Naya De-Waar

Deewar 2.0?

(A bit late in the day to post it. Didn't get time to create the graphic. Would have been more relevant a month back, I guess)

Rushdie Talk: Authors@Google

Authors@Google has some interesting collection of talks. I enjoy watching on of those once in a while. This video where Rushdie’s talks chiefly about The Enchantress of Florence, is another charming exhibition by the man, who has a way with the words, love him or hate him.

Noteworthy is the long Q&A session at the end.

While talking about ambiguious characters in The Satanic Verses (which I haven’t read yet), he says (quick transcription by me, so not verbatim):

“… you have devilish angles, and angelic demons. I’m sounding like Dan Brown now … which i guess would be good for my bank balance but bad for me in every other way … but anyway, i did it first”

Watch it unless you hate him blindly (it’s an hour long video).

Unpresidented?

The latest Amul gem!

Diwali Musings

Trying to figure out where the festive mood has gone. Tamaso ma jyotirgamay. May the light shine within — each and every soul 'enlightened'. Let the lives brighten from within and without …

Happy Diwali to everyone.

Note: Image from ( covered under Creative Commons — see the link)

The Secondhand Reader

Of course I have left Ayn Rand alone, in that corner of my mind where a confused youth is looking for a seemingly coherent world view. Some find it in religion, some in philosophy (again Rand dismissed religion is a primitive form of philosophy, while others might have dismissed philosophy is a primitive form of religion — being non holistic). But the shoe, over the years, stops fitting, as it should even. No one, in their teenage years, has enough exposure to the world to choose a world-view that will encompass everything that their ever widening experience of the world throws at them. Almost no one, I believe …

Still, even then, in those wide-eyed, ready to be amazed years, we have already wrestled with a few questions, to get it partially right — the search (or left — if you allow me that cheap humor).

One of the recurring theme in Rand's writings is that of the creators vs those who live secondhand lives — those who consume, those who follow, those who live through others …

Well with twitter, I'm a certified secondhand reader. I hardly discover anything these days, it seems. I hardly get to keep pace with a bombardment of articles that keeps coming from some voracious readers, the netizens of the higher rank. I hardly choose what to read next. Not even the subject, it seems …

I wonder if in few months everyone will be reading only what some have been sending their way? The fast, voracious readers, net-scrapers, will send us ten articles before we could read one. And we'd be drawn in the ever increasing list of starred, to-read-later'ed, bookmarked, tabboed, articles. We'd stop our own searching. Google will be dead. And we'd have a breed of second hand readers?

Soon. Pretty soon — if it hasn't happened already …

The Twilight Zone

Tomorrow, I’ll go chasing
the setting sun
and paint a corner of my mind
with the tinge of vermilion
replace the blues with solitude,
the melancholy with equanimity
And mourn, the death of desire

Today, the last day,
I’ll spend nursing
the desire on its deathbed
She was a great companion
till I grew tired
of her adultery
and my possessiveness

Today, the last day,
I will find some time and
I will touch all those wounds
again, and relive the pain
They have waited too long
for my healing touch
a consent to depart

Tomorrow when the sun sets
And the urban afterglow
Takes over the horizons
I’ll walk in search of
the perfect darkness
to start again

Anniversary, Ramblings, etc.

When words run away from you, as if you’re some wild beast, what do you do? Especially when all you ever gift the woman in your life is words? Yeah, so Bee Gees might have romanticized it when they said, “it’s only words, words are all I have, to take your heart away”, but then, like I said, if all you’ve got are words, you start thinking: maybe, just maybe you should actually buy a (as they say, a real) gift. Naaaah!

And so I’ll start, on a journey, to find the words that are eluding me. On this day, running away cannot be taken lightly. On other days, I’d let them be (or set them free as the other member of the only mutual admiration society that I’ve ever joined, recently advised me to do), not today. Today I’ll chase them, hunt them, like a sniffing dog, and inshallah, I’ll find them.

And when I do, I’ll plead, I’ll invent charms that I don’t have, I’ll get down on my knees…

Conceited, yeah that’s what I am. Even today, all I can write about is me, and the draught of words. While she, with all her quite acceptance, will just see beyond the “no presents, no explanations” racket, and will probably wonder why, oh why, did I not take right steps at the right time, when I saw this guy being weird all the time?

*****

“You don’t love me anymore”

I smile that seventh variation of sardonic smile that basically says, “hey, I’m trying to blog here”

“You should have married a computer, or your bike, or both”

It’s time for the eight’s variation (that says, uh, do I need to do something about this?).

“Okay write! Write, read, watch movies, listen to music. And when you’re tired of it all, if ever I’m that lucky that is, talk to me”

Eight’s variation is as far as you can go. After that, you enter the cold war zone. And in wars it doesn’t matter who wins, but you always lose.

“Okay, I’ll shut down the machine”

Tone — it makes all the difference. You must say this with utmost (UTMOST) genuine tone (100% organic!!!). Not patronizing, not angry, not disappointed, not irritated. You know?

“No yaar. You write. I’m sorry”

And she still wonders why I love her so much!

******

Sometimes I feel guilty of being me. It must be tough to live with a self-engrossed person like me, forget being in love with one. But if you ask me what’s the greatest thing your partner can do for you I’ll say it’s letting you be. I hope, S, I’ve let you be. And you have, thank you. So yes, I still miss those book reading sessions that went deep into the nights, or listening to GnR with a volume level worthy of Slash’s guitar, but hey I still give you nothing but words on our wedding anniversary. In the real sense, I’ve hardly changed.

ye khalish hai,
rahegi, yun hi kal bhi
teri aadat ab
pad gayi hai itni,
ki soch ke bhi
dar jaata hoon
kahin ye khwaab
to nahin?

gar hai,
to hai yahin aarazoo,
ki gaherii ho
ye neend itni
ki ek raat hi
zindagii ban jaayen

*****

I guess I should go buy a (as they say: real) gift. God only knows where those traitors are hiding.

Tiny Little Poem (Translated)

Came across this while sifting through Mauj (Mauj is one of the better known Diwali ank — special Diwali magazine editions — in Marathi, published by the eponymous publications), I came across this poem, which I had to translate :

The dry garden of the poet
Had bloomed just once
With colorful flowers
But then
Out of the blue
A beast came
Plucked off the poet’s arm
And went off
Where to?

The context is very specific actually, but I thought the poem is generic enough, so did not want to spell it before the poem itself. The poem was part of couple of poems written in reaction by one reader (Dr. Nandkumar Kamat) of the magazine named Satyakatha, when it had closed down in 1982.