moments of glory.

Stupidly, I forgot to bring my support system with me to Scotland.

My three beautiful, leather-bound, gold-embossed dvds of the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings, along with my enormous grey-green, dog-eared, watermarked copy of the books.

And about a month into the madness, once the daze wore off, I missed them.

Possibly more than anyone or anything or anywhere else.

But now, thanks to the amazing internet, I have the extended versions of the movies on my computer.

And I kid you not, I cried a little with sheer happiness.

a myriad coloured spinning threads

Middlemarch is admittedly intimidating in appearance. At nearly 1000 pages, spanning every conceivable social class and exploring the lives and actions of more than ten “major” characters, perhaps only the most inveterate literary time-travellers would undertake to read it. Which is probably to the detriment of all the other cowardly 21st centuryites who shy away from such an effort of imagination, because Middlemarch is one of the most engrossing, books you will ever read.

I like books that I can get inside. And in this one, there were so many instances of complete identification; when you study literature, it becomes considerably rare that a book subdues your critical side and appeals purely to the emotional and indifferently intellectual. I probably will not be able to offer insight into Dorothea Brooke’s character, or make and defend complex arguments on the metaphorical significance of such-and-such or remark on the interplay between so-and so. Middlemarch is full of opinions and ideas and symbols and metaphors for you to comment on, but speaking solely as a reader and not a student, it is so much more – it makes you laugh, cry, rant, curse and for the space of a few days, transported to a provincial Midlands village in the middle of the 19th century.

There is a curious charm about stories that are long, rambly, eventful and end happily, without being puerile, superfluous or narrow in their intellectual appeal. Middlemarch is a satisfying affirmation that “there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it”.

two ghosts in one mirror

I’ve just been cleaning my room, and as usual it threw up some interesting debris from the last twenty years.

I sifted through old papers, and the best find was a whole pile of old birthday cards – from age 1 to age 17. I revisited memories of all sorts of people: friends I no longer feel as attached to as the words on the page testify, family members who are no more, aunties and uncles I don’t even remember, and unusual sentiments expressed by the ones that are still around; after half an hour, I began to feel ridiculous for ever supposing myself to be unloved, unwanted or alone.

In other news – I ate one very very large brunch today and have been unable to even contemplate eating anything more. Yay!

My room finally looks less like a war zone and more like a mature, calm, composed twenty year old’s bedroom.

you’re a carousel, you’re a wishing well

I feel unaccountably happy every time I listen to this song (‘Everything’ by Michael Buble).

Friday afternoon. Tomorrow’s a busy day, what with one job interview and one general ‘how to make money online’ meeting. Hopefully, from the following week, I will be engaged in more than one scheme through which I will finance my laptop. At twenty years of age, I’ve begun to feel more and more guilty at having to spend my parents’ money on things that have nothing to do with them.

And here’s an abstraction:

Now and then, between those frisson-laded phases of madness and obsession and fixation upon one object, one person outside of oneself for all the most intense sensations of happiness and sadness, you fall into a languorous exploration of things that have nothing (and yet, everything) to do with your immediate emotions. The kind of sanguine contentment that you feel, in this period, feels more relatively valuable to your life than any previously longed for and experienced intensity.

Spending long, lazy days filled with reading and conversation, lunches and dinners with friends who are long past superficial concerns of politesse, conversations to nowhere on the phone and advertisement-worthy evenings with family all the while knowing that your path in life (for the next year, at least) is secure: in the midst of so much, could you feel anything but happy and content, as if nothing could be lacking?

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.