slow country ...

Huskies are mysterious. They wail. Have sad eyes. And run like arrows. Arctic foxes are super cute. So are wolverines and Arctic Owls. Reindeer are tasty? Evil, tc?? It was weird. Saw reindeer. Fed reindeer. Kissed reindeer. Ate reindeer. Husky sledges are totally awesome. Jack London makes more sense. Skiing. Whee. Died, almost. Arms still aching. Totally suck at skiing, hence, love it. Santa Claus. The feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls (Counting Crows). 5 minute lunch. Museum of the Arctic. Weird recordings of birds and Lapland acappella. The Aurora show. Bon fire. Waiting for Borealis. Clouds. Shoes filled with snow. Thawing by the fire. Bus rides. 24 hours. More? Bum numb. Gorillaz, 6 times over. New acquaintances. Old acquaintance. Español. Hola! Puta? Puta puta puta?? Crazy 28 night. Belote, almost. The snoring orchestra. Pride and prejudice and zombies. Fun fun fun!

And still. You won't leave my head. Puta ...

PS: slow country - gorillaz

Sing another song, boys

This could've been our song neh? I remember sending it to you. And you never listening to it. I hope you never do. It'll creep you out! Or make you laugh till your breath chokes.



Tallinn is pretty. And old. Stockholm is crazy. With naked women lying face down in the city square at +8C. Lapland. I have heard you're a cold one. Save an ice embrace for me, my twin. Here I come!

even flow ...

thank you. pearl jam. for keeping me sane and real. if not for you. i would've spilt my brains on these crazy white sheets today. every scream. is an alarm. i am waking up slowly ...

fuck ok

I am tired. Of being happy and sad. I want one, not both.

Everything is dressed in white today. Such a pretty picture!

It hailed on me while I was biking. Was fun, initially. Then it really started pelting down. We took the refuge of a K-Market

What I wouldn't give to play with Jenny right now. Not 179€, I guess

I don't know what I want. Yea. Same old same old. But this time, I have even run out of short term goals/distractions

Somewhere in my heart. There is a fear of tomorrow. I go to bed feeling scared of it every night. I want to go to sleep. Knowing it will be safe to wake up

Fuck. I want to tell someone. I saw snow. For the first time today

Back to the war?

I am surrounded by people. Hence, lonely. Why does it have to come like this to me. Upside down. Everything. Upside down. Or maybe. I am

It was the shape of our love that, twisted me. Cohen

I am fed up. I want to write. But it won't come . I want to sleep. Nopes. Won't come either. Want to talk. No one. Want to cook. No one. Want to read a book. Won't come. Want to jenny. No jenny

There's no shapes in life sometimes. It's all ghosts and smoke. You want a shape. A definite tangibility. And there's nothing then. At those particular moments. Only vagueness. And the saddest thing of all. The vagueness is in direct proportion to your yearning for its lack

Ou est u?

Remember, we had a pact. We agreed not to breach any lines that might be drawn. And then we drew quivers of them accross every surface we could find. We promised there'd be doors that would never be knocked. Never be opened.But you know, I have been secretly breaking the pact. Many times, I have stolen in. I have prodded. I have lifted things, turned them over. But I always replace them exactly. Sometimes I have the feeling you leave the window unfastened on purpose. You deliberately leave your diary on the coffee table. You leave your wardrobe open. And countless hours I have spent in there, like a skeleton. Waiting for you to come home. But you always return way past the decent time for any thief to be caught waiting in a broken-in house.

Anyway. In case you should ever want to break in somewhere too - the key is inside the mailbox. And I never return until all the ghosts have disappeared.

---

Here's a little multilingual gibberish thingie I wrote

Y
Yo
You
Your
Yours
ours
our
ou
u
?

hei tei hei hei ?

In the whole world. You can be a traveller. You can be an observer. A partaker of ceremonies. A spectator of seasons. and lives. You can breathe in the history through arches and bridges. You can smell streets and lakes. You take pictures. You make friends and parties. You experience the air. You eat the flesh. The living heart of a people. The soul of a city. It is a feast. A carnival!

And then. You move on.

All the while. Knowing that your journey is incomplete.

(And you fear. Inside the laughterest of your laughters. Your very core weeps)

That it always will be...

Peut-être

Unreal expectations?
Dilli has put on its best weather in weeks! Rain. Cool breeze. And yet. There's people here who are not charmed. Who carry a desert with them. Nothing less than the sea turning itself upside down would satisfy their parched appetites. Perhaps, this is the secret of so many deserts dragging themselves around these streets nowadays
-----
Reasons can always be found

• To stall
  Because there's always something better to do on the internet! Of course
  
• To end calls
  Because you know what is going to be said next anyway
• To avoid certain conversations
  Like 'unconsciously forgetting' topics, never to take them up again

Let not familiarity breed contempt. Let not familiarity set itself up at all! Twisted thing this - familiarity. So yea. The lesser the better
-----

The little rain comes

and the little rain goes

-----

Questions

• How does one become interesting?
  
• What itch causes scratch-the-keypad-every-five-minutes syndrome?
  
• Why do some people need more communication than others?

-----
I am sorry Mr. Rain. For insulting you so

floating

I didn't know such modes of desperation existed. Trying to smell through a telephone. Axis bank ATM pauses.

Voices. Memories. In little flashes. At bus stops. In bed. During conversations. The most dangerous ones, while driving.

Why the sad phase? Brighten up!
No no. Not in blood red! In nicer shades please.

I wish I was a telepathic-headache-curer.

You're everybody's satellite

I want to let go. The thing is I don’t know how. Now I understand. The microbes don’t mean no harm. They just want to get noticed. Or maybe they’re really angry. Listening to Counting Crows is no way to beat the blues. But they’re fine company. Duritz is a weeper. It feels terrible to know that you're blowing up 5.5 grand on getting embarrassed and there's nothing you can do about it. Playing 28 is a bliss. I wonder if tea will ever taste the same again. If I could only have some more time. If only many things about me were not true. If only I was visible. If only the whole world was upside down and the seasons worked reverse and Finland was a south-Indian state and Louis was not so mean and you promised, then, I'd keep you like a scar. Forever.

Recovering the satellites - Counting Crows

Cholera in the time of Love

20090317

Knowing many, loving none
Bearing sorrow, having fun
But back home he'll always run
to sweet Melissa

I like the word gypsy. I feel like a gypsy. Also, I don't think I want to be indifferent any more. In fact, I am tired of indifference, within and without. But then, isn't indifference a sign of gypsydom?

Whee. That's the new buzz word. Say it when you cross the road. When you eat a chocolate. Shake hands. When you're running on a treadmill. Riding a bike, your features twisted by the wind. Go whee.
And then. Think of me

20090318

Amidst a bad cold and a terrible body ache, one realises how foolish it is to forget the little box of Vicks.
I think I am suddenly afraid of growing old alone

20090319

Are the French tawdry? No no! Not you!! Sweetheart?
Why is it that I must play the fool every time I see you? Maybe I shouldn't see you then? I still remember the construct, verbatim. You had said "I am terribly". It was quite funny at the time. I thought you'd complete it later and you thought it was as complete as
I am not going to look. I am not going to make it - tawdry? Anyway, where the hell did I get this word from in the first place? Tawdry. It is as stupid a word as can be. Taw-dry. T-aw-d-ree. Broken down, it is still as vile. Vile. Vai-l. V-a-ee-l. Hmpf. So much for sanity. See. That's how dumb you make me.
All this. For a guitar? Or maybe a pack of strings? And who will fix the intonation? My goodness. I dread the coming Saturday when I will have to fix you. Fix you. Coldplay?

20090320

This is one of my worst crashes. My wings are crooked. My security systems have failed. My rudder is twisted. And my radar's jammed dead. I'm plane old crashing into this desert that is the weekend. I can't tell the earth from the sky. The sky from the sea. And then there's you and me. And all the stupid things there be. Between we. You see. I have finally. Turned. Loony.

PS:

20090317
Melissa - Allman Brothers Band
Apologies to all the folks to whom I mailed the word.

20090318
Ruth Marie - Mark Kozelek

20090319
Fix You - Coldplay

20090320
Thank God I'm a Country Boy - John Denver

Breathe

He is not just words. Or maybe he is. A S
I wish I could go to Iran.
I wonder if they'll kick me out of the consortium consideration list for the e-mail I sent them. Jackass me.
How do I word this effing e-mail to L R ?
I think I should stop troubling her so. She's OK. R P
Jeff Kashiwa is good.
The Economist is good too.
I don't think I like being manipulated. I don't like manipulators either. I am surrounded! Hell. I am one of them. I hate getting manipulated by myself.
A third new start in a single month. Gee. I am nervous. Am I nervous?

Signs

A lot of oysters but no pearls

Arranged marriages love marriages. NFS Most Wanted. Travelling at night. Playlist turned very low. City lights. Bus window without a pane. Chennai suburb. Winter winds. Darkness. Scary subway. Lessons in making अंडा curry. चपातियाँ बेलना. Listening to someone explain their first love - history and all. Application forms at 12 at night. Reading a given blog for the 5th time. One paragraph without me. Damn. Here we go ...

Where the hell are you?

Coffee at 0500

Sleepless night. Old friends. Old times. Chit chat. 28. Bitching. Coffee at 0500. Blog at 0730.

Dustaaneman

The hours come falling down. And the days are candle wicks.
The rain. The wind.
To and fro. Our leaflet dreams under a crazy sunrise.
And in the middle of all that commotion.
You.
The grain of sand.
That blows inside me. Outside.

CCR

I went to the beach yesterday. After a long time. With someone I hadn't seen in an even longer while. I felt very old. And sitting there on the sand drawing stuff with a stick. I was aware of being weathered. Then it rained. The lunch was perfect. The evening was sweet.

There's one head I can enter. Although with increasing difficulty. But still, I am allowed inside. And I am grateful. Because I know. There's people who keep going in and out of heads. I call them wind-people. Because they are so like a draft. Homeless. I guess too many people want them. And nobody actually needs them.

I am afraid my last oasis is closing its doors on me too. I don't want to become one of them wind-people. I don't want to blow forever.

'Someday, never comes' - CCR

Stitches

So. What do you do now? Do you turn back? Do you keep walking. Do you sit down on the faded yellow bench?

The other day I heard this mountain weep on the air. It was sad. The mountain I had lived on. It crumbled.

Standing there I heard the thunder and felt lightening cracking through my spine. I tottered. There was much silence and less movement. There still is.

How in the world? There's only a few leaves you keep in your books. Three in total. And there's people. With heaps buried between their pages. How then, does the wind need one of your three? How then, does one of your three need the wind?

If only there was music that never faded or stopped. Then you'd be a tree, and the rest of the universe would be the tip of a pin.

3.5 days

Thursday

Home alone. Ahab. Cooking. Jenny.

All is well that ends Jenny.

Friday

Headache. Missed stop. The walk back. Lovely night. The call. The news. Stillness. Dogs. Buying rice. Feeling stoned. Feeling ghost. Entering. Trying to weep. Trying to laugh. Cooking. Reading. Eating. Dishes. No sleep.

Don't go.

Saturday

Damn alarm. Breakfast. The long double-bus ride. Friends. Adapters. Books. RPD. Delhi blasts. Sadness. Hostel. Conversation till 0300. Aching. Non-stop.

Die with me?

Sunday

Birthday greeting. Internet. Roads to take. Places to be.

Home? Somewhere?

Desireless

You know I'm such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger

Three cheers for the Irish accent! And the angel in her voice.

Yea. So the job's fine. No internet though. I am learning Persian. If there's someone with any help to offer. ASAP, tell me! I added this new blog-list thing to my blog. Suddenly stopped writing. Started composing. In the mornings. Recently watched Trainspotting and Kill Bill. In one go. Observed a pattern. All the pleasant women are married. Damn. Miss my hometown. I don't know what exactly I miss. Because most of the time I just wandered around like a vagabond there. Alone and without purpose. But I still do miss it. This city is so not good for purposelessness. There is work. Maybe it is a sign. Maybe I am not supposed to be purposeless. Pole star. Pole star. Speak up! There is only one thing worse than a dead man. It is the last rites. Saw how they sang and danced around him and painted him and drenched him and finally set him ablaze. Wonder if they would've dared to even touch him had he been breathing. I was sorry. When you break into my house and there's me on the sofa. Blue and stiff. Just bury me under the nearest tuft of kindergarten grass. No aerials above me please. And bury me at night, so that the children don't know I am there. I have always dreamed of being invisible and watching little ones at their games.
Nah. Despite all my rolling in shite, I am still purposeless. Desireless even. Just wrapped and doused in corporate feces. I come home and take a bath every evening. And only then, Jenny.

To be on your own

I

It's like I am sitting on a dock. And there's stones in my hands. I throw them so that they glide on the water. Then they sink. There's circles they make. And the circles come right back to me. I wish they wouldn't. But they do.

II

If it were, that we were all invisible. It'd still go the same for us.

III

Somewhere. There's smiles. And perfumed hair.

IV

Resting beneath the yellow sun. I think it'd be better to sink. For the ocean much resembles a desert. And you much resemble the sun.

V

Today, I saw a girl cry. He went away. He ate grapes with her before he went. And he kissed her too. The sun was too strong when he did. So I turned away and climbed the stairs into an empty room.

VI

There's the ocean around me. And I am clueless. Pole star. Pole star. Tell me. Where do you want me to go? Where must I turn my boat? Where lies the shore? I shall believe, whatever you say to me. I promise. But you must speak. Just speak.



PS:
Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay Otis Redding
Stone Thrown Turin Brakes
Like A Rolling Stone Bob Dylan
I Shall Believe Sheryl Crow

half a litre

The view from the roof of my hostel is impeccable. There is a church a mosque a railway tube a canopy of lovely spring trees glistening granite skyrisers and a beautiful dancing sky! I have always wanted to climb up at around sundown and capture the whole thing. Skyline and all. So. Armed with a modern state of the art point and shoot, off I marched into the twilight battlefield. And I was eaten up. In one go! The colours the call from the mosque the riggity raggity of the train and the trees all dandy and bright in their oranges and yellows and supermodel poses. I looked at the puny little camera in my hand and then at the formation of birds gliding across the sky.

There's beauty. And it doesn't want to fit inside a box of transistors and LEDs. It cannot limit itself to pixels and 2-D. It wants to flow. Through time and space. Through us.

Our memories are like little tumblers dipping inside a whole ocean of beauty. Why then, must I hold on to the half a litre inside my miserable little head? When there's infinite gallons of it, waiting to be poured out. It must be drunk aplenty. And pissed aplenty. Mother earth is a gracious host. She doesn't mind us helping ourselves to a millionth serving.

And so thinking and so dreaming, I wiled the dusk away. Without a single click.