i beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies

Such an odd Sunday.

Well, if it comes to that, it was an awful, awful, AWFUL Saturday night, so the dazed laziness of Sunday was relieving.

W.B Yeats’ lines from The Second Coming have always spoken to me.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Yeah, well, in this case mere anarchy seems to constantly dog me at every step. I remember thinking, earlier this summer, that the characters on Grey’s Anatomy lead terribly exciting, and eventfully melodramatic lives on a scale that I could never hope to reach. Apparently, I can.

But who am I kidding? I revel in drama. The few, relatively saner phases of my life have been spent largely staving off the boredom that comes with no drama.

Maybe that’s why I’ll never be a good existentialist. I rely too much on the conflict between ‘ought’ and ‘is’, on ‘intent’ and ‘purpose’, on other people’s opinions and my own desires. I need to be fighting something, all the time, because if I wasn’t, I would unobtrusively sink into the quicksand of my own inactivity and never emerge.

Haha, just by the way, I love the guy on Boston Legal. He is so physically unappealing but just… so arrogant and self-assured and intelligent and HOT!

GRR.

Finished Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson last night. But no, that’s not the story behind my title.

After three whole days immersed in facts and figures and historical evidence supporting one or other argument defending/condemning the British Empire, as well as tracing its birth, glory days and decline, I decided to give myself a treat and started on a long overdue re-read of April Lady by Heyer. I spent a very happy late night, morning, afternoon and evening reading, laughing and sighing familiarly over both the desirability of living in the Regency era and the disgustingly cynical nature of my postmodern existence.

BUT, just as I was gearing up for the comfortingly inevitable happy ending, with Nell and Lord Cardross reconciling their differences and admitting their respectively gooseish behaviour which acted as the impetus for all preceding events, I made the horrifying discovery that – insert piercing scream here – THE LAST THREE PAGES WERE MISSING!

So now, what do I get? Lord Cardross cut off mid-sentence at the bottom of page 264. There could not possibly be anything less romantic.

I’m irritated! Possible reading options: Burnt Shadows by Shamsie, If on a Winter’s Night by Calvino, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Vanity Fair by Thackeray or some more historical non-fiction.

I WANT MY HAPPY ENDING!

when you walk away, i hope it gives you hell

A self indulgent title, from a self indulgent song.  

Well then, I’m blatantly going to indulge myself, as always. Frankly, taking out a student loan is my primary fear at the moment. Even with a 10.75% interest rate, which is the lowest I’ve been able to find, it’s still a huge amount of money. And I’m seriously concerned about employment opportunities, what with the recession et al. Not that I’m an IT or a finance person the likes of whom are currently quaking in their boots or sitting around waiting for work. 

It’s at times like these that communism seems infinitely attractive. 

I think being the bigger person is so overrated. I’d much rather take revenge and be done with it; allow myself to feel smug and satisfied at having done to someone as they did unto me. It’s only fair. Tit for tat. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Of course, the fact remains that it’s merely destructive and will probably not be good for anyone in the long run but as Keynes said: In the long run we are all DEAD. 

Momentary satisfaction trumps all, at least for my purposes of vengeance. 

If you know what I’m talking about, and you have any ideas, do tell. I’m a little stumped.

where’s home, if not here?

It’s going to be a long one, so brace yourselves.

So when Soumya said, about three months ago, that we should go to Gokarna, we weren’t sure such a place existed. I mean, who’s heard of Gokarna?

Apparently, as we learnt on our trip, a whole bunch of pilgrims and potheads have.

After a hot and sticky sleeper class train ride to Mangalore, at the end of which I was seriously revising my romanticised notions of train journeys, we roamed the platform for a bit, attempting to find our connecting train to Gokarna. This was the first instance of the Indian Railways attempting to confuse us – the ticket said Madgaon Express, but the train had decided to go to a mysterious place named Verna instead. So we pottered about aimlessly, as we are wont to do, and finally decided to hedge our bets, take the porter’s word for it, and board the train.

After three more hotter and stickier hours squished together, we managed to clamber off the train when it stopped at Gokarna Road station, which looked anything but promising. Clutching our (okay, just my) heavy burdens, we found an eager cab driver who seemed to know exactly where to take us. Of course, we spent the cab ride arguing about the possibility of us being taken somewhere to be raped, or mugged, and decided the six of us could easily take the puny cab driver.

Luckily, our self-defence skills were not necessary after all, since the cab driver dutifully took us to a rather seedy looking Hotel Gokarna International, which Shilpa insisted on informing us (at least fifty times during the trip), is run by two brothers who are happy to pass the time of day. We caught no glimpse of these two brothers, which was probably good for them, since their hotel had a serious electricity problem and NON-FUNCTIONAL TOILETS! Oh horror of horrors!

Gokarna though, made up for its lack of facilities with its gorgeous, untouched beaches and absurdly cheap food, even though we visited it when it wasn’t in ’season’. Veer Ganga, as Virangna was christened by the Indian Railways, was unhappy about the lack of weed, especially because we kept smelling it, but despite being patently un-stoned, we had fun. Ridiculous auto drivers, cheap beer, beautiful beaches, very long walks and competitive games of Monopoly and cards made Gokarna seem quite lovely, after all.

A long cab ride later, most of which was spent in arguing whether we were actually on the way to Coorg or not, whether it could be called a hill station or not and the respective merits of the name ‘East End’ and ‘West End’ hotel, we arrived in Madikeri with a sick Shilpa. The cottage in Coorg was everything that Hotel Gokarna International had not been – as Veer Gangu put it, “a home away from home”. Literally.

The most important observation we made about Coorg was, however, that Coorgi men are the most lecherous lot in the world. We did not let that deter us, of course, the strong independent women that we are, and we braved the leching in order to find grocery supplies: we were going to make savoury and chocolate pancakes. The first evening was very homey: Gangu, Lakshmi, Parna and I playing cards, Shilu asleep, Soumya cooking in the kitchen, etc.

The next day was more exciting: we roamed the district, made nuisances of ourselves everywhere and were stared at intensely. After such a long day of seeing every possible site of interest in Coorg (including a pointless Raja’s Seat, which seemed like a happy version of the generic Suicide Point and a Shiva temple that our driver seemed keen to show us) and taking many cheesy photos, we returned home to, well, cook our favourite dinner – Maggi! – and watch Wicker Park, which was quickly pronounced irritating and predictable by everyone.

Shilu was well by now, but it was Parna’s turn to be sick. We clambered onto a bus going to Mysore after much perambulating, and settled ourselves near the driver. A mostly uneventful bus journey later, we arrived at Mysore bus station where we escaped death by speeding bus multiple times before we were safely out, and in this utterly strange restaurant called “Gufha” which seemed modelled on a second-rate Scary House type place. After ‘lingering’ over our food to kill time, we finally made it to the very clean Mysore station, only to find that the Railways had outwitted us again, and the train was 45 minutes late.

Lakshmi and Shilu provided entertainment by singing shady Shah Rukh Khan songs, while we sipped on sugar-less coffee until the train arrived. Three hours after we were safely ensconced in compartment S 6, we had to make a 1 am run across the Bangalore station platform in order to find compartment S 13, to which we incomprehensibly had to shift. Saddled with monster bags and a sick Parna, we ran back and forth trying to find the damn thing, before someone kindly told us that S 13 was illogically set apart from the other sleeper coaches, all way in front of the AC ones. Heart-thudding running, shrieking and pushing and shoving, Lakshmi leaping onto the train because it made a noise and much yelling at idiot people standing in the doorway were just some of the ways in which we made our presence felt.

After such an adventurous trip, it was only fitting that we enjoyed 6 odd hours of sleep on the train, waking up to be in Madras.

Things we learnt:

- Shilpa’s aunt “is a big lioness”
- Soumya can make thunderous noises
- Veer Ganga is destined to be on MTV
- One can play Speed by oneself and be amused
- Lakshmi can speak (and sing) in Hindi when necessary
- “Underwears are healthy for you” – a billboard.

Don’t steal my feminine thunder!

VSSALA.

words fall through me, and always fool me

I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

My memory erases everything, except the most trivial incidents. I’ve forgotten who I was or how I became this person that I call myself, these days.

I used to be able to write, effortlessly. I used to be able to drown in words, to make them mean everything I wanted them to mean. I used to be able to find words beautiful and ugly, to see their forms and to know enough to manipulate them.

These days, I’m lucky if I find the right word at all, let alone use it the way I want to use it.

I’m angry all the time; at everyone, everything. People seem petty, too demanding of my tolerance and attention and most often, I despise myself for how self-consciously detached I’ve become.

I don’t care, I don’t want to care, I don’t want to be cared about.

But then, suddenly, something utterly puerile comes along and makes me happier than I’ve been in days.

-

I want to be able to write effortlessly again. I want my words back, give me my words back please or I’ll drive myself crazy.