Poked When Poken

Obama and Warren

2008-12-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

President-elect Obama has decided to have Rick Warren perform the invocation at his presidential inauguration in January. Warren, the pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in California, is well-known for his conservative views, falling sharply in line with the traditional evangelical stance on 'social issues,' but is touted as something of a centrist because he believes that global warming may actually be a problem. On pretty much everything else, he's a run-of-the-mill conservative evangelical: Right to Life, anti-gay marriage, etc.

The debate surrounding Obama's decision, though, has been interesting. People on the left are angry because of Warren's position on gay marriage and California's recent Proposition 8. On the right, Warren is being criticized for accepting the invitation at all. Obama apologists like E.J. Dionne at the Post have been hailing the move as the kind of conciliatory, centrist politics that will keep Obama afloat.

But as far as I can tell, no one in mainstream media has asked the question of why Warren is going to be there at all. In years past, no one appearss to have asked why Billy Graham was there either. Why are these men here to invoke the blessing of their (presumably, Christian) god on a presidency- a presidency of a country filled with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and atheists? Does Warren represent all their religious views, or the lack of them?

But there's a larger issue beyond respect for pluralism or the gay rights movement. Why is a religious leader anywhere near the podium? Why does a pastor have to be around to 'invoke' the divine and legitimize a president through prayer, however symbolic? The last time I checked, the only legitimation a democratically elected government needed is the consent of the governed. People who would urge me to "lighten up, dude, it's just a prayer" miss the power that religious symbolism can have in perpetuating the insidious intermingling of Church and State.

Democratic states should invoke the blessings of their citizens, not of a parochial divine.

RIP Richard Wright

2008-09-15T22:43:00.001-07:00

It's been a couple of years since I posted a rock obituary. Ironically, the last one was in honour of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett. This one is a tribute to the memory of his colleague, keyboard-player Rick Wright. I initially hesitated before writing this one: most of the musicians I grew up admiring are well into their sixties, and if get sentimental each time one of them passes, I'd have to devote an entire blog to them over the next few years. But Wright is too close to my memory of rock music to be ignored. I expect I'll feel the same about most other classic rock musicians too.

Wright was the 'quiet Beatle' of Pink Floyd. His keyboard playing (listen to 'Echoes') was as understated as his singing ('Wearing the Inside Out'). He was the first keyboard player I listened to. But, as I discovered, I hadn't listened to him enough. I was into Floyd during my 'guitar only' phase, long before I was hooked to keyboard players like Jon Lord, Rick Wakemen, and Ray Manzarek. Indeed, for a time, I listened to nothing but keyboard players, and Rick Wright was NOT among them. He didn't have the gusto of those players, and I had ignored him early on.

But for the last couple of years, I've been journeying back to the albums and bands I listened to as a kid, reliving them from a different perspective. Inevitably, Floyd surfaced. And I began to realise why I had ignored Wright: he was all texture. It took me much too long to appreciate texture, and subsequently, Wright. His keyboards were always swirling, careening left-to-right, swelling just below the surface, and never stepping out of place. It takes years to find that space in every piece of music; Wright was there every time. He will be missed.

On Faith

2008-08-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've tried to avoid posting things that are too obviously autobiographical, though most of these pieces are oblique references to people and events in my life. This piece will be less veiled, but perhaps no clearer than the others: my thoughts on the matter at hand are far from clear. In this post I turn to (or away from) faith.

I started to think about my faith seriously, like many others, during college. I decided that, if I was to engage my faith in any relevant manner, that I'd best reconcile it with the imperatives of rational, reasoned thought. Once that stage was over, I could move on, I figured. I didn't pick this process arbitrarily. My life and identity have, for as long as I can remember, been intertwined with the church. My grandfather is a minster. My father is also a minister who spent most of his adult life teaching History of Christianity at the United Theological College in Bangalore, where I grew up surrounded by young men and women who wanted to be ministers. No less than 3 uncles, 1 cousin, and 1 grand-uncle are ministers. In some ways, the priesthood is the family business.

But as I grew older, I soon became aware that not only had the church defined a large part of my identity, it had circumscribe my own mental awareness of the church as an institution, and Christianity as a worldview. I knew no other way of approaching the divine. I was so steeped in the church, that 'rethinking' it could only follow thinking about it seriously and critically. This realisation coincided with my slow disillusionment with the church, youth meetings, services, liturgies, the Lord's Prayer, Vacation Bible School, and bible quizzes. I soon attended church less and less, and the 'Evangelical' turn my youth group had taken only made it easier for me to mentally and emotionally disconnect from the church.

This period was very refreshing to me. The pleasure of not having to wake up for Sunday service was coupled with the realisation that, for the first time, I had found some spiritual breathing room. The more I disconnected from the church, the more I was able to think about my faith. Thus, I came to the decision that I could flex the muscles of my reason within the realm of faith. Till then, faith had merely sulked in the back of my head as an entity that was vast in its scope and importance, yet something I was only dimly aware of. In this period, I started to drag my faith out from the shadows into the harsh light of my intellect. The closest analogy I can think of is the scene in The Two Towers where Gandalf reveals Grima Wormtongue to be the snivelling schemer he truly I was. I resented my faith, much like Gandalf did Grima. I resented the circumstances of birth, societal pressures, and plain dumb acceptance that had led me to this state. After all, I wouldn't accept someone's political views without some reasonable justification, why should my faith escape scrutiny? The systems of knowledge that I had been brought up to know, especially the sciences, would scoff at the notion of Newton following his Laws of Motion with the following proof:
Trust me, it's true. God told me so.

It seemed to me that all through my Christianity-soaked childhood, I had lapped up many such proofs for the elements of my faith: praying to an unfeeling, unresponsive ether; thinking about a heaven that included me, and excluded my Muslim best friend; standing up during 'testimony' and spouting how good it had been now that I had 'accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour.' Why should I pray, go to heaven, or accept a saviour? I began asking these things, and the answer was, "Trust me, it's true. God told me so." When I asked people who knew better about the rational basis for this faith that they held so dearly, they quoted the Bible. The circularity was both troubling and amusing to me. What's the use of quoting the Word of God to justify God?

And so I now come to the present day; I am agnostic. There. I said it. To clarify, I hold this position because it's inherently impossible to prove the non-existence of God. It's just as indefensible to say "There is no God." as "There is a God." Instead, I am what others have called a 'tooth fairy agnostic.' I think there's as much a chance of God existing as the tooth fairy existing. I am not the kind of agnostic that believes that some amorphous being exists that can account for this world's existence, however far removed from the Judeo-Christian god that entity may be.

Also, this is not a rejection of my Christian heritage, which has had many positive outcomes, but no more than a Muslim, Hindu, or atheistic heritage could have provided. I can no more reject this heritage than I can reject being an Indian, a Malayalee, or a man. Instead, this a rejection of a system of belief that posits as its basis an essentially unknowable, non-falsifiable divine.

A friend of mine commented that it's a difficult time to be a believer nowadays with all the subtle and overt scorn for religion and people of faith. That may be so, but I come from a different realm of difficulty. I was born into a desert of indoctrination that has asked me to take so many things on faith, and has proved nothing to me. Yet it threatens the apostate with hellfire. If that's not scary, I don't know what is. I once saw a TV special about a Methodist who had become an atheist. He described the moment of his rejection of faith as a moment of freedom and liberation. (Interestingly, that sounds like so many people who have 'accepted a personal saviour.') I don't feel the same freedom. My rejection of faith is, perhaps, more furtive. The furtiveness does not stem from uncertainty about my position, but is instead the shadow of the faith I leave behind. That shadow whispers in the background the words of John 3: 18 "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God's unique Son." I am comforted by the fact that, like so much of my past faith, that's just plain illogical. I feared its repercussions, but we all get over the monsters under our beds sooner or later.

Su Do Nym

2008-07-11T01:50:00.000-07:00

They had known it all along; the moment was fated to come. And come it did. The month of October ushered in a toothless, long-limbed wonder. All parts (and spares) in good working order. Thank god for the spares, his mother thought. There must have been some deep wisdom in deity for it to decree, not one, but two kidneys. If one failed there was the other, ready to take on the duty of purging piss with doubled vigour. If both failed, then we can always get him a transplant. After all, what’s one kidney from another? But the name sticks forever, his father thought. If the boy’s name was in bad shape, he would be stuck with it forever. Unlike a kidney, if he changed his name at the age of eighteen, his high school friends would say, weren’t you called Abhimanyu in school?

Abhimanyu? What type of name is that? she asked. Her boy wasn’t going to have a vile, common name like that. Her son would be named for enigma, for beauty, and for victory. Enigma Shenigma! his father said. He’ll have a good Indian name, one that honours his family. After all, he is our firstborn. My firstborn’s fate will not be decided by your whimsy. Whimsy? She had dreamt all her life of naming her son after someone great. Maybe for Milan Kundera. Maybe for Alexander the Great. Something lofty, beyond the parochialism of her small-town life. Milan!? That’s a bloody girl’s name. Or a city.

But, as in all things, they managed to make a deal. A compromise acceptable to all concerned parties. They had decided upon a good name, the best kind of name, with tradition and spice, and everything nice: Avijit Arthur Michael.

*Note: any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

The Onus

2008-04-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

The Onus is on us, my dear
To wring the wretchedness,
Even a Penny's worth,
from this grotesque distance
between us.

Even a Page from you
Would do.

Puhltiks

2008-02-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have endeavoured to keep this blog largely free of political content, but I feel compelled to break with 'tradition.' Let's keep it simple: if you vote in any US state, I urge you to vote for Barack Obama.

2007-11-29T22:44:00.001-08:00

Subjectless poetry
Is objectionable.

Notes in Repentance

2007-08-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Fourteen lines give me just enough time
To dumb the guttural ring in your ears
Of the slow edge of rage that sliced in the cold
In the hope that it would freeze out my fears.
For our tropical love and monsoon sojourn
Have no time for desert despair
Nor do temperate climes suffer the cold
And the wail of glacier care.
But I stare at the clock, and revise my prelude
Reams may never suffice
For words have a way of blowing hot air
That simply will not melt the ice.
As words, tides and thoughts recede
I promise to make amends in deed.

My Friend(s)

2007-08-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Is a slow evening fire, religious during a dawn crisis
Sharp as half a rock, solid and Strange as a whole one
Is a base for his own unrequited love, and requited lust
Sipping from a cup, and mulling over the chronological order of things
Is a headstrong royal, loving and unrepentant
Steely-eyed, iron-willed
Is the lighter vein, jocular
And the master of the subcultural insider
Is an open ear, and soothing tongue
Though golden, never quite mine enough
Is the one I almost lost,
And through tears and anger, found again
Is the two for one
Spiritual soundingboards and spectators to skepticism
Is the stealer of hearts, for good or bad
And the pulse of pragmatism
Is an anomalous addition, she’ll agree
The guiltless subject, of guilty poetry

A Hasty Apology

2007-08-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

Since you, my dear
Are more than a friend
It’s only right
That I make amends.
I forgot to call
There’s no defense.
It’s a day that deserves
Remembrance.
But keep in mind
As the years advance
Like rolling marbles
So does the chance
Of senility,
Greater abdominal girth,
And me forgetting
Your date of birth.
But I beg you ma’am
Hate me not!
How can I be blamed
When Orkut forgot?

A momentary lapse of reason...

2007-07-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

That binds a life to a life.

Keeping Score

2007-05-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

I'm no Newton.
This is how I count:
Pinky to lifeline
Ring beside
Middle to mole
And index hides
Beneath the cover of my thumb.
That's five.

And as I finger through the pages
Of this rambling log
And I count them just so
One...two..
The tally is honest
And the calculus true
Lately, I've written the most verse
For you.

Healing

2007-02-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

There were rumors spreading from the centre of town. Of course, it was from the centre. The origin was of no consequence, but the content boasted great things. Deadly things. Things that deserved respect, fear, loathing. She could, by letting the blood out of greedy monkeys, cure maladies of the liver brought on by too much drink. By sucking at wounds, she could cure the breath of frogs. And most unbelievable of all, with a soft word spoken, she could cure the symptoms of love. But it happened, as people walked through the jungle to meet her, braving flies and dragonflies the size of dogs, that she could not cure maladies of the liver; neither could she cure the breath of frogs. She could only cure the symptoms of love. With dark vials of pungent liquid and incantations of eternity she purged the specters of youth, foolishness, and humanity. But only those who dared come.

“Healing needs faith. God only knows what faith needs, for I know not.”

But those who had faith and heartache came. Those like me, who only had heartache, and who found their faith floundering with each tropical step: we failed.

Picture Painting

2007-02-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

If the words of silence I deny
Then a picture will tell me
When to say goodbye.

Bangalore Traffic: An Economic Model

2007-01-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

This is an attempt to recast the state of Bangalore’s traffic, oft maligned for its apparent state of anarchy, in the light of a more organized overarching structure guided by empirically observable principles. While the functioning of its various components may seem arbitrary and chaotic, I propose that in fact, Bangalore’s traffic represents the purest capitalistic system in the known world.

Firstly, as in any capitalistic system, the basis of Bangalore’s traffic and its state of obdurate existence in the face of an almost self-destructive façade has to do with the dynamic interaction of a group of properly functioning individual vehicular units. The comparison goes further, in that it is imperative that each of these units function with the purest intention of self-gain. In such a system, not only are the needs of each unit met, but the welfare of each unit also is directly dependant on the selfishness of its comrade-on-wheels. To exemplify, only if my comrade seeks, in dire recklessness, to cut off oncoming traffic am I able to proceed towards my destination through the path he has cleared by his brash egomania. He has no particular affection for me or mine, but his actions reflect unbidden altruism and symbiosis.

Secondly, as in most market economies, any attempt at governmental regulation is often detrimental to the welfare of all parties concerned. Despite their heroism, no Bangalore Traffic Police official has ever done anything more by directing traffic flow than succeed in creating greater chaos than when he or she arrived.

Finally, this traffic system follows a system of social justice that most capitalist economies are unable to create in their hunger for greater profit. This trait does not run counter to the capitalist ideal, but in fact embodies its very nature. In Bangalore’s system, there is a true sense of vehicular equality as each unit is afforded no more power than its comrade. Unlike the imperfect manifestations of the capitalist system we see elsewhere in which units join together in leviathan-like ‘conglomerates’, Bangalore’s units follow Chandy’s Law of Positional Preeminence, which states that

All vehicular units, regardless of spatial influence, must acquiesce and duly react to the choices of the vehicular unit to its anterior.

A less eloquent but equally insightful corollary to the law formulated by AbhiBass Koffee runs

The f***er behind him must sit and be happy that he’s in front of someone else.

Further insights, laws and criticisms are welcome.

Slip Slidin' Away

2007-01-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine commented:

"The world is smaller because people move so far away."

The Lotus One

2007-01-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

She deserves
At least a line or three.

What's the use, really,
Of continental splotches
That mark her conquest
Of my nape?
They are eloquent
But sorely transient
Testament to her charms,
And my capitulation.
Moreover, they make no mention
Of my willingness in the wake
Of her Yesterday-waft,
Today-talk
And Tomorrow-we'll-see.

What we need are lines to speak
In smooth stone
Of how her generous words
Tread on each others' laces
Like schoolchildreninahurry.
And her giving giggles
Echo in their wake.

But what she needs
Is a quiet moment
To shampoo out her cares
And condition the clutter from her hair.

2006-11-10T22:36:00.000-08:00

The wise man walked up to me today and asked, "Where has the fire gone?"

Maladies of a Historian's Son

2006-11-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

There’s a quiet knock on the door
It must be my regrets come to call
On me. Drink some tea.
Spill some crumbs.
Irk me.
They said they'd arrive at eight.

My family are the next to arrive.
The ones I love too close
They are. Like scars.
The ones I really like,
Too far.
My family is rarely late.

And they proceed to get well acquainted.
Helping each other. Passing the buscuits.
As they enumerate my flaws
In the small pauses between their pointing fingers.

I diligently archive their lists
For future reference.

I got...

2006-11-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

...a new strat! NARF!

Radio Gargle

2006-11-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

New stuff (including an article by me and the esteemed Jugular Bean too, incidentally) on the revamped Split Magazine. Check out the truly cool Split Radio, spinning your favourite [sic] Indian Rock tunes.

Oh, and by the way, I saw Bill Clinton today. Yup, Ye Old William. Ask me how 'twas.

Passages in Imperfection - I

2006-10-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

Perhaps there was some deep sadness in their life. A marriage that writhed and seared like a wound of the diabetic. Destined to fester, but never quite devouring the flesh that marks its borders, held together against the ravages of infection by the ancient mechanics of propriety and passing memories of long-deceased passion. Perhaps he fell. She forgave. She sunk. He saved. They may have laboured in the delusions brought on by some Sisyphus cycle of combined struggles with each other, finding fulfillment in the daily task of doling out hate in tiny measures, treading everyday on their growing mountain of regret.

Nowhere Man

2006-10-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

His name and title really don’t matter
Simply know that
In the continuum between man and Neanderthal
He tends towards the latter

And I’ll be vindicated by anyone who knows him well
For when he’s done with a day of rolling about in the grass
And being happy in the sun and all that
He smells

And in matters of poise, etiquette and grace
I must point out that
In the rainbow spectrum between violently boisterous
and phlegmatically gentle
He often finds himself in violet’s place.

When that other bearded blackguard was talking of
Hair Peace and Bed Peace
And other such drivel, this fellow joined in too
And what do you know?
The Peace Man is deceased.

But if I were to dissect this situation clinical
In truth, I wish that,
On the thread that ties hopeful and wry,
I was on his side of cynical.

Angry Again...

2006-10-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Be still my beating heart
It would be better to be cool
It's not time to be open just yet
A lesson once learned is so hard to forget
Be still my beating heart
Or I'll be taken for a fool
It's not healthy to run at this pace
The blood runs so red to my face

I've been to every single book I know
To soothe the thoughts that plague me so
I sink like a stone that's been thrown in the ocean
My logic has drowned in a sea of emotion
Stop before you start
Be still my beating heart

- G. Sumner

2006-09-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome, wispy visitor,
Mistress of Warm pasts
And Imagined futures
Come.
Take a seat and have a sip
Of wine:
Before long our tongues will unravel
In slipping syllables of truth
And ravel again,
In careless intimacy.

Or, of course,
We could simply talk.

For when we do
I hear the creak of the cosmos
Bending backwards
And the strain of the stars
As they tread new paths
In our favour.

Mothers of the Disappeared

2006-09-11T06:49:00.000-07:00

The mothers of two young terrorists are discussing the progress of their respective sons. The first mother said,"My son just martyred himself in a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem." The second replied,"Well, mine died last week while bombing a U.S. tank in Baghdad."

"..*sigh*..kids nowadays...they blow up so fast, don't they?!"

Maximum Pudding

2006-08-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

It’s funny that after you leave, they find the funk you long to be part of.

Any Colour You Like

2006-07-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

I regret That in
The time we spent together
I never asked
“What’s your favourite colour?”
(Or is that “favorite color” ? I spell badly when
I speak on this continent.)
Perhaps we were too busy
Drinking in the light of some
Distant star
To determine the hue that
Most pleases you.
(Mine is grey, by the way.
(Grey or gray?))
Or maybe we did not care
To pause while chasing dream-drunk
Turtles in the Valley,
Or were we too engrossed
In sending our thoughts
Sailing
Through treacherous tides?

But as speculation lays truth bare
I have reached the conclusion
That you (and I)
Simply did not care.

...And Then there Were Some: RIP Syd Barrett

2006-07-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett died today at the age of 60. Here's an edited version of an essay I wrote at college about him some time ago. Syd Heil...

As the psychedelic swirl of the band’s music takes the crowd to unexplored areas of trance-like consciousness, the energy on stage reaches a grim height. The stage lights and smoke only add to the already stifling heat of the club, and gradually, it appears as if the face of the guitar player is melting in grotesque measures. The crowd looks on in horror at this bizarreness, but the band simply plays the changes, unmoved by the display. If they are worried, they do not show it. They know that it is only a matter of vast quantities of pudding melting from the guitarists head; another day brings another theatrical stage act. This is not a scene from some Rocky Horror- style flick, but a day in the life of one of England’s most successful bands, Pink Floyd, and their ailing front man, Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett. These were the earliest signs of Barrett’s failing battle against schizophrenia and LSD use that led to the tragic end of his blossoming musical career. His life and early work had a profound effect on the hugely successful band he founded, which grew to mammoth proportions in later years.

Syd Barrett was the guitarist and songwriter when Pink Floyd began their career in 1964. His distinctive voice and musical sensibilities successfully melded the pop song-craft of his time with the swirling soundscapes of psychedelia. This seminal work can be heard on their earliest singles releases and the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. But Barrett had a frail, soft-spoken personality, and the touring and recording demands from his managers, who he was reluctant to refuse, soon took their toll. Through the next few years, he grew more and more erratic. At times, he did not turn up at concerts, and when he did, would often stand mute and immobile throughout the show. The band decided to recruit guitarist David Gilmour as a back-up guitarist and vocalist to help Syd during the concerts, but soon, it became evident that Barrett’s sanity was slowly slipping away from him. In 1968, he was eased out of the band, leaving bassist Roger Waters to assume the role of band leader.

Over the years, there has been some conjecture about the reasons for Barrett’s mental ill-health. The most convincing reason is that he suffered from catatonia, also known as catatonic schizophrenia. Like Barrett, most catatonics suffer from bouts of five distinctive symptoms: reduced responsiveness to their surroundings, lack of resistance to instructions, rigid posturing that often cannot be altered for long periods, excited motor activity, and bizarre postures. While Barrett did show these symptoms, there has also been debate as to whether he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, which is a type of pervasive developmental disease similar to autism.

There has also been much speculation about Syd Barrett’s LSD use. He is often portrayed as a man who ‘fried his brains’ with his constant LSD use. According to some reports, he was actually slipped the drug without his knowledge, and his episodes with the drug only served to further aggravate his delicate mental state.

In the years since he left Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett has been in and out of mental institutions, and is said to be improving. He released two solo albums to critical acclaim. But Barrett’s greatest influence has been on the band he created. Many of their most brilliant musical statements, like the albums Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, are centered on ideas of madness and depression. Their art-rock classic Wish You Were Here and the epic song ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ were dedicated to him, and reflect their own struggles in dealing with Barrett’s catatonia and mental breakdown. Despite their huge successes in the decades following Barrett’s exit, Pink Floyd still acknowledge his undying influence on their life and work.

In many ways, rock stars are parodies of themselves. Every story of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll is a cliché that grows in stature over time into legends beyond themselves. Some people like John Lennon, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, though brilliant in their own right, have had their personas blown to such epic proportions that it’s hard to sift the truth from the fables. There are no clichés in Syd Barrett’s story. The legend has diminished over time, much like his mental stability, into a sad story of a truly extraordinary person, who has been broken by catatonia and drug use.

2006-07-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

For various reasons, mostly academic, I had to remove some of my earlier posts. They have been republished below...
Don't you love outtakes?

The Road to Our Red Hill: Part II

2006-07-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Grandfather refilled his glass of scotch and continued…

Andreij never knew for certain what was ailing his Manu. She sometimes told him how she felt, but often she was quiet, never revealing the symptoms for fear of upsetting Andreij. Sometimes she would cough and breathe heavily, some days she would sleep for hours in the makeshift bed he had made for her in the wagon. But with each passing day, the saddest symptom was silence. Andreij longed to know how he could help her, but she believed it to be a passing malady.

“Don’t worry Andreij. Just wait till we reach your Red Hill. I’ll be better then.”

Despite himself, Andreij believed her. There were days when the snow would sprinkle in beauty, only to make the road a slippery, treacherous passage. They halted some days, and Andreij brewed her pots of tea, while she smiled at him from the blankets. He stared for hours at the passing woods and barren fields. There was less and less absent chatter as the days passed, and the modest crowds on the road became more and more sporadic. Andreij tried to make conversation with people he saw, trying to make up for Manu’s silence. He longed for a physician to pass by so that he could ask him to examine Manu, but none came. Of course, Manu scoffed good naturedly at Andreij’s concern,

“Give it some time Andreij. By the time we reach your Red Hill, I shall be well.”

But she did not get well. They went for days without seeing anyone on the road. One evening they saw a peasant pass by them. He was dressed in deep grey, his shoulders were bent, and he carried a sickle in his hand. What was he going to harvest in the winter? Andreij wondered.

“Excuse me, good sir,” Andreij called out to him. But he simply shuffled passed them, ignoring Andreij’s calls. The peasant was humming a tune to himself. The same tune that Andreij heard from the roadside singer. He feared that the memories would emerge again, without Manu's words to comfort him. But now, all he remembered was warm hands.

The peasant turned the corner ahead of them, and disappeared out of sight. Andreij trudged along beside the horse, the wagon, and his silent sleeping companion. As they turned the corner, he heard Manu whisper something to him. He couldn’t hear her. So he stepped up closer to her and placed his ear close to her pale lips.

“It seems we have reached our Red Hill.”

Andreij looked bewildered, and looked further up along the road. There was a small wooden post, worn and battered, with the name ‘Red Hill’ inscribed in fancy, flowing hand. Beyond it were two stone gateposts, with only a single gate. He ran back to Manu, elated.

“We did, we did! We found our Red Hill!” he exclaimed. As he ran he saw a smile playing on her lips. But she had drifted to sleep again. He came close to her, held her face in his palms, and kissed her. But her lips looked and felt like winter.

And a tear splashed from his cheek to hers.

….And a tear splashed from Grandfather’s cheek to the floor.

And a tear splashed from my cheek, to the floor.

The Road to Our Red Hill: Part I

2006-07-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

As I sauntered through my home from room to room, there were memories jumping out at me from every corner. Bookcases and peeping doors opened slowly to reveal reminiscences, often greeting me with a flourish of ancient dust. But much of the home was still in use, and soon my wanderings led me to the study. And there he sat, sliding the fingernails of his left hand through the grain of the armrest, clutching his scotch in the pudgy fingers of his right, and, as always, telling stories. Today, Grandfather’s audience was an enraptured trio of younger cousins. I listened from the far end of the room expecting to hear some familiar tale being retold, but to my surprise I found that I had not heard it before. Now that I think of it, I have never heard Grandfather retelling a story. Only telling them, but with an air that made you wonder if there were some grains of truth scattered among these fictions of his imagining. I had missed half the tale, but I sat down anyway…

“I regret that I will not be able to follow you past the border. You are like a brother to me, but I must return,” said Juan, as he turned his horse and started it off in a trot back down the road. “May She be with you till you reach your destination…wherever that is...”

“I lament that I will not be able to follow you past the border. You are like a brother to me, but I too must return,” echoed Alexia, as she turned her horse and followed Juan back down the road they had come. “May She be with you till you reach your destination…wherever that is...”

There was a pause which Andreij tried to fill by awkwardly kicking stones at a nearby shrub. But Fynn eventually spoke as well.

“You know that I cannot follow you. But keep the horse. You will need it to get to wherever you are going”

Fynn turned, but instead of returning down the road, he climbed the fence and began to cross the field, making his way North. Andreij called out to him as he left, “Forgive me Fynn.”

“What for Andreij? There is nothing to forgive…” But there was little to hide the disappointment on Fynn’s face. Maybe time would erase it. “May She be with you, Andreij.”

Andreij gazed down the road towards the retreating figures of Juan and Alexia. They grew fainter as the tunnel of overhanging trees engulfed them. Andreij stared and strained till he could no longer discern them from the other dark specks in the distance. Fynn was lost to sight long ago.

Andreij turned to Manu, who had watched the proceedings in silence. “What about you Manu, don’t you think you had better leave too? Winter will be here and I still don’t know where we will be going. Who knows how long it will take before we reach the end of our wanderings? Perhaps you had better head back down the road as well. You can still catch Juan and Alexia if you take the horse. After all, I haven’t much need for it. I’ll just walk.”

Manu smiled, half to herself. Andreij knew that she wouldn’t leave. And she knew that Andreij did not wish for her to leave. These were his desperate cries to stay with him. And she heard. And she listened.

“Of course you know where we will be going: to that Red Hill.”

“But that is only half way. If we reach there in a year, it means that there will be at least a year more till we reach the end,” retorted Andreij, with his characteristic self doubt.

“But if we reach that Red Hill in a week, then we only have two weeks left. Cheer up.” Manu smiled again, and Andreij looked at the wagon which was now almost half empty. But there were enough supplies, he deemed, and they set off.

Those were happy days for Andreij and Manu. He was quiet, and she would talk. She was endlessly fascinated by the things she saw on their way, and she never complained too much. Birds, flowers, young peasants. They all became subjects of avid conversation. But Andreij’s silence made monologues of Manu’s chatter. He was glad of her company. The ways were unfamiliar, and he often longed for home. He also thought of Fynn, Juan and Alexia. With the hours he spent pondering their departure, all at once, so suddenly, he realized that he was never sure whether he had left them, or they him. The roads they took were muddy, and with some company now and then. A few noblemen rode by, silently passing on their tall horses. Peasants with their shovels and spades slung over their bent shoulders waved or tipped their caps. With Manu by his side it became easier to forget how much he longed for Fynn, Juan and Alexia. They had been an eager company, but the pair he found himself a part of was just as buoyant. The summer rays lit up their days, but soon, as they traveled on, their breath began to turn misty, and they found their cloaks pulled tighter, and the scarves emerging from their bags.

One day they found a young musician, singing and playing a somber tune by the side of the road. Andreij knew the tune, and the words were vaguely familiar. He could not place it, but the song dragged up memories from childhood that he had long placed in secret burrows. They emerged from their hibernation and left him even more silent than usual. Manu simply took to holding his hand more. The song played in his head for days. He rolled the words of the song around his tongue, and the tune hung around his ears like the fog growing around them, while Manu’s fingers caressed the warmth back into his palms.

“Don’t worry Andreij, we’ll be at the Red Hill soon.” She smiled. He smiled.

And winter grew, till one day Manu woke up and said, “Andreij, I’m sick.” All at once, so suddenly, things changed again.

My Family

2006-07-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

With each hasty word, I draw

one

thirsty

twig

From under the pile of desiccating stems
That is my family.

Our precarious perch
Will drop its fruit to the undergrowth,
And the wind will apportion the stench of silence
Between us.

Soon
We will scream back at the din of echoes
That ring against our thatch-work,
And huff.
And puff.
Till we all fall down.

Plague Eight

2006-07-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

With our cricket screech song
We burst brain and brunch on bran in
Our easy.
Going life to breath to cold in
Our fields.
Of gold we dream in endless plains
Bounded in a hop.
Skip and jump to the map
Of many crickets, in one locus.
Our legs eke, lips chew
And wings banquet the sun.
But.
As the blades dull and the ears fade
We beat, shrink and we bury.

My Mimosa

2006-07-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

My mimosa lies nondescript in the noonday
Slender limbs splayed in artless play
She hears the call of some distant wind
Upon its westward way.
"I have borne the dove and bird of prey
And bring memories of oceanspray
But now my wandering is at an end
Won't you dance with me today?"
In quiet tumult she folds her palms
Wilting before this unnamed harm.
But she has heard this westwind's song before
And it soothes her into blissful calm.
She returns to caper silently,
For she knows that it is me

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

2006-06-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

I pray the Lord nudge me from above
If I ever talk of professing Love
For this feeling I take to be Love benign
Is probably the effect of too much wine

Godrej 7 Levers

2006-06-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

Like a thief in a familiar home, longing steals in again.

Inferno

2006-05-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

Seven o’clock was her time, the moment in the day when the post-dawn cool began its hesitant commerce with the clammy warmth of the day to come. That perfect equilibrium between the glorious possibilities and the looming truths of the day gave her enough time to enjoy the only real pleasure she had nowadays: breaths taken in true ease. Before them lay drowsiness. Beyond, life. She savoured every particle, the pure oxygen sliding past the waft of dung and sulphur. Diwali had ended with a whimper the night before. The night had started with such promise, but the dawn had taken her companion, with his black pants and inexpert love, beyond her reach. But she liked it best that way. No phone call to make if you did not have a number to call, and no lover to waste good 7 o’clock time with. Inhale. Exhale. Done. One minute past seven. Time’s up Sarai.

It was at college that she had morphed from easy-going idealist to mechanical animal. She was now the resume writer’s archetype: motivated self-starter. Like a Kinetic Honda. No kick-start for her; she was just a crummy machine that crackled to life with the press of a square red button and screeching bell ring. It was also in college that she had lost her archaic Old Testament name, with it’s stubbornly adhesive ‘i’, for the more androgynous charms of ‘Rai’. And like the name, the lifestyle had stuck. She did recall a time when she would sit at Koshy’s for hours consuming nothing more than their perfectly chilled water and the heady buzz of the journalists’ tobacco smoke. There had been mornings spent doing the Hindu Crossword. Cryptic, mind you. No pansy Easy versions for her, mister. Hell, there had even been lovers resembling steady commitment. Now, all were lost in a haze of corporate gobbledygook and balloon-empty hierarchy pomp. But no time for reminiscing or regrets, Sarai: two minutes past. Or Seven Oh Too, as they would say in lesser hemispheres.

Exactly one hundred and twenty seconds earlier, in the empty plot of land behind Rai’s house, Ullas the newspaper recycle man languorously unhooked the single safety pin that held his fly and his tenuous modesty together. With his legs spread to avoid splash, he unleashed a golden stream on the back wall of the house, now stained with the signatures of many men and many styles. He absently stared up into the sky as he indulged in his Constitutional right to Take a Piss Where You Please. He completed the ritual and walked towards his bicycle, stacked with the tools of his trade: weighing scale, some crude iron weights, and a few deflated bicycle tubes. And with an avian cry, Ullas plunged into the lazy day’s traffic. “Newspaper!!!! Newspaaaaper!!”

Three newspapers a day, each one a small chunk of her father’s collage persona. The Hindu to feed that haughty part of him that thought he liked to read ‘serious’ news, verbose and erudite. In reality, he only read the sports page, and usually only Arvind Aaron’s chess column. Then there was the Malayala Manorama, testament to his devotion to his home state and unfailing regret at abandoning his family business and property. His cover-to-cover reading of the Manorama, his source of news and worldview, was his act of daily penance for his sins against the motherland. The third was his whimsy slot, changing from the Times to the Asian Age, sometimes even the Express. When he died three years ago, the place had fallen to the Financial Times, and there it had stayed. They were the only legacy her father had left her. Even though she had little time to even glance through them, they came in everyday without fail, except the day after Diwali, when even journalists and the newsprint people take a break. And so the piles grew, playing unread Pyramids to her father’s unreadable Sphinx.

***

“No Madam. Manorama only two rupees fifty paise per kg. Hindu three.”

Rai could never understand this discrimination against vernacular newsprint. Isn’t all newsprint created equal? Rai liked to think that at the root of the disparity lay a deep vindictiveness against her tribe for their rabbit-like ability to infest any nook of the globe, and their ferret-like ability to make it their own. A conspiracy among newspaper recycle men to rob the Malayalees of 50 paise per kilo of used Manorama newsprint in token recompense for the injustices meted out by the race of its readers.

Rai smiled to herself and assented. In reality, she would have given it all to him free. With each paper he stacked, carefully removing any superfluous paper, sorting and weighing them in front of her, she saw a small portion of the bitter memories being purged. She was selling off the memory of her father piecemeal, and without a hint of remorse. Perhaps they would be bleached and reborn as fresh newsprint. Perhaps they would be rolled tightly around silvery firecracker charge by nimble five-year-old fingers. Perhaps they would burn.

It was seven-thirty, and for once, she didn’t give a damn. The fucking boss could wait. Rai was finally getting to spend some quality time with her father. Ullas was overwhelmed. Every time he thought it was done, she would emerge from another room with another stack of papers in her hands. But he did not complain. In an hour, he would have collected a day’s worth of newsprint.

“That’s the last one,” she said, laying down a small stack of the oldest newspapers in the house. She walked slowly towards the phone, dialed, and waited.

“Srinivas News Agents? Yes, I live in Rang Apartments, flat number one zero two. I would like to cancel all my newspaper subscriptions…Yes, Mr. Chacko’s daughter…No, there is no problem. From tomorrow onwards, please do not bring any newspapers. I shall settle any dues at the end of the month. Thank you…bye…”

Ullas was done with the last set and began to haul the neat stacks downstairs. It took him a few trips before he was ready for the last one. He paid her the money that was due and started to lift the final stack.

“Wait,” she said with a start. He held the sack down and looked at her curiously. Without a word, she grabbed the newspaper at the top of the pile and closed the door as he left. Grabbing a pen from the counter, she sighed and eased herself into the couch in her living room. She breathed in the nine o’clock air like a newborn. The world could wait. For now, Crossword No. 8352 beckoned.

Two down. Conclude negative response leads to Hell.

Puhltikl Klout

2006-05-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

To give vent to my puhltikl opinions, and any other vitriol that pops into my head, I have created Puhltikl Klout. Let's see how long it lasts.

Final Questions

2006-05-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

Our foot soles mark, in the mud we leave behind,
The entropy of reason,
The concentricity of inevitable dilution.
Sipping slow seconds in the
Insurance of infinites
Lying before us
In warranties of wear and tear
And affidavits for anarchy.
Our squalid treads in hapless unison
Stride towards the light switch to the Sun.
Flick Switch Off Cold Dark
We lie down with inanimate lovers: cities built, empires adored
All settled now in a heap of equitable lassitude.
Together we rest in the comfort of the universe’s ultimatum.
Dust to dust. We are food for thermodynamic legality.

Kia and the Boy Dragonfly - Part 1

2006-04-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

“Well, my father’s a wizard!” said Kia with some finality.

“Indeed? Well perhaps during the course of his pedantry he has chanced upon the study of hydrogen bonds. I recently consummated my own research in this field. I spent a good part of the past year in Farmer Neal’s Farm,” said the boy, sitting perfectly poised on the stump of a tree, back straight and slick hair set in place. Kia hadn’t a clue as to what he was saying, and had never even heard of Farmer Neal. It sounded insulting, and it probably was. More than anything, Kia hated it when people talked of their friends and acquaintances as if the whole world knew them on a first-name basis. Her friend Adam did this often and she loathed it. So Ambrose and I spent the whole day together catching prairie dogs. Adam had been talking of this Ambrose fellow for a few months and had never cared to point out who exactly he was. Kia hadn’t bothered to inquire further.

Kia was a girl. And she was the only Kia in the world. She knew that, because her father the Wizard had told her that her name translated loosely into “Characters and events in these stories are fictional. Any resemblance to real events and persons is purely coincidental.”

“What a tiresome translation. And may I be frank in saying that it is a rather phonetically unlovely nomenclature,” said the boy, rising to his feet, when Kia pointed out the uniqueness of her name. By now, Kia was seething, but her father the Wizard had always taught her to remain calm in such situations. It was only this training that kept her from slapping Adam hard behind his knees. Similar instincts were creeping up on her now, but she kept them in check. Besides, the boy was wearing grey pants that looked like a 60-40 blend of polyester and cotton, so slapping him behind his knees would be rather futile.

“Well, let’s hear your name then, smarty pants,” said Kia.

“In actual fact, my slacks are a 60-40 blend of polyester and cotton. But yes, they do look rather smart, do they not?” The boy then proceeded to look down at his paints, admiring them, carefully fingering the creases and flattening each leg from his waist to his knees. Kia rolled her eyes, and walked off through the thick grass in the direction of her home.

“Djkrie,” said the boy, calling after her.

Kia spun around on one heel. “What?”

“That is my name. Djkrie,” said the boy, with a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

“That’s the ugliest name I’ve heard in my life.”

“So be it. Have you met Trotsky?” The boy seemed somewhat crestfallen at the response to his name, but quickly recovered. Kia was annoyed. This Trotsky person sounded a bit like Ambrose.

“Who? Trotsky? The Russian revolutionary chap? Nope. Haven’t had the pleasure. Perhaps, during the course of your study with Farmer Neal, he told you that Trotsky died quite a while ago?”

Djkrie did not respond. He whistled two sharp notes, and called out, “Trotsky.”

Kia noticed a faint buzz filling the air. It grew louder over the next few seconds, and Kia looked around to find its source. Suddenly, a large, initially unidentifiable flying object flew into her view. The buzz came from a pair of glass-like wings, thinly veined with a mesh of red lines. They were flapping at a furious pace, and Kia was sure she heard ‘Purple Haze’ playing somewhere in the background as it hovered in front of Djkrie.

“This is Trotsky,” said the boy, absently stroking Trotsky’s long, glistening abdomen. It was about six feet in length and looked like shiny sections of sushi squashed together.

Trotsky was a dragonfly. The most beautiful, and the only, dragonfly Kia had seen.

Earth, Spirit, Blues

2006-04-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

I sit on a chair
Like jazz.
Chromatic thoughts colour my
Sullen syncopations,
Drifting into a lazy day's coda
From one mode of sorrow to another.
Old blues lick new wounds
Panning my self indulgence
Across one cheek,
And now another.
But I,
I
Can’t

Quit

You

Babe.

I Advance Masked

2006-04-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

I advance masked
Through eddying crowds
Of my dreamless fellows.
We have offered them up,
Severed, hacked, mutilated
And burnt at the stake
In our mindless sacrificial rite
Baptized daily life.
What we seek is the peace of dreamless sleep.
What we receive
Is ash.

Last Night...

2006-04-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

I saw this guy....

Jamming with this guy....

And this guy.

This guy decided to tag along too...

This lady walked onstage once in a while, and blew my mind each time.

And because he's so nice, this guy opened up the show...

...and did I mention that someone else bought me the ticket?

At The Melon Stand

2006-03-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

I was a riding in my car one day
Shopping for some melons
When from my Maruti I glimpsed
A fateful glimpse of Helen.
Helen was a friend of mine
In her jalopy flying
From her anxious look I soon surmised
She too was melon buying.
But then I found, to my dismay
The cause of her worried pose
It was not because of the melon stand
But due to something in her nose.
So Helen reached in eagerly
And found the sinful foe
For some young ladies of high society
Prefer to reach in, rather than blow.
While I must admit, I flinched a bit
And the incident left me vexed.
But nothing I’ve known could ready me
For what I witnessed next.
Graceful Helen, maiden made
Of niceness, spices and sugar
Proceeded to, without remorse,
Feast upon her booger.

Messianic Doorknobs

2006-03-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

There are silences in my life that need to be shouted at. For a time, there’ll be no space in my room for pompous verse, only vitriol and prose. No space for graceful complacence, but a To Lease sign for jagged bitterness. I like to think I avoid talking about my mundane everydayness here, but sometimes, the plainer the autobiographical tirade, the greater the catharsis. Sometimes, it’s nice to put words together that in the end have no meaning whatsoever. It reminds me of how much bullshit we are all full of. The fumigating bloke assuaged the licensing fee of messianic doorknobs, scratching a storm in the gaping crevice between shoe polish. Sometimes, even a bleak outlook seems wholly pointless. At that point, grammar

Syntax

Meaning

All

Fall

Over

The lips

Of a gaping

Precipice.

Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming...

2006-03-27T05:50:00.000-08:00

A Night of Pondy Dreaming

2006-03-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

An angry dusk settles into hesitant calm, placated by the matronly whisper of the night wind. We watch in silence as the streaks of fiery red disperse in the wake of gathering darkness. Our steady breathing matches the pulse of the waves, one with the intangible subterranean engine that sets the pace for the heave of our chests, the relentless salt water crash, and the winking innuendo of the stars above us. No theatre could be a more apt setting for the drama of tiny lights that unfolds before us.

We had often told each other that some day we would spend a night in wordless togetherness, watching the sea together. There was never much hope in that promise, but tonight, by chance, our playful covenant has been fulfilled. There is no romance here tonight, or any night, simply the unfettered oneness that old friends bring. And she is perhaps my oldest friend.

In the background we hear the primal din of our companions. They immerse themselves deeper in youthful decadence as the cloak of the night falls heavier upon us all. But we are oblivious to the invisible haze of smoky intoxication. Our liquor is the sea.

Soon, our silence has extended long into the night. The waves have turned into distant aural shells, like common words left bereft of their meaning from constant childish repetition. So we speak. We speak of God, and friends, and love, and music, and dissecting frogs. They are well worn topics, beaten into crude philosophy from the shapeless iron of our banter. But no one can see knowing smiles in the dark. So we talk and smile to ourselves, while the insistent waves try to get a word in. Eventually we tire of speaking, and as we drift back into silence, the waves continue their united monologue. We listen again.

Behind us, our friends are now silent, lulled into fitful dreams by the same waves that hold us hostage. They will wake with a crushing throb in their heads, regretting the night’s revelry and the bilious aftertaste of their adventures. But for us, there will be no waking, as we run the marathon of sleepless defiance hand in hand. We refuse to let any night wind’s lullaby shut our heavy lids, and as our eastward-facing amphitheater begins to brighten, we know that our sojourn is at an end. We rise with the sun, dust off our clothes, and turn our backs on the vastness of our watery, night-long companion. The play is over, the blazing curtain of morning closes the stage to view, and the promise is now complete.

You

2006-03-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

Hey you. Yes you. I’m talking to you. Don’t turn around and make furtive glances, acting as if I may be addressing someone else. There are very few visitors to this place who make visitations without leaving a visiting card. And besides, I heard your tip toe on the carpet trying to read in stealth (you have nice toes, by the way; I’ve told you that before). I have a couple of things to say. One, I miss you. You’ve rarely been away when the shitake hit the Kawasaki, but as I’m beginning to learn, oceans are hard to traverse, good times or bad, despite all good intentions. Oh, and that’s another thing. I’ve forgotten to say thank you. It’s been many years since you threatened me with glitter glue, and searched for gold dust (potentially toxic, I’m sure) with me in petty streams. And I’m still waiting on that novel you said you were writing. If nothing else, at least start a blog! It will give us both an equal chance to stare at each other’s self indulgence with well-meant voyeurism. But I digress. I was thanking you when I started rambling (characteristic, don’t you think?). Yes, thanks. However far or near we’ve been, or however long the silences, talking to you has a singular comfort. The good thing about bad times is that they serve, if nothing else, to remind me how much of my thanks I owe you. Anyway… till next time, which won’t be too far away. Before you know it I’ll be knocking at your gate at seven a.m. for another morning walk.

Metronotomy

2006-03-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

Our days were delirium.
Treading sweet nectar from idle hours of
Quiet togetherendlessness,
Weaving tunes with our tied-tongues
To the signatures of dusty road wind.
Keeping time, Two thousand
Eight hundred
And 12 to the minute.
But now
Seconds of silence stagger into the scene.

'Tis the Season to be Jolly

2006-03-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

There’s a joyous din in the forest eaves
And a spring in the fox’s trot.
The cottontail rabbit lies in repose
With the mink at their favourite spot.
The quails have abandoned their shrubbery fort
To frolic in playful ease,
And the badger returns from his longer winter snooze
To pick off accumulated fleas.
Why such a mood of festive glee?
You ask, does it stand to reason?
Shouldn’t they all be slinking in fear
At the start of hunting season?
But no my dear friends, the animals are safe
Free to have their fun.
The ones in danger are the hunters themselves,
Because Cheney’s got a gun.

A Countercultural Dictionary of Nothing

2006-02-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

My tries silenced by misanthropic silences;
Beeswax halting creative flow
Scream from within: numbers on a line, negative, positive, relative, flow
I see, you see, but feel flows, my friend.
If you have it, flaunt it, my friend of many years
For years will divulge the secrets of our short time
And people will gather to hear late reminiscences
Of the dogs of war, and men of hate
We perambulate, we procrastinate
And we see what we refuse to see.

For the Jugular Bean, a friend and inspiration through ages.

Roman Ball Games, Anyone?

2006-02-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

Some champion the cause of Pairity
While others esteem the virtues of Singularity
The Pairity camp is singular in that they deride without charity
The life of the individual bent on solitairity.
The Singulars parry calmly by drawing attention to the deep disparity
Between the proportion of the dinner bill laid on the table by the Man
And his Manatee.
But Pairs in their rebuttal will rebut,
Will hmm, haw, tsk-tsk, and tut-tut,
And point out that the broken-hearted heart owner
Is better than the individual possessing the heart of a loner.
But can I make a proposal, with due modesty?
I humbly suggest we mingle in groups of three.
Let us reject this morbid fascination with Singles, and Doubles;
For trios, trinities, triumvirates, triplicates, and troikas will save us much trouble.
To those enamoured of Ones and Twos,
Haven’t you heard? Three is company, too.

The Ocean Blues

2006-02-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

I felt the ocean today
Rising in tumult around us,
Tearing at sinews
Steady relentless beating acid
Eating at shores and continents,
Like hunger at stomachs lined with emptiness.
Making islands of men
And pebbles of hard hearts.
I see your ruins at a distance.
I hunger. I hunger.
I tasted the ocean today
Bitter brine from eager cheek flow
Parting reluctant lips.
Speak in tongues
Of Sadness and Longing.
Tongues of Sadness
And Longing.

Longing

2006-02-12T00:36:00.000-08:00

Longing is the price we pay for a central nervous system.

More Split!

2006-01-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

I've reviewed 'Whose Line is it Anyway', a song by Bangalore's talented Shoestring for the latest update of Split Magazine, as well as the classic Rock Machine album, The Second Coming. Enjoy.

Tagged

2006-01-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here’s my response to Fingers’ tagging about my ‘ideal’ better half. Firstly, she’d have to be a she. Then…

I’d like someone who’s artistically inclined. Any art: music, dance, fine art, film, theatre. A sense of artistic aesthetics would ensure one thing: she can’t be too boring. If she can teach me about an art I’m unfamiliar with, awesome!
If she’s relatively easy going, it’d be nice. That would balance me out without annoying me...*sigh* how perfect it all sounds.
Someone who’s ready for compromise, because I am.
Nice feet are absolutely essential.
Someone who can sense and match my level of interest and commitment. A girl on either extreme is just trouble.
I like whisky. It’d be nice if she does too. But I won’t fuss.
A girl who has a quirky sense of dress who can correct my own would also be nice.
I’ll leave this blank, because inevitably the girl will have AT LEAST one thing unexpected that you didn’t know you’d grow to love…

Splitting Hairs

2006-01-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

I have been writing for an online music magazine for the past couple of months, and the editor finally managed to put it up after many unexpected delays. It's called Split and the inaugural January issue has 2 of my articles. One is a review of Thermal and a Quarter's Plan B, and the second is a book review of The Rock Snob's Dictionary. Check it out and look forward to more content in the future.

...and Fingers, your tagging will be acted upon soon...i promise..

Season's Greetings

2005-12-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

Globules of phlegm cascade through my unwilling trachea as choking air hacks and wheezes its way across my throat. Happy New Year.

Winter’s Woes

2005-12-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

As winter sets in with a grey sneeze and splutter
And frostiness looms like a squall,
My toes threaten mutiny
And I begin to scrootini
Why we have this business of winter at all.

There’s an awful fuss about the beauteous snow
But I say with fervour, “Bollocks!”
For snow turns to slush,
And there’s nothing plush
About bruising the ground with your buttocks

Cars will stall and birds will fly south
And butter will refuse to soften
O! woe to margarine
But what vents my spleen
Is having to visit the loo so often.

The Silence of the Bands

2005-12-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

I happened to Google my name today (now, don’t point fingers lads and ladies…you know you all do that from time to time!) and found an interesting link. A review of Indus Creed’s self-titled (ahem, eponymous...) album that I wrote for www.themusicmagazine.com a couple of years ago has been cited by a lady named Rebecca Romanow in her jargon-heavy paper on rock music and the silenced Subaltern. I found myself rather badly misrepresented, but tell me what you think. (I think The Music Magazine links aren’t completely working though)

My Omniscient Beetle

2005-11-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Since I have little knowlede about how to make this picture any bigger, you'll have to go to to the trouble of clicking it to see its dubious contents...

FLY LOW WHEN YOU’RE NOT APT TO SOARING: The Rise and Fall of Icarus

2005-11-26T20:52:00.000-08:00

(I wrote this 37- verse retelling of the tale of Icarus and Daedelus when I was in the 12^th for a poetry competition. I didn’t submit it at the time because I deemed it horribly self-indulgent. Since self-indulgence is the watchword of the blogosphere. Here it is…)

Minos the great king of Crete
Managed a marvelous feat
No one knows how
He mixed a man with a cow
And got a treacherous beast with bull’s feet.

Minos, he built him a cage
But in a fit of ox-like rage
The man-thing broke out
With a bovine shout.
The mutant had come of age.

Minos didn’t know what to do
The beast beat his guards black and blue
First he would beat them
Then he would eat them
He would hang up their uniforms too.

Now Minos was in a quandary
About the Mino’s dirty laundry
Should he tie up the beast
Or let him continue his feast
And let him devour all and sundry?

The sovereign was awfully vexed
What should the man do next?
He decided to get
A home for his pet
And put out ads for the best architects

Among the men who applied
The king, Daedelus espied
He passed every test
Yes, he was the best
His genius could not be denied

Icarus was Daedelus’ son
A stupid sonuvagun
Being so smart
One should have the art
To procreate a brighter one

But Daedelus was stuck with the fool
Too dull to pass out of school
He had wool in his head
His grey cells were dead
But he thought himself awfully cool

He had the degenerate genes of his mater
Daedelus would congratulate her
On bearing a child
So willful and wild
Who got all jokes five minutes later

But Daedelus being his dad
Really loved the stupid lad
He decided to take him
Rather than forsake him
And leave him there lonely and sad

So they set out at once for the isle
They traveled many a mile
Daedelus wondered
He thought, and he pondered
How to hold the beast, coarse and vile

While he sat in Knossos and thought
An answer to the enigma he sought
When the answer he found
In leaps and in bounds
He ran to Minos’ court

“Build him a maze dear king!
A maze is just the thing
It’ll hold Mino in
And keep him from sin
A maze is just the thing!”

Minos was extremely delighted
As from his throne he alighted,
“We’ll start work today
For with the pass of each day
My soldiers resign, affrighted”

So the building of the maze began
The greatest in all the land
From the next day’s dawning
Early in the morning
They built it according to plan

If you happen to enter the maze
You’ll wander around for days
You’ll die of starvation
Or harsh mastication
By the Minotaur ravenous and crazed

But the labyrinth has one way out
If you’re stuck, don’t scream, don’t shout
Turn right at every bend
Turn right till the end
You’ll move from within to without

Ariadne, the princess of Crete
Was beautiful, slim and petite
She wasn’t as bad
As the king, her dad
She was cultured, refined and neat

So Daedelus finally decided
In the princess of Crete he confided
Daedelus gave her
The clue that would save her
If she ever got stuck inside it

This caused the king much pain
Minos was crazed and insane
“One must tell the king
Before planning such things!”
And he clamped dad and son in chains

Daedelus had hurt his pride
It hurt him deep inside
“The ruling monarch
The Royal Patriarch,
In him must you confide!”

So Minos thought up a plan
He was a fiendishly devious man
“I’ll send the damn Greek
To the maze for a week.
Let him escape if he can.”

Opening ceremonies are grand
And, as Minos for this one had planned,
Blindfolded and dazed
He threw them in the maze
With their feet tied to their hands

Daedelus was cool and collected
He relaxed, breathed out, and reflected
With a sharp bit of stone
Cut rope, flesh and bone
(But in legends such things are expected)

He had freed them both of their fetters
Their clothes were torn and in tatters
But you wouldn’t mind
If monsters unkind
Were the urgent, pressing matters

About on thing, Minos had been right
Daedelus was awfully bright
He dealt without haste
With the problems he faced
Things would turn out alright

To keep the Minotaur quiet
He was put on a special diet
Of thousands of birds
And cattle in herds
And Greece was asked to supply it

So father and son together
Collected some bones and some feathers
There were masses left over
From chickens and plovers
And plenty of hide to gather

With some wax, among other things
Like glue, some blood, and some string
With feathers and bone
And adhesives alone
They made two pairs of wings

Whatever Orville and Wilbur may say
It was actually on that very day
Man’s first flight
Was before the Wrights
Well, that’s what the Greek legends say

Icarus was overjoyed
With his newly invented toys
He soared and he swooped
He looped the loop
What a reckless, irresponsible boy!

Daedelus, with a weary sigh
Said, “Son, don’t fly too high,
The heat of the day
Will melt wax away
And you will fall down and die.”

But the warning Icarus ignored
As higher and higher he soared
But in 9.8 seconds
As gravity beckons
The fool wasn’t flying no more

He plummeted to the sea
A terrible death died he
Waving and thrashing
Cursing and splashing
He sunk like a biscuit in tea

Morals can make legends boring
But in fact, they’re not worth ignoring
As all others do
This has one too
‘Fly low when you’re not apt to soaring.’

***

Whew!

Take Up Thy Pukulele and Walk

2005-11-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

I once thought sobriety, as way of life,
Is a matter deserving rebuke.
But it’s hard to decry
Such modi vivendi
When you’re cleaning up someone’s puke.

dktshunri

2005-10-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

After much research into the matter, the linguistics department of Mudumalai Institute of Technology (MIT) has published its defenitive and comprehensive lexicon for the seemingly random Verification Words used by various weblog sites and electronic mail service providers to make sure viruses and aliens do not leave spam in your blog and junk box. It appears that they are not in fact random groups of letters, but have their origin in the vocabulary of players of the obscure game Counter Strike and other such cultish internet phenomena. Here are a few excerpts:

eiioycc - What you say after a particularly bad joke emailed to you by the Hopeful Cynic. And to warn your friends, you forward it to them as well.

xkkzs - The name Michael Hutchence suggested for the band before INXS hit it big.

hzbsl - The Jewish wing of a dreaded Palestinian militant group. Hebrew has now vowels, you see.

cnlqzh - After much effort, the abbreviated postal code for the newest state in the US, inhabated solely by people who claim origins in a region in the south west of the Indian subcontinent. To explain, as AZ is to Arizona, and OH is to Ohio, so CNLQZH is to Chandiminningunnaquzha.

edtddhtm - Acronym among wannabe, chatroom infesting IT geeks working in Infosys for "Eda, dat thendi deleted da HyperText Markup!"

xfrdm - The spiritually harmless version of a backmasked cuss word in a Alice Cooper song.

You Keep On Moving

2005-10-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

I hate moving, packing up the past in boxes,
And sorting out my life while I sort out my soxes.

My Son, the Physicist

2005-10-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

David always felt a little stifled when he came home for the holidays. Coming back to the farm from the rarified atmosphere of the University’s physics department was always a challenge. And besides, he didn’t have much time to spare in the midst of his work. But his mother Edith always made a fuss if he didn’t come home for Christmas, and since they had paid for his education, David kept his parents happy with this annual trip. But after the festivities were over, and the food was eaten and the cousins had left, the itch began. The fortnight began to weigh upon him, but his parents were oblivious. They looked upon their only son’s arcane studies with a curious detachment, and David was willing to forgive them their pastoral ignorance.

The best David could do was to sit out on the porch, survey the many acres of abundant farmland, and reminisce about his childhood spent waking at 4am to feed the animals. He didn’t regret leaving at all. He could see Farmer Neal’s homestead in the distance, their only neighbour for miles around. There was an odd peace here, and soon David settled down with his text to catch up on the work he had missed.

As the morning passed, the sun rose higher and smells of lunch weaved their way from the kitchen to David’ s yen. He heard his father’s steady tread behind him, " Son, it’s time for lunch.”

“I’ll be right there Dad.”

“So how’s the studying coming along?”

“Oh it’s ok, going slowly”, David said as he closed the book over his pencil, marking where he had left off.

“What exactly are you studying this semester?”, asked David’s father.

“Well, erm…it’s rather complicated…it’s got to do with..”, David trailed off, surprised at his father’s sudden interest.

His father looked at him earnestly and asked, “Are you studying the angular momentum and energy of electrons in the helium atom, by any chance?”

David almost fell over, “Where did you learn about the energy of electrons?!!!”

“Well, I’ve been talking to Neal’s boar a lot lately.”

Hold 'Em Gal

2005-10-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

My sister is a cute little bespectacled thing,
The epitome of siblinguous virtue.
Even in brotherly jest, if you erred,
Be assured, she would never hurtchyou .

She's the kind of girl who would give you hotels
When your Monopoly fortunes pale,
And lend you two hundred dollars, or more
So that you can get out of jail.

But one day last week, at the home of a friend
She was gone like a summer breeze.
In place of my sister, meek and mild,
There stood Mephistopheles.

Bring out the deck, the chips and the beer,
We're here to play Texas Hold 'Em,
Deuces are wild, the meek, no more mild,
And be sure she'll never fold 'em.

She'll run you aground with her poker straight face,
And gather your chips with a smile,
And when I'm being beat my own little sis,
Her vileness looks all the more vile.

She loves her poker as flies love food
As filings adore a magnet
As fasting piranhas love immersed fleshy ankles
As mosquitoes love water stagnant

She brings a grim sternness to a Saturday night,
To a game you thought was informal.
But don't be afraid, for after she's done,
My sister returns to normal.

Keeping it Real

2005-08-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

For my Introduction to Philosophy class we were asked to write a 350 word essay on "What is reality?". I decided to write a considerably longer short-story version. Even if Mrs. Hauftman doesn't accept it, here it is..enjoy.

Tushar walked down the path beyond the village with long determined strides. As the light of the campfire and the din of the feast faded behind him, the dim claustrophobia of the forest threatened to engulf him. But Tushar had walked this path hundreds of times in the past and he brushed off his fear as he reached the tiny hut. His feet had taken him where his eyes could not, and gratefully, he knocked at the door.

“Come in child,” said a voice from within. Tushar entered and saw the familiar figure of Shantiman sitting cross-legged on the floor with a hookah trailing from his lips and a lingering moist fume around him.

Tushar sat down and said, “Why didn’t you come to the ceremony.”

“You know I don’t care for that sort of thing anymore Tushar.”

“You know what Shantiman, I refuse to go about banging my stupid drum at these village ceremonies anymore!” Tushar burst out rather angrily.

“Why is that young one?”

“It makes no sense to me, these rituals. And the Chief’s sermons! They are horrible. I don’t see why I should believe his version of things if I haven’t seen them for myself. Sometimes I think he is just creating something for the villagers to believe in, just off the top of his head. He is just making up a reality as he goes along, his version of things. As long as his version and his theology are consistent, everyone seems fine with it. I am not!” said Tushar.

Throughout Tushar’s speech Shantiman had done little but nod. He hadn’t even opened his eyes. Tushar knew that Shantiman would get around to responding, but he was too fired up and impatient to wait on the old man’s quirks.

“Well? Is he right? Is all that mumbo jumbo true? Is that reality? What is reality Shantiman?”

Shantiman slowly opened his eyes, revealing their deep brown age as he said, “Those are big questions Tushar. Do you know what is speaking to me? Your discontentment. That is in no way a bad thing. For, from discontentment, do you know what arises? Questions. And do you know what makes you different from the rest of he village, different from the Chief?”

“What?”

“You have the courage to ask questions.”

“But will I get answers?” asked Tushar.

“Probably not. Reality is not some little book that no one but the Chief has access to. He doesn’t know any better than you or I, but he knows people better than we do. He is feeding their needs. But let him do what he is best at. What he has to say will not answer your questions.”

“Then what will Shantiman?”

“I told you already, nothing. Well, not fully at least.” Shantiman took another long puff from the hookah.

Tushar’s impatience was growing. He has learnt everything from fishing to how to thatch a roof from Shantiman, but Shantiman’s enigmatic responses were beginning to irritate him. He got up and began to pace around the tiny room.

“What do you mean, nothing? You’re beginning to sound like the Chief now.”

“What I mean is that reality can’t be experienced unless you ask those questions. The end is reality Tushar, and the means is to question. Don’t ever be content with someone else’s explanation of things, not even mine. But each time you question, you will see a little glimpse of reality revealed. Reality is not a static phenomenon, its personal and dynamic. The Chief’s words will only hide your own reality from you. The key to unlocking it is in the questions.”

“So you’re saying that I can keep questioning and never hope to get a full answer, just half truths?” asked Tushar.

“Not half-truths young one, glimpses.” Shantiman closed his eyes again, as if preparing for another long session of peaceful repose.

“Then what’s the use, if I can’t see the whole picture?”

“Now you sound like one of the villagers, lapping up the Chief’s words because they don’t know any better,” Shantiman replied. “Beware, by discontentment, I do not mean cynicism. Search, but believe that the search is worth something. To be blinded by one’s own cynicism is even more unfortunate than to be blinded by the ranting of the Chief.”

“So do you mean reality is nothing but questions?”

“Well, yes, something like that.”

“But how will I know when I’m actually seeing it?”

“How did you get here Tushar?”

“I walked.”

“Did you hesitate? Did you stumble? No. That’s because even though you could not see, your feet knew where to go. You trusted your feet to take you there, since you had walked that path, even in the dark, so many times. When you look for reality, don’t be afraid to let your feet do the searching, or your nose do the hearing. But be sure to let your mind do the questioning. The glimpses will come unexpectedly. The more you do it, the better you will become.”

Tushar paused for a moment. “But...Shantiman..”

“Tushar, I hate to be impolite, but I need some sleep. That ghastly drumming has kept me awake. Go home for now. Sleep on the matter. We’ll talk about it some more tomorrow.”

Tushar sighed as Shantiman set aside his hookah and lay down to sleep.

A New Country, A New College: The First Day

2005-08-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

My first class today was of Economic ilk
An old cow of a teacher, Run of the Mil(k)
The blonde to my left, i will not maligne
But the beast to my right was eminently bovine.
Fenced in by cudders of aspects benign
Beware of the udders, I masticated my time
With talk of econ., micro and Smith, Adam
You bored my head to a snooze, dear Madam,
Or "ma'am", if you will, for the abbreviation-inclined
But whichever way I say it, I'm sure you wont mind.
One thing I find about these American teachers is that they are not too big on respect
You dont have to hail, salute, make appeasement sacrifices, wear sack cloth and ashes or genuflect
No curtsies, bows or such hullabaloo
A simple "hello" will do.

Thus did I come upon the one o' clock hour
With my expectations expectant and my mood, sour .
English one-oh-one, for the uninitaied
Involves writing and reading, opinionated
On matters of culture, politcs and race
While Ms. Cooper rattles on at a furious pace
On grading and points, negatives and plusses,
On detailed syllabi, or is it syllabusses ?
But whichever way its read, pronounced or defined
I'm sure Ms. Cooper won't mind.
One thing I have found about American teachers is that one's i's needn't be crossed, nor one's t's dotted
Nor must I read the chapters in advance, have them summarized and feverishly swotted
A decent grade point average will suffice.
You know, I think it could be quite nice.

Life Lines

2005-04-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

I, like many people around the world, watched the Terry Schiavo case unfold on TV. The Republicans eagerly lapped up the ‘Pro-life’ political mileage out of the situation, and the Democrats reluctantly agreed with them, afraid of the Christian right. It was disgusting.

I was glad to see her leave. Fifteen years as a vegetable seemed long enough punishment for a bright young woman.

But yesterday, I watched Million Dollar Baby. Hillary Swank’s character, an immensely successful boxing champion, begs her trainer, played by Clint Eastwood, to shut off her life support system after she has had her spinal cord is injured and her leg amputated. After much debate with himself and his (Catholic) priest, he does it.

The movie left me troubled. There were no winners. It was well made, but definitely disturbing. Maybe taking away her life was not answer. Maybe there are no answers. Maybe there are no lines to be drawn. Maybe we draw these lines regardless, hoping to etch in eternity, a path that leads straight to Heaven. Maybe there is no Heaven. And no Hell. What a dissapointment for all those people with wooden rulers and grey pencils, laying down the ashen lines that divide black and white.

Facial Heir

2005-02-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

Its been a while but...

The moustache is a masculine facial appendage that I refuse to wear. I have come to this decision partly due to the associations in my mind between the common, though not predominant, choice of this form of keratin fashioning among men of my native land, Kerala, and their lecherous, partisan, pseudo-Leftist ideologies. I also refuse to sport a beard…for no particular reason.

The irony behind these decisions is the fact that the sparse growth on my cheeks can only be likened to a home loan repayment: it arrives in installments. Being well past puberty, this can only be attributed to a genetic propensity for scanty facial hair. I couldn’t grow side-burns even if I wanted to.

Jesus is a guy who seemed to have no problem in this particular area. I have never seen a picture of the man without a generous crop of hair all over his benevolent face. I bet it itched.

It’s funny how so many draw comfort from the images of this man who lived so long ago, and may not have had a beard at all…For all we know, he may have had one of those little Charlie Chaplin moustaches…I hear they were common in Germany during the late 30s...you know the one…

Five Days into Oh-Five

2005-01-05T01:03:00.000-08:00

San Fransisco, USA.

It's ironic that I am stuck in a country whose foreign policy I hate, music I have embraced and whose values I am constantly intrigued by. Everything except my genitals is on sale here. ...It's all ready to be consumed and masticated: carbs, dumbass-president-and-leader-of-the-free-world, fast cars and Big Macs. And what's more, there's a 50% off after Christmas clearance sale on it all. It must be the high life...

Irony is life's set of practical jokes. Roll with the punchlines.