Zen and the Art of Being High Maintenance

In Which I Employ Skilful Means to Explain my Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:02:00 +0000

I had no reason to return here save the most unlikely one. Someone I have never met or spoken to asked me to write again, and I felt that if I had ever needed an impetus to break my silence, this was it. You understand of course, that a silence cannot be explained in words. A silence simply is. It is absolute, not a lack of.

The reason I could not write in the past year was in fact a chimera of reasons:
I was happy.
So happy that I was afraid to close my eyes and reflect on the past even for a moment lest I open them to find that the present had turned into ash and needed to be tapped into a dusty bowl.

I was angry.
Our month of absolute togetherness had been nothing but a tantalizing glimpse of the way our lives could be, maybe a million years from now, provided we survived the onslaught of of uncertainty, doubt, distance, time and other villains that haunt the paths of lovers. I missed it more than I cared to acknowledge, and decided that it would be best to seal the memory away in a jar of brine for another day.

And finally, I was saving up all my words and energy for the dissertation that I had dreamt of writing all my life, or at least for the last five years. I needed to be silent so that when the time came I could produce thirteen thousand words filled with love anger hate sex fear submission and revolt.
In the nascent stages, when I had just begun to read all that I would eventually write about, I met a man in a dusty sunlit library who proceeded, without much ceremony to strip me bare and whisper things to me that I had only dared to imagine in the deepest recesses of my mind. He spoke to me of violence and shame and the look of the other that reduces one to becoming an object. Of the pleasure to be sought in the pain of being a mere thing, and the core of nothingness which pulsated within all of us.
I met his lover, who soothed my shock at his words while she taught me how I could use that nothingness to conquer being. It was a tense, interlocked ménage à trois. Sartre, Beauvoir and I trapped in a tiny room for three months. At the end of the ordeal, all else seemed trite and insignificant and completely coloured by the words of those two.The depravity of their union, which seduced multitudes before me and will continue to do so forever, gave words and form to a paradigm shift which had already begun to bloom within me.
I fear now that the dissertation was only the beginning of our degenerate affair. They have taken up permanent residence in my mind.

So I finally stepped forth from the gates that had held me in for five years, and just as he had predicted, the weight of my freedom crippled me with anguish. I dimly recalled whizzing past a church one summer afternoon and reading a bizarrely masochistic message on the prayer board:

"True freedom exists in His bondage alone."

I was free of my bonds. From this moment on, there was no predetermined pattern of events that would lend meaning to my existence while I proudly proclaimed this is not who I am, I am more than this, I transcend my facticity.
From this moment on, I am exactly what I choose to become.

Goa II

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:08:00 +0000

Two years ago, when the first faint visuals of The Trip had begun to manifest in our minds, we had planned to spend the entire month simply soaking in Goa.
Slowly we came to agree that it might not be a bad idea to include some more actual traveling in our vacation. The list grew longer, and the point where our journey would culminate stretched further and further south... but the point of it's origin remained the same.

It was natural then, that while we delegated a maximum of four days to most places on our list... Goa should deserve an entire week.

Now we needed that time to shake off the Sonic Experience:

"In spite of the painfully obvious fact that we are it's only patrons in a month which will see scarce business, the staff continues it's bizarre behaviour. Everything seems to have acquired an increasingly insidious tinge since the Night of the Leering Wolves.

The Sonic is located right at the end of a strip of markets and hotels. An entire beach separates it from Curly's. This doesn't stop us from making a daily trip there anyway.

We spend as much time outside the guesthouse as possible.
The scooter and taxi guys yell out to us every time we cross the market. Every day, they have a new sales pitch :

"Hey, take a scooter...very romantic, sit very close, brake very good!"
"Take a taxi sir...your girlfriend get tired otherwise!"
"Too hot to walk man...why you not take cab today?"

But we like being on foot. Exploring, soaking, watching, smiling at strange strangers, gazing at the sea and trying to decipher it's undulating song.

Eventually, we get tired or too excited...I forget which, and return to our room."

On the fateful day we finally decided to abandon Sonic's sinking ship, I remember waking up feeling ...too far away.
Everything I knew was half a country away, intact only in intangible memories. An inexplicable sense of panic quivered just beneath the surface of my thoughts.
What we needed today was something familiar. Comfort food.
So Kshitij decided to go with mashed potatoes. How much could they possibly screw that up, we naively wondered...

Until a steaming bowl of potato mulch arrived.
Unsalted. Un-creamed. Mostly uncooked, too.

The waiter/cook responded to our aghast expressions by smashing a clenched brown fist into his hand, bizarre and ominous warning.
"I hate Indians."

Dr. Shankaran appeared,blazing in a theatrical aside in my head:

"Have you not read Fanon's account of negroes who would burn their skins with acid to bleach it white? Why would a man do something like this? Not because black was the colour of slavery...but because white was the colour of the masters. The colonized longs to become like the colonizer."

This was our first encounter with one of the myriad variety of mental roadblocks we would meet along the month. The futility of pointing out that he was, infact, Indian was obvious. So was the futility of staying put at the Sonic.
It took us forty minutes to pack our bags, pay our bills and trudge off to find better lodging. The universe with her twisted sense of humour led us straight this time, to the (now more significantly named) White Negro Guesthouse.

........................

You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.

And you see a girls brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.

The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

Her name is aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.

The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter...

Tales of Brave Ulysses
Cream

"Beautiful, breezy Palolem. Lazy drooping palms on a crescent beach. I've loved you since I first laid eyes on you, a sunny winter day, many years ago. My once-sister and I tasted freedom in your wine then, and vowed to return when we were wiser and older...our minds and bodies mature enough to taste the temptations that lingered in your sands."

While the sister and I no longer shared lives, my love and I were rediscovering the world together. We had nearly perfected our strategy of picking out the most eccentric and interesting people to talk to. Along with this we began to develop a shared understanding of who to stay away from. But more on those later.

"We trudged toward the beach dragging our backpacks and our sore behinds. As the stretch of huts, abandoned shack sites and assorted rubbish cleared, we stepped into a postcard.
An old man sat on the sand,in tattered shorts and a grey t-shirt, building a sand castle and brushing damp hair out of his eyes. A beautiful woman with golden hair, ocean blue eyes and a silver nose ring bent over near him, playing with a frisky little beach dog.

I liked her at once because of the dog and the nose ring and the fact that she was barefoot. I think the blue bikini won her a few points with Kshitij as well. She offered to take us to the nearest establishment that would provide us with what we needed - a cheap and clean room.
Said establishment turns out to be a hut, or rather, an independent part of the hut which belongs to a man named Fransisco."

(Every time I say his name I involuntarily begin to hum
"If you're going to San Fransisco...
be sure to wear...flowers in your hair...")

"...Fransisco is the perfect example of Goan hospitality. He loves his family and he loves tourists. He looks after all his guests with paternal concern. Every morning he cooks and feeds us a complimentary breakfast of bun omelette and chai, while enquiring about our parents, our jobs, our lives back home. This is the first of the many times we are told that our situation represents a bit of a cultural cliff. Neither Fransisco nor the foreigners we meet seem to have come across such a thing in India before.

Unmarried and backpacking together as a couple? In the South?
Did our parents have no objections? Were we of the same caste?
Was it okay for me to wear these shorts where I came from?"

Answering the wide spectrum of questions posed, I found myself wondering where exactly the typical urban upper middle class family fits in. Where do we belong, in the Indian scheme of things?
Our march towards increasingly "modern" lifestyles and values is based almost entirely on what the world markets our way. Indian soaps supposedly based on the middle class seem sickeningly kitschy. The world of saas - bahus and balika - vadhus is not one we relate to, it is nothing like the world we inhabit.
But switch on F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Grey's Anatomy, Sex and the City and you'll find us swooning with empathy.
Show us Amitabh Bachchan in a movie about the eternal patriarch - who lives in the U.K., prances about with half nekkid chicks but delivers monologues on the importance of "parampara" - and you'll have us nodding along.
We are stuck in a phase of transition...between two classes, between two worlds
and neither claims us as their own.

.....

"In the middle of not-so-sunny Goa, I wonder what's going on in your head. It feels so stupid being insecure when we have the luxury of this entire month together, but I am tearing your silences apart to see what lies behind them.

The paranoia begins to flood my mind so easily it's almost predictable. Would you rather have made this trip with someone else? Would you rather have made it alone and hooked up with someone along the way? An image of you with the blonde Marta sharpens into focus and I realise this is a one way street to insanity.
I need sleep."

.....

The Morning:
"Divesting myself of unhealthy thoughts, I woke up ready to party today.
We have found an entertaining ally in the old man from the beach. He claims to be a Spanish playwright on a working vacation. He is always in search of, in the act of consuming, or recovering from whiskey.
Through our varied altered states of consciousness, we have a considerably hard time understanding one another. We know we are all very high and only wish to get higher, and in this purpose, we are united. He claims Kshitij and I inspire him, and every now and then looks up from the whiskey to blurt out a famous name at us.

"Iggy Pop!"
"Genet!"
"Buddha!"
"Juliette Binoche!"

If he finds even a glimmer of recognitionon our faces, his eyes light up and he launches into an incoherent monologue on said individual, punctuated with "rat-a-tat-tat"s "parrrrum!"s and "PWOOF!"s and accompanied by frantic hand movements meant to indicate everything from sexual tension to nuclear disarmament.

The Afternoon:

Kshitij (shaking me awake) : Baby, there is this dashing naked young fellow sitting under our bed and I don't know what to do with him.

Me : What a clever ruse. I'm still not getting up.

Kshitij (laughing) : I'm serious!!

Five minutes pass and I become aware of a strange scratching thumping sound under the bed. I'm jolted out of semi-sleep.

Me : WHATTHEFUCKWASTHAT??

I leap off the bed and grab a knife. Kshitij is still laughing. I pull off the sheets to see this guy

staring at me with an irate expression at being interrupted in the extremely private act of chewing his tail. In some time he comes out and sups on biscuits before leaving for the outdoors to perform his toilet. When he is done he scratches on the door and returns to his bed-under-our-bed, nodding at us in polite acknowledgment on the way.

The Night
A fire on the beach under stars frozen in space. The taste of smoky fish. Holding your hand while we stood in the ocean, wondering what held it in. Trying to be quiet in our room when we wanted to scream and then collapsing into laughter when Fransisco's voice tore through the darkness
"Marta, when you are going to get married and have babies?"
Going out in search of dinner and returning with cigarettes and biscuits which Hampu insisted on sharing again.
We leave tomorrow. Palolem has been different this time. I've been different too. The only thing that hasn't changed is that I still leave it hoping to return someday.

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure.It saves on hellos and goodbyes"

Goa I

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:00:00 +0000

With a trip and a bang and a sprinkle of magic dust...I am finally home.

I had ambitious plans of blogging through the month. How hard could it be, I reasoned. You can access the internet everywhere in this day and age.
It's true that most places we went to had atleast one cabin sized dingy room somewhere that offered a portal into the Wonderful World Wide Web, but I simply found myself unable to convey any coherent thoughts. I wrote every now and then, interspersed with sporadic picture-taking; but I think I have only just begun to see form in the jumble of myriad experiences.

Which means I must, with immediate efficacy, find a beginning. Sort through entangled dreams conversations hills oceans stars smoky skies...oh yes. I think that's where it all began.

Smoky Skies:

Through the haze of smoke - blue black traffic smoke and blue grey smoke curling from our lips, we looked at the city spread out before us. It had it's days. Days when the rain would scrub it clean and the people would seem inane yet endearing in their familiarity. Simple, rather than stupid.
But today, Delhi was at it's snarling best. The heat had turned the people into a pack of wild dogs. They snapped and foamed at each other with bared teeth at every traffic intersection. Sped past vehicles a hair's breadth away just to see who would dare to try and stop them. A raging sun tore through blinds, vents, curtains, skulls and plunged it's burning hands inside everyone.

But we didn't care. We were getting out of here. My backpack felt like a ton of bricks but I felt stronger than I really was.

Looking back, I think my mother considered the trip an elopement of sorts. Everyone gave us knowing smiles and snidely muttered "honeymoon" when they heard the plan. Ma always looked especially disbelieving when I told her about all the other people we would meet at various points of our journey. Of course we were excited about being together...but rather than making a romantic getaway, I think we were both setting ourselves up for a test of endurance.
How would we hold up under the intense pressure of being alone together in previously unexplored parts of the country, across the language barrier, away from our music, our computers, our dogs, our friends and our comfort zones? How would it change us?

I couldn't wait to find out.
(All pictures courtesy Kshitij Bal, Magician Extraordinaire)
...............................

" First Stop. Anjuna.
The air buzzes with excitement here. Non stop. A futile attempt to reach Lonely Planet's highly recommended White Negro, we decide to stay at the Sonic Guesthouse. The room hovers on the thin line between quaint and plain weird. The bathroom however, decisively crosses that line into weird. The view is fantastic. We check in."

At this point, our land weary eyes are seduced by the ocean and we choose to ignore what are quite evidently bloodstains on the wall above the bed. Yep, welcome to Junkie Heaven.

"The food is tolerable to begin with but progressively becomes worse. Maybe the management is expressing it's disgust at having to serve two relatively innocent and unexciting guests from Delhi, rather than Russian men with cold blue eyes and pale women aglow with intrigue. Although I'm uncertain if these people would favour the Sonic even in peak season.

[Note - "Management", at any hotel off season here usually refers to a maximum of five waiters (the young turks) and the eldest thus most experienced of them all, who heads the show.]

The "eldest and most experienced" turk(ey) at the Sonic is a senile man of about eighty. Kshitij believes he is permanently attached to an LSD drip, but I am of the opinion he is in need of no drug except the television. Watching the last few overs of the IPL semi-final with him is like watching someone's needle induced moment of epiphany. His eyes shine, glazed. A toothless grin gapes at the centre of his face and his eyes well up with tears as the ball flies over the boundary. He throws up his hands and mutters a prayer to God. He nods fondly at the actors in advertisements. I cannot stop watching him watch T.V. I feel unbelievably sad and suddenly irrationally annoyed.
And then I realise, I'm the one being watched. It's past midnight and while we were playing Sinbad the sailor and his Ship-wrecked wench, watching the old man and the sea...we failed to pay attention to a local drinking session that had begun to fester beside us. There's something about the insolent leer in those bloodshot eyes. I don't want to play anymore. Even the old man begins to seem sinister all of a sudden. It's time to close this day shut. Back in room. Goodnight."

The Sea:

The ocean breeze carried echoes of spells cast at a time when you and I were mere dreams in the creator's mind. It drew us close with a voice so ancient we felt it in our bones. At night, the ocean is a primal temptress. Thirsty. A giant mouth slavering to swallow the world. The rhythm of the waves caressing land lulls you into senselessness, until all you want is to be one with that sound.

As if the intense natural beauty weren't enough, the Goan flavour is made unique by a population of natives and tourists whose culture is centered around having a good time,whatever the cost. Even in off season, there isn't a day when the booze doesn't flow, or when someone with dilated pupils isn't watching the sky turn into a mixing palette of neon colours.
It's also easy to see the point where things can start going wrong. Everyone seems nice and friendly when you're high. I start wondering if they're being nice and friendly because they know I'm high. Paranoid, much? Nothing a walk on the beach can't cure. On the way back to the guesthouse a man with greasy hair sings us a tune which I later learn is Goa's favourite song:

"You like hashish? acid? ecstasy? Some co-caine may-be?!"

We step over a syringe in the sand and walk into the molten sunset.

....................................

Into the Horizon

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:27:00 +0000

And so the gruelling trial by fire, otherwise known as the Second Term Examination has come to an end. My deliciously unholy libertine, the Marquis is away on a pilgrimage (wonders never cease), my mother is asleep and the zen monk has abandoned me for the cooler climes of a room where the temperature remains at an unnatural constant. I do get the nirvana is samsara, and samsara is nirvana deal...and that therefore to the enlightened being it doesn't matter whether the air conditioning exists or does not exist(or both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not not exist) but I do believe Bono is taking the ascetic life a little less seriously this summer.

In upcoming events the Marquis and I have planned a month of mayhem, travelling through the heart of South India in the month of June(or atleast the places we have heard of and our eyes now long to see).
I am a firm believer in not jinxing events by overtly sharing my excitement, but let it be noted that I have looked forward to this for the last two years. The stars are aligned in our favour this year- having evolved from a complicated friendship to a union the gods must dream of. So with the end of this month, we leave the city.
As always, apprehensions surround the periphery of my thoughts.

A month is a long time.

We are warned every day about the merciless and humid southern summer, or if we're really lucky; the unrelenting rains. About touts and thieves and sleazy hotel owners. We are reminded every day of the comforts we'll leave behind and everything that we'll miss.

As the days go by, we come to terms with the fact that the journey will also test us as us.
(I see visions of myself waking up in an empty room, bereft of his luggage and him)

These thoughts need to go back to the periphery now.
To truly venture outward you must be courageous enough to face what is within.

See you soon.

"Human, All Too Human..."

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:28:00 +0000

What does one have to do to find inspiration where there is none?

All it ever took was one good class. A stimulating conversation. The right mix of herbs. A decision.

There are days when you wake up and you just know it's going to be a good day.
The muses will sing to you. There will be no more of this insipid inanity.
Today, things will fall into place. The endless torpor will be crystallized into a conclusion and placed on the Shelf of Things Learnt.
These days of inspiration are usually cloudy days, or windy nights. I find they provide a better backdrop to exorcising the seething restlessness that simmers just beneath unaffected exteriors.

(This however, is a hot still summer afternoon. Unquestionably the worst time of the day and year.)

But what IS it with my generation and constantly trying to appear unaffected? Bring on the lust and ugliness, the greed and the jealousy, overwhelming love and it's invariable concomitant - pain.
Why bother dressing your wounds and locking away your desires when all you are is exactly what I am?

You poor thing, did no one tell you choice is an illusion?

Speaking of the insidiousness of mass - marketed illusions, I must pause and take a deep bow at the imaginary camera that follows me around. For I am finally free of the Curse of Social Networking.

(---: THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE FROM STUDIO AUDIENCE!:---)

---:Sudden Flashback:---
Girl enters arched gates of the Carnival of Painted Faces / clicks on LOGIN while El Tango de Roxanne blares from the speakers.

The colourful signs scream at her
Social Utility! fun way to communicate! share your memories! find your old classmates and neighbours and all the people you ever fucked over and ADD THEM TO YOUR FRIENDS LIST!

Several of my friends are self confessed Social Networking Addicts, and I have nothing against them and the ways they choose to spend their time. Perhaps they are simply better adjusted, more fulfilled Beings and do not carry the twittering monsters inside their skulls that recite wall posts and news feeds to them long after the screen has been minimized. Maybe they have never experienced that feeling of emptiness and self - loathing that creeps in through your fingertips, as minutes melt into hours and you lose your self in the voyeuristic labyrinth of Someone Else's life.
Slowly but surely, you forget what you're seeing is only a carefully edited and well phrased version of a Real Living Person... who doesn't always spout apt and lyrical quotes, who isn't really adored by everyone who wishes them Happy Birthday and someone who probably doesn't like what they see in the mirror just as often as you do.

The monsters cackle in glee:
he never looked this happy with You!
(I never looked this happy with Him.)
Did you know they were together last night?
(Stars.Exploded.In.My.Head.Last.Night)
Has she wasted as much time as you today?
(Ha. She's deleted her activities for the day.)
she's so much prettier than you!
(Hmmm. true.)
so many more friends!

a better body!

a better life!

will YOU ever be good enough to go to college there?

No, not if I spend all my time on Facebook.

The Girl stabs the monster in it's scaly green flesh and runs out of the arched gates / Clicks Deactivate to the rambunctious Finale...

...into the arms of better days and healthier ways to channel inherently masochistic desires.

Birthday Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:16:00 +0000

According to my memory...

(...Which may just as well belong to some other person, whose brain was once dissected into two neat halves, one of which was placed inside me while the other lives on in it's original body. Are this person and I then the same? If all we are is the sum total of our past experiences, this fiction of the Self that we create by stringing together stories collected through the senses, and remembered through photographs - then, yes. Were this person then to meet me and fall in love with my charming physical exterior coupled with their mental being, would this be the ultimate act of narcissism or of self-loathing? But that's enough fantasizing for now.)

So where was I. Oh yes, according to my memory, I've always been the sort of person who starts getting excited about their birthday six months before it actually arrives. I usually subject my mother and anyone else patient enough to put up with this sort of idiocy to a monster countdown...

"FIFTY SIX DAYS TO GO! ARE YOU EXCITED? ARE YOU???"

And the strange thing is, the excitement was never anti-climactic, for me anyway. No matter what I did on past birthdays seemed just perfect. Or rather, it didn't matter what did, because the day just felt so fucking special from the moment I woke up.

Here I am. It's less than forty eight hours away from what I used to herald with as much enthusiasm as the second coming of Christ...and I'm about as thrilled as Immanuel Kant, and roughly as much fun to talk to (i.e. No Fun At All).
The idea that I am perhaps too old, jaded and cynical to manufacture the required amount of adrenaline for my birthday this year keeps seeming dangerously possible.

That can't be it though.
I don't feel that old. I'm still full of plans of world domination and the delights of debauchery like any self respecting Young Adult. Numbers never DID make that much of a difference to me (Stop with the hissing, Pythagoras.)

WHY then, to the chagrin of my friends and The Marquis (purveyor of endorphins and dopamine) am I unable to muster even a wan smile thinking about Tuesday? What is this mysterious miasma that is suffocating my usual birthday cheer?

I feel like asking you to tune in to the same bat-channel at the same bat-time, but the truth is I may never figure out what's going on and be able to offer you a cathartic resolution - of - conflict type post.

Agony Aunt services are welcome. Uncles are a bit creepy, but mustachioed Beatniks will do too.
Ciao.

"Sit back and enjoy the ride. Remember to scream if you want to go faster."

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:37:00 +0000

As the eloquent and insightful Therapy caused me to realise, sometimes one must simply live instead of trying to capture life through words.
Sometimes words can do no justice to the simultaneity of exhilaration and pain.

But I finally decided to stop being a lurker on my own blog, and in cyberspace in general. After the silent perusal of at least a gazillion blogs I have come to the conclusion that I love the voyeuristic ones that give you random and intimate glimpses into peoples lives. Of course there are Blogs About Things, and they are especially helpful for the unhampered individual or group perspective they offer...but those aren't the ones I'd choose to spend my time savouring.

Perhaps the only reason we have any concern for the other is that we see the fragility of our own beings reflected in their moments of strength and weakness.I'd rather read about what the priest wrote when he questioned his faith at lunch today, why the mother felt like crying when her three year old made a fish face at her from the window and why you feel like you can never love again.

A smiling boy who's face I wouldn't have missed otherwise, died in a car crash a few weeks ago. Suddenly, he's tinged my thoughts a dull unwashable blue. Every time I'm in a car that picks up speed, a knot tightens in my stomach. I think about that smile, the few conversations we had scattered over the years and the last few moments him and his girlfriend spent together in the car...the image is searing because it's so familiar. Alcohol fumes laughter and your hair flying in the wind. The lights flash by faster and faster but you never once doubt the false sense of security that comes with being young and feeling free.

It still doesn't seem to make sense. Standing at the memorial service of someone I saw every day at school, I found myself clinging to the same strange metaphysical explanations I've heard Adults offer.

"Perhaps he was only meant to be with us for this brief time to teach us something."

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of a Divine Design. But I believe his death has taught me something. That life is precious and whimsical. That it is entirely what you make of it, yet it is frighteningly outside of your control.

Is it a normal reaction to death? This sudden lust for life? Wanting to hold on to every moment of bliss, boredom, thirst and inspiration?
I feel insatiable and unapologetic. I'd rather be brutally honest than speak in well chosen words. I'd rather be ravaged by Nietzsche's carefree, mocking, courageous warrior than mother the tortured existentialist.
Maybe it's because I'm turning twenty two in eight days.

Or maybe it's just spring.

Kerplunk!

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:00:00 +0000

I believe it falls within the realm of propriety to wish people until about mid - January anyway, so I DO hope the year brings you whatever you may desire, or not, if like me, you like to keep your distance from objects of fantasy so that delicious veneer of perfection never wears off them.

Not that I didn't have the time of my life bringing the year in, but there isn't that much that's new about it, really. I still use too many commas and write self indulgent prose. I have decided to start answering my phone this year though - mainly because I am tired of being emotionally blackmailed by people (which incidentally, is my no. 1 reason for not picking up in the first place) but also because I need to Get Real and stop being a space cadet.

But, returning to the self indulgent prose, I've been scribbling this one on and off for the past few days so I decided to put an excerpt here. Be gentle.

"Deep within a space time continuum that existed within the philosopher's mind, lived a princess trapped in an ivory tower. So high was the tower, that eagles alone befriended her. Them, and an Extraordinary Golden east that fed on love and fresh air.
Every time the moon waxed, the eagles would fly down to earth and bring the princess a young man for company; as they knew young women of a certain age must learn the rites of love.
The princess's room was a hall of smoke and mirrors. Anyone who entered would be entranced at once by their own reflection, and so cunningly lit up against the bare brilliance of the sky, would believe themselves to be Gods. They loved the princess for the image of their selves that they saw with her, and standing beside them, each loved her as a different reflection of himself. Him in female form. To each, she was a different person.

A cynic.

An incurable romantic.

A whore.

A mother.

A fool.

And each, upon his return to the earth, would tell a different story. A memory of her that was carefully airbrushed like the pictures of women in beauty magazines. Blurred to fit. Faults dusted over. Statistics exaggerated. All in preparation for that single moment when it would be presented to an audience - a roomful of drunken friends, a jealous bride, an excited brother.

The princess in the mean time, watched on, confused. The eagles were worried. When would this end?"

Shubh Deepawali

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:47:00 +0000

How unbelievably retro we look.
I can't believe that that curly haired creature I used to drag around, pretending he was one of my dolls, grew into THIS good looking young man. Amidst all the drunken revelry of the past two days, I found myself frequently misting over with love for my baby brother.
Our families have been inseparable from the time Ma helped a shy young man from Ranchi elope with the love of his life. A few years later, this Brat in the picture was born and I fell head over heels in love with my new toy. Then Brat no. 2 came along, and Original Brat and I went psychotic with excitement. The three of us tortured, entertained, abused and comforted each other to a point where the lack of blood ties ceased to matter. We were family, no matter what anyone said.

It's true that real bonds, the kind that last for the rest of your life, are formed in the inner vaults of your being. They have little to do with facts and labels. They grow stronger with time, and sometimes even with distance.
When it was just Ma and I, the Nairs opened up their hearts and their home to us and never let us feel like we were on our own. Chacha and Chachi are always around to listen to nervous whining, offer advice and to just pamper.
The Brats and I, if it were possible, have only grown closer with the sharing of new secrets - of heartbreaks and clandestine smoking, failures, regrets and the vanquishing of our demons.

May this season of festivity bring joy to you and all those you consider your own.

Endorphin Rush

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:48:00 +0000

Waving my arms in the air
love, my love, got no care
no care, no, no, pressing my feet to the ground
stand up right where you stand
call to you and what do you do
laying back in a chair?
she's so high on the air
she's so high on the air...

I've done no work for the past three days. Floating around in the sun, basking in the drunk happy feeling of rediscovering the rush that comes with hearing a deep voice say your name with a smile in their voice.
It's nice not to walk around feeling like rejected goods, as if there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It's nice to have someone else's over-sized sweatshirt for cold auto rides. Anti-feminist connotations aside, it's even nice to be called "babe" every once in a while.

There are so many images and versions floating around out there about what interactions with the opposite sex should be like, that you find yourself trying to straitjacket and label every aspect of an essentially fluid relationship.
To hell with the "Is He The Right One?" , "Where Is Your Relationship Going?", "Does Your Guy Get The Real You?" type Cosmo bullshit.
There is no such thing as the "Right One" (You should be glad to know Plato never did say that crap about "love is finding your other half"). A relationship is not a linear progression towards some particular point. The "Real" me? Don't even get me started on that one. Unless you want to read a 3000 word essay on how the world is an illusion (Jagat Mithya), Brahman is the only truth (Brahman Satya), and you are that (Tatvam - asi).
There are friends and lovers and people who used to belong to those categories and then just became a part of you. Why would you WANT to put them in neatly docketed folders?

Syd Barrett's surreal, magical - yet - laced - with - inanity descriptions from "The Madcap Laughs" do better justice to this winter's sudden warmth. Here's to a great something.

Seem Familiar?

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:35:00 +0000

Read about Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps here.

Sting channels off air in Ahmedabad

Saturday, October 27, 2007
08:52 IST

Ahmedabad: The state government on Friday stopped cable TV operators in many parts of the state from beaming Aaj Tak and Headlines Today.

These channels had, since Thursday evening, been showing excerpts from a sting operation which claimed to reveal chief minister Narendra Modi’s connivance with the rioters in the February 2002 carnage.

In Ahmedabad, cable operators received written orders from District Collector Dhananjay Dwivedi to block these channels.

The order said the channels were “depicting visuals and statements” which did not conform to “the programming code” and thus violating ‘Clause V of the Cable TV Network Regulation Act, 1995.’ In most other parts of the state, the police verbally directed cable operators to stop telecasting the channels.

The Clouds

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:37:00 +0000

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
- Confucius

Wikipedia informs me Confucius worked as a shepherd, cowherd, clerk and book-keeper.Also, as a child, Confucius was said to have enjoyed putting ritual vases on the sacrifice table.

Kinky.

Interesting digressions deserve another blog.

Returning to the matter at hand - I'm not sure which of these jobs it was that Confucius loved so dearly, but I think I see the man's point.
Technically of course, academics isn't a job...however to paraphrase the eloquent Justin Timberlake:

"You see these shackles baby...
I'm your slave"

The past four years have witnessed the systematic destabilization of my entire being.

The seemingly solid edifice of "truths" taken for granted, crumbles to the ground in a cloud of dust upon the feather-touch of a closer glance. The effort required to let your self be decimated, and to then recreate a skeletal system of thought is colossal. Even as you take your first shaky steps towards a deeper understanding, the everydayness of the world constantly threatens to swallow you whole. Technicolour panoramic views of a glossy, unexamined (and thus flawless) reality seduce you with their naivete.
Pop art, pop wisdom, pop spirituality...when information parading as knowledge is just a few taps on the keyboard away, why bother to delve any deeper, right?

And then there are other minor glitches along the way...the top accusations hurled at philosophy students in particular and pretty much anyone who is - for the lack of a better word - possessed by their area of study, are :

1. "Pseudo Intellectual" - Although I've never understood the blurry line that divides the realm of "pseudos" from the "genuinely" intellectual. Grey hair, perhaps? Or balding heads (even better)? Surely our worthy detractors wouldn't make such an obviously ridiculous generalisation?

2. "Pretentious" - Ugh.

3. "Aloof" and / or "Snobbish" - Honestly, there might be some truth in the aloof bit. But rather than being produced by the notion that one is better than the rest of the world, it's produced by a conviction that one is sorely out of place in a world which after a point simply ceased to make sense.

4. And finally, if you're really lucky..."Crazy" - I'm partial to this one. Every one I love and respect is a loon in their own right. (No, that doesn't translate to "I love all you crazy people out there". If you're a psychostalker and are planning to contact me after this reading this, don't bother. I won't find you oddly charming and want to exchange neuroses over a glass of wine.)

The exact reason why I signed up for this lifetime of mental contorting to begin with is a bit hazy, but I have to say it was the best decision I ever made.

Of course there is the unlikeliness of ever getting an actual job.

Hmmm.

Screw you, you and you. (You however, are kind of okay)

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:54:00 +0000

There's nothing quite like releasing inner rage to motivate yourself into producing results.

That Eminem dude has a point.

Eros Turannos

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:10:00 +0000

("Tyrannic Love")

- Edwin A. Robinson

"She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.

Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The Judas that she found him,
Her pride assuages her almost,
As if it were alone the cost. --
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits and looks around him.

A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees,
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed of what she knows of days --
Till even prejudice delays
And fades, and she secures him.

The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The dirge of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes a place where she can hide,
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.

We tell you, tapping on our brows,
The story as it should be, --
As if the story of a house
Were told, or ever could be;
We'll have no kindly veil between
Her visions and those we have seen, --
As if we guessed what hers have been,
Or what they are or would be.

Meanwhile we do no harm; for they
That with a god have striven,
Not hearing much of what we say,
Take what the god has given;
Though like waves breaking it may be,
Or like a changed familiar tree,
Or like a stairway to the sea
Where down the blind are driven."

Freaking brilliant, this.

The Trials and Tribulations of Geekdom

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:08:00 +0000

My comatosed computer is finally back from SuperComputerMan's Computer Hospital for the Technologically Challenged. Apparently someone threw the computerised equivalent of a rock at it's Windows, and it was attacked by a Trojan - the virus, not the contraceptive.

I'm afraid I simply must pause to wonder why exactly a contraceptive is named after the devious method employed by the Greeks to gain access to Troy. I honestly doubt anyone mistakes that for a harmless peace offering, or is surprised when amidst the drunken revelry, the "Greek soldiers" come rushing out.
If you ask me, the manufacturers have clearly never had an honest amorous relationship in their lives to feel the need to resort to such devilish trickery and "Lay siege" to Troy.

But returning to SuperComputerMan, who is admittedly a magician when it comes to dealing with any sort of computer related chaos... Is it not possible, that like the darker side of all super heroes, SCM's brave, "cool-geek" facade hides the heart of a voyeur? What if the nights I spend anxiously waiting for my PC to be returned to me are nights that he spends waltzing through the corridors of my virtual memory?
Fuck. He probably knows every single thing about me.

Alright, I'm done being paranoid now.

I've done little in the past month except study obsessively (and still not enough), get maddeningly shpeech shlurringly drunk, stay awake for days then pass out for days and mope about my mother being away. I did get a haircut against my better judgement which I suspect makes me look like Amelia Jane. (I can't believe you don't remember her.)

But no, the haircut doesn't come with the ability to make snakes emerge from people's posteriors.

The first term paper I wrote for class was a miserable failure. Alright so maybe not a complete failure, but it certainly didn't make ASR swoon at my brilliance. This was particularly distressing because:

1. The paper was on Greek Philosophy.
To better explain the import of this; I have often - and not necesarily when inebriated - considered naming my child Socrates, Diotima, Dionysus (alright, that time I was drunk)etc. Reading fragments of Heraclitus and dialogues like the Symposium has the same effect on me as SRK's six pack.

2. The paper was on Love, and how it liberates you from the bonds of ignorance. (Oh sod off with your cynical scoffing.)

3. ASR, aforementioned prof, is the sort of demi - god who listens to Nietzsche when he jogs, speaks five languages, is passionately devoted to fighting for the rights of the underprivileged students of DU, and in short turns all cynical scoffing into eulogy-singing. Even in sky blue trousers and sunshine yellow ties he makes you swoon with every artfully phrased idea (Gk. eidos), witticism and smile.

And so many a day was spent gazing drunkenly into the depths of glasses of alcohol and telling anyone who would listen that the gods of Philosophy had spurned me. Sober moments were spent planning the details of how to buy myself an auto rickshaw and obtain a license (Dude. Fleecing the public is the most lucrative career in Delhi). Somehow these things always happen when ma is away, and living in a theatrically messy house adds to the sense of profound tragedy.

Fortunately for me, and all those that I exhausted with my tale of woe, ASR is not just the ubermensch but also a considerate teacher who believes in giving students a second chance.I got an extra week to tighten my argument and the result was immensely satisfactory, both because it hiked up my marks and prompted him to call my paper "very romantic!".

On that happy note, I leave to have chai with ma.
The song, as songs often do, eerily encapsulates all the inner turmoil.

Blah.

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:30:00 +0000

We sit around the table as if nothing’s wrong. Ignoring each other’s gaping wounds. Someone tries to smile. Our wounds bleed. Slowly dripping down to the dust, the blood mingles with our abandoned dreams.
We are scared. Unsure. Each one as weak as the other, but acting stronger than everyone else. Someone cries out in pain. We shift uneasily in our chairs. Light up so the smoke numbs everyone’s senses. So we can no longer smell the acrid scent of our insecurities.

What is this strange game we’re playing? Why do we act oblivious to each other’s pain? Why do you pretend you don’t know what it’s like to love me and watch my eyes unfocus in ecstasy?

Fuck this. Everyone seems insane with their strange walls and invisible boundaries and obvious anguish. We don’t need a saviour.
We need to stop being insulated.

Tagged Again.

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:15:00 +0000

Rules:

1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been tagged.
Eight random facts about me:

(This is harder than I thought. My mind is going awry.)

1. I like the word awry.
2. I might be the laziest person alive. Really.
3. Rain makes me insane.
4. I hoard bits of the past.(As if bus tickets and faded flowers ensured happy endings)
5. I don't answer calls because I like being by myself.
6. I lie when asked why I don't answer calls.
7. I love black ink and fountain pens but never end up using them because nothing ever seems to merit the occasion.
8. I'm sickened by rabbits.

If you read this and have a blog, consider yourself tagged. Leave a comment so I too can marvel over the Top 8 (not) random facts about yourself that you have chosen to reveal on the World Wide Web.
Love.

The Philosophical Society

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:00:00 +0000

"This is not a pipe"

Male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, undecided, indeterminate, rich, poor, "only have enough money for a beer" , liberal, radical, Left Wing, "Right is Might is right", have something to say, just want to listen, have so much to say that words fail you, young, old, tall, not, beautiful but it matters so little.

We gather in a circle every Friday for samosas and chai. It is the truest example of freedom I have known.

Of Mice and Men

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:55:00 +0000

They're back.
Tiny feet scuttling around in the dark. Chittering sounds made in that excited, conspiratorial tone that only the small and very ambitious have(Napoleon?). I could sense it even before I saw one devouring my copy of Machiavelli's Prince. Plans of world dominion were afoot, and my home was the all important academic research centre (that serves snacks, courtesy the Picky Peke who enjoys strewing the house with rejected Marie biscuits).

The other day, I tottered into the bathroom at 3:30 a.m. to find one of them enjoying an early morning swim in the "comfort station". I'm ashamed to admit it, but I yelped.
Ma appeared like Magic. Hair all over the place, pillow creases encoded on her cheeks, but still coldly and unfalteringly logical. She flushed.
The mouse, stunned that his serene dip had now turned into a minor cyclone, was chittering more furiously than ever. She flushed again.

I did rescue the swimmer with a toilet brush, but this can't go on.

"But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!"

Little did Robert Burns know how much I've been "guessing and fearing" all day. I have to face an interview to apply for my M.A. tomorrow. Philosophy interviews, especially with Dr. Tankha are as unpredictable as those temperamental zen masters. there is no way to prepare yourself for the onslaught. I could be asked anything from "What is a synthetic a priori proposition" to "Would you let Schrodinger meet your cat?". The past three years seem to have been wiped clean off my mind.
Eh.
I'd better go to sleep now, lest I appear to be even more like a drooly idiot tomorrow.

P.S. WTF is This??? hahahaha
excuse me, I'm Hysterical.

Waiting.

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:55:00 +0000

To step out and be soaked in rain.
To find a moment so complete that my thoughts no longer flow with currents of the past. To wake up to a day perfumed with promise, to sleep sated.

For the water to set me ablaze.

Going To the Mattresses

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:00:00 +0000

The thought that was just a vague, nagging whisper at the back of my mind has finally burst forth in all it's ear splitting, guilt inducing glory.
It's a Mastercard advertisement gone wrong. Everything around me seems to be wearing a price tag, and there's no warm fuzzy end this time. I'm sitting in a house full of practical and whimsical expenses, and the voiceover at the end sternly declares

"Your contribution, Nil."

So this is how it begins. One day you're just a college kid getting high and then suddenly you realise that freedom isn't about waking up at one everyday, but about being able to make every day count.

No holidays on the beach until I can pay for them myself. No staring at "curriculum vitae" with a lamb-to-the-slaughter expression. At the cost of great injury to my reputation, I must admit that lounging about is more fun when you really deserve a break.
It's time to see this Real World that they keep going on about.

Dear God. Please don't let me turn into a Square.

Sounds and Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:48:00 +0000

Why does music cut so deep? Why do words burn and images haunt and tunes torture?
How does the "perpetual elsewhere" of a song manage to fill a void that is so real?

The city is turning into a desert and i'm more convinced everyday that this is my private hell. Been falling in love with a song a day. Old favourites that feel like home, new sounds that tease you with the unpredictability of their arrangement, songs that sound so familiar they feel like they were stolen from the crevices of your soul.

Check out About Rain by Sequoyah Prep School.

Why do I like this one?

It sounds naive.
Sometimes I am too.

On a Different Note

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:00:00 +0000

Neil Gaiman, is yummy.

The Demons Within

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:01:00 +0000

"Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic."
Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin 4

One of the occupational hazards of being human is the incessant rationalizing. I wish I could Switch the Voices Off sometimes and just surrender.

Have you seen A Life Less Ordinary? Quirky film. At thirteen it spun me off my pivot. Well, at least this bit did :

Celine: So you're telling me that successful relationships... are made in heaven?? Not founded on the daily practicality... of two people being prepared... to tolerate the imperfections of one another?
Robert: It's not successful relationships, Celine. It's love. And it comes from a strange and wonderful place... that we don't know about.
Celine: So you also reject the idea that love is merely an emotional adaptation to a physical necessity?
Robert: Completely.
Celine: Are you serious?
Robert: Fate intervenes in people's lives. In ours, for instance. Fate brought us together. It kept us together. We were destined for one another.
Celine: Fate had a pretty strange way of making its point.
Robert: But that's part of the beauty of it. It's inexplicable, unpredictable... and absolutely beyond control or understanding.
Celine: But you nearly got killed.
Robert: But I didn't... and here we are.
Celine: Do you have any substantial evidence to back all this?

Robert: None at all.

Celine: And you realize that it's absurd and irrational?

Robert: I know that.

Celine: Then why do you believe it?

Robert: Because, Celine, I'm a dreamer.

Celine: ....well, I guess that makes two of us.

Bleh. Stupid Effin' Movies.
If only life were that perfect. What I'm seeing at twenty one is a generous helping of love with a delicious side dish of false promises, jealousy, temptation, delusions, insecurity and other less ordinary words that chill the soul. When the Other Woman is a lingerie model, you might as well fold your cards, quit the table, go home and put a fork through your eye.
No i'm not blinding myself yet. Definitely considering moving to Columbia and restarting life as a peddler of vices though.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Zephyr Song

noreply@blogger.com (Sine Qua Non) — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:54:00 +0000