Friday, July 25, 2008

25th July 2008

I am not an economist.
Yes, everyday I am travelling by Public transport and I found in comparison to 2001 the ticket prices have rocketed. My income has simultaneously gone for an exponential growth, primarily because I have a job for the last 2 years.
In the year 2001 I went to school and came back via public buses, the round trip cost me Rs. 3/- and today one way trip on the similar Bus costs Rs. 6/-
Once a girl shared with me a story that reminded me how stark the differences in economy we see all around, and yet have become so used to seeing it, we hardly ever react.
There is a bamboo bridge that lies across a narrow canal, To cross it you have to pay 25 paise, I am not even sure till I heard the story and crossed the bridge myself that 25 paise still existed. She met a Rickshaw Puller one day who told her that he left his vehicle on the other side because taking it across meant paying 50 paise extra. She said that it is on that day that she realised the value of 50 paise.
There is a Puchkawala who sells his fare on the way to my home; I wondered again how much money does he make everyday. We sometimes argue and pester them for extras.
How lowly do we stoop sometimes!?
There is always more to life, everyday I walk as advised by a friend on my way home from work, and with the music playing in my ears I thought of these things.
As I said before, I am not an economist.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Weight Loss

Terrifying! that is the only word that comes to mind when reading Upamanyu Chatterjee's (UC) Weight Loss.
It is filled with Sex, and in a grotesquely un-funny way which leaves your stomach spinning like on a ride lurching up the runway ready to descend with a rush to the bottom. The rush and the excitement do not come nor does a release come from the fetters of a very bad hashed up case of a paedophile writng his fantasy of the blatantly improbable sex-starved kid.
As he grows into his adulthood he starts experimenting with his sexuality, strangely he is not even sure what he wants. And the poor reader is left perplexed, where is this going, the debauched son moves through the bleak world looking at life as one big orgy.
English August may have been a revelation but Weight loss is a complete lost case and cause.
There is no sense of direction and one is left wondering what the writer thought when he portrayed this character. Augastya may have had his confusions and disillusionment, he did not and need not have given excuse for his exercising or jogging, or his more adventurous activities.
But Bhola moves beyond that, becoming almost immune to any questioning by anybody, his adventures slowly leave his old diary and become real, leaving one wondering how much leeway has the author taken to frame this world of fantasy.
The book is unsettling and leaves one freaking out at the thought of young men in odd shape of Bhola.
It is by far the worst book I have ever read.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

LATEST TO WHAT AM SHAKIN!!

Aye Paapi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvL-4jSM9_Y

Pappu Can't Dance Saala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox_HqsWbjuI

Milo na Milo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yjb0nMCmPg

Check out the Youtube Links and Enjoy!!

[Tried uploading the videos but it was taking ages!!]

Jaane tu ya Jaane Na ... was amazing... in comparison Kismat Konnection went Kaput! only thing watchable was Sahid.. n loved his wardrobe, he ought to lend his designer to Madame' Vidya, she looked aged, and plumpy....

Love Story 2050 gave it a pass wud watch Hrithik y c a copy cat?

Original's best!

Sat night Party Rocked... Danced like crazzzy... and mah frnd was too sweet to gt d house DJ to play Pappu Can't Dance my fav currently.. That song jus gets my feet moving like Kabhi kabhi Aditi always brings a smile to my face...

Scooby at Office decided to make a Ringtone out of that Futuristic Sound in Milo na Milo .. dats wat gt me Hooked to it....
Ahem! bt didnt make two bones abt makin fun abt her all the time till she finally changed it...

I can be such a Bitch sometimes!

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Reading has borne a certain kind of pleasure for me. It has the capacity to pull me out of depression. Books have lost their charm t most people. So, when I splurge 3000 bucks on books, serveral eyebrows are raised, thankfully the archness of the browline to me does not matter.

I have been attempting to diversify just as my work life seems to be on a verge to bifurcate itself, into experimenting with literature.

Karen Rose is a Best seller author about whom I had simply no idea. Realising this I have researched a few International Best Seller Lists like from Herald Tribune and The Times and found 2 authors that I am reading currently.

More on both later.

Recently an article in Graphitti a Sunday suppliment Magazine, spoke about new breeds of Indian writers. I have always had a special liking for Indians writing in English right from Anita Desai to Upamanyu Chatterjee. Yet to have become comepletely oblivious of the literary scene was too much of a shock. Corporate has finally started to immunise me from the Arts of which I was such a proud associator.

As I walked around the Big Book Store I realised how much I had to catch up.

So, an update or two may come this way about books.

However, the reason to have given this the Title .... was less than intriguing, because, I realised unlike a dear friend of mine who has a photographic memory with the capacity to retain whole paragraphs of book he reads, I am terribly short on memory, sometimes gropping even to connect the Title with the Author.

For Eg: I babbled at the Book store about Ken Kesey without being able to say "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest".

Terrible!

Till I blog in again... I have read Karen's Thriller Die For ME! and 2 of Dean Koontz's Life Expectancy, which was preceeded by Life of PI and Kite Runner....

The combination has been lethal... now am delving into Weight Loss by Upamanyu Chatterjee, and feeling SICK.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

8th July, 2008

When there is this utmost desire to find the end which has long gone past, it amazes me how many times we are foolish to go back to find that long lost pain, only as if in desire to feel it once more.
Yet there must be an explanation, whatever science may or may not have discovered, for why we behave so irrationally.
Confusion seems to chase the mental peace so elusive, where you find rest, and all of sudden the same doubts rise back to the surface and haunt you. When you know all you have to do is hold out your hand, or just wait a lil longer, yet all you can think off is whether this is right.
Sometimes, you may not have time for other people in your life, to clearly know yet want to be a part of some one's life, is a whole lot of confusion. At a point in our lives, we perhaps make a smart choice of the head not to pursue aimlessly and stabilize our dreams to concrete evidences of maturity and fulfillment. Yet somewhere in a closed recess of our heart remains that desire of un achieved closeness with that somebody, where lay no hope or joy or happiness.
Happiness is an over-rated object pursued by mankind, in realms that are obviously filled with tracts of pain and remorse. Such are the paths of relationships, and success that has been met can be short - lived, or hard earned. For those who do not wish to fight a constant battle between the self and the object we desire, somewhere you must give up either the self or the Object.
Having given up the object, the course meanders through worse lanes and by-lanes of both memory that has Putrefied into something un- recognisable, or into hate, which may or may not last long enough to see you free from the burdens and shackles that tied you to the object.
Slipping on the murky shallows, of doubt and loneliness, you may find yourself walking or at least trying to trace back the connection broken, but to try is to become even more aware of the emptiness deep within, which cannot and will not be filled by any means.
A story resounds in my mind, of an old man and a young man comparing their Hearts, whereas the young heart was red, shapely, beautiful, the old heart had chunks missing, different shades of red, and ungainly in shape. The flaunting of the Perfect Heart of the youngster made the Old man explain...
" The discolored portions are pieces of heart that others have given to me, They may not fit, cause the shape or amount that I gave to them, were not returned in kind, the missing chunks are portions of my heart that I gave away, and did not get back anything in return, but I am happy for a heart is for loving, for it is to be given without the expectation of an exchange."
The heart is not perhaps one... there is a lot of heart in some people to give away , and may be that is a blessing. For to believe that there is just one heart we would limit our capacity to love. But it is important to understand and believe that some may not have similar capacity (or frailer capacity) to love.
And there may be it is best not to INVEST.