18 With a Bullet

Arriving somewhere...

2011-02-15T02:10:00.000+05:30

I've found myself a friendly corner by a glass wall at a Chipotle close to the university. I enjoy taking in the sights while stuffing myself with a bowl of carnitas loaded with the hottest sauce they have have there (not half as spicy as our friendly neighborhood Chaat Guy's kaara masala though).

Paid close attention to the music they play on their speakers. Tried ID'ing the songs for a while in vain. I wasn't even sure what genre they were. Felt humbled by the fact that a restaurant could play good indie-sounding music that I could appreciate without a clue about who it was by. Finally heard a familiar song on my way out (Banshee Beat - Animal Collective).

What have I been up to other than being totally impressed by the high standard of the musical palate here? Well, I've been trying to take it easy on the overwhelming moments, choosing rather, to digest one thing at a time (and I'm not just talking about the carnitas. I like sitting at these quaintly situated seats along certain main streets with something to munch on and watch the city move in front of me. And suddenly, the world is no longer a sea of humanity and the expression of individuality that San Francisco is notorious for starts getting ever so noticeable. What do I mean by that? When I'm not totally disoriented and actually have a moment to breathe, I will typically begin getting conscious of my surroundings and the people in it... blond woman in business casuals with a little caterpillar tattooed behind her ear, the sound of an approaching skateboard, a zero-emission tram passing by, tall man in razor sharp corporate attire walking with a copy of the WSJ folded in the crook of his tall-latte clutching arm and kidskin attache-case in the other, homeless man in the corner with all his worldly possessions inside a shopping cart beside him, girl on the train with flaming pink hair and neon-green nose ring reading a hardcover on the train and so on.
Spent most of the weekend with friendly people who made me feel at home. I'm quite thankful to them for that, goes a long way for someone in a strange land in the process of planting his feet on the ground.
I find several aspects of the so called 'American way of life' to be very strange compared to what I'm used to seeing. Pets in this country have a cushy life. The veterinary hospitals I've seen so far are about the same as those expensive private hospitals in Bangalore. Deep inside, I feel a strange painful feeling knowing that a large part of our masses have a lower standard of life than the animals here. I remember feeling guilty about occasionally driving to the grocery shop near home to buy bread and eggs. I saw one guy here who drove his monster truck, with wheels as tall as I am, to get ice cream.
I try and not compare everything I see against some unknown "ideal" and try and just accept things and get on with it, but sometimes I can't help but notice that this nation's been blessed immensely by a very gracious God. If they could only accept that very simple fact instead of being stuck in an existential hole in the ground and use all their energy figuring out if we're all meant to be deejays and homosexuals.
In church yesterday, we were shown a video of little kids in Uganda living (barely) on the brink of existence in starvation. How strange it is that those kids share this world with grotesquely obese people who are imprisoned in their own homes because they can't fit through the doorway.
I don't blame anybody for things being the way they are, I merely can't help but see these extreme contradictions and sigh.

Lit Clutterbug

2010-08-11T00:27:00.001+05:30

How's it shakin'! I know it's been a while since I last rambled coherently, so if you've taken the time out to pay attention to this post, I'm flattered. In fact, borrowing from the words of someone I knew a while ago, I think someone ought to present you with an award the size of a pancake for that feat alone. As always, I aim to please.

In the absence of any recent favorable developments in my life, I've been spending a considerable amount of time reading the works of some of the most formidable human beings (in my own unostentatious opinion) to have ever put their thoughts on paper. So you needn't spend your energies disputing, for example, Mr.Adams' views on the subject of misogyny prevalent amongst the peoples in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. You can have a bite out of my towel for all I care.

Since I've already mentioned Mr.Adams, I must begin by admitting that I've been kicking myself for not getting around to reading the Hitchhiker's Guide any earlier. Helped me get through quite a bleak period, it did. Got through the 'trilogy of five books' in under a week and kept re-reading for a while after. I never imagined that time-travel, inter-galactic colonization, extraterrestrials, manic-depressive robots and, yes, towels could be so riotous. I hear Douglas Adams was the first Mac user in the whole of England. Totally irrelevant trivia. Or not. Maybe its a genius thing.

I'd also returned to the land of Stephen King with a vengeance. His knack for storytelling, his 'craft' as he calls it, is a gift. A modern day Tolkien who drinks deep of that fabled literary pool where those great men and women of yore cast their nets. Lisey's Story was admittedly rather insipid at several turns, but SK's allowed to not-impress once in a while.
Currently getting through some vintage King. The Dead Zone is a classic psychic-psycho story that goes all over the place before going totally berserk on the unwary reader.

The Enchantress of Florence kept me up several nights on a recent visit to Trivandrum. I definitely think Padma Lakshmi's departure from his life did the man a world of good. His first post-Padma Lakshmi novel, The Enchantress is a throughly researched effort that seamlessly blends fact, fiction and fantasy to constitute a single volume of unadulterated Rushdie with generous doses of his signature brand of wit and wisdom. They say that if you call something flawless, it means you haven't looked hard enough. And believe me, I've looked. So here goes, at the risk of coming off as a pretentious little Rushdie-fanboy, this one was perfect as cats.

I've described the last couple of weeks of my life in books fairly accurately. Props to you, for sitting through this. Currently listening to Savoy Truffle -The Beatles as I write this from an uncharacteristically cluttered desk.

a little hello

2010-04-27T21:06:00.003+05:30

I've moved into a new comfort zone. A typical day in my life consists of waking up in my skin and taking it off, bit by bit, as the day progresses. It's getting pretty toasty here these days y'know. I put them fully back on before scurrying homeward and into my safe little box in the evening though.

Is this what they call 'traveling without moving'?

Whatever it is, I think I'm fine for the moment.

Examples to support preceding statement :

1. I'm watching an amazing story play itself out around me. (More on this later)

2. Lamb of God @ Palace Grounds, May 15th! (Opeth. Check. Porcupine Tree. Check. LoG. ...)

3. I'm enjoying church.

4. No more of this insane college. Just exams and then jump.

5. Deadmau5 and Heinlein make sure I'm in decent company.

6. Booster Juice is now in my neighborhood. I'm stoked! Now somebody get Chipotle to open one up here please.

7. Ah, and new musical possibilities.

amr3

2010-03-03T23:17:00.007+05:30

I find myself looking inward a lot these days. I used to live a cushy life shielded from serious injury and I may have been described at the time as a manipulative young man with a penchant for having a good time. I'd twist, bend and break all sorts of things around me to have it all my way. Not so, now. My situation can be compared to when you find out that a price has to be paid for the delightful objects your credit card has been spewing at you.

Responsibility, foresight and maturity have taken some beautiful relationships away from me.

Leave me alone, he says.

Now I bask in the realization of the fact that I live alone in dimly lit room. A little box tucked away in a far corner of Eden. Not a soul within earshot.

Told you I'd been getting introspective lately.

Blustering Baboonery

2010-01-17T23:10:00.003+05:30

Don't think coz I understand I care

Don't think coz I'm talking we're friends...

I like Sneaker Pimps. They sound like they're cool with having no excuse for having no excuse.

Er... I'm not exactly sure that last sentence made sense, but you get the idea. Had a generally good last few days. Good days are had to come by, I should know. I'm grateful for the people who put me in a cushy place by choosing to hang with me (what a drag it must be for them poor folks).

I hope you're a beach sort of person, we'd probably get along. And I don't mean bikinis, broad shoulders and cocktails on a five-star private beach when I say beach sort of person. Oh, and definitely NOT the type that pretends to read Theroux lying on your belly in the sun. I had something along the lines of taking pleasure in watching dead turtles wash up on the shore or chucking rogue crabs back into the ocean in mind.

Now I'm also against carpet bombing in air warfare.

2010-01-12T11:27:00.005+05:30

I watched a half-moon hover upon jagged snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. Standing before a mountain on a cold night with a bagful of eclectic mix of memories and reasons for why I was there is quite an experience. Some ubiquitous ancient wisdom resides among the mountains without a doubt. And sometimes, if you peer hard enough into yourself, it hits you hard for just a fleeting moment. This can either cause one to reel and fall hard or help to finally find one's feet.

I can't place my finger on which category I fall in.

Or maybe that's just it. I fell.

Jamais vu

2009-12-02T23:08:00.002+05:30

There was once an old woman who lived in a little cardboard box under a busy flyover in a crime ridden part of the city. She would wake each morning at a wee hour while other creatures still slept soundly around her and spend time in prayer after which she'd cook and peddle idlis by the wayside. Her clientele mainly comprised of drivers of school vans and autos. They usually flocked around her steaming pushcart before they headed to pick kids up for school. All these folks liked the woman a lot and sometimes ran errands for her or bought supplies for her for no reason other than her blatant poverty.
One day, she hitched a ride in one of the school-vans to the market. The driver said he'd even wait for her to finish her shopping so he could drop her back. The woman was very touched by this and let him in on a secret.

She said (oooooooooo000OO000000ooooooo000000000oooooo0000000000000000oooooooooo000
00000000000000ooooooooooooooooooo0000000000000OOOOOOOOOOOOO000000
oooooooooooOOOOOOooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO000000000000000000000000)

The driver was very upset and didnt return to the steaming pushcart for weeks. Soon, it was found that the man gave all his belongings to the first ashram he found and lay in the way of an oncoming train.
The several pieces they brought of him to the hospital were all pronounced dead.

The woman burst into tears when she heard the news and regretted telling the man her secret.
Days turned to nights and the nights turned to weeks. Soon, people forgot about the dead man and his place as van-driver was taken by a jolly fellow and the folks who dined alongside him at the steaming pushcart found him to be more congenial and helpful than his predecessor.

[Note: This story is not done. Will add more to the above at each sitting. And edit. Or altogether pull down the damn thing. Ok?]

Spot of Shade

2009-11-29T14:13:00.004+05:30

I've been walking for many days in white-hot light with an uneasy warmth in my belly. I havent been walking along a definite path because there's only flat, paved ground in every direction to the horizon. Everywhere I choose to rest is the same as the last. A perpetual deja vu and a salt-less taste in my mouth keep me company along with my own thoughts. The cloudless sky is also bereft of any avian life whatsoever. Although I have no way of estimating how far or for how long I'd been walking, it couldn't have been less than a month judging from the amount of growth on my face. I could walk or run for as long as I wanted and yet there would neither be any sweat nor would I feel tired.
I did try clawing at the ground looking for answers for the ground was the only thing I could actually touch and spit at. It didn't matter how hard I kicked or clawed, the ground would not so much as show the slightest indentation.
You finally made it home, I would hear my thoughts whisper. Something inside me was satiated, at home and at rest while the rest of my being craved something to latch my hands onto.
I could almost hear my insides curse at the light and the futility of this kind of existence when I saw a darker spot of ground not too far ahead of me. Stopped in disbelief and then hotfooted it to the spot before jumping outright into it.
My eyes took a while to get used to the lack of brightness like some well-meant power outage on the lightbulb of the earth. Then I noticed the earth on which I was standing on. Cracks with pure blackness between the gaps, loose gravel and vulgar wet tentacles flailing under my shoes. On closer inspection, the tentacles were in fact worms that had an affinity to emerging from under the sole. Oh, and I felt cold. And it felt very good.
I decided to walk further ahead and watch this curious spot of shade from the outside. Skin and bone protested when I stood in the white light again. I expected myself to burst into flames from the way it hurt. Of course, I now realize that it wasn't physical hurt at all.
Scurrying back into the cold spot of shade again. I thought of people, of buildings, of streets and food. All my life I spent wishing them away. One at a time.
Here, in this strange flat world of air and little else, I crawl back into my little spot of shade and poke at worms as I see how far removed I am of the things that made me human.

Ancient Mythical Digital Monster

2009-09-20T21:42:00.003+05:30

Each sunset means nothing more to me than perhaps what the ticking of each second a clock is to you. I have protected the rulers of the ancients, gazed upon their lives spent toiling, danced in the sands of their wars and laughed at their wisdom. I have run with the Mares of Diomedes along the shores of Thrace in the fading sunlight.
I have lived in the company of my vast memories in the centuries that me and my brothers have slept frozen in the pillars of an old master's estate. The world is not so different from the way it was then. In the few times that I surveyed the horizons from rooftops, I see the avarice that ruled the world in days of old now being worshiped.
There could not have been a better time for The Awakening. It is just as it was promised.
My soldiers and I can now walk between the physical and digital realms when we please. The mind of man is now softer and clay-like. You will only accept that which I wish you to believe.
You are but the playthings of the ancients. They are gone and yet the children of their descendants will continue to wager their lives. All for but a glimpse of what lies in my knowledge.
I, Orobas, seek to make your acquaintance.

The Piano

2009-09-05T22:59:00.002+05:30

Came across an old weather beaten piano at a friend's living room this evening. The varnish was peeling in several places and the white keys were more yellow than white. Few of the keys played notes as dead as door nails, others souned sinisterly de-tuned or just plain cold. The thing kept staring at me ominously the whole evening.
Stared at me while I laughed with the others. Stared while I ate. Stared when I sat in silence.

Somebody sat at the thing and played an old tune traditionally played at farewells, in the very modest experience of yours truly.
Each note mocked. Laughed. Nauseated. Pointed fingers and stuck its tongue out at me.

Unable to bear this nightmarish theater, I swallowed a lemon sized lump in my throat and rode off into dark roads towards home. The speed, cold wind and bleary eyed vision made it all so surreal.

Rode through a dream and woke up into another one.

Urbanely Mundane

2009-08-24T16:09:00.004+05:30

Had a good time this weekend. Had a similar occasion the weekend before that. And the one before that. So this is all very agreeable and I should have not too much cause to complain. But I have a sneaking suspicion that these good times are being sold to me.

You buy time to sit at some trash-chic coffee table at cafes. You pay to be spotted smashed at some funny name club. Heck, you even pay to get your hair fondled and snipped by some north-eastern babe who will go to great lengths to assure you that those blond hair extensions are just what you need to complement your overgrown nose-hair.
Folks go through all of the above for a lot of reasons. Some do it to for the chicks, some do it to simply to raise eyebrows and some because they have the money and dont know what else to do with it.

So they put you beside a pool you cant swim in with a cold bitter drink in your hand with a couple of hundred people dressed up exactly like you and hope you bump and grind and drink the night away till around eleven thirty pm when they shoo you out the back door into the longing arms of the law that will milk you of whatever little dough you have left from your good time because they just caught you with a little stinkbreath.
Nice place to reminisce of that last Cosmopolitan you downed is when you're talking to an unfamiliar toilet bowl.

No, this weekend was a special one (Rbass' surprise party at Konda's digs with all of that jet setting crowd in one place was deadly and so was Shivajinagar-ing with 10,000 other people for lassi and midnight phal).
Ah, but aren't they all?

Gadgeted Officer

2009-08-10T17:49:00.002+05:30

I'm having trouble waking up again. It's especially hard when you also have trouble sleeping in the first place. There's all sorts of folks in my life at the moment who seem to have no other purpose other than disorienting the hell out of me. Several well wishing viscid criminals entice me from all around me by offering a bit of some good thing, wagering on whether I will act like the proverbial donkey at some point.
But I guess I should be glad that there's at least some activity in my otherwise placid life.

There's this documentary I found interesting that's coming out sometime this month. Jack White, The Edge and the legendary Zoso sit around, jam a bit, swap tunes and talk a bit.
A faceless wise voice on YouTube suggested that it be called "Jimmy gives guitar lessons to a couple of chumps".

Am I twitaddict?
I'm not too sure.
But I just linked the above 'documentary' to a shortened URL from bit.ly
Just to see if that works.

Baby snakes

2009-05-09T21:51:00.004+05:30

Hello. Been in absentia for a nice long time.
Lots happened.
I'm trying to make this sound like an entry in a moldy orange diary, but we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

Anyways, someone I absolutely loathe from the seat of my pants is back in close proximity.
I thought I was finally getting mellow and keeping my intolerance in check and along comes this most vexing character.
I felt pins jabbing at my skull real horrorshow, O my brothers.

I don't understand why I hate the way I do.
I don't like how I cling on to antipathy like I know nothing else.
Help!

Thanks for listening.
May you be covered in moondust.

Only when the last tree is cut

2009-03-08T08:31:00.003+05:30

Today I woke up at 5 30 in the morning. Today is a Sunday. An aunt needed to be picked up from the railway station.
Anyway, so I got there on time (well, a tad early actually) and saw people in a long winding queue maybe about 200 meters at the least. These folks were of the push and shove to get something done variety and I found it impossible to find a way around them to get to the platform. When I tried cutting through the line, everybody seemed to hug each other to form some sort of a human wall. I tried to explain that I just needed to get to the other side and they simply ignored me the way I ignore child-contortionists at traffic lights.

Last night, a friend and I were at Fanoos.
He saw an old beggar woman sitting on the pavement and felt something profound.
He told another beggar woman that the old woman was like his mother and that he felt really bad seeing her that way. He asked her to look after her for him.
I thought he empathized for a moment.

Happiness Bang Bang Shoot Shoot

2009-02-14T22:15:00.002+05:30

There's this close knit community of bloggers who live among us. They reside in Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and so on and so forth. But suddenly they decide to ditch the username and actually meet in the flesh. And its quite scary because distances suddenly dont matter and they all land up under the same roof in an acceptable watering hole and partake of the harvest in true communal fashion, so to speak.
Indiblogger's top reps, users and fans were present at Stones, Indiranagar, to get into Iron Maiden mode for tomorrow. Free beer was freely flowing, ensuring that the good times kept rolling.
Now, if you're a blogger and you think that you dont live in the dark ages, you're probably signed up with Indiblogger.

Other than that, I'm listening to the Beatles (The White Album) and feeding the fish on time.
Happy Valkilmers... and look alive.

Kids With Guns

2009-02-08T22:34:00.002+05:30

Facebook is a nice place for folks to seethe, I always thought. To feel without explicitly making it known, to let one's reddest red sentiment quietly bubble along and watch others feel an uncomfortable all-pervading heat gradually envelope them.
Well, that's my ideal anger condition. You may take strong exception to it. I won't hold it against you.

In recent days, I have observed several weakly-informed individuals publishing severe statements without thinking twice about it and that too with such force of authority. Well, most of them are starkly honest musings on the state of affairs in Bangalore and the new vigilante marriage bureau roaming the streets and I appreciate that. But we as students/youth living in Bangalore are used to drowning our potent intellect with pitchers of weak beer or killing our drive to do anything actively with a moldy spliff or two.
It's nice to see folks waking up and expressing the anger we should have felt a long time ago while people were digging holes around us while we were locked up getting loaded.
But it would be better to see some sort of strategy being drawn out rather than comments under status messages on Facebook getting drawn out into long esoteric debates.

Suddenly it's all so cool to talk politics. Y'know, when the shallowest blonde you ever knew starts speaking of Mister Muthalik. Or when P Biddy speaks out against the moral police and other such fermented cliches. I lose interest in things I feel strongly about when certain (large) sections of society take notice of it. Eg: Slumdog Millionaire, V day marriages and so on;
Ok, so what I want to say is that while it is nice to see the generally unconcerned youth of this day and age take notice of things and express their displeasure, I'd appreciate it if we sounded more coherent.

... I tried to make sense.

Yenu man?

2009-02-05T22:14:00.004+05:30

I'm ill again. This gent at the doctor's was peering at a board on the door. So I asked if the doctor was in. In Kannada. He took one long look at me and explained in great length and seriously fractured English that the doctoru was always in the offissu by that time and that he took his tennis playingu seriouslyu and a para or so more of stuff beyond my powers of comprehension.
Ok.
Now why wouldn't he just admit to all that in the tongue that the query was posed in?

But you've gotta have the Kannada signboards.
They wanna make it mandatory for kids in school to be taught in Kannada.
They are a classical language after all.

Yen Yeddy?

Choler

2009-02-04T22:45:00.002+05:30

I'm feeling anger again. Searing red rage.
There are too many reasons to be generally pissed off. I keep it all inside somewhere where there's no light. And it keeps growing. I know because the anger creeps out of my mouth and hands and there's little I can do about it.
I try to kill excess energy at the gym, make a conscious effort to listen to untroubled music, keep myself buried under a thousand things and eat my vegetables. But it won't go away.
Sometimes there's nothing better I'd like to do than to sling a nice heavy expensive object at the wall.

I have no idea why people show so much restraint in being the least bit lenient.
When my time comes, I will be vicious and try to enjoy it.

When acting as a particle

2009-01-30T20:00:00.001+05:30

Watched Opeth play Chennai last weekend. Was definitely my best metal experience so far. Many Bangalore lads and ladies seemed to have made themselves right at home there for the weekend. Spoke to this guy with a big cruise bike who explained he'd found his way to Chen but was still unsure about the venue's location.
Took a walk to the beach before gig and had a ball. The ocean was quite friendly. Wished we lived close to the beach. Sadly mused about the lack of anything worthwhile to do in the evenings back home.
Anyways, Opeth came. Opened with Heir Apparent, finished with The Drapery Falls.
Mikael Åkerfeldt sweats death and is a riot!
They would finish one seriously heavy song and then he'd let slip some killer jazz wankery absentmindedly while talking to the crowd.
I think it's time DT made a quiet exit and lived peaceably.

The Oscars died about a week after the previous post.
Got Piranhas now, four of them.
I thought they lacked character (compared to Oscars), but they move and eat real quick.
And they eat. With one insatiable apetite.
I think I'm overfeeding. I always stop because of the danger that they might burst if they ate any more.

About to embark on a Philip K Dick trip.
Reading Ubik at the moment. Is very very interesting.

Cichlid Designs

2009-01-07T22:31:00.000+05:30

Fancied having an aquarium for a while now. The last one I kept was about five years ago. One can of sardines it was, with at least a dozen little buggers in less than ten liters of water. That setup lasted for a bit. There were frequent deaths, of course. Would keep replacing deceased members with cheaper and less hardy varieties.
Lost interest in the whole thing after a time. I remember going on a two month vacation to Trivandrum and returning to find a bone dry tank with familiar shapes fossilized into a layer of dry muck.

Several others have perished under my care ever since, both living and otherwise.

Acquired a modest sized aquarium and bought a pair of Astronotus ocellatus this morning. I'm told that Oscars can withstand some abuse, and they're also supposed to be smarter than the average goldfish.
They don't go nuts about the food pellets I gave them, and that worries me.
Maybe its the new environment or something.
Other than that, Taira and Taishi are quite a sober pair.

Will put a picture or two up soon.

Feenix

2008-12-27T01:10:00.000+05:30

This blog exists because the other one died. Again.
Lot of pent up energy.
Anger, hunger, procrastination, sleep, hate, fear and the most fleeting sentiment of all, love.
^ They come in waves. In regular intervals.
Verse chorus verse chorus bridge solo chorus chorus.

I feel like Kasab sometimes.
Alone in a strange world staring at questions every minute of my waking life.
Trying to come to grips with things done in what seems like forever ago.
Now all these strange people I have to deal with everyday make the people I like to be with seem like ghosts.
Greygreygrey.

I've been trying for a while to get the proverbial mouse to run into the proverbial house for a while now.
Not that I'm any less unimaginative now, but I'm going to make an honest effort to push some bricks in your direction. Ok?

Now lets get on with it and writewritewrite.

Hello

2008-12-22T12:09:00.001+05:30

Another new blog.
Sigh.