Foutre ce tout

The title of this post, is something that passes through my mind far more more often than I'd like it to.

Life is tougher now.

In the time that's passed since my last post, some several months, there's a lot that's happened.

Fuck it, lets bullet point these things.

1. Decisions. They've started to matter.(also, compromises are suddenly a thing)

2. I'd like to think I've  become more self-aware(doesn't necessarily translate into self-confident).

3. I find myself getting lost in the alternating(and sometimes overlapping) crevasses of thought and unthought that have become an oft-occurring part of my life.

4. I've learned the hard way, there's a price you pay when you choose inertia, and it will gnaw endlessly at your bones as you watch the world pass by.

5. My English has gotten considerably worse.

6. My Hindi has gotten better, and I've picked up twangs of Punjabi and Haryanvi somewhere along the way.

7. I generally loathe the nature of most people around me and hate how I must adapt and behave(also how I behave) in their presence.

8. Suddenly, its far harder to leave words unsaid. Maybe this is because of my renewed perspective on time and its finity, but I'm pretty sure the change in the rest of me affects this as well.

9. Self-improvement is something that needs careful, directed attention. Simply floating down a river born of one's pre-existent self, will never yield a traveler whose experiences match his expectations.

I write this post in hope of a better tomorrow, I know I'll always find meaning in today.

P.S. The MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) helps, and I believe most people could benefit in some way or another from the test.

P.P.S. I am an ENTP type(in regard to the above point about the MBTI)

ciao

A moment of clarity

With each blink, I see the world in vivid colour
In the corner of the balcony, on a damp, rainy night
To the strains of Nina Simone,to her feeling oh-so good
In this moment, I am alone and my mind races
Sensing each echo, each hallowed vibration
In space and in time, even as my body shivers
My every imperfection contributing but to a perfect being
In this moment, surrounded by mindless drones
In this moment, perched on my cold concrete throne

In this moment, I am infinite.


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Wrote this post immediately after watching "The Perks of Being A Wallflower"
It's a little left-of-centre, and I enjoyed it immensely.

ciao

The mayans were wrong.

Am I who I thought I'd be??Am I one to decide??
I look upon myself, and I don't know what to feel.
Should I be happy at what I've accomplished, or sad for all I haven't??
Or should I simply accept it, no matter what it reads??
There's simply no way to sum it all up.
But yes, I do sometimes fear I may become someone I'd hate. Someone I'd abhor. Someone I put up with, only because it's me.

Enough introspection for now. 

Life goes on.

Finally finished a book I first picked up almost 2 years ago from my grandpa's library.
I enjoyed every one of my incomplete reads of the book, probably due to the fact that its a calendar of sorts, depicting a tiny, tiny piece of the world through the seasons, echoing Kalidasa's Ritusamhara(garland of seasons).
In any case, a very different, but good read.

 (The Everest Hotel: A Calendar - I. Allan Sealy)

Holidays went well.
Bangalore and its people have been good to me.
Played a lot of badminton, ate a lot more.
I think I've come back to Delhi weighing more than when I left.
Came back, back to the same room, the same routine, that same maze.

Met my old grand-uncle and aunt, who shared with me their weariness.
Weariness from continually losing their peers and loved ones.
Weariness from being distanced from their young.
But most of all,from fearing their own impending fates. 

Simple sermons served by seventy-something soothsayers.

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I've been tempted to write several times, in this period between this and my previous post(a long fucking time).
Rarely has it led to written results, it mostly just passes after a while, or is lost in the chaos of fleeting worries and other detritus.
 


Goodnight.

In Bhutan.

14/7/12

Lying on my bed in a hotel room.
Just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction with my parents.
Earphones plugged in, with nothing but fuzz playing through to my brain.
No internet.
Great view.
Compromise.
Hmph.

Slightly strung out on strong Bhutanese coffee.
Have to get up early tomorrow.
It's almost a daily thing now-one city today, another tomorrow,
Package tours, I tell you.

Still, its one beautiful country.
And the food is surprising, quite unique and above all, delicious.

The country's roads are nearly all the same.
Thin tarmac snakes winding across the evergreen mountains and valleys that define Bhutan.
Rough-patched and uneven, from the frequent landslides from the near-constant showers.

Monasteries and forts and temples alike proclaim a very well-set culture with traditions going back to the 7th century.
Let me tell you, these guys take their Buddhism pretty darn seriously.
-Smoking is illegal(gives you bad karma).
-Slaughter of animals is illegal.(so all the meat comes from India)
-Its so bad, that flies hover freely in even the best restaurants and resorts as fly-zappers are illegal(see above).
-The booze flows pretty freely, and every second establishment has a sign that ends in "CUM BAR"(sure,pun intended, but its true).

The women are pretty and the sex ratio favours them.
So the eyes are happy, but the heart isn't.
Their attire is mostly limited by law, to some pretty funky looking clothes(most young folk excuse themselves from this rule-except official business).
The mens' informal dresses bear a strong resemblance to Scottish kilts, and the womens' to two piece kimonos, one half silk and one half patterned cotton(kinda hot, gotta say).


The cars are cheap(relatively) as there is no import duty, so jealousy is quite inevitable and must therefore be excused.

Weed grows as a wild plant in most parts of the country, so looking out the window while traveling was a wee bit more fun.
Well, it wasn't the season for it to be flowering(especially in the wild) so there was none to be had(meh).


Seven hour drive tomorrow, back to Paro, from where we fly back to Kolkata and then back home to Bangalore.
Should be there by Tuesday evening, in time to pick up the Thar(Need it to drive to work the next morning).
Oh, Im doing my industrial training at this factory some 20km from home, on the highway to Chennai.
Learning to MIG and TIG weld at a plant that produces doors for Volvo buses.
By the end of the month, someone will have purchased a bus which has had a door welded by yours truly(hopefully).
A certain sense of achievement looms ahead in the future, but its at the cost of 2 burnt fingers, a badly sunburnt arm and aching eyes(the damage done till date).


Feels nice to write after so long.
Will post this as soon as I get net access(probably in Paro).

Ciao.

Fuck Me Over

There's no absolute love when she walks by.
There's no absolute pain when someone dies.
There's no real truth in being swept off your feet.
There's no real tears in hellos and goodbyes.
There's no true fear as you fall from the sky.
There's no true hate lurking deep in disguise.

There's simply nought, 
Our thoughts betray our eyes.

For everything is swallowed, and lost,
In this matrix of thought, of layers
And layers and layers and layers.

All, save a trickle, that drips

Into a confused puddle.
So clouded and weak.


So come fuck me over, life.
For I am not afraid.
For I don't really care. 

For I am numb.
I know I'll be alright.
 

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Back when i was about 8 or 9, I remember going to Planet M(wa-aay back when people actually used to buy music) with my bro and folks and picking up a couple of cassettes. I remember playing Age of Empires all day long with the aforementioned cassettes playing on a deck next to the computer. Such sweet, joyous times. The monotonous recorded clash of swords clashing, the horses neighing and the roar of cheat-code-generated sports cars that shot streams of rocks from their headlights ,alongside the likes of Linkin Park, Creed and U2.


Those are some of my favourite childhood memories.


Now I've "grown up" and become an "adult".
No more simple games with simple cheat-codes.
NO more Linkin Park(too electronic), no more Creed(too christian).
I have "taste" now.
U2 still remains, though. 
They are classic, not contemporary.
Today, I can hardly play any games.
Can find a lot of time for it and more so, my laptop overheats every time I play a game. 
These graphics-heavy games of today, I tell you.
Not that I don't love them.

It's just that I didnt need to know of a word called compromise back then.

Now listening: With Or Without You-U2
Now doing: randomly awake,reading blogs
What I should be doing: sleeping
What I really need to be doing: studying(finals in a week)
What I really could do with: AC and a coffee maker(with clean mugs)

Arizona Bay(A Change of Seasons)

They dance around a flaming pyramid of wood to the relentless pounding of drums, whooping in delight as the flames bite at the bitter, retreating cold. The cold that surrounds them, the cold that they run from, swear at in unison, the cold that they try in vain to defy for as long as possible.


I watch from my window, even stealing a laugh at their antics, as they seemingly throw inhibition to the wind, pirouetting around, closer than ever before, to their fellow man, and to their mother earth. 


But they have their rituals, as do I. 


As the sparks float up past my window, I hand myself a blade. 
I acknowledge its power, gleaming in all its cold, steely glory, firmly gripping it with willful hands.


The drums stop.


I face myself in the mirror, silently looking at the past of the future.
I see much, but the time to reminisce, as the silence reveals, has sadly run out.
I make the first cut, and feel nothing.
Yet the face in the mirror flinches.
I continue, hacking away at what once was, as the face in the mirror turns silent, too stoic to show its pain.
The blade runs through like a knife through butter, the heat from the fire propels, smoldering through, surging forth, to expose, to bring to light, the inner skin.
The mirror is in metamorphosis, chrysalis now in sight.


The drums, faster now, head toward a climax as their hands feed the flames.
Crackling, giddy in their self-consumption, glowing ever brighter as the night flinches, prancing back in disgust.


My hands drop to my sides, shaking from their labours.
I see now, through eyelids welded shut.
I see now. 
All around me, it lies.
Nameless, formless, waiting to be flushed away.


The blade drops from my tired, shaking hands.
It shatters as it hits the ground, instantly turning to a hundred thousand atomies that shine forth, swallowing up all that lies on the floor and disseminates in an instant, leaving nought but ash.


The fires have died out.
The phoenix has risen, and flown away.
The ash, the only witness.


In their minds, the seasons change, as they usher in Baisakh with their song, dance and flame.
Is it only me then, who wonders, if anything has changed?
What means this ritual, of rebirth, of coming full circle?


I ask not for them, but for me.

I ask not of resurrection, let the phoenix have his way.
I ask of reinvention, of my very own Arizona Bay.




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ciao