16 Jun 2009
Posted by Oblivion in
Fiction
| 6:16pm
Monsoons - she adored this time of the year. However, tonite, as the dark, broody clouds made an ominous appearance in all their cumbersome glory, she was especially cranky. On the edge. Not a wink of sleep rested on her tired, searching eyes.
As she cuddled up to her sleeping hubby, restless and pensive, she recalled the rushed, stinging smack by the silvery sharp needles of rain on her face earlier that evening.
The rain, she mused, like love, is the greatest leveler - of the rich and the poor, the good and the evil, the most beautiful and the ghastly ugly. The sleepy, and the awake. The lonesome and the alone... She wondered why the rain that had sprouted fragrant joy into the parched land also swelled up raging teary waves by the lakeside? Why couldn't the rain delight her... Like it'd always. She had felt a little caressed by the generous swoosh of its all-enveloping arms, and why had it then wearied her soul out?
As she felt hot tears streaming down her cheeks, she wanted to get out and be one with it again. Desperately. So, she could melt her tears away in the cold uncaring monster of a downpour. Even as her soul let out a heart-rending cry, nature, seemed overcome with emotion, responded - with torrentials of it.
Her feelings began to overwhelm her. To the point of choking her. And then, she could hold no more. She went out into the balcony and texted her friend. She just wanted to sms him and tell him how sorry she was for having hurt him, his feelings. She apologised, said she had never meant to be nasty or call "twisted" - his intentions, his care for her, concern for her, feelings for her, his very love for her!
Having sent the message, she was all lost deep in his thoughts getting thoroughly drenched in the rain, when her hubby called out to her. Suddenly bolted into reality, she feared the worst.
Her premonitions, her sixth sense had warned her against taking such a risk. Why did she? And, now, she would have to pay! What would her hubby think, and say. What if her friend messaged her back right now? Her hubby wouldn't read her messages. Yet, he would be enraged if he knew she got a message from a guy that late at night. Rightly so, perhaps. What, if he insisted he would want to see her friend's message. After all, despite all the space they gave each other, they never kept any secrets between them. And, what was she upto, he would definitely wonder and be saddened...
Even as these thoughts played havoc with her already-aching head that was working overtime, she suddenly found her concerned hubby standing behind her, gently taking her by the arm and leading her back inside.
Outside the voluminous rain poured hasty and violent. The thunder yelled and threatened to tear the sky apart. Inside, another drama was unfolding. Asking what bothered her, so late at night, and why she was out in the balcony in the rain, he glanced upon her cellphone, buzzing with the tone of an incoming message. Puzzled, he tried to take a look. Frightened and shocked out of senses, she grabbed it. Didn't let go of it even when he asked for it. Almost muddled, as though in a trance, as if unaware that it was normal for her hubby to be curious and ask, she couldn't comprehend why he was so 'bothering' her... she was irritated, and wondered why was he being suddenly so overly-protective and concerned?
Almost crazed into a frenzy, she yanked her phone from his hands and screamed at him in all her thundering threat of a tone. Angered, her hubby only got more curious and insistent, asking if she was hiding anything from him. Awfully guilt-ridden, and all enraged, she thundered back a loud 'no.'
Even as the rain beat up outside, loud and fierce, the two exchanged harsh words. Harder feelings. He finally did what she had been fearing - Asked her if she was having an affair and why she had behaving strangely for the past few months. Why was she so transformed all of a sudden. Why was she so lost always? Why wasn't she irritated anymore when he teased her? Why didn't she laugh out loud when he cracked jokes? Why was she now so into love songs, when earlier the very sound of any music drove her mad? What was she so "lost" about...
Breaking down, completely, she just ran outside. It had suddenly become all quiet - the rain had, as though magically, disappeared and rendered everything silent. Not a leaf moved. She fell to the floor weeping inconsolably, almost as though mourning at a loss of a loved one. He was petrified, but extremely moved by her plight. Tenderly picking her up, he brought her back in. After a while she calmed down and apologised. He said he didn't need to know anything. Her happiness was of utmost importance to him. That was all that mattered - just the two of them to be happy and together.
The storm had passed. Balance was restored. However, the monsoon was here to stay, at least for a good while, and the storms would be back at the slightest of chance and on the hottest of angry days.
"Love is a minefield. You take a step and get blown to pieces, put yourself back together again and stupidly take another step..."
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9 Jan 2009
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 10:44am
After Lehman Brothers went bust and the confidence of employees worldwide was shaken, a friend remarked in good humour, "Now we have to listen to whatever the managers tell us. Can't take risk". And Seth Godin spares nothing when he puts across his insightful take.
"It's clear from current events that there was no correlation between talent and pay on Wall Street.
"Confidence is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly in marketing or investing. Arrogance, on the other hand, is hard to reward. My favorite combination is the quiet confidence of knowledge, combined with the humility that comes from realizing that you're pretty lucky and that you have no idea at all what's guaranteed to work tomorrow."
Sounds even more relevant after scandal hit Satyam the other day!
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25 Dec 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 10:58am
Amélie is six.
Like all little girls, she'd like to be hugged by her daddy.
But he never touches her, except for a monthly checkup.
The thrill of this rare contact makes her heart beat like a drum.
As a result, he thinks she has a heart defect.
Santa, on this day, therefore, hug all Amélies in the world.
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23 Dec 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 7:37pm
Among the season's greetings that have come in thus far, I found this impressive. Cheers to the copywriter.
It's that time of year again, when sappy eCards will be peppering the globe like reindeer droppings. But not everyone wants visions of sugarplums. We happen to prefer build-your-own monsters singing generic rip-offs of seasonal songs.
Don't you?
Enjoy,
Your friends at Corbis
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31 Aug 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 9:33pm
When you can't do graffiti, you buy tees. With statements, meaningful or vague or queer or bizarre. Regardless, they attract attention and engage you. Some make for examples of good design work, some are loud, and some are bland. But it's only a few days ago that I realised some could be shocking too.
It was on my last two visits to a shopping mall that I spotted four girls - pretty, I must say, each of them carrying a guy along - flaunting the statements (prominently flashed across you know where) that shocked me. Thinkers who follow the leave-appearances-at-that school of thought may accuse me of being a pervert, but I found the statements obscene.
Statement 1: "36!"
Statement 2: "Dirty minds think alike"
Statement 3: "Look or you miss"
Statement 4: "Yummy! I love milk"
Given the perceived visual, I thought of... well, that's beside the point. Yes, it is possible to justify the statements by attributing their focus to other references, but that's a sheer idiotic exercise. That is denying the importance of context. Context is everything. If it was a drunk party or orgy, the captions would not have been out of place (literally).
It's not my business to question their rights to wear what they did, but I cannot help wondering if they are not going overboard. If they believe it reflects how bold they are in making such statements among crowds or how casual, "cool" they are in making them in such a matter-of-fact manner, do they also have it in them to take the gazes and comments of guys without any trace of discomfort, rage, or frustration? What exactly are they conveying by wearing such tees? Yes, tees have flourished as a medium for personal expression, but how good is it to exploit it to flash obvious references and religious/political allegiance (reminds me of a guy who flashed a pro-Nazi statement, complete with the Swastik symbol)? Is it not unfortunate that the young fail to find better examples than Britney or Paris or Hitler?
I don't pretend to know the answers to these and other questions that come up, but I am surely at a loss to see how their parents and siblings could allow such choices. Or do they think the girls are going to Mardi Gras? But then, maybe I'm just too conservative, because it didn't shock them or the girl herself. And when statements like "I am a bitch" are fast becoming fashionable, thanks to reality shows like Splitsvilla, this is, after all, a sign of things to come.
I reckon I have found the statement I will try on one myself: "If it's on the tee, it's on the mind".
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19 Jul 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
Philosophy
| 9:40pm
At a temple,
a learned professor seeks Zen.
Master Nan-yin offers tea.
He pours…and he pours.
“But…it is overflowing!”
“Like this cup, you are full of concepts and ideas …
Is there room for Zen?”
Source: Osho
Currently Reading: My Revolutions
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27 Jun 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
Language
& Networking
| 6:09pm
That networking influences what we speak has been proved by extensive research. Some purists resist, some yield with ease, and some eagerly deliberate to add the words in vogue to their personal diction. Of all such words, I don't like particularly two - "like" and "cool". The latter, though, works as a tolerable (for me) filler in informal chat. The filler "like" (used more often in the spoken variant), however, doesn't sound pleasing to me. Far from it. Interestingly, I have noticed that this is used more by women than men. I don't know if this observation of mine agrees with the global statistical data.
While at it, I quite agree with this chap's amusing and insightful take:
"While growing up in India, I was taught to pronounce words phonetically, with the correct intonation and everything. I never heard or used the kinds of speech fillers and anomalies that currently plague our language - the ubiquitous ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’.
With the advent of cable TV and largely puerile (speech-wise, at least) shows such as ‘Friends’, many Indians took to peppering their speeches with untold amounts of ‘likeyaknows’ and ‘o-my-gawds’, playing a tacit co-ordinating game with American teenagers half a world away, most of them completely fooled into thinking that it was somehow cool.
Now of course, teenagers the world over have these speech impediments; all subconsciously semi-programmed into aligning with something they will come to regret at an interview or Toastmaster’s meeting ten years hence.
You call it Network effect. I call it, for lack of a better term, the ‘Friends’ effect."
— Raj Pandravada
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16 May 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 8:23pm
A bottle of beer may cost half a billion dollars; by next week it could be a billion. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe reached a terrifying 355,000% in March, with prices doubling roughly once a week. It is probably much higher now. In a vain attempt to keep up, the country has just issued a Z$500m banknote, which is worth some $2 (or less by the time you reach the end of this sentence). The billion-dollar note is surely on its way. After a decade of recession Zimbabwe is reaching all sorts of extremes: it has the fastest-contracting peacetime economy; its people are fleeing both repression and chronic hunger; life-expectancy is plummeting to the mid-20s. Despite all this, Robert Mugabe, the incumbent, expects to win a run-off presidential election on June 27th.
- Source: The Economist
Just the other day, I read how North Koreans (the poor ones, though), on the brink of a severe famine due to food crisis, have started trying tree-bark and grass for food. Although the inaction on the part of the government is understandable - due to its rigid foreign policies and cold international relations - yet it confounded me that situations test humans to the limit. All that superfluous gibberish about "collapse of barriers" notwithstanding, the world is still a definitely divided, apathetically disconnected place.
There certainly are quite a few "believe it or not" things happening in the big, insane, and horrible world out there! Only, they are rather chilling than exciting!
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13 May 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 9:32pm
The race for the Best of the Booker is into the final lap. Of the 41, the following survived.
Pat Barker's The Ghost Road
Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda
JM Coetzee's Disgrace
JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur
Nadine Gordimer's The Conversationalist
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
I'd have doubted the literary sensibilities of the jury if Disgrace hadn't made it to the shortlist. Having won the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is a strong contender. Rushdie has an advantage in that he has a stronger presence in media and is more famous among the circle of average readers for other reasons too. Now that the voting is open to the public to decide the winner, one has more reasons to believe Rushdie will win. For, most Indians will vote for him, driven by the obsession to flaunt the success of an 'Indian'.
However, I put my money on Disgrace. This masterpiece should win by a mile.
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29 Jan 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 9:48pm
"Everything is inconsequential", the master said, his senile face radiating youthful aplomb.
The young disciple responded with a smile. "Thank you", he uttered softly and walked out.
The teaching was complete.
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: ---
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24 Jan 2008
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 7:45pm
Every account of the origins of the state starts from the premise that "we"—not we the readers but some generic we so wide as to exclude no one—participate in its coming into being. But the fact is that the only "we" we know—ourselves and the people close to us—are born into the state; and our forebears too were born into the state as far back as we can trace. The state is always there before we are.
(How far back can we trace? In African thought, the consensus is that after the seventh generation we can no longer distinguish between history and myth.)
If, despite the evidence of our senses, we accept the premise that we or our forebears created the state, then we must also accept its entailment: that we or our forebears could have created the state in some other form, if we had chosen; perhaps, too, that we could change it if we collectively so decided. But the fact is that, even collectively, those who are "under" the state, who "belong to" the state, will find it very hard indeed to change its form; they—we—are certainly powerless to abolish it.
It is hardly in our power to change the form of the state and impossible to abolish it because, vis-à-vis the state, we are, precisely, powerless. In the myth of the founding of the state as set down by Thomas Hobbes, our descent into powerlessness was voluntary: in order to escape the violence of internecine warfare without end (reprisal upon reprisal, vengeance upon vengeance, the vendetta), we individually and severally yielded up to the state the right to use physical force (right is might, might is right), thereby entering the realm (the protection) of the law. Those who chose and choose to stay outside the compact become outlaw."
- Excerpt from Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year
The reader in me will be heartbroken and shattered when this man stops writing. If sanity is one's priority, he must read Coetzee.
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: ---
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31 Dec 2007
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 9:17am
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: ---
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20 Nov 2007
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 7:32pm
1.It doesn't take much for a man to be bad; it takes his everything to be not bad.
2.When luck and time are on your side, you can talk bullshit and get away with it.
3.The desire for power is the root of crookedness and ruthlessness.
4."Is life worth living?" is a wrong question. Life is beyond worthfulness.
5.The world finds orgasm in two things - prosecution and persecution.
6.As David Lurie says in Disgrace, "One is fine as long as one is alive".
7.The richest man is the one who seeks nothing.
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: ---
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26 Oct 2007
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 10:38pm
Politics: 'Poli', a Latin word meaning 'many'; and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.
- Robin Williams
Current Mood: Happy
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13 Oct 2007
Posted by Oblivion in
General
| 6:44pm
The lonely poet wondered,
"Life is drifting nowhere
Or, am I?"
Nobody heard his words
No answer came forth
The evening was sombre
And the sky murky
The bird refused to fly
The lute would not play
And his heart knew no quiet
He walked out barefoot
To the waters of the sea
The sand beneath danced;
With a flutter of its wings
The bird took to the skies
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: ---
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