Calamity Jane

So my injured lower back and a nasty bout of flu have been followed by an ear infection. Apparently, the powers that be don't want me to endanger other species by cycling, swimming or just stepping out of the house. My father has a very satisfied grin on his face whenever he's around me now, I've taken my moniker of Calamity Jane (given by him, of course) to new heights. (The ear infection is particularly useful in some situations: I can't hear much now, and this silence would have been pure bliss if not for the pain.)

This carnival of maladies sounds impressive to no one except me. 3 nasty pains < 1 big, serious illness which can justify a leave from office. So I've been spending quality time with the pantry in our office, my eyes endlessly inundated by NDTV News on the TV. And it was here that I discovered that I have a partner in pain: Indian sports!

One after another, the various federations that make up Indian sports have been falling to the great affliction called Corruption. It's just as well. It seems a blitzkreig of derecognitions/suspensions will do what years of limping along couldn't do for our sports: get it some attention. People say this derecognition-virus going around will purge all the federations, and fix Indian sports.

Umm.. will my various afflictions purge me too?

Fix me?

What if I don't want to be fixed?  

Song In Head #5

What happens when a congenital hatred of pencil-drawn moustaches, over-the-board theatrics, heroes with too much lipstick, heroines who sound like when you fast-forward a song while playing it and over-sized striped underpants overshadows you very existence? You depend on the absent-minded changing of TV channels by your father to discover gems like this:

I only understand enough Tamil to know that the chorus means something to the effect of "Vishwanathan, unemployed." How awesome is that? What a pity that I didn't know of this very novel idea of dancing for work before going for my job interviews.

The dance reminds me of another awesome number, albeit in Hindi:

Needless to say, Indian awesomeness like this had to be discovered by me in the same way people of my generation suddenly find things like yoga "in": through the Americans!

A friend had sent me a link to this ad some time ago. Frantic searches on Google yielded the name of this spunky number, which promptly got added to my all-time-favs playlist.

God bless America! ;)

In my tambourine...

I got a job. < yaaaay! >
I report to office at 6.damn.30 am.
I wake up at 5.damn.15 am.
It's so early, my browser won't wake up.
But I'm sure all these kaleidoscopic psychedelic things I'm seeing is because I'm really excited / the morning air has magic dust in it, and not because I'm fainting...

"Drop your silver in my tambourine..." 

Doodly woodly woosh.

No, I'm not relinquishing you blog, no sir. I just followed too many people and got scared of opening my account for fear of getting drowned in the information overload. So makeup-and-beauty-blogs & diy-blogs & health-blogs & all other blogs which I thought I should follow but don't care 25-paise about: out you go! Problem: fixed. Almost.

See, I haven't thought about you in a while. So I don't have anything to post here. Except things I doodled in my notebook to keep from sleeping during this seminar I had. I'm sorry, this is just to kick me out of my laziness and think of something awesome-ish to post here. For you, mon blog.

Nin ja bunkum
Finn for a bum.
Dean of nowhere
Income feels your head.
Scene of your life
Sin in your lies.
Fill your right.
Beat your wife.
Swing from the game,
Kneel from your name.
Thames on your mind,
Feel for your kind.
Drink as you dine.
Sixes to your nines.
See if you're fine.
Slight to your soul.
Bread on your mould.
Bugs in your fold.
What makes you bold?
What makes you cold?
Why are you old?
Kill in your poles.
Small, sweet, light.
Fancy in your flight.
Pink damp night,
Buns in your tights.
Fit for your fight.
Punch in your bite.
Writing in spite.

*You, who actually come here of your own volition, please give me a virtual slap and ask me to drop my mood right this minute.*

Bad, bad post

"You were the reason I kept my eyes averted from the unofficial canteen of the college. I used to ask my friends to check whether the field was clear and resorted to all kinds of shenanigans to avoid you. Inherent dislike, I told them. But I think it was fear...-ish.

Or maybe contempt, at that time. I considered anyone who puffed on the magic dragon to be a coward. A rich loser. The fact that you were popular made it all the easier to hate you. But hate & contempt doesn't usually make one avoid the subject of hate.

No, I think I was afraid. In my mind, I was completely convinced that no amount of crap that life may hurl at you can justify any.. "sedative". But that didn't stop me from getting tempted. Sorely tempted. I don't want to compare what I was going through to your miseries. Pain probably cannot be measured and classified neatly. But the thing is, I was trying not to (pardon the cheesiness) slide down a bottomless pit, and there you were, giving step-by-step instructions on how to do it.

I remember using all my resources to come up with a thousand reasons to not do it, on particularly bad nights. I admit, hoping for all kinds of bad things to happen to you was one of my mood-lifters. You were gonna lose your hair, get all skinny, your adorable boyfriend was gonna dump you, and you were gonna OD in the rich people's rehab place.

And now, from your FB statuses, I discover that you've found God. The only argument against the "bottomless pit" which sticks for me now, is that it would be stupid to go through things without total consciousness. "Let it be raw, man!" I'm gonna yell when no one's looking.

And out of habit, I'm hoping the God you found is not the awesomeness I pray to, just some China-made fake."

Song In Head #4

Ok, I admit this post originates from a Google search prompted by an idiotic-but-well-meaning-friend (don't we all have them?) who suggested I should chase away boredom by putting honey in my hair. Or washing with it. Something of that sort.
I don't remember my exact search terms, but I found, nestled among all the links for easy homemade  recipes, a song. By the name of Honey in the Hair. Of course I checked it out.

I know you liked it. Yes, I do. Something that hopelessly charming (and provocative, if you get the lyrics) deserves an encore, so to speak. Here's another by the unabashedly loud folks of Blackbird Raum:

Don't try to classify the music. Not just because it may be difficult, but also because they get offended. Just dance around or something. It supposedly makes one of Youtube users want to pour beer over everything. You could do that too.

Song In Head #3

Ok, quite some time has passed since this song first appeared on TV and lodged itself in my brain and was flushed out therefrom, replaced by other catchy ditties.




But the song is quite significant in terms of lyrics, and I’ve caught myself thinking about it quite often. It’s significant simply for mentioning the word Bharat AND not using any corny epithets (usual suspects: pyara desh/watan, jaan se bhi zyada, mitti ki kasam etc) with it. Old patriotic songs, to me, sound like such misfits when they are blared out on occasions like Independence Day, when hardly any people show up for flag-hoistings, and when they do, they decide to leave ample proof of attendance by carelessly tossing around little paper flags & used paper cups. Patriotism is a very lofty ideal when people can’t be bothered with basic civic sense.

And that’s why I love this song, and hope to hear it playing through loudspeakers this fifteenth of August:

Sone ki chidiya,

Dengue, malaria,

Gud bhi hai gobar bhi

Bharat mata ki jai!


Just the right amount of irony to make you think, with a touch of carefree humour so that folks don’t get riled up.

And notice how there’s a pause after “Bharat mata ki”? Is it just me, or does it remind you of a certain Hindi cuss phrase? I don’t intend blasphemy, patriotism to me means much more than just repeating a chant.

Happy World Music Day, and,
Bharat mata ki jai!

Murder most foul

I witnessed a murder today
from my bedroom window,
there was nothing I could do
but watch
as the henchmen
cruelly cut short a life
in cold blood.
I didn’t know what to do,
nobody asked for my statement.
No candles were lighted for the departed soul,
no TV channel or newspaper
reported the passing.

How is it, that though
the right to life of unborn babies
is protected by “pro-life” activists,
Though we are asked to think twice
before making an animal our food,
Though pleas are made for
the most devilish criminals on death roll,
Nobody gives a damn
when a tree is felled?

I watched
as motorists stopped a moment,
and carefully avoided the wizened-
but falling-
branches, cursing the roadblock it caused.
As the birds
circled the sky above the ground
where the tree once stood.
As the workers,
wiping sweat from their faces,
swiftly cut the trunk & branches
into neat long pieces
to be sold somewhere.
As the children
coming back from school
excitedly plucked flowers from the chopped branches,
finally within their reach.
As the axes
went chop, chop, chop
about their work
till it was made sure
that the tree would never grow back again.


























Yes, I am a tree-hugging hippie.

And if you look at this from a really oblique angle, I’m also thumbing my nose at all those “vegan” people who go, “How can you shed innocent blood for your food?”
“What, that lettuce you’re munching into was arrested for manslaughter??”

Song In Head #2

This one's a no-brainer. Thanks to the riff, the song followed me around for weeks the first time I heard it, not letting go even in my sleep: Cobain's nasally voice kept playing like a soundtrack to all my dreams.

Nirvana's version, of course, is a cover of this song:

But I like the cover better. With a core as earnest as that, who asked Bowie to jazz the song up so much?

Chasing inspiration

I really believe in this:

But the songs I write come of their own volition. And I am really jealous of people who can write/sing/paint about anything you ask them to: the ones who’re inspired inside out.

So Ruhani is running a month-long correctional facility for creatively-impaired people like me, where she puts up something every day to inspire you, to make you reach for your pen/guitar/paintbrush. Today’s inspiration was this:

It being on Harry Potter, it was my moral duty to come up with something. So here’s my song(let):





Lyrics:

Empty spaces
empty words
may mock me, may overwhelm me.

Time may stand still
and the tears
may flow on, even forget me.

And the moments
may be lost
but I know,
oh I know that
you won't leave me for as long as I love you
and I have to just look and you'll be there where I left you.

Thanks Ruhani for reminding me why I started singing in the first place: because I love it!

Song in Head #1

So I need a place to dump songs which are stuck in my head. *Looks at blog, has an "Aha!" moment*
Henceforth, all such songs will find a short post dedicated here, under Song in Head.

The TV's been flooded with song after song from Ishaqzaade. The promos have pizazz, but what really intrigued me was this song:

Dubstep in a Hindi song! AND it sounds good! Who says Bollywood music is insipid?
Whoever says that should meet Amit Trivedi.

Birthdays and other macabre things

So it was my birthday a few days back. I just baked myself a few cookies, felt the tremors, and called it a day. But the friends who called and messaged wouldn’t hear of it: it’s my HAPPY birthday, how can I just sit at home? Throw a party, get your bum out of the house and everything.. they added plentiful smileys to make their point. All this admonishing, contrary to their perfectly good intentions, only made me feel morose & lonely.

Which made me turn to Nick Cave. Who? He’s an Australian singer-songwriter-musician-everything. Why? He writes about murders and death and everything gory, and does NOT turn it into the headbanging genre.

For me, there is no better pick me up than listening to songs about blood, guts & victims’ cries. All in that gravelly voice. There’s no wonder Cave sings so much about violence, that menacingly low baritone begs for it!

His band’s (the appropriately called Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) most successful single worldwide. The video is ethereal & kitschy in parts, and you can actually hear Kylie’s vocals in it, as compared to the electro-dance stuff she’s usually echoing around.



Artsy obsessive video. Melodious murder ballad.



My favourite. Lots of cussing. I often fast-forward to the part with the cries. 

I confess, I’ve not gotten around to listening to all of his better-known songs. But I’ll do it. And read his latest book too. Which is thankfully called The Death of Bunny Munro.

Vulnerable

"And one more thing, don't bother wasting money on learning music until you have an open heart.."

First thought: Yeah right! No one asked for your freakin' pearls of wisdom, mister!

After two seconds: DON'T text him that, not good to piss off a musician that good. Try a polite comeback..

Thought running (unacknowledged & pointedly ignored) in the background through all of this: How the hell did he know that this is exactly what I needed to hear?

Not that I've always consciously decided to be wary of emotions, looking for a point to everything I do. But I've felt, for quite some time, a kind of bankruptcy in my heart. Embarrassed of anything too emotional. Happiness, I welcome. But anything remotely dark, I hide behind humour.

Of course, this grand realisation came after he forced me to introspect. Yup, having feelings means they might get hurt, but happiness feels all the better after that. And songs without passion sound quite.. hollow.

So here's something I tried. It's quite personal, but I've learnt that people connect in the strangest ways to such things. Just an acoustic demo, until a drummer and 2 guitarists pity me.. ;)

Lyrics:

A thousand words,

and a few more steps

on a journey to find me.

People will smile,

make me forget my lines,

that there's someone beside me.

Why is it so tough

to force my pen 

to say what I do really feel?

All that time I was

learning how to be smart

should I make it all leave me?

Do I know

if there is anywhere to go?

And I won't look back on the road which follows me.

And I am ready for the song which frees me.

The Cute Guys of Supernatural

WARNING: Intensely drooly post ahead, make sure to wipe your screen after reading. If you are into cute guys, you should probably wipe your keyboard too.

Have you seen Supernatural? Have you? HAVE YOU?

NO?!

Then please go jump off the nearest available cliff/building after reading this post.

Anyhoo. Supernatural is a TV series about two brothers who hunt ghosts, demons & their ilk. Shut up, that’s not stupid. If you want believable entertainment, go watch BBC World. And don’t come back here again.

One of the taglines of the series is- “Scary just got sexy.” Why? Well, this is what the brothers look like:

Oh yeah.

Of course, the guys have been cute since the first season, which aired on Star World quite some time ago. So why this post now? Because, this cute silliness is what happened on my TV screen yesterday:

Yes girls, he’s just adorable. And guys, this is what you should look like if you want hot girls clamoring over you, a la the Axe commercials. Yup, those cans of compressed aerosols won’t work, run along and get a plastic surgery done now.

Tintin Tarantino

Hehe. I guess the only reason his mother didn’t name him Tintin, is because Tintin Tarantino sounds a lot more awesome than Quentin Tarantino. And that would have added to the already latent awesomeness in her son, to produce over-awesomeness not suitable for human consumption.

Anywho, it’s this muchacho’s birthday today! Different people watch Tarantino flicks for different reasons. I watch them for the quirky soundtracks. My absolute favorite is Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, used to VERY good effect here:

Of course, many watch his films for his so-cool-you-don’t-even-understand-it style.

Happy bardday Quentin! Hope those kids behave and stop censoring your movies for screening them on TV, they can just put them at a late-night slot, duh.

Universal Brotherhood of Road Rage

So I recently got a learner's license for driving a car. And dad's car already has wounds to show for it. I mean, if somebody looked at the car, they'd look at the god-awful dent in the side, then at the L board in front, and nod silently, either in empathy or marvelling at their Sherlockian powers of deduction.

It was not my mistake. Of course, that's what every car-trasher probably says, but even dad agrees with me on this, the dent was caused by that stupid $#^%& 's impatience. Probably to keep his appointment with the President of Seychelles, I guess.

But the knowledge that it wasn't my mistake doesn't ease my guilt. My guts still shrink a little looking at that lone dent, on a car which dad has managed to keep spot-free since forever.

And so today I found this forward in my mail:

FW: Road Rage affects us all

These photos are from Thursday, Feb. 17 by someone from Centurion in Pilanesberg game reserve, South Africa The guy in the white Volkswagen was trying to get past the elephant. Sent by dad. Yes, he can be really sweet, when he's not waxing eloquent about my ability to knock down all knock-down-able things in the vicinity.

Poem To A Man

(Picture from ~llparazitell )

I’m not “asking for it”.

I’m a 21 year old single girl,

A child of no more than 10 years,

A middle-aged mother of two.

I like to party sometimes,

Or attend the evening classes

for my professional course,

Or just play in the sun & sand,

ribbons in my hair blowing in the wind.

It’s me, living my life

one step at a time,

Trying to make sense of the world-

Just like you do too.

But life in this world-

In your world?-

often seems like a game

the rules of which

apply only to me.

These rules are not written anywhere.

I come to know of them

only when I break them.

Don’t go out in the dark.

Look sharp, everyone likes a pretty face.

Don’t look “too pretty”.

Don’t smile too much.

Ignore the stares. And the whistles.

Lose weight, no one likes fat women.

And hide that slim figure when you go out.

Don’t get in crowded buses.

Don’t get in a taxi alone at night.

All of this,

just so that you

will not turn around & say,

“She was asking for it.”

I understand these rules

only when I break them.

Or do they break me?

Because none of them apply to YOU.

I have to change my habits,

My likes, my dislikes, my life-

Just because you can’t be responsible

for what you think?

You cannot “man up”

and control your head?

(And you call me the “weaker sex”.)

Keep this up,

And soon I-

Your wife, your colleague,

Your mother, your niece,

Your sister, your best buddy-

Will have a smile

that no longer reaches my eyes.

Is that what you want?

Is that what will make you happy?

Will you stop this game then?

So the next time you see me

Out on the town

having fun with my friends,

Or walking back home at night

hugging my books,

Or swinging on a swing

in a frock and two pigtails,

Or just living my life,

It’s because I hope

and I trust

that you’re not a weak wuss,

that you’re as strong

as they say you are.

I’m not “asking for it”.

Never have, never will.

*Happy Women's Day!*

Song, fast!

Lyrics for a song of mine which I (surprise surprise!) like and finished in (surprise surprise surprise!) a week or two..

You came

I didn't ask

from the blue

in my past

Just like heaven

but for a day or two

I had lost

what you found

in me, without doubt

and your laughter

while the clown looked on.

I choose to lose my mind to what you could have been

Ain't your fault for what I will not see

I could never keep you far

from my thoughts, my heart

I am in the dark

but thanks to you

it doesn't scare me now.

I can now believe in me

scars are there for all to see

I am on my way

not afraid

to feel what I feel.

Wide eyes

your words

maybe, it's a curse to not understand

the truth till it's past me.

I'm scared

no more

you shook the core

of what I hadn't ever believed in.

I'll choose to lose my mind to what you could have been

Ain't your fault for what I will not see

I could never keep you far

from my thoughts, my heart

I am in the dark

but thanks to you

it doesn't scare me now.

I can now believe in me

scars are there for all to see

I am on my way

not afraid

to feel what I feel.

Didn't know the words to this song till you came along

Everything is right in all ways wrong.

A billion hopes..

Wrote this a long time ago, a friend needed help with lyrics for his song..

I hear them all
Deciding where I’m gonna go
Nobody knows it yet
But I’ve made my own road
I’ve heard this world is not
The best place to dream
But I’ll go right ahead
And make them all see.

A billion hopes and
A billion dreams
Everyday I wanna see
How far I can reach.

When the nights are so dark
You don’t know what to do
I can still see the stars
And know I’ll see it through
I won’t close my eyes
To what I can really be
Just ‘cause it’s a high climb
And the fall is really deep
‘Cause when I dream, I dream
It’s the best time of my life
No one to hold me back
I can just soar and fly.

*Picture from baloch1 on pixdaus