Wanna-be Haikus and Tankas. Burp.

Scribbling and such. This is freaking old.

Wry self-mockery.
-Film-
Pearl. Shine. Pearl.
A waltz of innocence, so pure a swirl
Cardboard cut outs with glued thread
A glitzy stage we slowly tread
Smile, sin, sigh, sail
Through a play, liquid life in a pail
Then spill it into the rust brown earth
Pearl. Shine. Pearl.



Oo, deranged wanderings of a 15 year old mind?
-To Rape and him-
Salt my tongue or sour my smile
Make me a harp, a puppet, a lie
Peel me apart, cut a jigsaw in my mind.

To break my wings and eliminate my flight
Plug my nostrils and seal my lips tight
My silent scream will bury your plight


And look at me, homosexual. This was after Raad-itis I think.

-Illusions-
He plastered me with cement
Then coloured me black
Scribbled graffiti on my skin
A song, an epic on my hand
He made me his art, a soliloquy in May
Abandoned his sun and flew seas away

The yellow chalkdust now stings my eye.
Corrode me for, I’ll never know why..

Colle. English. Debating. Hostel. Dating.

So normally I'd mock an autobiographical piece, malign it and consider myself above such blatant self-expression. Normally. And just remember that. = ) . This will be long, very long. I suggest you read whatever -heading- takes your fancy.

Hansraj College. There is nothing in this latent Haryanvi town of manicured lawns, affluence, ostentation, red cars, miniature castles and Punjabi infestation that could have prepared me for the last few months. College. Suddenly and without warning, every sappy teeny bopper movie I've had the conceit and the superciliousness to disparage is laughing at me, doing a little victory march, with drum rolls and confetti showers. Its a race between them and me. I'm second, they're last but one. =)

-The course and more-
With what I believe is an abysmal lack of information and knowledge about the English language, I've irrationally decided to spend the next three years trying to master it. I'm 18, its allowed. Teachers with their excessive name-dropping and a queer illusion that ewes fresh out of school know who Holmer and Browning are, the first month was one adorned with discovery, disappointment and ennui, at least on the academic front. Then Victorian poetry happened. And Tagore happened. And I'm building myself a monument for the mother of all good decisions. My status as the walking Dictionary has once again plagued me and I'm hating it just as I dd in school. You see, I'm no longer the idiot who used long words to hide the lack of substance. Touchy nerves? Touchy nerves. =) Evenso, messages at 7 in the morning asking for word meanings still hold the capacity to turn my day around.

-Eristics, debating and stuff-
The third week of college introduced me to debating. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm such a hot-shot because I did MUNs in school, no really, medals and trophies in my honor, I own all butt and more. NOT. Ever been humbled to a degree where everything you've believed about yourself starts ripping at the seams and you're left with the ashen remains of delusion? I hope not. Its restive, and makes your skin crawl with unease. I'm getting better at it, I'd like to believe. The whole winning-a-grand thing might be to blame, a tad wee bit, but what the hell. But that's just debating.


-The DebSoc-
The debating society is an entirely different story. After my village, where reading in the recess is blasphemy, Sigur Ros is "what? a candy?", and I'm Meha Kapoor's cavalier, arrogant sister who looks like butter won't melt in her mouth. You get the gist. The DebSoc, and for Yogi's benefit, no, the debsoc isn't a hot bong boy, is what makes college, college. Not just the on-going wonder of meeting people who know what I'm talking about, but sheer admiration. They talk about AFSPA in one breath and dissolve into quiet reveries about the scorching hotness of Robin in the next. In very plain terms? Fun defines it. Fun, so much fun. Take it from the racist village girl whose idea of a comeback is to put her hand in your face. Its fun!


-Hosetlhostelhostel!-
I'm missing a very important part here. My hostel, and those of you who're still reading NEED to know about it. Yes, you do. Ever lived in a room with five girls who're as different from each other as Satyricon is from Iron and Wine? Heh. There's a shrink in every room, I have four wardrobes to choose from everyday and who knew there exists a wondrous world of facepacks and uncooked maggi. I dance secretly to Justin Timberlake while getting ready in the morning, but don't tell anyone. Anukriti, Ishita, Shubhi. Three short months and I have friends who watch my back. Friends who listen to incessant tirades about a certain crush that refuses to go away, yelling friends who put up with the pig sty I've turned the room into, who make my bed when I'm down, coerce me into doing something about the lack of erm.. ass-ets(?). Its like being parachuted into alien territory. Like winning a lottery you didn't buy the ticket for. The singing ball of scintillating wit and humour, the cribbing, pretty girl who doesn't know it, the genuine Ajanta-Ellora who couldn't hurt a fly.


-Men, dating, bleh-
You know what else college is about? About dating and men. The world is dating and I don't quite know the meaning of the word. Come 10 and every second girl in my hostel sneaks behind the covers and starts loving on her cellphone, whispering, giggling, being generally homosexual and endearing. School was about complacency. Dating literature and music is quite a ride, and being surrounded by jaats who speak and you die a slow, painful death was a lot easier. People here, in this strange strange land have shed all illusions of romance and courtship. Dating is mechanical, convenient and often, a product of boredom. I've been told that a date and a shared rickshaw ride aren't any different. A first date apparently is no cause for excitement. =) And there lies the discrepancy between college and the sappy teeny bopper movie. In my rural mind, dating is about dressing up, long phone conversations, retarded grins, nicknames, and little puddles of mushy ew. Blame the severe lack of experience. A week-long escapade that ended before it began doesn't teach you much. Makes you wonder where you screwed up, makes you wish there was a way to fix it but doesn't teach you much. Ah well. Maybe sticking to books and music isn't such a bad idea after all. =)

I hope for your sake, that you aren't still reading this narcissist piece of self-recapitulation but if you are, my condolences and apologies. It isn't everyday that I abuse writing space with self-obsession but I'm allowing myself this one luxury and writing it off as a weak failing. To summarize though, muh lyf ryt now pwns maja ass nigguh! ^.^

The Crouching Snail. The Towering Atlas.

On the rare ocassion that I feel significant enough to grace sheets with the tired disconcertment of everyday banality, the resultant piece is quite interesting. Its a question I've often asked myself. Would a writer enjoy reading his own story? Living vicariously out of someone else's imagination is what constitutes the delight of fiction. So when an artist assesses the product, the construction of his OWN psyche, the piece must seem exceedingly trite, hackneyed and platitudinous. Its comparable I suppose to how one never re-reads his own journal or feels invariably small and deranged when one does. Following that stream of logic, the unease and solicitude that grips me everytime the mouse pointer hovers over the Publish button is plausible. To tag a creation you consider commonplace, with your own name, to impart to it your identity, requires astronomical courage, I suppose. But does it?

Egomania. In place of the aforementioned unease, an artist could also feel an empowering sense of megalomania. Ah, to be able to create, to sculpt into language, abstract ideas and notions. He could revel and bask in his own glowing aura of talent and dexterity. Astronomical courage is then redundant. All he would need to possess is a quiet belief that the piece is sublime, transcendent. However, we've already established that its near impossible for an artist to sustain such a belief. So what gives the egocentric creator the intrepidity to build and showcase? Within the confines of reason, it could only be a severe lack of reason and rationality.

The assessment leaves me perplexed and twistedly amused. I don't want to believe that Ayn Rand was an irrational megalomaniac. Just as I don't want to believe that she didn't quite enjoy Night of January 16. Because you see, I quite enoyed it. Which makes me an egomaniac. Ah well, revolving doors, vicious circles. Much love.

My fingers just threw up all over the keyboard.

Claypishtoo. 8 am, severe insomnia, too much old Hollywood, even more indie and a lubricious if not lascivious day dream involving Gregory Peck. It's a strange morning. My head's a blurry mist of jackknifed juggernaut that I can't quite knead into written dough. But ah well, its been six months since I obliged an e-page with the blessed words of a hysterically messy brain. No really, messy might be too polite. The architect who carefully designed the interiors of my brain must be turning in his grave. Yes, he's dead, when you create a masterpiece in Tanviville, you fulfill your purpose on earth and are put into a cold quiet sleep. -Insert evil laugh?- Anyway yes, the blueprint looks like this, and let me paint you a little picture. Compartmentalized thoughts, once neatly labelled and stored in little glass jars are swaying gently across the ceiling, barely scraping the muscled walls. Incipients of ideas, notions are crouching mindlessly (and excuse the pun) near the shelves that once stored a raving belief in Ayn Rand and Ben Gibbard. A yawning void of terse longing and singlehood is right smack in the middle of the now dilapidating room, carpetting the nerve endings, tender and warm. It's the time of the day. You know, when you want to do nothing but weave imaginary yarns about James Mercer, when Marten from QC takes on a real, fleshy existence, when words from random Porcupine Tree songs seem profound and meaningful, when you write little notes on facebook about nothing at all? Yes, that time.

Poetry is next, I can see it. Help. Sweet mother of jesus, I'm turning into a Chetan Bhagat. >.>
Being this drugged and happy is indecent. Ivory towers own major butt. I need coffee, lots of it.

Parasite

You know how sometimes one line in a random, meaningless conversation can send you into deep realms of introspection? Or anything, I don't know. The Ray Ban ad? " Have you made it up, have you made it up. "
On ostentation.
They say if you've done it, it isn't bragging. But how true is it? Isn't the purpose of bragging to impress people? Invariably, the average blows-his-own-trumpet or beats-his-own-drum if you're perverted = ) will be disliked and mocked by everyone with half a brain. Human nature is not very conducive to peer-appreciation. Or maybe its just the XX gene. But to be generous with one's compliments? Invasive, threatening, ominous. Also, its a public declaration of insecurity, on certain undefined levels. But we do it anyway. One's own voice praising one's own awesomeness is like flowing honey, soothing to the ear, to the ego. Or maybe you're just into it. In too deep, to care. When you're, and I hate to use the word, passionate about something, maybe talking about it is just pure adulation, pure hero-worship. Of what though? Of the object of that adulation or of yourself for understanding and being INTO something so grand? Its generally the latter. Disturbing.
We're vicarious beings, all of us. Talking about a great author or a divine band is quite casually a pat on the back. Like telling yourself that association makes up for the lack of talent. But talent can't thrive without an audience, can it? We're the lecherous audience. Like parasites, like the tapeworm infesting the stomach of a cow, a part of the cow but a crouching, sublime pest nonetheless. Vicarious. Living through someone else's glory.
Arbitrary trivia. Warming, comforting.
What did early man do will all the food he gathered? Did he put it up on a cave-wall and smugly patronize the other early men? Or did he quietly eat it, satiate his hunger and move onto better, more lucrative avenues. Could we do that? Digest the wondrous constructions of greater men, stash it away in memory, cover it with red velvet and move on.
What he did was, he made edible food out of raw vegetation. Not vicarious. Creation, art.
What I'm trying to do now is go on gathering, go on collecting. Till I can condense it into something bigger, something engaging. Something that can be called art. Or just gratify and quench the thirst for learning, for knowing. The question is, can I do it without being the wretched tapeworm?