Fuchsia Pink

She was relishing every moment. She didn’t know how long it would last but she wanted to consume this moment to dregs in the beautiful city of Vishakhapatnam with its myriad waters.

This beautiful land in the southern coast of India was a paradise in many aspects. It was not a place to visit alone. It was a repository of memories. Not the memories that you bring along, but the memories that you create anew. Not the memories that you leave behind but the ones that you take with you.

She looked at her toe hanging from the periphery of the lighthouse near Yarada beach, sizing the horizon. She felt like a tiny speck suspended between the sea-ness beneath her and the sky-ness above her. Looking at the beach was not what lured the tourists. Neither would they capture the picturesque beauty. That was too commonplace for a place as divine as this. What appealed to them was the sense of being part of the vignette.

She had woken up early morning and walked the neckline surrounding Ramakrishna beach. Barefoot. A square of each foot was tanned adding a surprisingly exotic feel to it. It looked odd with the fuchsia pink nail paint on it. And she had adorned fuchsia pink paint deliberately. Her toes looked like tiny flowers as she tiptoed on the greenery that was all around.

The morning after he caught her consuming the sunrise with her eyes at Rushikonda beach. She felt the soft early morning rays on her body illuminating her curves. Her skin bathed in its bronze. She felt his eyes on her and she felt… beautiful. And she recalled what Dostoevsky’s dreamer must have felt as he uttered the lines, “My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?”

They breathed together the mesmerizing beauty of Kailasa Giri hill. It is among the most scenic drives in the country. Completely enthralled she watched the titanic statues of Shiva Parvati at the altitude. The splendor and silence of the hills was beyond words.

Day after they caught the early morning train to Araku valley. Spellbound she traveled the route. Every scenery was a setting in itself. She had a habit of looking backward. She sat in the direction opposite to the movement of the train looking out of the window chasing the curves they had left behind. Every curve coerced her to leave the past behind. But every contour was a picture perfect for romance. And he kept telling her that he had returned for good, returned forever.

They entered the Borra Caves ensconced within the Anantagiri Hill range of Araku Valley. They held hands as they meandered amidst the shabby rocks enshrined between stalactites and stalagmites. Local people have added their imagination and named the various formations on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. They too added their childish imagination to the figurines.

She was happy. It had started to rain. They had been lucky enough to travel around the best time, the time of transition from spring to autumn. In her life too she was undergoing the same transition.

It had been two years and she was back to the grind, back to the life she had been dreading even as she was experiencing bliss there. Today morning she chanced upon the photograph of her tanned foot, and recalled how he had jokingly called her racist for not liking the tanned square. She made up her mind to revisit Vizag. Not alone. No. She would travel with him… in her mind.

Our Kids Would Never Know…

A warm welcome to all and sundry! I’m going to offer everybody a shot of nostalgia, shaken not stirred.

We live in an age when not possessing a smart phone is a challenge. Being active on Facebook, Twitter, What’s app, etc., prove that we are sociable. Technology has cocooned us all to such an extent that games do not mean Hide n Seek, Kho Kho or Musical Chair, anymore. By games we now understand Temple Run, Angry Birds, Subway Surfers, Poker, anything that is available at the click of a button.

We are a generation caught in transit. Ever evolving, ever revamping! Our kids would never know the actual meaning of anything. Everything is for show, from biscuit to BMW.

This is not it. Technology is so prevalent that now we have a sizeable part of education online. Our kids would never know the smell and feel of yellow pages. They would never know the charm of reading from a borrowed book with dog-eared pages and coffee stains.

So now when we are to connect with someone, there is not just the landline. There is mobile calling, SMS, e-mail, viber, skype, What’s app, and what not. Gone are the days when one phone call from a guy was all we had to wait for. Priceless sight- heart a flutter, inhibition in attitude, restlessness in eyes, fumbling voice, and that effort of trying to conceal a smile! But now with such profusion in the channels of communication, we now have to wait for ten different technologies to reject us. Our kids would never know the charm of those days because they can keep track of only one- timidity or technology.

Maybe handwriting copies would be redundant soon because school kids are also being taught to type. With due respect to the technological advancement, there is one point I wish to make. Our kids would never know the value of a personalized letter, a friend’s feelings on a hand-made card, or the fun derived from copying a friend’s homework. They would never know what is it to read a personalized poem because we now use quotes on friendship that are available online. They would never know the importance of expressing themselves in the language of their feelings. Even language and expressions would be borrowed. They would never know how to imagine because technology does that too.

Remember the times when we had photo albums? How we used to sit in a circle and pass around a photograph and pass comments, or rather utter comments. Where are those times? Now instead of sharing the photographs, we post them, on social network sites. Even comments from acquaintances that are not aware of the circumstances in which those photographs were clicked, make us happy. At times I feel it is intrusion of personal space. Like obviously, if a photograph has been posted, it is for one and all, but its value diminishes with the commercialization aspect. The greater the number of likes, the popular we feel. Since when did happiness become dependent on factors/people not directly a part of that experience? On social media, memories become public property. Our kids would never know the joy of sharing photographs like old days.

Whatever happened to the adorable habit of diary writing? Nowadays we tell everything to Facebook and Twitter.

I cannot offer a solution. But may be the sense of shared experience is being lost trivialized, forgotten. The sense that makes us “we” instead of individualizing us. And something must be done. Or else our kids would never know the joy of shared experience.

Before the NET Results are out!!

While there is still time for easy breathing, I thought I might just update my blog and save it from cobwebs; though what I write might be totally inconsequential for a huge majority of happening people out there. But that is just what I call the love of writing- you write regardless of whether people care a hoot!

One of the thoughts that have been constantly pestering me these days is the whole idea of ‘cracking’ NET. I mean seriously life does not end there. And if you believe my mom, in case I do not clear this exam, it only means that I have better things in store for me. For instance, I might get married to a really nice guy or… or… (That’s where her imagination gives up).

And then there is the lovely habit of day dreaming I have recently acquired J Before the taking of a toast and tea, how I shall narrate to my future kids how I met their father after several failed relationships/NET attempts. After all if we take a look at the Victorian era, marriage is a tempting proposition in such situations. Ten years down the line would I care? Really???

The one substantial thing that the repetitive NET attempts have taught me is the whole idea of absurdity. And kill me if I use the term loosely. I don’t mean absurd, I mean absurd, like seriously. I never felt closer to the idea of the SISYPHEAN MYTH. The ritual of appearing for this exam twice every year has actually made me believe that I am a post-modern female incarnation of Sisyphus. All those who religiously follow this ritual are. The exam is given only to be given again. Yet we don’t lose hope. We roll the stone back every June so it can fall off every December and we roll it back every December so it can fall off by next June and so on and so forth. We believe in the meaning of its existence. Like we have a choice!!!

You see how, in the course of my anxiety I strolled from “I” to “we”. Christ! It is already giving me a sense of community. Shall we not have a NET Applicants Community on Facebook? Does that not sound fun? No? That’s alright; I totally understand.

But how does it feel to know that you are considered to be a good professor because you know the name of Belinda’s lapdog? Or the number of lines in T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland? Or whether you know the chronological order of George Eliot’s works? Or whether the poem by Wordsworth was entitled To Daffodils or Daffodils? Or what were the days of release of Rambler and Spectator? Or if you know the real name of Mark Twain?If he wanted you to know his real name he would not have adopted a pseudonym!!! Duh!!!

From  the dates I learnt during preparation, all I can recall is this:

1688: Glorious Revolution and birth of Alexander Pope

1788: Birth of Byron

1888: Birth of T. S. Eliot

1988: I was presented to the world :p

Having said that, I am genuinely throwing a party if, miraculously, somehow, I clear this paper. Teehee :p 

Let me just undersign my thoughts as:

UGC’s sincerely,

Agonized Candidate

Scraps form the Diary of a Recluse

I have finished reading The Insulted and the Humiliated. Shall soon write The Educated and the Unemployed.

The problem with me is not that people don’t understand me or misunderstand me. The problem is that those who lack the faculty to understand me also give it a try. Are you by any chance familiar with the game where little unskilled kids try to gun the balloons? 5 shots for ten bucks. I feel exactly like those balloons at times. The kids are not trained, the gun is corroded, the balloons are helpless- yet it thrills them!!!

One prominent feature of the society we reside in is the fact that if it loves you, it loves blindly. If it hates you, no amount of penance or sycophancy can atone for it. And, by the way, these two (love and hatred) are the best conditions for survival. As long as you are loved or hated, you are kept in the loop, because you matter! Worse is when the society forgets you and leaves you to rot like Kafka’s vermins.

Raskolnikhov was neither less daring nor less intelligent than Napoleon. His only error was his attempt to follow Napoleon. If he had understood that he was himself and not a failed attempt at being Napoleon, probably he would not have lost his illusions.

Society has its own sets of rules, its own parameters for normalcy, its own theory of morality and immorality, and its own version of truth. Of course, these are constantly shifting values. Objectivity is fatal. So norms for objective reality have to change from one generation to the next.

The world has had its fair share of Raskolnikhovs, Bazarovs, Vautrins and Karamazovs. All ruled by their own passions, whether nihilistic or hedonistic, and all anti-social. None of them were understood in their own time because they were not a product of their times but of their thinking and circumstances. Society failed them because they did not conform to its limited understanding of right and wrong. And what have we learned centuries down the line? I object to being a part of such society.

It is easy to say that they are all characters and not real people. But it is necessary to remember that they were a result of someone/the author’s thinking. They projected the author’s impression of society.

Just try to dismiss society. Try to have your own way. And there is a host of explanations coming your way from all the illuminated corners around you. You are stubborn, proud, snobbish, recalcitrant and suffering from a disorder. Ultimately, a social outcaste for whom no amount of harsh judgment or criticism is enough. You will be left only when society has a new plaything to amuse itself with. I object to being a part of such society.

Instead of following the instincts that come to it naturally, it follows the instincts it should have. Everybody wants to be Machiavelli’s princes. But few can perfect the art. Those few rule and set the rules. The rest are just amateurs. They end up following. Following is a basic human tendency of such people. Following not what is ethical or unethical, but following what is powerful. Independent thinking cannot survive in this quagmire. I object to being a part of such society.

I don’t see myself as one among many. I might be that alright. But I have my own set of conventions, beliefs, thinking, views and judgment, yes judgment, which may not be in sync with this mindless maddening multitude. And I owe no apologies for being myself. And do I dare? I am not a recluse by choice but because no choice is left to me after I object to being a part of such society.

The problem with me is that I understand what Balzac must have felt as he wrote the following lines:

“I don’t see what can hurt me now that I have given up society, in which my vanity could have suffered pinpricks every moment of the day.”

Objection obviously overruled!

Of Literature and Other Disasters

Now when you are 23, single, jobless, clueless and a student of literature, certain things are bound to happen. You happen to be the victim of eternal misunderstandings, the topmost of them being, the belief that you are among God’s chosen elect born to perceive and possess the most unique perspective on anything. Others are just lesser mortals.

You see your friends of the same age done with their MBAs and other professional degrees, getting money spinning jobs (now you are obviously NOT so happy for them, you just say it to them in the manner of saying), enjoying their 20’s and you say to yourself that they are after money. But you are after higher goals; you’re a student of LITERATURE. Can they even construct one sentence with perfect grammar? You can do that. Like life depends on grammar!!! But yours does.

Being what you are you can just not be devoid of feelings. You happen to like a guy. Now mind always operates on the principle of opposition, binaries, as Blake says. One half of your mind which is deeply influenced by your academic pursuit suggests that years of studying Literature have taught you to be calm and sophisticated. So you fall short of expressing yourself and expect him to make a move. If he is interested he will make a move. If he is a gentleman he will make a move. Or… well… 21^st century, he should make a move!!! Finally, if he is worth it, he will make a move. And this pseudo-elitist half offers you a plenitude of reasons to just let life slip by while you wait proud and prejudiced.

The other half of your mind (I shall refrain to make comments upon which is more reasonable out of the two) which is less predisposed towards Literature but influenced nonetheless asks you to just be in awe of him from a distance for sheer aesthetic pleasure. It warns you not to spoil the sublimity of the moment because it is afraid that the moment the guy opens his mouth, he might turn out to be a complete jackass. So this half of your brain wants you to stay happy and keeps ego at bay unlike the first half. So you may just fantasize about him and stay everlastingly happy in your dream world fashioned by you. This is easy because being what you are and studying what you do you anyway reside in a dream world. Don’t you???

But destiny is a sadist woman. A woman, mark it. If you settle with either of the alternatives, you cope somehow. Then comes a thud. An attractive bimbo comes in the way and is quick to grab the guy. Obviously she is not from literature. Therefore/and thinks less-er. One word for how you feel- Prufrock-ian.

Your first instinct is to unleash a catalog of all the mean and unmerited things from your well-practiced and easy at hand sophisticated vocab. Then you want to shout at her, “What have you done to deserve him?” and when you fall short of reasons to accuse her of, you use your most effective weapon; you slap bombastic names at her, “Have you even read Dostoevsky? Have you? I have. Have you read Gogol, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Balzac” (and then you see that she has heard of them and might reply, so you get to the difficult people), “and Camus, Bakhtin, Derrida, Kafka, Foucault??? I have. Ego habeo.” Now you love her confused expression, don’t you? You love her gaping mouth :p

You see yourself triumphant… almost… except for the fact that your diatribe has ended up frightening not just the intended one, but, the loved one too, (free with the deal!) the guy with an even wider gaping mouth super spottum. “The horror, the horror.”

Then there is a moment of epiphany for you. You realize that it is time to descend the stairs and come back to the real world. An indignant expression on your face, and this expression has come to your rescue umpteen times before, you descend from the clouds of fancy. Back you are indeed, “not with a bang but with a whimper.”

The World around Me

Dedicated to all the unique ones.

Now that i have existed in tis world for a little over two decades, it quite oppresses me to confess that i have still not understood my equation with it. Mine is a very discomfited understanding of this relationship. i do not know whether the world around me constitutes me or disowns me. This article is just to express the angst of an un-anchored self. Penning this anxiety down has convinced me that i am a round-the-clock freak.

"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be", neither am i T.S. Eliot much as i might want to be. i am just plain clumsy, downright ham-fisted. This little piece of paper is big enough a platform for an introvert like me to voice my opinions which are'nt many anyway. Here is where i can afford to unleash my ungainly self which is better insulated in crowd.

Every time i take up a magazine i am reminded of all that is wanting in me, constantly reminded of how much i need to shrink, of how incomplete i look without those large eyes, how ordinary i look without that funky, happeneing hairstyle, how antique i look with my eye-glasses, how shriveled up i appear without those long smooth legs and how what not i look without whatever that is in vogue. But do not all the models look just the same? They are all tall, pretty and fashionable. Clones of each other!

Every time a sales woman asks me to buy the dress because it costs only 8,000, i am almost prompted to ask her whether she is aware of how many days of a month of my job have gone into earning that much money, how many of my pleasures massacred and how many of my dark circles incurred in the process.

Every time i repeat a dress at my office, or with friends, or worse still, at a party, the multitude of questioning and recollecting glances coerce me to retreat to my cave and recoil into my folds of intimidation. Repeating my attire, that is criminal. Prodigal crowd!

The world around me reminds me of my unfinished self, of the incompleteness with which i am adorned, of the non-lucrative package i seem to be: a good job but a bad figure, intelligent but struggling, and introvert but always on the brink of expression. A solution is needed because we (the world and me) are married to each other and cannt voluntarily drop out of the relationship. Whosoever drops out must admit defeat. i shall not. It would not.

A successful relationship demands mutual understanding. The unique thing about this world is its diversity; the unique thing about me is me. Hopefull someday we shall understand this. Do not look for a closure to this piece as there is none to a quarrel between husband and wife which can be resumed at any time from any point. That is a characteristic property of relationships.

The World around Me

Dedicated to all the unique ones

Now that i have existed in this world for a little over two decades, it quite oppresses me to confess that i have still not understood my equation with it. Mine is a very discomfited understanding of this relationship. i do not know whether the world around me constitutes me or disowns me. This article is just an attempt to express the angst of an unanchored self. Penning this anxiety down has convinced me that i am a round-the-clock freak.

"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be", neither am i T.S. Eliot much as i might want to be. i am just plain clumsy, downright ham-fisted. This little paper is big enough a platform for an introvert like me to voice my opinions which are'nt many anyway. Here is where i can afford to unleash my ungainly self which is better insulated in crowd.

Every time i take up a magazine i am reminded of all that is wanting in me, constantly reminded of how much i need to shrink, how incomplete i am without those large eyes, how ordinary i look without that funky, happening hairstyle, how antique i look with my eye-glasses, how shriveled up i appear without those long smooth legs and how what not i look without whatever is in vogue.

Ruminations of a Redundant Brain

I am not afraid of dreams because, there, nobody can be steal from me what i think should be mine.

Funny as this might sound, but now when i have been a part of this world for over two decades, i am constantly hounded by the idea of what is my contribution to this world? For instance, what would be the first line of my autobiography! Well, what is wrong in craving for a few minutes of limelight for myself. The idea of "few minutes" is dreadful. You do not know when they begin nor when they decide to abandon you leaving you where you started from- craving. Is this the beginning of selfishness?

Life is unfair and let us take it as a given. You exist and maybe you are happy, but both the conditions are transitory and both demand effort. How many times have we asked ourselves, what is the purpose of all we do? Few i guess. Is it because of the human nature of escapism, we escape that which we cannot answer? Is it because we are tired of thinking it over and over? Or is it because the illusory world is so captivating that everything philosophical seems nonsense? If you too are looking for an answer, my blog is not the place. wink!

i have both time and youth but i long for that after-dinner sleep when i wont have to think about either. When the gross reality will stop impinging on me. When i wont have to read in the newspaper about a girl been gang-raped and count myself lucky. When i wont have to ask myself whether God exists and if yes, what keeps him busy during mass bombings. When i wont have to ask the human spirit, how it could allow child labor to exist and proliferate. When i wont have to wonder, why a woman would prostitute herself for a piece of bread and is bread the sole purpose of life and existence (the two are different things). Thoughts of a redundant brain in a redundant season.

Every passing minute relieves me of the burden of guilt that has accompanied each of the above questions slapping my insignificance and my helplessness into my face.

But maybe , all of the above have just been worthless ruminations because i have survived it all. And am i a qualified 'helpless and insignificant' when i have survived it all? And with this realization i let go of my last hope- self pity. This is what redundancy does to you.

My brain has a lifestyle of its own- redundancy. It commands my body to live by its standards. At times i wonder, is the brain more savage or the heart? The heart is ashamed of its impulses while the brain prides on its intelligence. My heart says that i should get my bum moving and free the world from manacles of bigotry, injustice, intolerance and malignity. My brain warns me against playing the present-day-Don Quixote.
But maybe i already am the present-day-Don Quixote. Why else would i wonder about the celebratory line of my autobiography-to-be?
But maybe not, as i am paranoid about the selfishness and hopelessness that disables my spirit. i feel like the knight of the puzzled face!

i have not been able to negotiate a stand for myself, as you see, my brain is phenomenally redundant. Nothing to be done.