kiss the world

I’m constantly amazed by how people can be so contradictory. On the one hand, you sit up on your high horse and expect to be able to judge everyone you see; on the other, you affect a certain nonchalance, a general affability that seems deceptively resigned to accepting everyone as they are. As always, I’m including myself in that bracket.

If you’re a certain way, must you necessarily expect everyone else to be the same?

Everyone has a different way of dealing with things. You might have have the ability to be dignified, bottle it all up and put a brave face on it all. Good for you. Or you might be the kind of bawl in public, to put on a show for everybody else and to generally extrapolate your sorrows onto everything and everyone else. Or, as is increasingly evident, you might be so emotionally retarded as to be unable to either exhibit or even feel emotion at all, in which case, also, good for you!

I know people in every category.

And maybe you derive comfort from stupid things. But isn’t it your right to?

it creeps into my toes.

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack of Pride and Prejudice, watching The Tudors, reading ‘The Rivals’ by Sheridan and explaining English history to people all day. Yes, I realise how creepily obsessed with ‘England’ I can be sometimes, but all of this furore over nationality and patriotism is something I’ve never been able to comprehend.

After all, till date my only motivation in watching any sport remains the attractiveness of the men in question: unfortunately, I haven’t found anyone in the Indian cricket team worth supporting. But then again, I haven’t watched cricket in a while, and the last time I watched football was– well, last week, but that was pure chance.

But to get back to my point in writing this, I’ve been listening to an eclectic mix of music this week and honestly, it’s never been clearer to me that music can completely change your mood around. On a grumpy Monday morning, on the way to college in a noisy auto, listening to ‘The Militia Marches In” from the P&P soundtrack can really make you laugh out loud with happiness; listening to ‘Evenstar’ or ‘The Council of Elrond’ or ‘The King of the Golden Hall’ from the LOTR soundtrack can make you feel like nothing you’re doing is of any importance, that reality can be transcended.

Listening to hip-hop is mindless, transporting you into a hazy world of remembered drunken nights tinged with the smell of sweat, perfume and cigarette smoke spent in close quarters with strangers. Listening to the Beatles and ABBA makes me feel happy, self-contained, at peace with the world; Dire Straits and Pink Floyd remind me of my parents, every time.

And Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven – the music seems to creep into my toes, into my blood, into everything.

I really want to start learning to play the piano again.

Pointless post, in the end, but I was just killing time until episode 10 of the Tudors loaded anyway :)

the room was on fire, no one could save me but you

Fictional men.

I’ve been in love with them since as long as I can remember. It started of course, with Julian from the Famous Five and Philip from the Adventure series. Looking back, I can remember clearly how appealing they were, with their clearly defined attributes of bravery, loyalty, intelligence and of course, an almost suffocating sense of chivalry that would probably be out of place in this century. They were mature and in control of most situations – now, what thirteen year old girl could resist a man like that?

It went on to, of course, the usual suspects: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Edward Fairfax Rochester, Heathcliff, Gabriel Oak, Sirius Black, Aragorn, and those inhabitants of less exalted literary circles – Lord Worth, Lord Vidal and Freddie and Chandler. The latest, I must add, is Edward Cullen.

Is it any surprise that only two (Aragorn and Gabriel Oak) among the above characters were not created by women?

Of course, these men are far from perfect. Almost all of them are egoistic and have highly reprehensible opinions when it comes to the fragility and delicacy of women; they’re controlling, domineering and, for the most part, jaded. But somehow, they appeal to women despite, or even inspite of these qualities – which would be considered negative by a rational, independent woman of the twenty-first century.

But they’re so… safe. They’re reliable, secure, loyal, motivated by a sense of doing the right thing and above all, madly, passionately in love with the object of their affections. They’re not afraid of admitting it either, or prone to making immature decisions and being worried about what the people around them will think. As much as independence is necessary, these men make emotional dependence look so desirable that I’ve come to think it’s the only way one can love completely.

And right now, I can’t help but feel that they’re all the products of female fantasies; an attempt to fill a hollow that real men haven’t. But hey, I don’t care. They’re all I want, for now.

a disease of the mind

Sometimes, it feels like all the thoughts in my head come tumbling in at the same time, in a wave of uncontrolled chaos and, crashing against everything I believe in, throw me far, far away from where I want to be.

There are days when everything seems pointless, where life itself is a question of coffee-induced mornings of feather-touch emotion and blank staring out of car windows. Nothing better follows than sitting in a darkened room half-listening to what I ought to be loving, wondering about things that won’t matter five days from now.

Food, people, conversation, laughter, companionship – and in the midst of all, I’m still searching, still looking, still needing, still wanting. Still wishing I could find perfection and every day, I only learn how impossible the dream I’m chasing is.

It seems so easy when its put into words. Perfection rests in the mind of my author, in the words her pen chooses to assign to sway my life this way or that. One stroke, and I could die, I could fall in love, I could be betrayed, I could win a lottery, I could beg, I could starve, I could be a hero, I could live my life as an utter nobody.

And at least then I’d be able to excuse my actions because hey, I don’t control them.

Unfortunately, the responsibility for the things I do can’t be brushed away…

…. and the consequences make themselves felt anyway.

the sweetest thing

Ups and downs, busy days filled with people and talk and no time for thought.

I’ve spent the last week or so that way, running in and out of home, sleeping at the oddest times, speaking to random new AIESEC people, and attempting to find time for myself but failing.

Or rather, I don’t want time – I don’t want time to think of where I’m going, what I want or what’s lacking. Lately, thinking just makes me feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled, and I really have no desire to feel that way.

I realised, most importantly, that it’s unfair to hold people up to ideals that they don’t share: how can someone aspire to something you want when they don’t want it themselves?

But still, I’d like to know, a little more, that this matters. That it’s me and not the “relationship”, that it’s as intense, insane, obsessive and uncontrollable as it really ought to be.

Is it?