Love stuff

Hobbes is always right. I'll take his word this time as well. But really, what really is love? I'm not talking about the love with your parents cos thats at a different level. That wont match to any other. But the rest, with friends, with a boyfriend, for a crush (I think my punctuation marks have gone for a toss)?

The title of this blog reflects the way i function in a way. My motivation for doing anything is the high it gives me. It could be a new place, a new dessert, some relationship or anything new for that matter. But thats not what love should be right. Adrenaline pumping shouldnt be the test. In a conversation with a friend about handwritten letters i realised how much the whole idea of love stuff has changed from our parents generation to ours. Then the first kiss used to be a pretty big deal. Now there is a first kiss with every new person you date (or not even date, sometimes).
In a way the avenues of delving into love are increasing i.e. its not just the heterogenous kind. The means and medium of expressing them is increasing, it can be from the most outrageous to the most subtle but where the hell is the essence of it.

I sound very old. I'm going to stop. But you get what i mean, right?

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
- Walden by Thoreau

Memories

Some of the most significant moments in life never get captured in a picture. The only place they get recorded for posterity is in our hearts. One look. One touch on the arm. The tiniest of moments end up being more important than the huge in-your-face milestone moments. We often underestimate the power that these memories have. They are not the black and white polaroid pictures that get stacked up in the far corner of the closet. They get saved in that fragile corner of the heart which we are scared to touch again. But once touched they are capable of transporting you to the past. You remember exactly how u felt, what u were wearing, what u were doing, u remember the smell of the wet sand, how the wind was blowing your hair, how u wanted to get carried away in the moment. These memories make you desperate to feel what u felt then. They have an uncanny knack of magnifying the effect of the moment from the past.
What you end up realising is that you never can feel that again. U realise that age has caught up with u. U'll never be as naive or pure as u were then to have the heart to let yourself get swayed in the moment. Or is it just the present which makes us want to imagine a past which was so beautiful even though it was just as complicated as the present??
Why the hell do we have to grow up!!??

Distance

They say "Distance makes the heart grow fonder". They also say "out of sight, out of mind". Both are equally true.

• A guy meets his girlfriend just about once or twice a year since they live in different cities. What is it that makes a guy look for the perfect spatula for his girlfriend since he saw her cook italian food once? Everytime he steps out to shop his eyes dont stop searching for something, anything that she would like.


• A father is in the middle of a party which has been thrown in honour of his achievement. What makes him call up his son living in a different city just when the band starts to play 'Hotel California' since he knows the son likes that song?

The simple answer is Love. In the above 2 situations the answer is definitely true, unadulterated love. But in other cases there is a not so simple answer as well. Whenever someone dear to us goes away(geographically), the relationship comprises mostly of the short conversations every couple of days. You dont get to meet for long intervals and the conversations are all specific and not pointless or random. The relationship becomes a figment of your imagination. It is what you percieve it to be. It is ruled by what one feels in those moments of being away. It is how many times you live the memories in the past over and over again in your head. You keep em alive. They bring a smile to your face every time. And the person becomes the one responsible for these memories. But is it real? You dont know if the same things remind the same person of you and the memories together.

Its all in the mind.

Classified rambling

My best friend hates my blog. She hates it so much that she refuses to read it even on gunpoint. Does it get sadder than this? 'Its impersonal'. ' It doesnt strike a chord'. 'Its just too objective'. Says the girl.

Heres my meek attempt to make her find my blog readable, on gunpoint atleast. I'm going to get personal and un-objective.

The thing about girlfriends is the multiple lives one gets to lead courtesy the lives of ones friends. You could be leading the most bland boring regular life but if your friend is having the time of her life in her relationship it almost feels like so are you. This is not only cos you get to know every single detail of every single moment or cos you shop and plan with her her wardrobe but cos you know that tomorrow the tables might turn or the circumstances may change but what remains constant is how deeply one gets affected when somethin happens for 'one of us'.
I have such friends. Lets call them U, B & S or S, U & B or B, S & U (Phew!). Unlike the JMC girls we dont call each other babe, darling or honey. We dont airkiss everytime we meet. Actually we dont airkiss anytime we meet. When one of us has a fight with her guy we dont tell her how to solve the fight. We just bitch about the guy and tell her to assert the girl-power. When someone cries, we go and have dark temptation at Barista.
All this is not even funny. The funny part is the contrast within a bunch of 4 girls. One says everything available in the swear-dictionary and another storms out of the room if someone says the F-word. One makes words like 'rat', 'bat' and 'ox' during scrabble and another spends 40 minutes determined to make a 9 letter word. Everytime she gets a calculator she writes the word "boobies" and another one does every calculation in her head minus a calculator (Modesty aint my virtue obviously!). One never ever stops talking irrespective of the listener, the people, the sore throat, badi ma sleeping etc. and another never does cos she is too busy giggling. Some have had relationships lasting 6 years and some not beyond a week. Some live on pepsi/coke and some wont touch pepsi/coke with a 10 foot tall pole. Some travel in a bus/rickshaw for hours to meet everyone and some refuse to go to Le Poya cos they they havent had a bath(huh!). Some can windowshop non-stop everyday without cash and some get nightmares about the same. Some have crushes that have lasted 9 years and some have had no crushes but one boyfriend who she'll marry if the kundli-thing works out( Sorry B, plz dont be mad). I really could go on. So i ask U, B & S to add some more in the comments section.

With all the differences and the obsessive compulsive quirks, there are laughs and there are tears and there are celebrations, and none of them go unmet or unacknowledged.

But it Rained

Following are the lyrics of a really beautiful song i heard today which is written by the band- 'Parikrama' in memory of the people who go missing each year and their loved ones never get a chance to say goodbye.(Thanks Nitx!)

BUT IT RAINED

Wrapped in a polythene tucked away safe in my mind

A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile
The birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home

A bunch of paper flowers or a little boy left all alone

Can somebody hear me I'm screaming from so far away

Morning who will calm you now, the evening is eclipsed again
Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .
They justified the cause for which Daddy might give up his life

It's been so long, so long a time, still I miss Daddy at night

The ache is long gone but the never keeps staring along

The waters in the seas are highand all the sand castles have drowned
Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .

The Good, The Bad & The Weird

Its one of those days when I really really want to write something but theres just too much clutter for me to sort it and find a single thing to write about. Its been a rather eventful day. A perfect bitter-sweet kind. Theres a line in Shantaram which says – “If fate doesn’t make you laugh then you just dont get the joke”!
A lot of new stuff.
- Got gooseflesh after listening to a new song after ages. Don’t know what the song’s called though.
- Felt betrayed enough to hurl out the choicest nastiest abuses.
- Had ice cream and hot chocolate for dinner.
- Got involved in something hopeful & non-cynical.

A friend of mine said to me today that expecting a friend to be truthful is probably too much to ask for. Is it me or has the world really gone weird?
Don’t know what to write. I wanted a post. Here it is.

A parting quote -
"One step on your own... And you walk all over me... One head in the cloud... You won't let go you're too proud... One light to the blind... And they see... One touch on the head... We believe..."
[ Disclaimer: Its not mine. Don’t remember the source.]

Good night!

Gods in the rain

ITS RAINING! The first rain of the season. Its windy and its raining and its damn cold. Rain is my single most favourite thing in the world, sometimes even more than Big Chill ka lasagne. If i could write poetry, all my poems would be about rains. I really wish i had the beauty in words to express how the touch and look of raindrops feels like to me. I can just quote a line from the movie V for Vendetta by Natalie Portman- "Gods in the rain".

Irony-2

White australians alleging that a brown surd is hurling racial slurs on them on their land!

Nasty

A sorta nasty/funny joke doing the rounds: When an Australian child learns to say the word “Mother” for the first time the parents say “Two cheers. Junior has learnt half a word”.

Champions!

Somewhere in our hearts, all or most of us are real true blue patriotic indians. The kind who gets goosebumps when the national anthem plays or when Rahman sings 'Vande Mataram'. The kind who wears blue on the day of an Indo-Pak match during the world cup. The kind who probably doesn't watch tennis or chess but is in awe of Sania Mirza and Vishwanathan Anand. The kind who will bitch about 'the system' in every drawing room conversation but will not stand it when US denies visa to our ministers or a seat in the security council of the UN.

When this picture appeared in Tehelka in October last year, it really brought out every ounce of patriotism or rather the pride that we take in seeing the potential hidden in the nooks and crannies of this huge melting point of a country being recognised. This picture is that of the Indian team (along with the South African team) which won the Under-14 International School Rugby Tournament in London, defeating 10 teams on their way. In the finals, they defeated South Africa by a huge margin of 19 to 5.

The boys are 12 tribal students hailing from some of the most backward districts of Orissa. The team almost didn’t make it to London because the players didn’t even have valid birth certificates, mandatory for passports.The boys are from the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), a residential institution for tribal students in Bhubaneswar, and are among some 5,000 tribal boys and girls who are given free residence and education from kindergarten to post-graduate level here. This institute was set up in the year 1993 by Founder Achyut Samanta.

Looking at the smiling faces of these tribal boys is what victory looks like. Its not just a win in a match, its a win over life and is a lesson to each of us very very very privileged people who unlike these boys dont have the courage to refuse to play in the hands of destiny.

Just another day

About fairy tales

Before i start off with my rambling, i just want to say something about my previous post. It was just something i bumped into while reading the latest Calvin n Hobbes that a friend of mine got for me. I do feel sometimes like i'm in a fishbowl with god being the kid pressing his nose against the glass, but i really never wish for jobless, crazy, caring friends since i like to believe i already have them.Thats it.

My exams are due next week, and like most people i'm sure, the train of thought goes to the strangest places when exams are approaching. Today morning while studying the difference between bailable and cognizable offences, i started wondering what to get my lil cousin sister when i meet her in March. She's the smartest 5 years old i know. More than smart she just has such a sense of right and wrong. She'll never leave the room without making sure the lights are switched off. So i really wanna give her something great and sensible, basically something that'll get me to the top of her 'Favourite cousins list'. I remember when we were little, the hot gifts on b'days were popeye lunch boxes or those pencil boxes with button operated compartments or monopoly. There was this one friend of mine who always gave me story books. Big, colourful with large and beautiful pictures. Almost all my childhood fairy tales were a gift from her. I dont have the pencil boxes, the tiffin boxes or the monopoly boards, but i still have every single of those books. I cant even count the number of times i must have read those books. To cut a long story short, i decided that I'm going to get my sis some really beautiful story books.

Now i dont want to give her Cinderella or Sleeping beauty or Rapunzel. A 'happily ever after' story is all nice and sweet, especially since she's a long way from turning into a cynical pragmatic adult, but i just dont like the idea of her wondering about a prince, about that life-saving kiss or the fairy god mother. When we're little we really take things literally. When i was in class 2, i had my first crush. Being a victim to the bollywood movies and the fairy tales i believed with all my heart that it was love and was going to be forever and all that jazz. Obviously, after a little while i moved on to a second crush. I was so damn confused. How could i fall in love again? What about the fact that zindagi mein pyaar bas ek baar hota hai? I started thinking that i was probably a bad person since noone really talked about the concept of crushes and how one is bound to move from one crush to another. I just dont ever want my baby sister to feel she's a bad person. I want her to read books and be affected by them, learn from them and become a better person because of them.

Various books have impacted me at different points. In class 5 or 6, i read Heidi. I got it as a prize for some competition in school. It is the most incredible story for a person of that age. It taught me to pray and to have a conversation with god. It taught me about compassion and so much more. I still read some passages from it from time to time. Later was the phase of the Famous fives and the Secret 7's. Then came the classics of Jane Austen. But what affected me the strongest was what came after. AYN RAND. The first one i read was 'The Fountainhead'. It was very very strongly recommended to me by a friend who had totally lost it after reading this book. This book just cannot be described. It changed me as a person , though i'm not sure if it was in a good way.

About a year back came Shantaram. There can never be a book like Shantaram. The story, the characters, the way its written moves you in a way like no other book can. I've mourned the death of Prabu, one of the characters in the book, for days. A person who hasn't read this book will think of me as a freak, but the one who has read it will know what i mean.

As a result of this post i have a full list of books i'm supposed to get my lil sister from the age of 5 till 18. I'm so going to rock her 'Favourite cousins list'!

Musings (more like cribbings)

Why isn't my life like a situation comedy? Why don't I have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures? Why aren't my conversations peppered with spontaneous witticisms? Why don't my friends demonstrate heartfelt concern for my well being when I have problems? ...I gotta get my life some writers.

Blatant plagiarism at work i know. But noone sums up what you're feeling at a given point better than Calvin(of CnH)!

Irony

Troy(Ethan Hawke) defines 'irony' as 'when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning' right before Winona Ryder gives him the i-could-so-kiss-you-right-now look in 'Reality bites'. We law students have this habit of defining every word that we are going to base our arguments on before proceeding and hence my definition for the term 'irony'.

So i was saying, i really hate computers or probably electronics in general, especially when they have this unity and bonhomie amongst them when it comes to getting conked. My comp's harddisk crashed one day before i had to submit my CrPC Project. Yes, the corruption-wala project. Thankfully i didnt lose my data. I would've definitely quit on computers or all kinds of technology had i lost all those movies i had so painstakingly downloaded over a period of time and which i so proudly boasted about always. What is ironical is that all of this bitching about computers is going to be posted on a blog-site in the world wide web. Hmm.

Got lots more to say but i'm in a cafe and my time is up.

Later.

New News

Some tidbits i got to know recently-
- I just got to know that 'Reality Bites' was directed by Ben Stiller. My fondness for him has grown by leaps and bounds after knowing this. Really awesome movie. Watch out for Ethan Hawke. Fantastic actor.
- Atlas Shrugged is being made into a movie which will come out by the end of 2008. I know they could mess it up as bad as 'Fountainhead', or maybe not, since Angelina Jolie will be playing Dagny Taggart.

My computer is fcuked so i couldn't post some movie reviews and a lot of stuff i've been thinking about a lot. I saw Om Shanti Om ( bad , bad movie, made me feel nothing), Pirates-2 (nice, johnny depp is dishy as usual), V for Vendetta again( one of the best movies ever, its like sitting through 2 hours of goosebumps) and a couple more which i shall talk about later when my comp decides to spare me the torture.

We are like this only!

With law school, come a million deadlines which are supposed to be met. Deadlines for projects, moot courts, the works. I dont really mind deadlines too much since most of the times i hear them flying past me. But whats pissing off is a nagging feeling at the back of the mind when its approaching accompanied with the voice of the conscience telling you to 'get serious in life'. Anyway, what i was intending to talk about is this project that i'm working on currently (the deadline is day after tomorrow) which is ' the effect of corruption on good governance'. Its kinda interesting. India is placed high up the order with respect to corruption levels globally. The causes of corruption as stated in various reports are lack of social stigma, lack of respect for the law, lack of effective detterance, inadequate remuneration etc. I've been reading about all these studies and statistics and all. Its all unfortunate since in a strange sorta way it makes sense. Its almost like the fees of the govt servants was fixed keeping in mind the presumption that they were going to resort to under-the-table practices. I'm in no way saying that cheating or dishonesty is justified cos they dont get paid handsomely. But the fact remains that the base of any need hierarchy is the physiological needs(food,clothing,shelter) and the self-realisation needs(self-esteem,pride,respect) come way later. With the inflation and the kind of numbed existence that most people lead, atleast when it comes to respect for the nation, its not surprising that not once do they question themselves before resorting to something corrupt. Again, i'm not implying that all people are corrupt. I know for a fact that a major chunk has its heart and values at the right place and they have it in them to to say no.
All this research on corruption reminded me of something that i read in 'Shantaram'. One of the characters- Didier Levy- who's a major smartass with some amazing one liners- said that ' There's a difference between the dishonest bribe and the honest bribe. The dishonest bribe is the same in every country, but the honest bribe is india's alone.' Inspite of how much i hate the way in which every public sector organisation is infested with corrupt practices, how a layman is exploited and harrased for every work from getting a phone connection to filing of an FIR for a crime, i cant overlook the truth and beauty in the above mentioned quote. Its the spirit of this huge, crazy, beautiful country we live in. Its a place which does not need a signed stamp paper for a person to honour the contract. A person's word is as strong as any stamp paper. Major deals of buying and selling land can still happen simply by word of mouth in the villages. When u pay the line man 50 rupees, you know for a fact that he'll get you a connection, just cos he told you so.

Movie Review-1

Disclaimer- I plan on giving the review to every movie i watch, no matter how shitty its been. My reviews cant be trusted. When it comes to movies i am extremely demanding and snobbish, so dont go by my reviews.

Movie of the day- Jab we met
Decent watch. I'm not fond of either Kareena Kapoor or Mr Johnny Bravo-Shahid Kapur. The movie packs in a lot of spunk. Kareena Kapoor's character kinda grows on you and ends up being quite endearing.All credit goes to the director who's done a good job again after 'Socha na tha', although i would prefer 'Socha na tha' to 'Jab we met'. Both the stars act not OTT. Predictable at times. But a nice, funny, relateable watch with various punjabi stereotypes thrown in. Its nice to watch a good hindi 3 hour long movie with songs and dance, and some heart-warming moments every once in a while.

Howdy!

Like most things in my life, this blog also is the result of an impulsive reaction to something totally not-related or relevant. I'm not going to go on about my musings or my heartbreak or anything remotely cynical. As is customary one is supposed to write a first post. So here it is. Presuming that i'm not going to lose interest in this blog for a while, i hope to write something about things that make sense to me, which is movies, food, music, books and politics. Now that i've said what i hope is going to happen, the complete opposite will happen and i'm going to write about the random thought most prominent in the clutter of my mind on the given day.
About the title 'high on..', it signifies the various things that we choose to get high on, it may be drugs or sex or love or music or travel, but eventually it is life itself.

See ya.