintings for each of the 14 covers.

A buch of Bombay updates

I'm learning....
To shorten the strap on my jhola so that it hangs at my waist and not my butt.
Which side to get off the train at Andheri and which side at Dadar.
To cross roads like a mad mosquito.
To wake up late.
That listening to music on the road will one day kill me.
To always, always keep change on me. Always.

It drizzled yesterday. You can't even call it rain. First drizzle. Hit me in the face as I hung out of the train on my way home. That's my nightly pick-me-up...I hang out of the train, as far as I can go, and I sing to myself. The tunes meandering around my head find their way out.

I've found waves and rocks. In Bombay. Bandra bandstand, sitting on the rocks with a friend, gazing over the panorama and the sun shining onto the waves. Crash. Couple haven, how many? Kids. Cat. Crowd. Nowhere close to my bliss-point wall at Shatti. But for Bombay, it's great. And it's close to home. I will be back there. Soon.

I've finally got books. I purr in contentment.

My results are out tomorrow morning. I am trying very hard not to think about this. See, ideally, I wanted to be sloshed the night before the results...but it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen. Tomorrow, Facebook statuses (statii?) all over are going to be either triumphant or defeated, shouting out numbers to the multiverse. My boards passed in a numbness, the moth after that was the most alive I've been. I'm Very Happy now, and I badly want to stay that way.

She befriended him the way she befriended most new people, a Facebook message saying "I love your work, Hi."
They became close thanks to a mutual friend.
A week before she first met him, she realised that he'd entered her life at exactly the right time.
Two days before she met him, she realised he was a godsend. A blessing.
The first time she met, he hugged her like no one had, she closed her eyes and realised they had a bond.
The next day, when she asked him out and he kissed her, she knew the nature of that bond.
And the day after, as they sat reading in a bookstore, ignoring killer looks from all around, she knew they were in love.

And today, when she was oh-so-late but still didn't want to leave him, she knew she'd probably always be.

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A bit of fiction. Inspired by something a dear friend wrote.
I'm loving Bombay. It kills me by the end of the day, but I get by... with a little help from my friends.

Not the best beauty aid.........

Ok, I don't know if i've blogged about this before.....i probably have....but this one REALLY takes the cake.
In this time of daily study-related stress, I need a good laugh everyday. So I read the Mumbai Mirror.
More specifically, I read the 'ask the sexpert' column in the Mirror. Every single day.
You get the usual genuine questions about contraceptives and anal and all, but Friday's paper took the cake.

Q: I am 21 years old. I have heard that semen is good for a one's complexion. Should I use it daily, will there be any side effects?
A: Will you open a semen bank, since you will not have unlimited supply? If it was true, I am sure the beauty experts would have introduced it under an exotic name.

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For the record, todays chem paper was quite ok. I don't have to give anymore of third prelims. So now it's study all the way.
Now reading: just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns, for the second time.
Now wanting to watch: Dev D. desperately.
Now listening: Emotional atyachar, rock version obv.

And so it begins

I'm doing the grind.

No, not the one you do in nightclubs, all sweaty and ecstatic with the press of bodies.....though i wouldn't mind that grind.
No, not the one with the mixer.

I'm doing the grind that you do in 12th grade. Where grind stands for nose to the grindstone and shoulders to the wheel. Where the only thing you're supposed to come in contact with is the books. Not the good ones (though I'm rereading Shantaram at night). Phy-chem-math.

Surprisingly, it feels good. It kinda drives off the nervousness. And it's great doing differentiation, where everything just falls into place.

(contented sigh)

so i'll try and keep coming back here as and when i can, but i don't guarantee i'll have much to say........

HOLY COW!!

I just finished this book, and it's bloody brilliant.....

Ok, granted, Sarah Macdonald had an unbelievable story to begin with, but not everyone who has a great story can tell it well...but she can. Being a non-Indian, she sees all the little things that we've gotten used to, and she puts it in a way that makes us take notice of them again, and smile with familiarity.

But her writing style, that isn't even what hit me about this book...

'Tis true that India is a secular country, but in this case it doesn't mean we're religionless, it just means that we have possibly every single world religion....In India live Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists, Jews,....and these are just major religions, Indians have faiths, gurus, teachers....I guess India's the best place to find spirituality and inner peace...if you know how to look for it.

For those not familiar, Sarah Macdonald is an Aussie, worked as an RJ in Sydney, moved to India for close to two years to join her partner who was posted in Delhi as a broadcaster for abc network. When she came to India, she was an athiest, but her stay here was spent eploring almost every faith the country has, and reading her story, I realised I want to do that too.....

I proclaim myself to be "spiritual but not religious", but the two are interlinked in a way, you can have spirituality with religion or without.....Anyway, her book made me realise that each religion, each faith, is beautiful in its own way, in its own principles, as long as it doesn't lead to fanaticism, as long as we stick to the pure essence of it and don't get immersed into the hoo-haa and the rituals and regulations...

From the end of the book, an extract:

" I've learnt so much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me to the pwer of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature should be touched lightly, the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength. I thank the gurus for trying to pierce my ego armour and my girlfriends for making me laugh. And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are a million paths to the divine."

It's true, all of it is true. I've never truly been athiest, though there was a time when I was confused, But I do know that there is a divinity, and this woman has tried to experience it in all the ways possible, and I want to do that, I want to learn, I want....to live her story, or make my own.....absorb the good in every faith, and I think that's how I 'll find that happiness or that....something...that's been missing, that happiness I've always looked for....

Of course, it will need age, maturity and experience, but I think it'll be worth the wait....at some time in my thirties, I'll remember the book, and I'll have time, and I'll be off.....

In the end, the aim in what, to find inner peace, divinity, and a destination or maybe a journey, so does it matter whether it's done through a religion, or one religion, or from a sweet faith-mix with the best of everything...

Our little addictions

Pics of Manali are taking too too long to upload here, I'll do it when I get back to my lovely ADSL connection.
My little addiction is is the internet, obviously, for not-so-obvious reasons.
My little cousin, all of 5 years old, his lil obsession is the TV.
Looking at him, I feel very VERY good about my TV-less childhood. I mean, it's an addiction, almost a drug.
He came back from Talegaon last Sunday, and the first thing he did was switch on the TV. Let it be, his mom said, he hasn't watched for so long....
So he watched, nay, monopolised the TV for two days straight, first thing in the morning, first thing after he got back from school at 6 pm (horrible school timing, 1 to 6pm) . He knows the controls of the TataSky remote better than his mother does, he knows enough to change the TV language to Hindi everytime I think that Zack and Cody (or whoever's on screen) should speak their mother tongue and not mine. And he knows enough to know that he doesn't like the English language, no not at all.
He grumbles in a pureed trilingual mix of Konkani, Marathi and Hindi.
"Don't like English"he mutters, after I explain to him that watching his cartoons in English is an excellent way to learn. (I suspect that's how he speaks Hindi so well....)
"don't understand anything"
Another grumbling, "She just sits and reads books all the time, even while eating she reads." He turns to me. "Is it a hobby?"
"Addiction,", I tell him. "Obsession."
whoever it is, be they aged 6 or 65, I would not like them referring to reading as a "hobby". Philately is a hobby. Butterfly collections, those are hobbies. I suddenly feel the word "hobby" is rather inadequate, denoting a rather mild interest in whatever it is you're doing, it doesn't convey passion, or depth....Reading, it's a habit, it's a way of life.....I've never known my life or that of my parents to be without books. Be it comics, tween-chick-lit fiction, or crappy novels, or finally, the more serious-ish books i'm finally buying, I've loved books. Loved is an understatement, So yeah, I basically don't understand, never have, how people can be averse to reading. I love the smell of a new book, or even an old book, really. Not content with just reading books, I'll collect books, trilogies, series, and suffer space shortage. Sigh. I have the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, and Samit Basu's gameworld trilogy. Both modern fantasy, must-reads. I collected the 7 books of the Chronicles of Narnia a few years ago, I've read them all at least 7 times over. I dunno, when I get that dream house, or duplex apartment that I hope for, I guess I'll have one room there, with bean bags, and a bay window, and wall-to-wall bookshelves on three sides, and that'll be a library, my legacy.....where I can just go escape.....oh, yeah, I can see it.....All the great literary works.....in one room. My lil slice of heaven at home.
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Grr @ facebook. Stupid activeX photo control NEVER uploads. ugh ugh ugh. WHYYYYYY......

Sensory Overload

Yeah, well, I've been in Mumbai for hardly a week.....The DAy after i got here, I became an aunt, again. And the day after that, I saw my niece.
She looked.....well, like what most day-old kids look like.....tiny....red....soft....And I looked at her sleeping form and watched her face move as she succumbed to baby dreams, and I suddenly understood why everyone instantly falls in love with babies. She was precious. just precious. We don't have a name for her yet.....but she's beautiful..

And directly from there I had to go to a government hospital in Byculla, where scruffy cats competed with patients for food in a dreary ward, which looked, well, not all there.....

Spent a lot of time either in bookstore or rickshaw, bought 8 books, I normally average 14 every vacation, so I' definitely buying more.......
lesee.....
I found the 2nd and 3rd part of Samit Basu's gameworld trilogy, oh well, i'll just do the whole list later, shall I?
And went to Inorbit on a Sunday, BAD idea, the place was so full, I felt suffocated.....
The thing about this city that always strikes me, is the sheer effort most people take to dress up, just to get outs the house or whatever, the girls look almost model-like, most of them, in tight jeans and figure-hugging tops, layered with a jacket, and definitely some accessores.....you find people dressed so differently, from that end of the spectrum to very traditional, but you don't fing people looking downright scruffy like I do.... So today I'm wearing one of my dressier (and skimpier) shirts, and shorts. I cannot, cannot stand the heat.

Whenever I'm not out, i've usually collapsed on the bed in an exhausted stupor.....still recovering from manali....sigh....
anyway, cheers to me....look me up if you want to meet...can't guarantee, but i can try,.and that's something, na?

Bliss or something like it....

As of day-before-yesterday....

Now listening: Lucy in the Sky. The Beatles. Hooked on to it, in fact. Dunno why I like it so much. It's got the most drugged lyrics ever, like something out of a child's drawings, daydreams.But I still love it. By the way, Ellie, listen to the song, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes is you. First person I thought of.

Now drinking: My usual mocha. They finally got the cream just the way I like it. "Long time, huh?" the barista says to me....yeah, it's been a while.

Current state of mind: Happy. Who wouldn't be? Beach+mocha+best friend of all time. I mean, after so long, just listening to him talk, no worries at all, on my favourite wall at the Shatti. Just how we both thought it'd be, No uncomfortable silences. I got a pretty good education about the best lyricists in the world.....also about the great books that I (criminal!!) haven't yet read.......hey, you still have to make that list, remember?
Oh yes, It was almost the typical convos over coffee thing......though better, much better.
Being the byatch that I am, I read his latest journal entry (and conveniently forgot to show him my little-gothicky-black journal...hee-hee-hee.) and being the narcissist that I am....enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm pretty blissed out is what I'm saying.....Just.....happy.
The best hugs ever, the kind I've been searching for...for a whole year.....No one, no one else has ever given me hugs like that.

As of today:

Grrmf. I have to start studying. No, really. I-have-to-start-regular-study. And keep the anger levels down. Though not really all that angry-pissed today.....today is materialistic happiness.
Went vacation shopping, my dad bought me Columbia trekking boots for almost no reason, I mean I told him Nike would be ok, but noooooooooooooo..... Well, I ain't complaining.... :)
With irritation, I went off bra-shopping, trying to find something that was practical, cotton, simple, and also my size. Sadly, finding all these together seemed near impossible. After considerable searching, I finally find two. Mom's not happy, they're black. she steers me toward a baby-pink specimen.....I blanch. Black's fine, thank you.
I pick up a pair of shorts and hunt for trial room. Sigh. These ladies, they're cunning strategists, they go in two at a time and try on stuff, then one gets out and brings more stuff in. I swear, one pair stayed in so long (I hadn't seen them go in...) I seriously thought..............never mind........
Suddenly bump into afore-mentioned hug-giver's mom.....Jog off to bookstore-starbucks, to find not him, but his little brother, who informs me that he's off watching Indiana Jones..."everyone's there...."
Grumble.
I drown my pissed-off-ness, at the dressing-room ladies and the fact that nothing fits, in a slice of blueberry cheesecake. As I said, today was materialistic happiness.

Now reading: Animal's people. As with most things, I can't tell what I like so much about it.

Love

Ok, I found this in a book, "I loved a girl"...........It's a series of letters between an african couple who want to get married, and their pastor.
It made me wonder. Whether I was wrong.
This is what it says.....

It's true you can say to a girl "I love you", but what you really mean is something like this: "I want something. Not you, but something from you. I don't have time to wait. I want it immediately, without delay. It doesn't matter what happens afterwards. Whether we remain together, whether you become pregnant--that has nothing to do with me. For me, it's right now that counts. I will make use of you in order to satisfy my desire. You are for me only the means by which I can reach my goal. I want to have it--have it without any further ado, have it, immediately.
This is the opposite of love, for love wants to give. Love seeks to make the other one happy, and not himself. You acted like a pure egoist. Instead of saying: "I loved a girl" you should have said: " I loved myself and myself only. For this purpose I misused a girl"
Let me try to tell you what it really should mean if a fellow says to a girl, "I love you." It means: "you, you, you. You alone. You shall reign in my heart. You are the one whom I have longed for, without you, I am incomplete. I will give everything for you and I will give up everything for you, myself as well as all that I possess. I will live for you alone. And I will wait for you--it doesn't matter how long. I will always be patient with you. I will never force you, not even by words. I want to guard you, protect you, and keep you from all evil. I want to share with you my thoughts, my heart and my body--all that I possess. I want to listen to what you have to say. There is nothing I want to undertake without your blessing. I want to remain always by your side."
Only in marriage can love really unfold and mature, because only there can it find permanence and faithfulness. True love never can and never will end. That's why you should use the great words "I love you" very sparingly. You should save it for the girl whom you intend to marry.

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Oui, that is indeed what it says.
The book is "I loved a girl" by a Walter Trobisch. It's a true story, and the letters are real. this is a bit from one of the first letters that is contained in this book. Walter's the Pastor who advises. Apparently this book became really famous. I'd reccommend it.

It made me think.........about all those motions I have about love and marriage. Maybe now I do believe in marriage......just not my marriage.

Anyway. Just something I felt like sharing.

That place

I finally started reading Lolita. 5 days after i bought it. Do you know how hard that is, to keep myself away from a book that long? anyway, i waited. Because i knew that once Lolita was lodged in my head the physics would fly out.
So yesterday night, i read a few pages, and as i sifted through the writer's flowery language and the occasional french words which i'd forgotten,i knew i was in over my head........
This was one of those books that'd take me to the Place......
That space that's comfortable.....but also vulnerable.........
I've had a few books like that.....
Memoirs of a geisha...
Eleven Minutes...(this took me somewhere else altogether....wootwoot)
And now we have Lolita.
These aren't the books you can timepass-read at the dining table or at the dentist's office....
You need to relax and let go of everything.....and turn to the book.....
Preferably read it in one shot (ESPECIALLY if you're reading eleven minutes)
If you're lucky, you'll go to that place......
That place in your head that you'll never want to come out of..
That's the harder way to get there....
the hard way, read books.....sit, silent and searching for the emptiness in your head.....
the easy way?
Music.