മലയാളം

മലയാളത്തില്‍ ഇത്ര എളുപ്പത്തില്‍ ബ്ലോഗ് ചെയ്യാമെന്ന് വളരെ വൈകിയാണ് ഞാന്‍ അറിഞ്ഞത്. ഇനി മലയാളത്തില്‍ വേറെ ബ്ലോഗ് തുടങ്ങാന്‍ പോവുകയാണ്, ഒരു നല്ല പേരു കിട്ടട്ടെ.

Mental Reflection

Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV. –Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance.
I do a lot of mental reflection on Sundays. Everyone is so busy on Sundays watching movies or reading or whatever it is that they really want to do because they have time off from doing all the stuff that they have to do, and somehow Sunday’s are so inherently quite for no apparent reason it is not a very suited for talking, nobody really feels like it.
I have been reading this book (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance) for a long time and watching stuff on my computer and doing absolutely nothing else this semester, which gives me a sense of detachment from law school, which I am taking as a good thing, because early this semester I was feeling so disconnected from everything so much that it is my firm conviction that I was dangerously close to going insane. Disconnected and detached are so different. I wrote something during that time, so I could remember what I was thinking then, but it is unimportant. One of the things I do when I am feeling not like I would like to feel is read ‘Catcher in the rye’. I am very obsessed with the book, I have realised. Anyway, this time, I could see Holden was not completely right in the head. That he was having a nervous breakdown, like people said he was. That really scared me. That clearly meant that I was thinking differently, or that the structure of my thinking had changed, because I have said before on this blog that I never realised how anyone could think that Holden did not make complete sense all the time.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance is taking a long time to read because I keep going back to read everything again and again. It had a head start at being one of my favourite books of all time because I started reading it when I thought I was going insane, and I looked at the book as if it was some saviour. (It said on the cover that it would change the way you think and feel about your life, which I thought could only be a good thing at that point) By now, I am on 250 something, and it is definitely one of my favourite books ever. I am not going to say anything about it just now because I am not sure I have completely understood what Mr.Pirsig is talking about yet, which I guess is partly because he hasn’t finished saying it. And anyway, this blog entry is only to put an end to the long dry spell. I don’t really have anything to say, but I haven’t written anything since the holidays in Delhi, and unless I really start doing something I will never really start doing something. What I really feel like doing now is watch one of the films, from, you know, the new wave thingy. Like Jules et Jim. I have never seen it.
I have noticed that I have this really weird idea of what is aesthetically pleasing. I am not saying I am very hip and unconventional or anything. I don’t know what it is. There is this balance between neat and practical and beautiful that I like. Today, when I was mentally reflecting on it I realised it has something to do with my grandmother. There is no point explaining that to you because you don’t know her (I don’t know who I am talking to when I write this. Weird.) The reason I reflected upon this was because Mr. Pirsig says the reason people see quality differently is because they are approaching it with different set of analogues. Someone’s choice of quality defines them.
Please go read the book.

From Delhi

I am in Delhi doing my internship now, with my friend(The best one).
I like Delhi. Beautiful Mughal architecture everywhere. I went to Humayun's tomb and Lodhi Gardens. Will post the pictures when I get home, can't do it now due to 'some technical difficulties'.
I am reading this book now called ' The Love You Make' on the Beatles. If I haven't mentioned it already, I love them. They are 'my one and only vice'.
I am having very entertaining dreams lately. Last week I dreamt I was addressing a big rally with an old fashioned microphone. And it looked like the seventies. I mean the crowd and all. Yesterday I dreamt that I was writing a letter and then drawing purple hearts on them. Purple hearts. It was a very entertaining letter too, but I don't remember it.
What is with everyone being such potshots these days. I mean smoking pot all the time. If you are on it, then it isn't real is it? Your life isn't real then, even if you enjoy it. Even if its better with it, its fake and the stuff playing tricks on you. I don't want to be fooled. I don't know if you get what I am saying. And I think its addictive, although not 'physically' whatever that means. You keep wanting to do it again and again, and you get grouchy if you don't get it. That's addiction.(P.S. I am not a loser)

Writer's Block

I did not post for so long coz I was suffering from a bad case of writer's block, mild depression and recurring headaches.(oh wait, i have headaches anyway.) Also, I was trying to write a radio play, you know, something like the Goon Show. In addition to all that, I also had to study for some tests (This doesn't really count, coz i didn't do much)
In the end, as an act of desperation, I read these writing exercises online to get started on something. One of the suggestions was to look at photographs for ideas. And it sort of worked. I mean, just to get you started, not for writing anything good.
P.S. The radio play was a disaster too, but I am still working on it.

Kashmir

I was proud of our art, our poetry, our sculptures and our love.
I said, the beauty of our creation will bring even the old stone gods to tears.
Then they came to me in a dream and took me to a place,
Where the cruel red flowers that belonged in their heaven
Laughed at the blood of people running through pure white soil,
And watched the murder of children with proud indifference.
And when I woke up I was crying.
**********************************************************************************

I wrote this right after I saw a film on Kashmir. I didn't post it earlier coz my friend wanted me to work more on it, but I can't coz the moment has passed.

Friedmaniac

Do not bother to take out your theories, papers,
All those diagrams and your well drawn out charts.
I have seen them all.
But while you play with your little figures why don’t you explain to that child on the street why his dying of hunger (when you live inside the growth bubble) is good for the economy.

Quebrada del Yuro

They did not kill Che in Quebrada del Yuro.
He was killed slowly, painfully, distastefully
Without regret or guilt, by people who are not cruel, who do not hate, who do not kill.
Who know how to love, what poetry means, who understand and are not blind.
Who feel his spirit being crushed under their very feet but do not care.
And they stand over his grave and weep.
He was killed slowly, painfully, distastefully
By those wretched tears.

Caulfield

People keep saying Holden had a psychiatric breakdown. Honestly, that aspect never struck me. When I read the book, he is perfectly right in the head. It’s all the others who have got the problems. I mean to say, what he says makes perfect sense and all.

H.V. Caulfield

Holden Vitamin Caulfield.

Swiss cheese and a malted milk.

Stradlater

I am the biggest ass in the whole world, because after I wrote that first post, I went and checked the first page of love story to make sure i had the lines right. Fat ass loser that i am, i ended up reading thirty pages( love story is one of those annoying books which you can’t really stop reading as soon as you start even though it makes you want to puke). And then, I suddenly realised who this Oliver Barret guy reminds me of. Old Stradlater, or whatever his name is, Holden’s roommate from you know, Catcher in the Rye. Always in a hurry. Everything was a big deal. And I bet Barrett had a great body and walked around in his bare torso too. And suitcases as good as Holden’s. Just being in love doesn’t mean he is not a fat assed phony.

From Calcutta, with Love

What can I say about an eighteen year old girl who has not died? That she is not beautiful. Or brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.

Except perhaps that she is me.

No, I don’t like Love Story,I think its pretty ordinary, and if I had to pick an Erich Segal novel I would pick ‘The Class’ over it anyday, but if I really had a choice I would pick neither.

I knew that if I waited too long to start a blog because I couldn’t think of a brilliantly creative idea I would end up using the worst way in the world to begin one.I guess I could say its part of this being honest thing. Oh, I didn’t tell you. I am going to be completely honest here and all. Because I am this completely screwed up person who is afraid to let people know who I am because I think they will hold it against me. There you go. I told you something really true about myself already.

I am really tired of calling everyone to say how my life is going, so from now on, you can all check here, and you’ll probably know more than I ever would have told you.

Honest to blog.