I am mindlessly exploiting the internet at office. I need ideas for features - the 'visual masala' type. Please Please suggest.

 

reality bites

I went to this 'villagelet' on the fringes of Bangalore .This was for a socio economic survey. I am not those types who thought the whole world was friendly streets with lots of trees and houses in which a switch means light.
I've seen severely anaemic women who had no money to buy greens to eat.

It was however a needed reality check . Here is a place where people of a caste live together and more often than not don't intermingle. And dead rats decorate gushing gutters in frontyards , having been there for days.
The urea factory spews a thick constant toxic smell . Nobody in the village of five hundred families has studied beyond class ten except one Tamil actor who has a B.A degree.Everyone is happy though and welcoming. Insistent that we have milky coffee that they make on a stove quickly borrowed.
They are chatty and ask if I am a 'bachelor'.
~A~ says I assume Bangalore is Brigade blah and Indira Nagar and Koramangala.
Mojos , Koshys , coffee day , barista, college ,autos ,taika , crossword , landmark ,theatre, corner house,Forum.

I sometimes think I am bored of Bangalore but there is so much I still have to discover and have been here just two years!

it is the system man!

Read this
Thirty-three million people. Displaced by big dams alone in the last fifty years What about those that have been displaced by the thousands of other Development Projects? At a private lecture, N.C. Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission, said he thought the number was in the region of 50 million (of which 40 million were displaced by dams). We daren't say so, because it isn't official. It isn't official because we daren't say so. You have to murmur it for fear of being accused of hyperbole. You have to whisper it to yourself, because it really does sound unbelievable. It can't be, I've been telling myself. I must have got the zeroes muddled. It can't be true. I barely have the courage to say it aloud. To run the risk of sounding like a 'sixties hippie dropping acid ("It's the System, man!"), or a paranoid schizophrenic with a persecution complex. But it is the System, man. What else can it be?

And this in The Hindu
On March 8, 2006, the Narmada Control Authority gave permission to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam to 121.92 meters. This was just one more stage in the step-by-step raising of the dam height. Yet, there is something final about it. At this level, the dam wall is complete, and only the gates remain to be fixed. So far, a part of the river has still been flowing. If this new level is reached, it will be the end of this. The senses that have been numbed with assault after assault in the last decade are suddenly overwhelmed. I myself cannot help breaking down. But these are the last tears. After all, how long can one keep crying for the dead?
more on this later.

Randomophillia

I've been wanting to write about this interview with the politician and how the police commisioner - (the man who expects pubs to shut at 11:30 ) is quite charming in real life . :)
There are actually so many things I want to write about but the mood and the time I have to write never come together.
Life Life!
If only Bangalore Uni decides when it plans to have exams , I can run away to somewhere faraway. Though I said I will stay grounded for a change and learn to drive and renew my passport and be practical and take CAT classes and other things that I have been postponing indefinetely.
They need English teachers in Ladakh. I want to go!
Fat, you still haven't posted by the way...

This is India . I am a Man. I will stare .

What are we hoping to do with patriarchy parading around so determinedly? And ... the blank noise intervention. And how much more confident I felt after it.


It may not change the psyche of men. According to an IIsc student ,part of the group, men are genetically more likely to 'eve tease’ or assert unwanted sexual aggression of some form .
However it still makes us more confident on the road!
Really, the simplest thing to do is to stare back at 'offenders'.
They will coyly look away!

The intervention sounds vague at first thought.
'yea dude, these chicks are gonna dress in skimpy clothes and stare back at men.'
'yea rite, you wanna go watch? '

'Was your social cause achieved '?
(condescending air above text message) .

A girl a.k.a me stands in front of Mota like it is her bathroom. For five minutes. No one comes to join her.
( And there are fellow conspirators like her all along Brigade Road) 'Yeah , dude! She's available.'
Random boy comes to ask: Umm are you waiting for someone?
me: Umm no can't I just stand here?
Random boy: umm do you want a cig?
me: no thanks. (Polite, not smiling)
Random boy: (after a while, realising no man is going to whisk this girl away to safety): Umm are u sure u don’t want a fag?
me: Yes, I told you I didn't want one.

Which goes to say that a girl can't just stand somewhere comfortably, not particularly throwing her sexuality around without seeming available.


When one of the participants protested against being stared (The difference between a glance, two long admiring glances and outright violating disgusting staring being understood by us that is) at and handed out the blank noise sticker, a group of guys gathered and argued their cause one said.

'This is India. I am a man. I will stare.’

deviants

What are deviants deviating from? How can 'society' be a scientific standard?

How Bangalore's mobs mourn

Dr Rajkumar is dead and Bangalore is going crazy. Buses are being burnt , vehicles stoned , buildings attacked and cable operators have cut off all channels that (presumably) aren't reporting his death or giving it as much importance. I begged the editor to let me go with the crew to watch the happenings. There was excitement in the news room. I felt however that it was just another piece of ‘sensational’ news for them. Anyhow we rushed to his house and there was a huge crowd there all trying to barge in. The police were lathi charging and Devegowda and the chief minister were just coming in. There was chaos and screaming and the cameramen and reporters were squeezing through the crowd to get what they wanted. Towards Palace grounds where his body was initially supposed to be taken, police cars were being stoned and there were frenzied crowds creating ruckus. There was speculation that it was his sons who initiated all this to just reveal how much power their father still had.
It really was something to see one city quickly shut down and steal away after one man's death. A shop keeper I interviewed on MG road was nearly in tears and he was shutting shop of his own accord and not because of any orders, he said . Some IT companies made sure they had placed a garlanded picture of Rajkumar in some visible place. Cars owners too hastily took print outs of his pictures and pasted them on the windows. Whether this is because of fear or respect is debatable. Glass buildings all around town were attacked. The company driver who just assumes I am bong or North Indian for some reason bitches to me about Tamilians .How this is their chance to be accepted by the Kannadiga community ; by mourning the Kannadiga legend . According to him the Tamilians incredible drinking powers will see them creating the most trouble. I continued of course to grill him to get some perspective on this.

It is sad though. Almost as if his death and the violence are two separate unrelated things. Are these mobs actually just grabbing a chance to create anarchy? Someone says it's their chance to settle scores but somehow it seems an ugly way to mourn the death of someone they idolized.

Just back from the blank noise meeting . On the way back Ratu and me took a bus from Malleshwaram to Majestic. At the majestic bus stand, we were quite lost as to which bus to take. This guy went out of his way to help us find the right bus . Ratu and I live in different parts of Jayanagar and wanted to take the same bus. On this long long bus journey we got into this animated discussion about how South Indians are looked down upon. We were discussing this obsession with fair skin and how all south Indians are perceived as short and dark (and presumably according to them ugly). ’Animated’ according to us is imitating, enacting etc on this crowded bus with just three women. This man, A, got off the bus at the same stop and told us that all South Indians are not short and dark and blah. Obviously he had heard bits of our conversation on the bus and hence had a misconception .We quickly (not rude not kind) explained to him what we were saying. His eyes lit up when we said that we too were South Indians who lived in Bangalore. Sweet of him to have actually speak to us and stand up for his ‘race’? He introduced himself as working somewhere etc in a ‘you can trust me I am not weird' tone. But we were just too scared to. Isn't it sad though that he was this nice guy who helped us find a bus etc but because we are scared of any mans intentions on a bus stop at 10:3 0 at night, we had to rudely walk off leaving this man wondering why ?

relevance of Gandhian ideology in thepostcolonial world

Free haircut got by me at the Taj yes Taj west end.
Kicked to get long hair analysis and use acting skills to act like I knew what Loreal Paris trained woman was talking about.
But I think my long split endy ignored hair betrayed my acting skills vengefully.
And because I let them do whatever I want to it( my hair ) and it ended up looking not so bad , it( my hair ) forgave me for years of neglect.
ya i was guinea pig , why else would they even touch my hair for free.

Also got tremendous insight about socialite women which will be part of my experiencing different humans knowledge. which will show in my future book.
futile fleeting superficial meaningless ungrammered blog post as usual, yes?
I promise to post about relevance of Gandhian ideology in the post-colonial world next time .

Visual masala

Today I started an internship with a news channel.
We were asked to come up with story ideas . We came up with 18 - a mixture of lifestyle , fashion and social issue related ones .
Editor applauded some ideas. They are good visual masala ,he said.
Nobody wants to watch sad beggars you know.

Management problems

In a buffet lunch, I always take a little of everything. I want to make sure that I haven’t missed out on anything, at all. (Subtract most things because I am a vegetarian.)
And in my desperation to not miss out anything I stuff myself to no end. Even if it means skipping three meals preceding the aforementioned buffet lunch.

At the end of the lunch I would have had one bit of a leaf of cabbage from the Greek salad , a nail sized drop of caramel custard , nibbled a bit of rice dumplings with a piquant coconut sauce.(Idly with chutney, if you please).

I wouldn’t hence be able to write a decent review of even one item on the menu.
Now, this is my approach to life in general. And this quote is the medicine I should feed myself each morning.

“There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”


When I finished 12th STD, I had done an oxymoronic mix of science and arts.
I was interested in chemicals and resonance structure and tried to look at the world chemically, reducing emotional states to chemistry and pathofying the crap out of life .But, it fascinated me.
I liked genetics and how one single protein in a gene sequence of millions of proteins determines whether the feathers of a parrot will be blue or red on the head.
I liked literature. I liked tearing the result of a poor poet’s moment of peace
Into a million bits. Analysing anything fascinates me. Dreams, advertisements, speech, boy language...Okay I meant body language but if you wish you can catch me for a Freudian slip there.
I’ve considered all careers ranging from biotechnology, law, environmental science, chemical engineering.

Finally I realised I want everything but I want nothing in particular.
So I thought of journalism. Where I could work on something different everyday. Where I could review a play on one and write about seahorse DNA sequencing, the next. Write about wine tasting sessions and do meaningful journalism, you know. Write about under privileged people from their perspective, not in romanticized publishing pictures of glazed eyed children way.
As if the world could be changed so easily.
Write travelogues on the south of France in a room with yellow lights that will see me typing on a laptop, sprawled comfortably on a large Victorian type bed.

I keep having stints with journalism. I interned, I freelance, and I study it in college...
But oh I am straying. How do I finally choose one path, one career.
Advertising and market research fascinates me also. I mercilessly cut up an ad and come up with my own judgements about its intentions, its target audience and secret manipulative powers. (…evil grin..)
Besides , should I just settle into a corporate job because it is safer and richer and air conditioned with five star lunches.
Forget career . I can’t even imagine belonging to and following one religion or marrying one man .
Anyhow , so how do I whittle the world into a more manageable size??

 

Being in Love

 

 

 

Being in love with you
Is to abandon the piano:
It is to take up the castanets,
The bugle,
The kettle drum.

It is to sleep naked, with all the doors and windows open,
Fearing nothing.

Being in love with you means many days I am so happy
I can barely feed myself:
I laugh or weep or both and set aside the fork.

It means I wake one morning feeling
Such warmth rising inside me
That I am suddenly confident
All snow would melt
Within my steady gaze;
And I dress quickly
To test this
On the crisp, December
Landscape.

Being in love with you further means the rhododendrons
Are in bloom, the mongoose
Is mating, the moon is full and the wind strong
Along the western ghats of South India.

Being in love with you sings arias
In my head, hums loudly
In my bones.
It beats the drum.

Some complain that being in love with you is merely an airtight ferocity,
Or a kind of rococo piety,
But we proclaim it
This Resplendent Helmet,
A radical and luminous sobriety.

Being in love with you is crucial.
Everything depends upon it.

In summer, being in love with you is red, raw and delicious.
In winter it is blue, lucent, and shimmers when touched.

Being in love with you is to forget
For a moment the use of fruit:
It is to stare long at the splendour
Of a green pear
On a white porcelain plate.

Being in love with you is old as Laughing Buddha,
And as fat.

Being in love with you is only now,
Cannot be remembered
Or imagined.

Being in love with you is to notice the basic radiance of all things,
And is thus a simple, unarmed, fundamental bathing.

Being in love with you is as well, a small well-kept apartment
In the middle of busy Kyoto,
Where, with great contentment,
A young couple sit
At a low table
Eating their evening meal
Of sweet hijiki
On beds of warm rice,
The silence broken only
By faint, almost musical
Clinks of chopsticks
Upon the oval bowls.

Being in love with you for even one second
Is enough. The big picture changes.
(When the honey jar is opened,the whole kitchen is instantly sticky.)

Being in love with you is a deep thirst,
An undermining hunger.
It is a desperation like that of a barn swallow caught
In a kitchen mousetrap,
Dragging itself with his wings
And one good leg
Towards the dog-door,
His only hope.

Being in love with you is ludicrous and cannot be explained.

Being in love with you sneaks up on mefrom behind.
It is a kind of ambush.
Or worse, it is an avalanche
In which I am tumbled furiously
For a time, then stopped cold
In whatever absurd position the snow
Finds me - perhaps only a hat
Or a hand
Visible to the outside world.

Being in love with you sits on my doorstep
And weeps. It calls pathetically
To be let in the house, rants
About my neglectfulness. I run
To open the door but - when I touch
The doorknob - feel a tap
On my shoulder, turn around
And it is there,
Smiling it galling
Cheshire smile.

It is the holy guardian of archways, the faithful steward of alltunnels and bridges.

It is alpine and religious, naked and fierce.
It is the kiss of candour, and the cherished cup.
It is "the low down" and "the real dope".

Being in love with you is to dream, at least once, that you live inside me
Like a mysterious Spanish town at twilight: you are the red dirt road
That winds into town;
You are the squat houses with lamps lit and drapes half-drawn;
On the horizon, you are sunset's silent fire;
You, bouncing are the green and orange swirled ball that children run after
Laughing in the street - and on the porch, the old man, head in hands,
Watching;
You are the young lovers in the town square at nightfall, the moon's play of
Light and shadow on their faces, you are their lips, their kiss;
And yet you are also the several dead drunk matadors, draped
over chairs,
Spread-eagled over the hotel bed;
And you, too, are the town idiot on the tavern roof, dancing a pot bellied
Belly-dance to the slender crescent moon;
And at the farthest edge of town, you yourself are the yelled-at mule, who
Will not budge.

In spring, being in love with you is green, resilient, and sways to the rhythms of wind.
In autumn, it is pale gold and fills the sky.

Being in love with you is centripetal.

Moreover, it choreographs
And christens.
It cradles and cherishes, yet
Confiscates as much as it confers.
It clobbers and clocks, then cloisters - but only to clarify
And cleanse.
It seems to cathart then catnap, but later celebrates
And celestializes.
It cultivates and cumulates until it is continual combustion.
Or, saying the same, is a kind of ever spontaneous consecration.
It cures and cushions,
Compels and completes.
If threatened with congealing, it may creep
Aside, churn and circulate,
Conspiring to colour the cosmos.

Being in love with you is centrifugal.

It is hard to believe
Being in love with you
Was once
That tiny space
In my heart
That has since exploded
Into a vast cathedral
Of sky
Under which I stand alone,
Looking up.

It is raining cats and dogs.
I am drenched.
Being in love with you has soaked me
To the bone
And I will never again
Be dry.

Micheal Londry

 

 

isn't this so wonderful?

“Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty, this hatred, how did it find us? Did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it? What happened to us that we now send our children into the world like we send young men to war, hoping for their safe return, but knowing that some would be lost along the way. When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows. Swallowed whole by the darkness. Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name?”
From somewhere.

This girl called N and I have this intrinsic need to do stupid things. Whether it’s bargaining for a twenty buck brownie at Rex or smelling pickles at nilgiris and getting absorbed enough to miss a lot of the movie!!(Ya, being Cyrus, we missed a precious 15 minutes).

And only we find ourselves so amusing and laugh like retards and feel stoned.
One of the things on the agenda was to hitch a ride back home. So we ignored all the electronic metred autos for twenty minutes clumsily trying to get some car to stop.
Finally one did:
So this man from Haryana stops and we are glad about the air conditioned comfort.
Haryana man: (HM): Haaan so you are fair skinned you must be north Indian.
(N is forced by me to sit in front)
N: hmm hehe haaa actuallllyy…nooo I am south Indian .
H: you are tamilian?
N: No Mangalorean
H: Oh Bangalore and Mangalore not the same thing? I ‘ve been to Mangalore.
N: hmm heee no..Actually (turns around and gives me a sly yet sharp dirty look for getting her into this).
H: Mangalore stinks actually. Whole town. Maney goa mein tho no stink..Aishwarya Rain from there no??
(Wow stinky , largely dark skinned but atleast there’s Aishwarya Rai )
N: ya , but Mangalore has a lot of unexplored beaches . It’s less commercial than Goa.( patriotic, suddenly)
H: I love Goa. In Mangalore , I think near Kudremukh so all iron ores going into water and water is black.
N: hmm
H: Don’t worry haan I am not ‘that type of a guy’. Don’t be scared. In Singapore it is considered normal to give rides to people , here naa mane don’t know what the probleym is .
N: Ya , very true ; you just don’t get autos on Brigade road.( yeah , right)


But then we rightly realised that we can’t bitch about sweet people who offered us rides. Or we’ll have to wait till we can drive cars of our own.

I am so pissed off.
Because I paid 120 fuckin bucks for a sixty buck auto ride and I just didn't want to argue coz I was just glad to be back home safe.

Went to watch rehearsals of the theatre group whose last production I was part of. It was lovely and I felt like jumping up on stage and ACTING again.

It happens at Tunbridge high school which is made up of those beautiful old Bangalore type buildings. When you walk into the common room there are old women in dresses , all smiling and friendly . There is the smell of wet dogs. (sorry but really that's a smell and it's not as unpleasant as it sounds) .And a jacaranda tree that generously showers blossoms on the playground. Bangalore is full of these gorgeous purple flowers in summer and other flowers too.
It makes you want to forget the lousy traffic, lousier tempered auto drivers and the kacha kacha kacha clutteredness.
And you just smelllll and smile and feel all alive.
Like Spring in those English novels. Anyway Right now I wish a)I had a (fourth hand would do) maruti 800 or small car that I could DRIVE properly and b) I get a chance to ACT...

blueberry blues at 17!!!

You are 17 years old!!!

You Are 17 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Oh dear!!!17?

I just bought a whole lot of yummmmmy toileteries- face wash ,shampoo etc etc. And ofcourse I had to come back home and immediately have a bath to test all of these. Hehe.

The woman at health and glow laughed at me the other day because i was relegiously opening all the bottles and smelling the contents..blueberry, cocoa butter whatnot.

And ofcourse i had some ten bucks in my pocket to get back home.

I've lived a full week without a phone after I lost the second phone in three months. I lost the first in Goa. God GOd GOD! I am trying to sound all undepressed but I am fed up of me and this world. I even messaged the thief saying I am a poor girl and to please have pity on me and that I will offer a reward of two hundred rupees . What world am i living in ? ? Tinkle Comics?

Boo Hoo..Tee Hee!!:)

Blank Noise Project

I was at first cynical about the blank noise project. I was wondering whether those 'road side Romeos ' anonymous hands’ will actually read these blogs and think ' Ah, maybe woman do have souls that might feel violated and I should get back to being a good man.' When I read the other posts , they echoed my feelings so much that it was disturbing.

It has achieved a lot. It's made me realise that this problem is as real to other women as it is to me.
That those invisible untraceable hands that grope your body in concerts, in buses don't only target me. There is nothing wrong with me as an individual except that like other woman I am a pair of breasts and ass in the eyes of these men.
Which is why when I use public transport, I wish I could somehow shroud my feminineness.
It's like when your growing up as a girl, the air around you turns oppressive so you hunch so your breasts don't show too much, you stiffen when you are walking alone on a road and you see some man pass by. Can I help it though? Just like I have a left toe and a right ovary, as a human female, I have breasts.
Chances are that the man is innocent and while seemingly he is staring at you, he is actually worrying about getting fired at work. Huge chances at that because there are a lot of wonderful wonderful men in the world.
But isn't that how prejudicing works. You don't want to risk trusting some strange man on the road by walking normally and singing aloud that song stuck in your head. Lest it makes you seem ‘available’ or some ugly connotation like that,
I am saving up all my writing money to backpack in the North. But as a woman alone I'll have to take 70 times more precaution; that is if I am allowed to go at all. Why why why why?
What is the use of all this liberation and independence if I can't walk alone on any road at any time I want.

I remember once (how can I forget ...duh! to me) On Brigade road, on New Year's eve two of my girl friends and I were thrown on the road and felt up by many men. Whoever came joined in! And the male friends who tried to help us were pushed away.

Another male friend , A , asked me after sometime whether I thought I was doing Satyagraha walking on Brigade road on New Years night.
Sadly , a similar echo floated around in my mind. Because , really, How can I expect a thousand men on a road not to treat the few women on a road in a stampede , as fruit baskets, soul- less objects to grab randomly?

How How How do you change things?

A ragged urchin , aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy;a bird
Flew up to safety from his well aimed stone :
That girls are raped ,that two boys knife a third,
were axioms to him , who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept
Or one could weep because another wept.

From 'The Shield of Achilles' by W.H Auden

Mood: disillusioned ...duh!

19 years of technorized me.

Trunk call ,STD, Cable (star) TV, Personal computer, Answering machine , Windows, Internet,Instant Messaging,Voice Chat ,Mobile phone , Caller ID , Camera Phones, Broadband, bluetooth,infrared,wifi,google,3g phones..'(and so u can correspond like damn fast and do alll kiiiiinda cool things like watching movies(and i dont mean mms type) but proper videostreaming .. in real time ..' says my friend in London who must be feeling sorry for my backwardness .and also says 'im not too knowledgable with this kinda stuff.' .but the thing is . ..can't keep up.

My Blog

is hardly ever read but still exists because I love writing and I love writing on the computer;

actually, this nice person has linked my blog on his so someone does read my blog


which is full of typos that I am sorry about .