"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."

I like stimulation. Of all kinds. Physical stimulation should've been the natural priority but emotional stimulation is an easy escape for a child living in a house full of siblings and parents who wouldn't talk about where his brothers and sisters have come from. Sex is is hush hush, treated like a guilt trip taken once in a while. Masturbation becomes second nature.

Sounds like a selfish philosophy...

See life as a series of short stories. The experiences and people who have a big impact on your life must  especially be absolutely separate from each other. The end of every chapter must bring a sense of closure but must at the same time fill your eyes with the wonder and possibility of a new beginning. Each day will then become a white canvas for you to draw your vision and also a pit in which you could throw away all your years.

                           You usually try to remain oblivious to the strangeness around you.

                            Because when you take notice, it tends to create a revolting picture.

                           But strangeness grins at you and makes you think again.

                                              It hovers around you, persists a little.

1.                                                                      So you make some room for it and become somewhat like it.

The Terrible Beauty of Lady Gaga

“With Art Pop (her latest album) I wanted to put art in the front to show that being a student is okay. I feel that the knowledge that you’ve gained, every dancer that you’ve danced with, every paint brush that you’v touched, every book that you’ve read, every music bit that you’ve heard-if you channel that entire history into the thing that you’re creating, there is an intention of the work that runs to the centre of the earth.”

She is something else. Not very palatable to everyone, but brilliant nevertheless.

In all the Quentin Tarantino movies like Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, the audience is almost immediately introduced to the hyper-violent slaughter of characters; the viewer’s reaction is seen transforming from absolute disgust, to desensitization, to slow but sure realization of the utter ridiculousness of it all. This is also the riding theory of Postmodernism, and, to an extent, the theory that the pop sensation Lady Gaga has come to represent.

One of the characteristic moves of Postmodern Theory, by the virtue of the prefix “post”, suggests that there is a totalizing of history in which the postmodern is both a stage in teleological progression, but also a final containment of history into a null state. This null state has absorbed the past, present and future into itself. (Johnathan Bignell, Postmodern Media Culture, Introduction, Pg. 5). There is a determined resistance to the totalizing grand narratives of history, which will mean the set ideals of all epics like The Iliad, The Mahabharata and Paradise Lost no longer exist in the new world which has survived two World Wars. This is a world that doubts, questions and reconsiders everything. So the Postmodern Theory is both a grand narrative and a means to claim that such grand narratives have lost their legitimacy. The consequence of this is that the theory is marked by a sense of self-refrentiality (which takes the form of narcissism in Lady Gaga) and the power of theoretical discourse to produce it. The “centre” is now shifted to the “self”. 

What sets her apart from the others is the fact that she’s a “Performance Artist”. Performance art is nothing like traditional theatre- it rejects a clear narrative, makes use of chance based structures and makes a direct appeal to the audience. Like Tarantino movies, again, it forces its audience to pay attention to the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of human behavior by making an appeal to the physical and psychological needs for food, shelter, sex, and human interaction; our very personal secrets and fears and our concern about the world we live in. ‘Historically, performance art has been a medium that challenges and violates borders between disciplines and genders, between private and public, and between everyday life and art, and that follows no rules’. (RoseLee Goldberg. Performance: Live art since the 60s, New York: Thames & Hudson).

The biggest aim of Postmodernism, Performance Art and undeniably that of Lady Gaga is “Deconstruction.” The term was first introduced by Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, and others, but now as a result of the popularity of these techniques, the word “deconstruct” is often used widely to criticize or demonstrate the incoherence of a position. (Jack M. Balkin, Deconstruction) Lady Gaga aims to deconstruct the very pop culture that has created her and now worships her.

Skeptic's Crystal Gazing

16th century poet Sir Philip Sidney in his Defense of Poetry said that in order to search for true knowledge, to purify wit, to enrich memory and enable effective judgment men took various courses. Some believed that this knowledge could be obtained by studying the general fundamental problems and became natural and supernatural philosophers. The delight of music drew some and the certainty of mathematics others. Some thought this knowledge could be obtained by the high and heavenly knowledge of stars. But, by the balance of experience it was found that the astronomer and the astrologer, looking at the stars, might fall into a ditch; that the inquiring philosopher might be blind himself and the mathematician may draw a straight line with a crooked heart. Hence he proved that all these are serving sciences that serve as a mistress to poetry.

The point of this reference is not to show that poetry wins over everything, but that faith can be instilled by assertion. Astrology lies on that thin line where since science doesn’t have evidence to show how it works physically and it can easily be perceived as blind faith. The closest science has come to explaining works behind astrology is with the help of the sub-atomic particle known as the neutrino, which was proved to exist in the year 1930 on purely theoretical grounds. Later in 1987 its existence was proven to show that neutrinos passed on some changes in our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). According to the superstring theory despite the fact that neutrinos are astonishingly small, their vibrations create all of the energy that makes the universe, without us even realizing it.  

There are billions of neutrinos travelling through space at the speed of light, they pass through everything. So imagine them racing in and out of you all the time, with the force of a waterfall, except they’re attacking wildly from every direction. According to Human Design, vibrating superstrings contain these neutrinos and the properties are shaped by the stars that have created them. On the passing of neutrinos from the body of the object, the properties are modified. Thus large objects like planets have a great impact on the neutrinos that pass through them. Now think how the neutrinos that are passing through us have already passed through the moon or one of the planets and aping its properties. At the time of our birth we’re extra sensitive to their influence, hence we’re assigned our stars according to their proximity to the earth.

The Sun and the moon constitute a very important part of astrology because the sun is the largest body we know and the biggest producer of neutrinos and the moon is the closest to our earth. This way the earth becomes the most important body affecting us, which makes sense even without the scientific jargon attached to it.      

The question then comes of belief, the very lack of which could be considered a fallacy in the world of science. Most arguments against astrology insist that refusing to understand it is just plain common sense.  This is the fallacy of opinion without knowledge. With the passage of time, all the things that were initially considered became science after discovering the mechanism. Even the metaphysical concepts needed to explain the ideas that escaped the human range of understanding till metaphysics slowly changed to physics.

So to deviate a little from what Sir Philip Sidney had to say in his defense of poetry, beautiful words written on fresh parchment may not be very different from science. He has been known as one of the greatest metaphysical poets of all time after all!

"I was thinking about how I feel about you. And I came to the conclusion that you're a part of me, except that doesn't make sense when it's written like that. So imagine two people making a horcrux of themselves, and the object on which it is created is the other person.

Do you see what I mean?" 

Mumbling #23

As I sit down to write these few words, my headphones introduce a familiar song to me: a song with which I associate a distinct memory from my past, a song, which I hope, will help me write what I wish to. I was gifted my first iPod when I was in tenth grade. Before that I used my mother’s old phone which was pretty useless otherwise, except for its radio. I would carry that phone around with me everywhere. Sweet song playlists were peppered with lovers who spoke of their heartaches at three o’ clock in the morning; lovers who had turned insomniacs.  

On some days when my head is too full of thoughts, a memory puts out its hand and a song fits in perfectly like a glove. Maybe it changes something of the memory- alters its accuracy, makes it more savory. I'd like to remember the way I want to. It's mine, after all. 

Complicated.

I hate that word. Mostly because people often use it as a pitiable excuse to shove things under a carpet. Sent my way, it sounds like someone just hurled a giant ball of knotted wool at me when all I had asked was for something to keep me warm. As I sit to loosen the knots one by one, I begin to question everything. Maybe I wan't even so cold in the first place. Maybe I should freeze to death instead of dealing with your nonsense.

You're like a party somebody threw me.
You taste like birthday.
And look like New Years.

THE JANITOR’S BOY

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,

And the janitor's boy loves me;
He's going to hunt for a desert isle
In our geography.

A desert isle with spicy trees
Somewhere near Sheepshead Bay;
A right nice place, just fit for two
Where we can live alway.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
He's busy as he can be;
And down in the cellar he's making a raft
Out of an old settee.

He'll carry me off, I know that he will,
For his hair is exceedingly red;
And the only thing that occurs to me
Is to dutifully shiver in bed.

The day that we sail, I shall leave this brief note,

For my parents I hate to annoy:

"I have flown away to an isle in the bay

With the janitor's red-haired boy."

-NATHALIA CRANE (1913 – 1998)

After Ameya has retired to bed and closed his eyes, just one minute before he falls asleep, his brain works the fastest. He processes one thought after another at light speed, his eyes dart about in an attempt to collect everything he felt through the day, and he tries t I don’t usually have a brilliant flash at the end of this one minute, and anyway it would need a mammoth-sized inspiration to stop oneself from falling asleep, so I don’t spring out of my bed to write down whatever I can recall. On other days when I do, I have a dream-less sleep. I think my fast running brain prepares a base for a dream. When I was younger, I would constantly try to guide my mind to make me experience a particular kind of dream, with particular people in it. Or I would wake up in the middle of the night after a dream took the wrong direction and then coax it in the direction I wished to take it. I succeeded often. I think most of us capable of doing that. I don't think dreams are involuntary.


The above revelation has come to me in a brilliant flash. 

Mumbling #22

It's like two children have decided to step on a merry-go-round. They've heard scary stories about the swing but they decided to get on it anyway, trusting that they both suffer from the same condition. So they go round and round and round and round till they feel very dizzy. The braver of the two holds out his hand which the other one grabs gratefully, a terrified laughter escaping her mouth.

It's like love.

The Great Wall of China

Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure itself no restraint; if it bends it soon begins to tear madly as it bonds, until it rends everything asunder, the wall, the bonds, its very self...My inquiry is purely historical, no lightening flashes from the long since vanished thunderclouds...The limits which my capacity for thought imposes are narrow enough, but the province to be traversed here is infinite.

The Illicit Happiness of Other People

I was in the sixth grade. My father is the conventional Indian papa with the big doctor/engineer/IAS officer dream carried forward to his children, so each weekday, instead of watching Powerpuff Girls on Cartoon Network, my brother and I were sent off to tuition at neighbourhood waali aunty's place, half past three in the afternoon.

Jaya aunty was a homemaker, frustrated because she was overqualified to teach us, a devout Buddhist. I'd borrow books from her that mostly always bordered on preachy, like Tuesdays With Morrie and The Alchemist. When she'd spot a rebellious paperback sneaking out of my bag she'd mutter that I must be careful. I was her star student, my hair was combed back fiercely to show that I meant no nonsense. I'd agree and nod multiple times with her to ensure that I followed everything she was saying. I'd secretly steal expensive soap from her washroom.  

There was this another girl in the same tuition, she was two years older to me. Stupid as a doorknob. She would make make your eye twitch and lip curl if you paid attention to what she was saying any longer than six minutes. 

So Jaya aunty slapped her once. An hour into explaining a simple mathematical problem, and this girl could only look at her nails she had painted earlier. Aunty said really mean things to her that day. I sat there in my seat, my back straightening with every word, neck out like a swan with an enlightened expression like I was the Buddha himself.

I feel ashamed when I think about it now. I say 'now' because it has taken me years to get over the whole idea of what is the right way of being a girl. If I saw someone pouting in a short dress in a Facebook picture or putting more than three hearts in a comment I would be quick to dismiss them. I've always taken pleasure in doing this. I probably will remain hypocritical and continue to do so on some days out of sheer habit.

But the reason why I've written about this is because the truth is that no one gives a fuck. This is Buddha's moment of enlightenment- No one gives a fuck. The girl came to class the next afternoon and nothing had changed. She even had a pleasant, dazed expression on her face. You should have been there to see how the vein on aunty's forehead threatened to burst. It was quite hilarious. I don't know what to conclude from this. What I do know is I don't want to turn into my bitter teacher.

I'd rather not give a fuck.

Florence Makes Me Write About The Great Gatsby

Vast mansions, torn yellow dresses, small people, half open mouths, drunken mistresses, locks spread on the pillow, dull yellow, she sings from the piano, tip the champagne glass over, slurred words, repeat your chants, close your eyes and smile. Unfulfilled loves can make great love stories only as long as they are unfulfilled. Now you know.

Mumbling #21

How is it that everything seems so much more believable in the silence of the night? Every ridiculous thought that would scamper away like a wet mouse during the day, borrows some spirit from the moonlight and gently presses it's possibility in my head. I wake up from my stupor each morning only to be lured into the obscurity of the witching hour, night after night, day after day. It's a deception they say, but I wouldn't exchange this phantom for any treasure of the world. I couldn't even if I wanted to. 

When Shahrukh Khan makes you post at 5 o'clock in the morning, as he dances on top of a train in a rhythmic fervor singing to you about his lady love who reminds him of a fragrance as she speaks a language which is soft and expressive like Urdu, how can you then not believe in Love?

Chaiyya Chaiyya

“I really like you, Midori. A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Like a spring bear,” I said.
“A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.”
“You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?”
“Yeah. Really nice.”
“That’s how much I like you.” 

Just because we can't be friends doesn't mean that we aren't.

I would like to fancy that I'm getting addicted to a certain kind of sadness- fast becoming a way of my life. I've been reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood and the protagonist's straightforwardness makes me restless. Murakami fills page after page with such sincerity and ease, that it almost breaks my heart. He's not to blame though, hearts break too easily. My cellphone blips a name after a long time, conviction follows suit of my heart and drip drip drip. I'm turning into the kind of woman I didn't think I would.

"Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.

So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."

I'm constantly surrounded by the ghosts of my parallel possibilities, and a lot of them seem to be having more fun me.
I am also not emotionally stable enough to handle everything that happens on Grey's Anatomy.
Yes, that's all.

Holocene - Bon Iver

Nina

So there was this girl in my school. Let's call her Nina. Nina was a quiet girl. Not shy, just quiet. I'd never spoken to her, and now school is over, she studies in another country so I don't see a chance of bumping into her. We'd often joke about her. How she seemed so devoid of life. About how there was no music known to man that could make her do a little boogie woogie.  The truth was she was smarter than all of the class put together, but she'd be quiet about it. Nina was humble. Nina could've also been arrogant. Either way I would  make sure I wasn't anywhere near her. There was something unsettling about her. I could never look at her straight in the eye.

Now I  have found her blog and I feel like I'm barging into someone's dream. I feel like a voyeur.

Half Baked

Whenever I sit down to write I wish to write beautiful words, essential words..not just about everything that's going on in  my head. Because the written word is something one can always come back to, and the bitter word always stays with you, especially when it is your own. But life does not work that way.

"There are so many things I want to write down but I cannot seem to, because the reader won't appreciate the little details that are very important to me. What do I do?", one young woman in the audience asked at the Jaipur Literature Festival, to which Howard Jacobson replied, "Edit Edit Edit! If there is doubt, it shouldn't be there in the first place." I don't like to edit, personally. I don't like to go back and re-read and find a new fault each time. But life does not work that way. Mistakes must be mended.

If I said that all the events that I attended at the literature festival were enlightening, that would be a lie. Maybe I am a bit dull, because most discussions couldn't keep my attention right till the end and we were attending sessions one after the other and most authors spoke in such convoluted language and if you really listened to them, they were  talking about very simple things and there are too many ands in this sentence.

I've been sitting here in my favorite spot for sometime now. A single branch with deep red bougainvilleas has made its way out of my neighbor's balcony to brave the Delhi winter. Birdy is crooning about  her Terrible Love and her quiet company. But no beautiful poem is coming to settle in the palm of my hand tonight. Life does not work that way. Not for half baked snobs like me anyway.

Old Soul

Her young eyes are mirror to her old soul. His dry mouth is quiet company. Now hers. I can feel what she feels but I might have been nodding too vigorously because I seemed to have dropped my glasses in the process and it's all very hazy now. In my head I mean.

Falling Slowly

If you whisper it in my ear, I'll believe anything you tell me.