I am the laziest person I know. And thanks to life’s little joys, I got a chance to practise lethargy by getting a doctor-endorsed excuse for it. I gave me a broken bone, a baby blue cast and a brilliant way to spend 5 weeks in blissful indolence.
It happened one rainy night when I tried to walk too fast. I lost footing, my ankle twisted, the ligaments tore away a part of the bone and I got a fracture. It doesn’t say much about someone who’s been sacrificing a non-existent social life to 270 evenings in a gym, running away from horrific mirror images, photographic proof and crystal ball visions of corpulence popping out of my ears. Coming to think of it, the 270ish days of strength training could in fact redeem itself by explaining the fact that I endured 7 hours of bus travel, to realise the next morning that I walked home with a fracture after my long weekend holiday at mom-town. The next thing I knew, I was clicking pictures of myself coming out of the hospital on a wheelchair. ‘Cos I was bringing home the biggest reason that I needed to stay home.
And so, without wasting a moment’s time of wastefulness, I shed my gym skin to bare my true sloth bear self. I had make-shift arrangements made to watch endless episodes of downloaded serials, channel surf on the new cable TV set-top box, web surf, charge laptops and phone, eat and drink and L-A-Z-E with a capital hurrah, all without moving an inch!
And whaddya know, I am finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of. My friends come home every day to entertain me. Every visitor wants to do his good deed for the day by helping the poor and needy. (Me being the one coming closest to the aforementioned adjectives.) I get excused from all the tedious relatives’ house-hopping to exchange leaves, nuts and cut-pieces of cheap cloth during festival time because I cannot walk. (I haven’t told them that I can hop). I get to holler for what I want, when I want it. Even if it means making people walk up and down and back and forth to bring stuff, when one trip could’ve fetched everything. (My excuse – I see other people doing what I cannot do and I am gratified by living my life through theirs.) Is that too much for a sick patient to ask? Sympathy votes in favour of a resounding NO.
Before I cast my own evil eyes on my hard-earned nirvana, I should warn myself that it’s all going to come crashing down just like I heard my bone go crack, pop and weasel. That the day I start walking again, all my friends will walk out on me. My well-wishers will shift loyalties to endorsing more pressing social issues. Like preventing domestic wars breaking out over why a certain daughter-in-law didn’t go house-visiting. I will run out of reasons to ask people to do things for me. And I will have to start running doubly fast on the treadmill to undo what 37 days would do to 9 months of sweat and BO.
So when it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (that I would have to make for myself), I am going to need a better excuse to wear those gym shoes that I am not going to get my lazy ass into. In the meanwhile, I am resorting to cheap tricks like getting a nail-round in my thumb (loose translation for "naga-chuthu" a.k.a. bad-ass pus-forming boil) and getting my tooth pulled out to give my vegetative brain more time to think of sympathy-votes-winning, work-avoiding, timepass-encouraging excuses.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.
I am from the dark side of the moon.
Everything about me is irregular. From an asymmetric anatomy to fleeting moments of consciousness, I have the body and mind of a regular schizophrenic. There is no order in my life either. No habits. No clockwork oranges. No daily dosages. No morning potties. No monthly salaries. No 9-5 work days. No summer holidays. No weekend parties. No Monday morning blues. No Saturday night fevers. No Sunday brunches. No vegetarian days. No bad hair days (it’s just generally bad). No girls' night outs. No lady-like behaviour patterns. No motherly instincts. Other than my period, practically everything else in my life comes and goes as and when it pleases.
For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.
Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?
Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.
Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.
For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.
Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?
Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.
Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Rhetoric has answers if you write them yourself.
I contemplated destiny a few months ago. I tore my hair apart with existential angst. I threw some questions out in the open. I thought their characteristic rhetoric will prevent me from finding answers. I thought I’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Who knew someone had switched it off to save the world from global warming?
Monday, July 9, 2007
It's a black hole at the end of the rainbow.
I am rapidly scanning a friend's friend's website with photographs of famous Bangaloreans. And suddenly life is as clear as black and white. I am never going to grow up to be one of them. My name is not going to go up on that wall. And my mug shot is not going to sit on that table.
Surprisingly, I am not too disturbed by that thought. Is it supposed to be abnormal? Not for me, it's not. I know fame doesn't come from a burning desire to become famous. Or from focussing all of life's energies into doing something just to top all of shallow society’s over-the-top popularity charts. All I am interested in is doing what I do best and doing it better than anyone else.
Now that's something I could grow up to be good at. Sure enough, it’s a long way from here. Knowing that I don't know enough makes it even longer. But it's a start nevertheless. I don’t really know if that will make me famous. And when I see the number of big blokes next to me who fart through their eyes, eat with 10 fingers and stick ‘em all up their nostrils, talk pretty to dumb blondes and dirty behind everyone’s backs and get backpatted all the way to the top, I don’t even know if I want to be famous.
I’d rather sit on a random table in an obscure corner and watch the world stage the biggest and longest running show that can send Broadway and Nukkad to the back alley. With scripts more complicated than a coffee-table conversation with all the saas-bahus in the world, plots more twisted than intertwined Mobius strips, people outperforming themselves to outcast others and decibel levels beating on eardrums, what with the whole world rehearsing acceptance speeches, surely such exhibitionism needs an audience. And it's one role that would fit me like a red satin glove.
So while I am at it, I might even end up in Raghav Sreyas’s Table by the Window. The next time you race a speeding yellow auto to meet the old and the new and old and young Bangaloreans at Koshy’s, you can see my ghost-like image hiding behind the shadows, in the out-of-focus background on the right-hand corner that forms a blind spot in most photographs. Just so you don’t miss me, I’ll be wearing Prada.
Surprisingly, I am not too disturbed by that thought. Is it supposed to be abnormal? Not for me, it's not. I know fame doesn't come from a burning desire to become famous. Or from focussing all of life's energies into doing something just to top all of shallow society’s over-the-top popularity charts. All I am interested in is doing what I do best and doing it better than anyone else.
Now that's something I could grow up to be good at. Sure enough, it’s a long way from here. Knowing that I don't know enough makes it even longer. But it's a start nevertheless. I don’t really know if that will make me famous. And when I see the number of big blokes next to me who fart through their eyes, eat with 10 fingers and stick ‘em all up their nostrils, talk pretty to dumb blondes and dirty behind everyone’s backs and get backpatted all the way to the top, I don’t even know if I want to be famous.
I’d rather sit on a random table in an obscure corner and watch the world stage the biggest and longest running show that can send Broadway and Nukkad to the back alley. With scripts more complicated than a coffee-table conversation with all the saas-bahus in the world, plots more twisted than intertwined Mobius strips, people outperforming themselves to outcast others and decibel levels beating on eardrums, what with the whole world rehearsing acceptance speeches, surely such exhibitionism needs an audience. And it's one role that would fit me like a red satin glove.
So while I am at it, I might even end up in Raghav Sreyas’s Table by the Window. The next time you race a speeding yellow auto to meet the old and the new and old and young Bangaloreans at Koshy’s, you can see my ghost-like image hiding behind the shadows, in the out-of-focus background on the right-hand corner that forms a blind spot in most photographs. Just so you don’t miss me, I’ll be wearing Prada.
Friday, June 29, 2007
The end is the beginning of the end.
I don't like watching movie trailers. Or reading book reviews.
Because I start seeing things in my head. I see an off-white mongrel with a black eye-patch and a muddied tan, sunbathing atop an antique wooden recliner in the red-cemented front yard on a hot, dusty afternoon; the languid and chronic creaking of the punkha 20 feet above ground level, blowing warm wafts of air in 5.65-minute intervals; the hard-boiled heat piercing through sloping asbestos sheets that paint the white, dog-paw stained walls with a golden glow; the monotonous hiss of the broom sweeping away the sand, the leaves and all the ill will out of gigantic gates that temporarily enclose the free, innocent minds of the little imps who just arrived on ship from England and who dot the summer skyline of every home in Mount Lavinia. All this, the moment I read "Ceylon, 1942" at the backside of a book.
I begin to hear voices that tell me that Jason Raj Malhotra Bourne does not die in the movie. So when I see him exposing his macho, hairy chest with the tattoo of his mother’s name on it, and supposedly dying after the attack of a dozen baddies and their clones wielding AK-47s and shaking with evil laughter to aid the trajectory of the aimless bullets, I know that in the end, he will come out of a hole at the other end of the world, change his identity with a thick, bushy, curled-up moustache so that even his Siamese twin won’t recognise him and will round up the said baddies and their clones who were happily celebrating his death by chewing on groundnuts and with deft dishoom-dishooms, will drag them to their graves after mouthing vengeance-for-past-atrocities-induced blood-curdling soliloquies.
And so, I shut my eyes tight and stick my fingers in my ear and mumble prayer-like mutterings to drown out the majestic baritone that has made many a voice over artist rich by simply uttering inconsequential inanities like "Before the end of the world, there will rise a hero who will save mankind from doom" (and womankind from Paris Hilton's unreal reality shows), the whip-whoosh of graphic supers appearing faster than the speed of light and disappearing behind your ears, and the fast-paced theme song of the flick that gets faster and faster as it progresses from title sequence to background music for racy car chases that are scripted with the sole intention of being ranked the fastest car chase in Anyletter+ollywood history. Similarly, I shut my eyes and flip a book that’s lying face down.
More than anything, I hate the fact that a 3-hour or a 300-page work of art can be stripped naked and made to stand in front of a highly opinionated audience who will waste no time in making judgements from what they can see or read in 3 seconds. It's an insult to the art form and the artists. To the author and his imagination.
If life can be surmised with a mere Veni, Vidi, Vici, why would we spend hours in a queue before the opening of a big show? Or wait a year in advance for a popular book to release. And if we really do all that, why take the life out of it by knowing well in advance who dies on Page 436?
Because I start seeing things in my head. I see an off-white mongrel with a black eye-patch and a muddied tan, sunbathing atop an antique wooden recliner in the red-cemented front yard on a hot, dusty afternoon; the languid and chronic creaking of the punkha 20 feet above ground level, blowing warm wafts of air in 5.65-minute intervals; the hard-boiled heat piercing through sloping asbestos sheets that paint the white, dog-paw stained walls with a golden glow; the monotonous hiss of the broom sweeping away the sand, the leaves and all the ill will out of gigantic gates that temporarily enclose the free, innocent minds of the little imps who just arrived on ship from England and who dot the summer skyline of every home in Mount Lavinia. All this, the moment I read "Ceylon, 1942" at the backside of a book.
I begin to hear voices that tell me that Jason Raj Malhotra Bourne does not die in the movie. So when I see him exposing his macho, hairy chest with the tattoo of his mother’s name on it, and supposedly dying after the attack of a dozen baddies and their clones wielding AK-47s and shaking with evil laughter to aid the trajectory of the aimless bullets, I know that in the end, he will come out of a hole at the other end of the world, change his identity with a thick, bushy, curled-up moustache so that even his Siamese twin won’t recognise him and will round up the said baddies and their clones who were happily celebrating his death by chewing on groundnuts and with deft dishoom-dishooms, will drag them to their graves after mouthing vengeance-for-past-atrocities-induced blood-curdling soliloquies.
And so, I shut my eyes tight and stick my fingers in my ear and mumble prayer-like mutterings to drown out the majestic baritone that has made many a voice over artist rich by simply uttering inconsequential inanities like "Before the end of the world, there will rise a hero who will save mankind from doom" (and womankind from Paris Hilton's unreal reality shows), the whip-whoosh of graphic supers appearing faster than the speed of light and disappearing behind your ears, and the fast-paced theme song of the flick that gets faster and faster as it progresses from title sequence to background music for racy car chases that are scripted with the sole intention of being ranked the fastest car chase in Anyletter+ollywood history. Similarly, I shut my eyes and flip a book that’s lying face down.
More than anything, I hate the fact that a 3-hour or a 300-page work of art can be stripped naked and made to stand in front of a highly opinionated audience who will waste no time in making judgements from what they can see or read in 3 seconds. It's an insult to the art form and the artists. To the author and his imagination.
If life can be surmised with a mere Veni, Vidi, Vici, why would we spend hours in a queue before the opening of a big show? Or wait a year in advance for a popular book to release. And if we really do all that, why take the life out of it by knowing well in advance who dies on Page 436?
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Contemplating destiny
I’m stuck in limbo. All I can see are questions. I know the answers to some but they don’t exactly solve anything for me. And when I find answers to the others, I know I’ll be hit by more questions. It’s a worrisome state this. When you begin to question your own existence.
After years of selling my soul to a profession that hasn’t given me anything in return, I’m beginning to wonder if I should pull all stops and begin life anew. ‘Yes’ would be an answer I could start with. But it’s not that simple, is it? A ‘Yes’ leads to a blatant “Then what?”, an existential “Where do I go from here and what do I do with my experience, my supposed expertise?”, a discarnate “What then of finding a deeper purpose, a meaning to life?” and a more pragmatic “What do I do for money?”. In the end, it takes me back to square one. A potential nowhere. A place I’d rather leave a.s.a.p. But for those darned answers.
After years of selling my soul to a profession that hasn’t given me anything in return, I’m beginning to wonder if I should pull all stops and begin life anew. ‘Yes’ would be an answer I could start with. But it’s not that simple, is it? A ‘Yes’ leads to a blatant “Then what?”, an existential “Where do I go from here and what do I do with my experience, my supposed expertise?”, a discarnate “What then of finding a deeper purpose, a meaning to life?” and a more pragmatic “What do I do for money?”. In the end, it takes me back to square one. A potential nowhere. A place I’d rather leave a.s.a.p. But for those darned answers.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tongue-tied and Text-twisted
I have a blog site. I should be blogging at least once a day, if not every 22nd minute like most bloggers do. But I’d rather play Text Twist than think of something to blog about. As I write this, I can see precious seconds eroding in front of my eyes. Seconds that I can spend scoring another round at the endless game that I am hopelessly addicted to.
I’m so addicted, I open the page almost as soon as I walk into office every morning. It’s what I am seen doing when anyone walks over to my table at any time of the day. I’m so addicted, I’ve even gone beyond trying to minimise the window when someone walks past. Even if it's the CD. Or the MD. I’m so addicted, I can't keep my hands off it even as I am trying to type this piece. I’m so addicted I hear letters when people speak. I’m so addicted, I can spell add, aid, ace, aced, ate, eat, tea, ted, tie, tied, die, did, dad, died, diet, edit, date, dated, dead, dice, diced, ice, iced, cad, cat, cite, cited, ade and addict from ADDICTED. All in less than 10 secs.
So, why do I do it? 'Cos I don't have anything better to do. Rather I don't think there's anything better than mindlessly spelling out words from the same sets of letters. I have done it so many times that I know the exact combinations I need to type, to fill in all the empty squares. And I can do it with my eyes closed. Yes, I’ve tried that as well.
I genuinely think it’s a psycho-something problem. And like all psycho-anything-osis date back to intense childhood trauma, I am self-diagnosing that deep down somewhere, I still haven’t gotten over my parents whispering in letters when they didn’t want me figuring out what they were saying. And so I resort to Text Twist as a way of getting back at them.
So now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of getting back to do. About the blog, it’s just too bad I can spell only bog and log from it.
I’m so addicted, I open the page almost as soon as I walk into office every morning. It’s what I am seen doing when anyone walks over to my table at any time of the day. I’m so addicted, I’ve even gone beyond trying to minimise the window when someone walks past. Even if it's the CD. Or the MD. I’m so addicted, I can't keep my hands off it even as I am trying to type this piece. I’m so addicted I hear letters when people speak. I’m so addicted, I can spell add, aid, ace, aced, ate, eat, tea, ted, tie, tied, die, did, dad, died, diet, edit, date, dated, dead, dice, diced, ice, iced, cad, cat, cite, cited, ade and addict from ADDICTED. All in less than 10 secs.
So, why do I do it? 'Cos I don't have anything better to do. Rather I don't think there's anything better than mindlessly spelling out words from the same sets of letters. I have done it so many times that I know the exact combinations I need to type, to fill in all the empty squares. And I can do it with my eyes closed. Yes, I’ve tried that as well.
I genuinely think it’s a psycho-something problem. And like all psycho-anything-osis date back to intense childhood trauma, I am self-diagnosing that deep down somewhere, I still haven’t gotten over my parents whispering in letters when they didn’t want me figuring out what they were saying. And so I resort to Text Twist as a way of getting back at them.
So now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of getting back to do. About the blog, it’s just too bad I can spell only bog and log from it.
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