Saturday, September 30, 2006



Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas

one option for the ole epitaph....
yaay! still miles to go...

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

funny things keep happening to me. and i seem to enjoy these odd bits. :-)

like this one...no idea why...two different takes on the art...even if you were stoned out of your cranium, you couldn't see any meeting points. harmless. and very bizarre.

i think thats what life is about. Absorbing, embracing and laughing at all the quirks it throws at us.

the stranger the better.

there's enough time for the normal and the mundane. and a whole lifespan devoted to it.

the idea of an alternate reality, a parallel universe is tempting as long as it does not eat into the real.

maybe thats why anonymity isn't such a bad excuse for most of us. we have enough going on in the real world. roles to play, errands to run, promises to keep, responsibilities to see through. why spill some into this other state of being.

this is where one can be amorphous and purely a self. uncluttered by any noise or reference points.

Monday, September 25, 2006

To be a Hindu. Tharoor hits the nail. He spells out some home truths about the religion and what it means really to be a hindu and not alluding to the saffron brigade here.

And I relate to it, all.

I believe in the One Above but not in places of worship. The last time I went to one was two or more years ago. Not that I won't but I don't have to. I could as easily have been a christian or a zoroastrian or a jain. And that is what being brought up within this faith has provided me with.

I have more of a private chat with the One ever so often. And its true, that whenever I have been down and out and just chatted it out inside, the scene has changed...there is definitely a superior force at work, within and without.

It could be a moment of stillness in the middle of my chaotic day, an idyllic time by the great sea which never ceases to touch me deep inside, touching a fine old tree and feeling the peace within. Or just smiling at someone I dont know, helping someone out in any way....

My mother has her own lil mandir at home...she believes in God, the works, she believes the One Above has seen her through many trials and is the reason she has achieved so much on her own, though I would only give her amazing resilience and courage the full credit - she is an unconventional lady who has pretty conventional views on life, the feminists would easily claim her for one of them...she reads the assorted japp books...despite being a scientist (retired, now) she would i think qualify as the devout one among us. She has colleagues/friends from other faiths too and has visited their places of worship too and thus has no problems embracing their beliefs.

My dad views temples and festivals in a more socio-cultural light....where he can hear great pieces of literature being read, meet some like-minded people, where he can observe rituals and understand the source of these....it takes him back to his childhood....he attends the Gita lectures where the book is discussed and analysed....the Vedanta sessions...enriching the spirit and the mind. A whole other way to staying in touch with the spiritual.

Yes, the Gita - a source of strength, solace and an acceptance of the rhythm of the unknown. I remember a time when I only had this book for company in a foreign land, I was yet to get cable or membership in the local library. :-) I can still return to it. Or not. The words remain inside.

As parents we can hope to provide our daughter with the same open skies where she can soar to without looking back and not let her faith pin her to the ground.

We all need to believe in something....some find that in God, some in love, the fundamentalists in their warped idea of religion, others their work, their children, their drugs, their causes, their lusts, and even the atheists have their non-belief to hang onto. Something greater than us has to drive us on....that something which helps us graduate from being mere shells. Call it passion, life force or faith.

anyway, an interesting read...

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

http://www.bikereader.com/contributors/misc/fish.html :-D

A spin on the old 'a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle' by I. Dunn.

Monday, September 18, 2006

the good and the downright ugly

i saw two movies thru the weekend. one was brilliant and the other was a sheer assault on my senses, leaving me enervated, drained and with a glorious headache, which persisted the morning after.

the first was obviously Omkara...raw, earthy, salt of the earth...amazing performances, ace screenplay....and tragically elevating. all the performers turned up aces...the music, a delight. only bummer was seeing ajay devgan succumbing to the shaved-chest syndrome. why!?!!

the second which i seriously dont want to waste much of my blogspace on but just might, was the dreaded KANK. this and the other moronic family saga, K3G are the only ones by this director that i have dared to sit through.
this one was the best in terms of an utterly braindead infantile screenplay, horrible acting especially from the king of ham and an irritating rani mukherji who has definitely has had some job done on her jawline....both of who keep weeping or passing khadoos lines....
the same DDLJ gag, trying to be oh so cute humour, hot punju auntyji jokes (obviously the johar and chopra stable have lots of raw stock in common)...same kajol doing a guest appearance in the perennial bhangra rock family song....recycling toxic waste at its best.

no idea what abhishek bachchan was doing here...he must have had a lobotomy done to keep ms.mukerji's face job company. the only time i could manage a smile was when abhishek or his dad did their bits...

here's a director who sticks to the same formula, the same 'fave' actors, the same cute gags, the same set design, the same initial alphabet for his titles - it all just screams stale.

there, i am done.

Friday, September 15, 2006

after 'bheegi bheegi' from 'gangster', its 'tere bin' from 'bas ek pal'....good for the grey moments.

whipping a dead and decomposed horse

as usual, I go out on a limb, but am not alone i think. its about time that the holocaust, Hitler and the horrors of that time were consigned to history. it was a horrible time yes, unparalleled in sheer evil, but aren't the people who are bent on muzzling everyone who has a different opinion on the event, keeping the guy's legacy alive. the name hitler is still reviled...and they are making sure that future generations remember what he did and stood for. it might actually backfire and there might be sickos who idolise this guy and will in the times to come.
now they're ready to burn this guy for his opinion...he doesnt have a squeaky clean past but to try him for a viewpoint is something else.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

der aaye durust aaye...par itni der se aaye!

13 years is a long time for delivering justice to the relatives of the 257 killed. the real kingpins flourish, unfazed and confident of never being punished. even if they do get extradited (never!), they can happily hang around for 13 or more years before they are brought to book.

sanju baba goes to court again. dont know if i pity him for his imbecilic actions which continue to haunt him through the years, 18 months behind bars notwithstanding. he obviously isnt very sharp upstairs....

so many other zillions of cases gathering dust in our courtrooms...the guilty grow fat, old and die...the victims if not dead already, go broke, old and die....as do their relatives....tandoor case, graham staines, kolhapur sisters, rajiv gandhi's killers, jessica lal, shivani bhatnagar, priyadarshini mattoo...and these are just the high-profile cases...there are so many more in each and every taluka of our great huge country!

fast-track courts dispensing sentences at lightning speed only for cases involving foreign nationals is an insult...

we deserve more. and soon.

someday

Monday, September 11, 2006

so many blogs. so many voices. some become communities. some islands.

lives. stories. colours. reaching out across the vacuum.

some using masks and smokescreens. some transparently themselves.

the quest continues. helps to have a listener. a sounding board. an empathizer. a fellow angster.

but sometimes just shouting out into the silence is good. venting out the words. not caring if anyone listens or understands.

the world has shrivelled up. races and spaces do not matter.

poor dear humans...SETI is all good and amazing. More immediate shd be the search for intelligence within ourselves and within our fellow travellers. Understanding. Evolving.

+++

Bush has the second lowest IQ of all the american prezs. But he just might be the only one ever who burns the charts for causing mindless destruction, arousing sheer hatred and redrawing lines across the global arena.

Friday, September 08, 2006

watched bits of 'layer cake'...lots of gore, coke, dishoom-dishoom, four-letter beauties and the works...but all i remember is just gawping at how BLUE daniel craig's eyes are...i kinda like his roughshod looks...rugged and rather delicious.....nice bod too...didnt observe much of his acting capabilities to comment on...
brosnan was a good Bond, suave and feline...dont know how this guy will measure up...but... damn! hes nice. :-)

Monday, September 04, 2006

++++
RIP Croc man....fearless to the end. Dame Nature got you, aptly.

a river runs through....































Sunday, September 03, 2006

hahaha :-))) he's good.
whoever thought the humble dal could send Indian expats in a tizzy! but its quite nice to see apna govt acting tough on something....even if it be lentils....quite sexy!

and what do you know we're out of moong dal...the yellow one...the asian stores here would already have hiked up the prices....great timing!

___

Saw 'snatch' yesterday....LOVED IT! mad hilarious fast-paced edgy thriller with some gory boxing kabooms thrown in for good measure...no females...which was just right. (oops, did I just trample over some feminist's grave?)

has jason 'transporter' statham (i kinda like him), brad pitt (as this quirky gipsy boxing champ), and a host of other brit actors....great great stuff! benicio del toro has a littlish part too...he ends up without an arm and a tea-cosy on his head....

Dags!! :-)) must add it to my faves....am yet to see 'lock stock and smoking barrel' by the director of the afore-mentioned....Madge's hubby...tho he hasnt really come up with anything remotely brilliant since...i think.

----

' mutton dressed as lamb' - love it :-)

Saturday, September 02, 2006

I keep surprising myself. every now and then. a mystery within me. lets see what I reap...if I sow.

rainy day.

forgotten what i came to blab about.

oh yes

every woman must have a secret, a past she can fish out of her attic on a rainy day and smile at. faces, a goodbye-not-said, glances, smiles, an unspoken buzz. jilted admirers, crushes....what could have been...a part of her that is still saucy and bouncy.

visit them when life gets too messy, when it seems like there are only dead ends and no forward movement. when she feels as attractive as the kitchen rag.

every woman must have a past.

very important.