Father, please may I be excused??

The......... Ravenous Bugblatter beast of Traal!! There has not been a single day in the last ohsomany months when I haven't thought about the BBoT. For those who don't know who/what it is, here's a little bit on it

"Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a creature that hails from the planet of Traal, and will eat anything. If you are to encounter one, the Guide tells you that it's impossible to slay, so you should wrap a towel around your head. This creature is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if you can't see it, then it can't see you. Despite this, the guide did state, erroneously, that "ravenous Bugblatter beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists" in its article on the planet Traal. This led to deaths of those who took it literally. The guide's editors avoided lawsuit by summoning a poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and therefore prove that their claim, the nicer one, must be true. This led to life itself being held in contempt of court for being neither beautiful or true, and subsequently being removed from all those present at the trial."

Ain't it pretty? I mean firstly, the name itself is gorgeous. Deliciously fullfilling mouthful of a name. The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Say it. Smile. And marvel at the enjoyable satedness. Sigh....
And if that is not enough to keep you going for a good decade, think with a towel wrapped around your head. Cos if you can't see it then it can't see you. Whenever the need for inconspicuousness is felt, just wrap a towel around your head. Poignantly convenient. Delightfully convoluted. And other such high-sounding, seemingly oxymoronic phrases that occur. In fact when you have a towel wrapped on your head, you can think of many more.

And so easy to administer. No need anymore for us to dig holes to jump into. Or pray for alien abduction. Just carry that handy saviour of a towel. And be the klutz that you are. Merrily hop skip jump over emotions, bad vocabulary and political incorrectness in the confidence that you have your faithful towel. The la da da ticket to eternal forgiveness. You don’t need to be cool anymore. Oooooh… sigh, where’s my towel now?

P. S.: Please to be excusing logic leaps, grammatical errors and unnecessary words. No, wait, I don’t mean that. Cos I got me towel. Ha!

One Day You Will be Cool

Yea yea... I know you like almost famous and I know this isn't original... but none of you are anyway, so shove it. :D

Right... so this has been my favourite theme off late. It is the 'it' sentence.. the one I have been measuring my coffee cups with.

Think about it... have you ever met anyone who doesn't want to be thought of as cool? Some might settle for 'not uncool'... but they still secretly want to be cool. Its one of the fundamental desires of the 21st century... right up there along with 6 packs and Beyonce's bottoms.

So what IS cool? Some people say its your attitude. It should come from within. But I think its just their way of not wanting to let the secret out. Its like saying... you wont find god unless you pray for him with a pure heart. If I had a pure heart, I'm sure I wouldn't need his help. And whats with the ego-trip anyway? If you are benevolent and help the needy... get down to business, goddamit!

I think I've thought too much. I'm hyper ventilating. Somebody help me.

To air-castle

Blyton meets Warhol.
Extra strong coffee, white cups,
Gleaming steel spoons,
Sepia. And air-castles.
For silent smiles and delectable introversion,
Lamp-lights and ink pens.

Oscar Wilde in Louis Armstrong,
Borubon touches purple....
...And swirls.

For post millenium kids with 1980s childhoods,
Infant eyelids half open to soft whisper,
And crisp white cotton,
Comfortably crumbling around supple brown
And morphing into muslin.
Black definition, around curious and sparkle,
Dilated to tales of pirates
And little men under mushrooms,
Of golden yellows and pickled reds,
And joyful splash and clutter.

And beside is nut-brown,
Corrupt and dimpling,
Impatiently patient
For tussle will follow this calm
Excusing lack of purpose.

And now,
Nut-browned brown,
Not swirl. But crush,
And tauten.
Again sparkle,
To shadows and lamp-light,
To laugh. Then quietly
Tuck away into soft.
Brown. Dimple.

Of cluttered vacuum and Warhol

Jyenagar Jalajamba is back.. without a bang, but then who cares... grand entries are over rated.

Today she bought bags. Just out of the blue. And its kitsch.. kitschhhhh... kitt-shhhhh... kishhhhh... such a pretty word. A failed attempt at edgy curtness. Like you're sliding out of control. I wonder how the word came about. I'm sure it happened in a new york penthouse... in a late night house party.. with anorexic pretentious women.. russian ones.. with harsh flat pronunciation... in a minimalist setting with synthetic electricity and long cigarillos stuck onto silver pipes.. only they weren't breakfastattiffany's. they were ceramic vaccuum.

Anyway, one must not stray so much from the topic at hand... no... wait... i have more to say.... just remembered that I never took to the word 'bling'. I'm sure it was invented so it can be the new 'with it' word. Convenient tickets to acceptance. But something about the word is so bland. So 'tchain'... like a bunch of useless keys falling onto a plate. But then I digress.

So yea, Jyenagar Jalajamba spent a bomb on poor quality over sized embarassingly loud kitsch. How comforting a feeling. Almost like you're wild enough to be cool. Mind you, where I come from... big fat over priced kitsch bags ARE wild.. especially if the most unpredictability in a tambram's life is the consistency of their daily cups of curd. And even THAT we know how to tame.

Right so the bags are basically big and have huge prints on them. But I love them. My bags are rexine meets Andy Warhol in asymmetric poor stitching. And the fabric is not tweed coarse... its rexine coarse... not natural coarse.

And it can hold my entire world in it. All the comfort goods that a woman needs. Her own portable weaponry - face wash, tissue, comb, deo, chap stick, kajal, another comb with thinner teeth, another wad of tissue, old bills, dirty wallet, pens, pencils, pretentious reading, random keys, lacto calamine, everything. It hangs right under her shoulder and hangs pretty... and loud.

To measure one's days by the coffee cups. Such prettiness. Such vacuum.

Glum Greyed Gloomy Grounded

Have you ever watched those 'X-treme' game shows on sports channels? Where there are those Asian (read yellow, small eyed, almost always super rich and always in white tees for some weird reason) uber cool kids that semi sit on super bikes and go up a flight of stairs or down and skate over railings and stuff like that. All of those shows were so ... distant. Cos none of the people who belonged to our immediate lives did anything like that.

Thank god for lazy Indian childhoods playing 'kalla-polis' and chasing old cycle tyres down the road. Where all we did was stuff face with mangoes, fight about who cheated in 'hide-n-seek' and waited till we fell sick so we could get some attention. Well, thats all I did. When I had friends that is.. which most of the time i didn't.. but seeking sympathy is bad.. so no more.

I simply never got how those kids did so many things and they were almost always 2-3 years younger than I was. I felt like I had gotten a raw deal.. I was bored, in an 'uncool' country, with parents who were always too busy or tired, a completely uninspired landscape and absolutely no energy. To add to it, I was born too early. How mean is that? Tops MY list of mean-ness for sure. I mean, there I was, all of 13 with buck teeth and big glasses and I'm being bombarded with images of cool, slick, over achieving, better looking kids who are all younger than I am.

Is this depressing or is this just me? Of course its depressing.. why else would I write about it.. I expect people to sympathise.. no.. wrong word, i meant to say EMpathise.. Rahul Bose says, bloggers are people who want showcase the lives to the world, right? Seek attention. Well, he didn't put it as well, but that was the gist of his comment. Isn't he like so absolutely amazingly bang on right???

Uh.. so.. yea.. I 'happened' at the wrong place and wrong time. Come to think of it, its probably the only constant in my life.. that at any point in time I know exactly what my life is missing.. why else would I remember inane TV shows from 10 years back... There I did it again... reminded myself.

Do you remember the skateboarders? There is this big deep scary looking trough with high walls on either side and they would go up and down and jump off the edges and make cool looking poses.. do you? Isn't life like that? Atleast mine is. Like the weak law of large numbers. I don't know what in f**ks name it actually is.. but it sounded so cool..and so I made one up for myself. Anyway, my interpretation is that no matter what highs and lows you might notice or 'significant' changes, repeat it enough number of times and everything will hover around the average.. like an unspoken word.. a 'weak' law. In simple words, no matter what you try, how hard you work to delude yourself, you will always regress to the average, the middle point of the trough.. and all you are doing is oscillating around it.

You read the title of this post first, didn't you? Yet you continued reading?? Tch Tch :D

...

A core of conversations we never had/lie in the distance between your wants and mine/
.../and in case you have ever tried to reach me/and I could not hear you/these words are in place/of the dead air/still between us -Audre Lorde

"For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us." Audre Lorde

Idiot thoughts

I can't read. Even if I want to and try to I can't. All my friends are well read intellectual farts and they make me feel small. I heard once that there is a man called Dostoyevsky (thankyou google spell check!) and he wrote a book called The Idiot.

I haven't read it, of course, and so I ask anyone who has read it and happens to like it to excuse themselves from the drivel that follows this sentence. Anyone with a name as serious sounding as Mr. D mentioned in the previous paragraph, must have vast knowledge about idiots and their ways. In fact, I'm quite sure it will be like reading about myself and so I must stop referring to idiots in third person.

But why did a man as important sounding as Mr. D write a book like this? Is it because he was quite sure that us idiots would never read his works anyway? Or that even if we tried we won't understand? I must say he is quite right in that, cos I don't understand most of the stuff people talk about. I use the tips one of my wise friends told me. Here is what she said.

So, as I was saying, I can't read. And because I can't read, I won't know what idiots are like. 'Tis a cruel cruel world. Whatever happened to that famous line - 'everyone is equal'? Or is it called a phrase? Well whatever the term is, I think I'm pretty sure I remember the words in that one right.

Sigh.. I've thought too much today. So much better to just vegetate.

Indigo air waves

Every morning I drive to work. I know how everyone LOVES to bitch about Bangalore traffic - people who can drive, people who can't drive, people who commute everyday, people who never go anywhere except in their garam masala stained nighties to the kirana shop next door... EVERYONE loves to crib about Bangalore traffic. Except me.

Well, not that I LIKE how crowded it is and how my dad's car now has pretty dents characterising it.. but I don't particularly hate it. Since I was 16 i dreamt of driving to work. And I am doing it now.. so I don't give a fig for what others have to say.

Right.. so I drive to work everyday. And the first thing I do is turn my radio on. And in a moment, there is bliss.. The song doesn't matter, the ads don't matter, the RJs don't matter... its Radio!! Queen sang about it. I remember how I waited until we had private radio channels. Cos now we could HEAR the music.. and to top it, there were people who LIKED talking talking to us now. So much fun!!

More than the radio we get to listen to here, its the concept of radio that one must like. Forget being tuned into the city's happenings, or the traffic updates or how every channel seems to want to throw obscene amounts of money at already well paid individuals.. its what radio IS that matters.

Think about it. Radio promises one a steady stream of the most popular music of the day totally free of cost and more importantly, totally free of effort. You don't have to choose your playlist. You don't have to choose your artist. You don't need to figure out where your mood is at to then choose the right artist to then choose the right song. And to add to it.. you don't run the risk of not having enough variety. The moment you turn the radio on, you automatically shift the responsibility to the station. As long as you are broadly in the right 'wavelength' (in our city, each wavelength being characterised by the language of music it plays), you're all set. Let it play away...

Once you let someone else decide what it is you are listening to.. it doesn't jar. Cos you didn't choose it. Even the worst song you could be listening to at that moment is not that bad. And after one song ends, the next begins.. ON ITS OWN. Radio channels have the luxury of the shuffle button.. ACROSS different genres/ artists / pace of songs/ everything. And there you have it. Your very own mass manufactured playlist.. and of course its MUSIC.. how wrong can anyone go???

I don't know about those who call themselves music buffs and have a highly 'defined' (read, narrow) taste in music.. why don't you understand there is a time and place for each song. Its like a person. Except most songs have the ability to put ideas in your head.. with the added help of a melodious tune!! How many people can do that for you?

I simply adore radio. And especially radio in Bangalore. Where the RJs can actually mention artists and not have to mention the song name.. where the RJ can get away with playing covers of songs that do not need to be introduced.. where they literally let music soak into each and every bubble that travels along super crowded roads and makes life a little more pleasant. Radio brings out the shade where there are no trees.. and does so with a smile.

Radio is the brown in your coffee. And your excuse from thought. Thank god for small mercies!!

It was something that always happened to others - Murphy was working overtime to screw them over. Off late, it seems to be happening to me. Usually I don't care about anything enough to actually plot and scheme until it happened. OK, that's a lie.. but still.. Murphy was not supposed to notice me.. I am queen of the inconspicuous!!

Yet, he found me. And is systematically proceeding to ruin my life.

Other than Murphy, nothing has happened to me the last 3 months. I did have a few amazing weekends, actually (like genuine joy type weekends, OK??). Which I obviously won't be talking about here.

Even if you don't want to know why, I will tell you.. cos I am in a terribly chatty mood today.. plus my evening plans didn't work out. So... I was saying... that... I will tell you why I won't be telling you about my amazing weekends, etc:

1. Just...
2. No one deserves to know (teeheehee)
3. This blog was not about anything sunny - hell, if there was something sunny to happen to me why would i share it??
4. I have been told I'm best when I'm whining.. so i intend to stick to my USP

Radio is my friend. I can't live without radio. In fact, I am going to write on radio in another post...

the one day flu

One of the worst things that can happen to you in the middle of the week is the one day flu. Have you ever had one of those? You wake up in the morning and everything feels wrong. Your eyes hurt, your throat hurts, there is someone banging something on your head ever so lightly that you cant pin point one reason but if you turn your head too fast it stings.

And once you discover this, your day just goes downwards from there. The one thing I cannot stand is throat pain. I can handle heat strokes, menstrual pain, fever, cough and cold, but throat pain is the worst thing to happen to anyone. Comes first on my list of things i cannot stand, followed by pop philosophy and synthetic pink.

I spent my entire day nursing the one day flu. And because its the first day, no one thinks its grave enough to shower you with attention, but it also means that you are absolutely tired and useless to yourself even. No sympathy and nothing you can do to cheer yourself up. You are at the mercy of the idiot box.. and really, how many channels can one change through the course of the day?

So.. yea, I spent an entire day feeling horrible and doing nothing. I know calvin says its the best way to spend a day. Whats wrong with me?

The time is 11.12 as I start writing this piece. My mind is drenched in cobalt and sepia - wonder what mood can be ascribed to this combination.

On TV is one of those dark american movies that Hollywood loves to make. Proves to you that the world isnt pretty. You're all snuggled up in bed, cosy enough to forgive the day its faults and disappointments, and here comes along a movie that reminds you that the world is not such a pretty place afterall.

How many of us follow an entire Hollywood movie like it is a thriller or detective or autobiographical or drama novel? Doesn't it reduce to a bunch of images put together under some rationale, for us to witness and take away whatever from? Maybe some of them will remain in our scattered memories.. only to resurface later.. much later. At a disconnected point of time long into the future. Which is why almost every emotion feels like deja vu? Cos you've already been through it in proxy.

How much of what we feel is really ours? Or is that as real as it gets?

mehendi and boxer shorts

4th Week of February -

Galvanise - Chemical Brothers
Hai Hai (Punjabi Hit Squad)
Suicide Blonde
Kanye West Feat T-Pain
Hare Krishna Hare Ram
Zinda Hoon Main
Du Hast - Rammstein
Missy Elliot - Pass that Dutch
Funk Soul Brother - Fatboy Slim
Get Ur Freak On - Missy
Right Here Right Now - Fatboy
Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
Living Darfour - Mattafix
Big City Life - Mattafix
Rapture Dhol
Littlest Things - Lilly Allen
Smile - Lilly Allen
Chasing Pavements - Adele

Bangalore is a beautiful city. Its MY boutique city. Especially on sunday afternoons. Its so lazy.. convinces you to give in.. forget the madness of a meaningless life.. and just soak in all the sun.

Its a pity all the expressions I have used until now are not original.. Words always trivialise. Every feeling is mass manufactured. Its just pumped into you so well that you have no choice but to think feel and verbalise the way others have.

Think about it... all our lives are nothing but merely over used cliches.

So, did you have a nice day? :)

F**k Coelho

Joyous Jala is only Jyenagar Jala today. She is watching mass produced Hollywood soppiness and drinking it all in. Its so much easier to feel sorry for oneself when pretty images are constantly hurled at you from the idiot box.

Democratisation of loneliness. Here everybody, now all of you get your own personal little stash of self-pity. Who needs to socialise to feel bad about themselves anymore. You can do it in your own living room or bedroom. Much fun it will be.

People say when you want something, go ahead and work hard for it. It will come to you. Coelho even makes money out of dishing the same drivel.

But the real misfortune is that, I remember having read it.

Of aunties and allergy towards anything synthetic

Jyenagar Jala has an annoying aunt. She comes home ever so often and likes to tell her mother how to live. Jala don't like it. She loves her mummy. Her mummy is round and brown and never does frown. Well, she does, but she look so cute na!!! Makes Jala's sun bleached hair on arms stand up.

Jyenagar jala wants to tell auntie to stuff face with synthetic dupatta. And leave her pretty mommy alone.