Lit Clutterbug

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.