Somethings never end.

Self obsession. Bills. Nosey neighbours. Advertisements. Books like Mein Kampf. Movies like Pirates of the Caribbean. The time 3:33 following me. IITians and the Pink Floyd connection. Family discussions that contain Do as you please... To Do lists. Call-on-hold music. Doing the dishes. Cooking. Doing the dishes. Eating. Doing the dishes. Little kids knocking on doors for donations. Tarot readings that begin with Does my boy friend... or I know this guy... Nights in my house. Bold and the Beautiful. Dinner without TV or parents. Worry. The list of greedy Bangalore rickshawalas Fear. Cabbage. Wants.

I could go on, but this list is not one of those things that don't end.

just another postcard for postcrossing.

Dear Didier,

Today began at Ulsoor (1) earlier than usual, writing sleepy email of long rambles, and moved at the average speed of 8 kms per hour on cycle to Shanti Sagar for Idly without the vada, and juice (jamie the brown donut like thing in the picture is the vada.) Then snailing through Wilson Garden where the dance school is, it hit a closed door at Koramangala's Sancy laundrette(3), so a quick diversion was made to Koramangala 4th Block office (near 3) with 3.5 kgs of dirty laundry and then a misguided tour of Madiwala(4) to get back to Ulsoor (1) a tired fish on a bicycle. Once back to Ulsoor if you happened to check the Sarvajanik mail box you would find a torn envelope with my name on it. On the floor you would see a postcard split into 2, one side with the picture and one with the words and stamps. I'm sure you would go to the landlord and complain. So I did. Such foolishness in this society I tell you. Its a postcard from France with the prettiest stamps I have seen. It would be tragic to find it wet and soggy and hence split into two, but no kind of rain is capable of tearing open a brown paper envelope which says familiar at the back.
yours truly,
heartbroken.

(Jamie, sarvajanik= public in hindi)

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22)

As hard as you may try to maintain clarity in communication, the poetic muse has come to visit you today. Even if you don't write poetry, your thoughts are more connected with your imagination now than they are with reality. Saying things impulsively can create problems, for your image-rich language paints a picture rather than telling a story. Don't try to force your communications into overly formal presentations. Instead just describe what you see in your mind's eye the best you can.

What arrived to my e-mail box today.

dilemma dancer

Proud owner of admission access to Attakkalari school of Movement Arts declares that she has been offered the FULL scholarship at the institute. Before reviewing and signing the contract that entitles her 2 year of compulsory work with the institution, She informed her parents of changing course which met a sad negative. " I don't know why people are so important in my Freudian parents eyes. I see the sense in the argument that states I jump around a little too much but not in the argument that says - We've been telling people you are doing graphic designing in Bangalore, now, how will we face them and reveal this bitter truth? Freudian parents because everything boils to sexual dynamics. I guess all parents think that way, some choose to blatantly reveal it, some choose to discourage and warn, others protect being aware at the same time".

A full scholarship would mean Dilemma Dancer pays nothing. Agreed that she could be a slave at their mercy at the end of it, but there is no payment now. Any information on the future prospects (monetary and other wise) of the field are welcome.

It must be told that the writer found no way to end this post but like this.

what a soul tired from
a trance feels
is bliss.

Our bliss is in our honesty,
in work that keeps us truthful.

my truth is in my loneliness,
and dance much like drawing is
only scribbling in space.

written as blood pumps its way back to my body
after my dance school audition.
I got the form but not the scholarship.
as yet.

Its Monday tears.
I want to say
beneath it all
I'm a good person
and sometimes,
more increasingly,
when I watch a film,
my stomach aches,
and I get the need to
tell someone about my life
because I'll die
and people will only know
me as the frivolous happy soul
I'm not.

Is there a song nobody has heard?
Am I here if noone knows?

Is there love left?
Is there any truth?
in us?

The Magician is a tarot character capable of tricking him/herself. Spend a day pretending to be waiting for Godot, listening to where'd you go - Fort Minor. He isn't home. But he might come today. I've got the flowers ready. The place looks tidy. Its a holiday. I'm cooking dinner now. Early. The diyas are lit. New bed spread.

I spent a day waiting for visitors. I can't have any. But I thought of the day it would be if people spent time with me.

My flatmate is coming back home for good. Problem : we have one bedroom. But we can pretend...

This post is in process

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22)

Your grip on reality isn't strong today, and the harder you grab on to it, the more it slips away. The truth is like a greased watermelon; you have it one moment and then it's gone the next. Be careful now; you are in a fun house and reality is being mirrored back to you in ways that can trick you into the wrong conclusion.

Of life and death

The only phone call I got today was a wrong number for some Sohail. Its been an eventful grey day of reading people's blogs. I think I need a flatmate or a pet.

Actually,
a flatmate will do.

edit: I'm off to a farm now yeah! my 60's dreams are going to come true. But lets not live under an influence okay. Or may be from tomorrow? What do you think?

Hmm... Am I in love with this guy or not.
Lev, my love. eyelash scroll down slow.
After surviving my birthday and unknowingly posting a very cranky 500th post,
I'm here to say that there isnt much I can do about how I am feeling desperate
in life, for certainty. 21st Birthday and all huh? , well nothing... I spent the day all by myself at home (of course there is a whole school of philosophy behind it) trying to play the flute and got better as time passed. Discovered cheap (Rs.18) South Indian Mini Meal st Shanthi Sagar- 3 puris, sambar, rasam, some veggies in spicy red gravy, some coconut chutney, some beans like things, some curd, pickle, papad, some sweet yellow liquid I don't like. Took a nap, danced to the Indian Ocean album like a nun in the dark of the night. Bought myself a south cotton saree. Bought myself new headphones (One of the best things I've done to myself.) Got really drunk and stoned. Almost cried everytime someone said its my birthday(even when not drunk) Woke up to make changes and begin a routine. Received 23 emails from strangers from my sisters office whom she had blackmailed into wishing me. They were not sure if it was really my birthday. Finally figured out what the rotten smell in my kitchen was- eggs rotting with some grey slimy insects sliding on the surface.Status: disposed. desperate. drama. twitchy. low on oxygen.
your truly,
dancing doodle.

PS: We at Chamki Corp. are looking for poet dancers of the male species. Any surviving members should immediate email us. Thank you.

I want to dance. I want to learn dance. I like what I'm doing at my job but that amount of work can probably be done in less time. There is much time wasted around it. The dance that I want to do doesn't leave time for any job. It's the big question. Do you have it in you to commit to one thing entirely. Can one be a dancer-artist with little money and without help from parents in a new city?
I want to do things I want to do and not the things I should do. I don't want to focus on one job right now and just drag myself through it. I can't commit to the full time courses because I need to earn at the same time. Its sad. How will I ever be what I want to be- which also is not very clear. How will I ever do anything? This is how your birthday feels when it begins when the first face you see in the morning is your ugly neighbour who wants to know everything in your life. She is the only one who wants to know what happens, who comes in and who leaves. I want to bunk work and cry today about how I manage to get myself into these things. I'll go right back to sleep and wake up again to see the naked man poster in the living room. That should set things right.

and yeah...Vatsala's really long tag coming up soon.

The second post

You can smile through the worst moment in your day knowing that someone knows about it at the moment it is happening. You can tell anybody, sure you can.But.. but this is a special kind of joy.

There are going to be 2 separate posts now.

Warning fellow readers.
I'm bound to do something stupid soon.

My horrorscope scares me.
How do they know?

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22)

Reality has an obstacle or two to place in your way now, as Saturn is in its final week of visiting your sign. Consider the extraordinary pressures you have faced since August, 2005, to see what you can learn from the past two years. Remember, awareness is crucial; if you can understand your role in what's happening, then you can push through to the other side.

Flash back to August 2005, I quit a job ubruptly because I was being bitched about behind my back, politics, mean two faced creatures and I swore not to work with such people again. Then my boy friend broke up with me and it was one of those painful times which led to several sessions with a shrink, screaching at his face, and then this blog in October 2005. This blog sort of helped me heal. Now, I have to push to the other side? Man...

see I'm likely to forget this by tomorrow

but its nice to have it as a reference

to look back at and see if something crazy does happen.

you'll get to be witness and all.

I have been awarded the Blogger Reflection Award by Mahima.

“This award should make an individual reflect upon 5 bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way and who have provided a Godly example. In other words, five dear bloggers, whom, when you reflect upon them,
you are filled with a sense of pride and joy… of knowing them and being blessed by them.”

So I award 5 bloggers who inspire me in no order of preference, no ratings, just awe.

1. Willie Baronet:He does. He paints, travels, draws doodles and he does... I mean do things. He doesn't talk, he does.

2. James Healy: Mr. James Healy is difficult to follow as a blog. Strange I haven't said it to him before but it just occured to me. His world is far away from Bombay life or Bangalore life or life in the 20th century, from any glass-fronted building, from 5 lane highways, from dust or grey. His blog is a little away from Dublin. A few characters, funny happenings and a very very different style of narrationand lots of self-love sprinkled all over. Bond. James Bond.

3.Mahima: Mahima is influential and inspiring. She is sooo spontaneous and ready to do what another person suggests and see where it goes and what it brings to her that she can't be replaced in my life. If Mahima was a man I would have handcuffed her a long time ago and taken her with me to an island where we could create, jam, talk, live, grow, stay out till late hours of the night. I could go on and on and on but we shall dedicate a post to her later.

4. Leo and Scritch: Leo and Scritch come as a package. You read Leo's blog and you are bound to want to know who Scritch is and why she can be funny. I read his blog only secretly and refrain from leaving comments, only because anything I say is foot in the mouth, same goes for her. Its another world of understanding. Love the word weaving, even the whining. Brilliant, sharp, angry. Scritch's life is simply amazing, all the drinking and insanity. Also her views on cheating with video and all. e.n.t.e.r.t.a.i.n.i.n.g. You can see beyond their words. *edit*Their comments are funnier, sometimes I'm rolling on the floor or laughing in a rickshaw down a long road replaying them.

5. Loony: Her writing you will fall in love with because she can do what you want to. She writes fearlessly about the 8 to 8 day and a public holiday, family and life around her life in a way that one can enjoy. Plus she writes about the small romantic, dramatic things also and gets the right amount of cryptic with it.Calcutta , a little bit of Bengali here and there (which can be a problem for me, specially in the punch line.) books, people , poetry, rain, and the guys.

Oh... and I forgot, these 5 people if they see this then they CAN nominate their Blogger Reflection Awards to 5 other people. Not must.

Teachings of the Holy Spam

1.Join the millions
Look out of counterfeit medication.

Viagra >>>> High Quality
Cialis >>>> Very Low Price
Valium >>>> Cheap
Ambien >>>> Cheap
Soma >>>> Cheap
Xanax >>>> Cheap

2. Relax and take the time
What is CIALIS?
CIALIS is the only ED (Erectile Disfunction) tablet clinically proven to work both
up to 36 hours and in as fast as 30 minutes

3. Be ready, right now

4. All girls like the big guys
Paris Hilton likes them big
Life is short... so make the most of it !!
Be confident and stand tall

Life changing herbal pills, just a few clicks away

5. Drink it, forget it !

6. Shout - like you've gone mad so they'll hear us

7. One of those new Brazilian vines had snaked its way across the left vlewport since my last time up, but that seemed to be the only change in the whole scene.

8. Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming, And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

9. You can.

10. . had done it once, he could do it again. He simply had to do his homework.
Soros was not, however interested in conducting a seminar on how
1992 coup against the pound had been a fluke, a one-time thing. He
financial markets, hoping that some of his wizardry would rub off on
reaction to the Soros presentation?

Thanks to Irwin z. Ayers, Kody Runsdull, Soft for you, Miss. Exquisita Replica, Mrs. Desire, Bernardo Glass, Pierce Stanislawki, Alfred G Martinez, Jerry Short, Wilfredo Weeks, and Harry Peter.

(it takes only 23 emails in your Spam folder to recognise brilliance inspiration and truth.Titles of mails in bold, names are authentic.)

Hmm

So I'm in a place I've begun to call my home, after having sat awkwardly across a friend in a room in trying to be busy silences. I've sat awkwardly around people who are bitching about me in another tongue. I've been stupid enough to SMS my boss and say I quit and I don't want to give any reasons. I didn't have calling credit. Also I didn't want to be complaining to her.

Once a basic environment is not being improved at you can't work towards higher things. I think there was more being expected of me and I wanted to deliver that, but women at work got me involved into things that were'nt even my job. I'm not happy about the way things ended. If it were my choice I would have tried to graduate to a point where I added creative inputs and didn't have to embody a person's complex.

I'm impulsive. I've always been. Its not always a good thing. Like today.

I need that job more than women who speak the language and have homes in the city do. I'm the one who is desperate, and thats whats makes me want to work more than they do. But no 17 minute conversation with your boss can make sense of the fact that you choose to SMS me and not call me. She says I choose to run away from the situation and not talk to the girls about the issue. She is right. I choose to not call her and complain, I didn't see things getting better with them and me that way, I didn't see why I should be present in a room like that, I walked out.

this is a postcard I made spending time at the Store. There came a lady from the land of kangaroos a week ago and gave me 5 australian dollars. I gave her the postcard in effort to be as sweet as her.

My flashy handmade business cards

Click to enlarge

Presenting vague word clusters aka poetry. Accidental poetry is done by cutting up random phrases that catch your eye from the nearest newspaper. These phrases are carefully shuffled while keeping your eyes shut. then carefully distributed and jumbled around to make some "sense". e.n.j.o.y.
Thanks to Bangalore Times, Bombay Times, The Hindu and Free Ads.

What a beautiful morning
it can be
when you wake up
on time
and
sip a cup of chocolate milk
and
listen to the radio
while the local vendor
yells
something that sounds like
Libidooooo, Libidoooo
and
Haalee Berry, Haalee Berry!

nothing else matters.
(Metallica's version on radio right now but fits well here.)

Funny how I never mentioned
but this is the blog that inspired me to blog.
It began with a google search for how many people point the camera in the mirror to click a picture. Her profile picture is her holding a camera...
She never replied to any comment I left
(I don't know why, I'm too happy puppy pushy perhaps)
life means drama

ya ya ya
independence day and all that
public holiday and all that
super boring day and all that
might have to start looking for house again
thoughts of bombay again

and all ...

psst: I need something interesting to read. suggestions welcome. M suggest an interesting tarot book please.

Postcard From Bombay

10th August 2007
Listening to the late night radio
doodling time away
thinking of what a strange mix the day has been
for me and for others
I realise things change.

Mini Punjab gets a new board
Street flower boy sells me flowers tied to branches
Naganis gets mosque-d
All my possessions are wiped clean from my room
107.1 fm plays Papa loves Mambo and Mumma loves Mambo
secretly.

Mumma loves mambo
Papa loves mambo
having a fling again
younger than spring again
feeling the zing again

tra la la,
chamki

(lots to show you guys, vague word clusters and scans from journal but Internet and scanner are countires apart.)

What kind of a person walks into your home and leaves you feeling miserable? Only a Rudigore.
When do you run out of things to cook? When someone comes over to see your house and judge your cooking.
What do you cook at such times? Top Ramen Curry Noodles with egg and cheese.
What should you not expect? Someone to sit around and talk to you after they have finished eating.
What should you do when someone stands at your door and starts reading the Martin Luther Speech from the wall, when they are actually getting late? Hold the door open.
What should you not feel? Lonely.
What else can go wrong on a day like today? You can leave your cell phone locked in your friends place for the entire afternoon and evening with parents calling you frantically and worrying if members of the Kanada Sangha have put you in liquid oxygen.

It wasn't about Rudigore this time. It was just the thought of MY house. How I saw my house and how another sees it.To me its messy alright but with a hint of life and love. Things are tacky like a cheap circus and the bulb is too bright, the music is not just right - Prem Joshua's Mudra and Tales of a Dancing River, my newest buys, the bed is on the floor and I still have to pack to get to Bombay tomorrow. But what triggered it was that I wanted my house so I could share my space with people. I don't ask everybody and anybody to get here, but when someone is home I feel like I belong somewhere with them. Rudigore makes me feel like he is doing me a favour by visiting. Everybody seems like that. Those dreams of sitting around and reading excerpts aloud, sharing thoughts, talking till 6am were only possible in Bombay. Mahima, Pallavi and me. I haven't found one person in this city to just BE with. Its either Rudigore phase or I want to be your Rudigore or I'm too old for this shit, or Ah! life is pointless lets just drink the night down.

Looking at the brightside, I'm surprising my parents by landing home tomorrow afternoon. It's my father's 60th birthday this Saturday, also I'm fetching my BMX because I can't find a decent replacement vehicle in Bengaluru.
Also, Nutella chocolate spread on biscuit tastes like home made Twix chocolates and makes great as desert.

till then,
yours truly,
sigh girl.

like a foggy window on a muggy afternoon

Listening to Tibetan chants in office,
re-reading my first email from known stranger,
remembering what I dreamt last night,
I am smiling because a new day as old as it seems at noon,
has nevertheless begun.

This blog was observing silence to mourn the loss of a friend. He died in my life again. I think only to be resurrected. Venusberg, I wrote something! There's a lot to be said, about the people I met last night, the strangers I once knew I bumped into, the awkwardness, sleeping and waking up to uncertainty, but I've been too scattered to write them down. Accidental vague word clusters- we shall call poetry for conveneince will be posted soon.

yours truly,
loopy tibetan chant
om mani padme hum


special thanks to G for the word- muggy