20 Questions - (un)popular opinion

I am feeling awefully candid today. So here is a list of questions I'll answer, depending on the demand for the question. I'll update the answer in the post, as and when the question is chosen.

Send me a number and I’ll tell you my unpopular opinion (each person gets to chose only 2 numbers):
1. A crazed-over television program you do not/never cared for.
2. A color you think is over-rated.
3. A selection of celebrities you don't give a rat's add about.
4. A pastime you 'don't get'.
5. A habit you can't stand.
6. Something you really like doing which everyone else around you cribs about.

• Waking up early in the morning. Been the eternal wake-up call and have been sworn at, gotten things and tantrums thrown at meself . #jobhazard.

7. Your favorite household chore.

Getting supplies and storing up the fridge.

8. Popular websites that make you go 'blah'.
9. White chocolate or Salad?
10. A sport you don’t like, for whatever reason.
11. A body part you really like, for whatever reason.
12. Something that people always tell you when they meet you first and you hate.
13. Choose three not-so-positive adjectives for yourself.

These are not exactly three words but its my game and i m allowed to break my rules!

• Impatient and impulsive.
• tending-to-unsocial
• Queen-of-digression-while-story-telling.

14. You wish you are never a Corporate Hotshot.
15. A classic must-read did you last read and absolutely hated?

• Ulysses -James Joyce

16. Something that people around you are good at or at least try their best to that you hate and can't get around to do it.
17. A color that you don't like wearing.
18. Something that you'd really enjoy eating that most of your friends would go 'yuck' over.
19. A celebrity crush that maybe even you don’t understand.
20. Uninhibited  rant on whatever crushing your cookie at the moment.

All colors, violent colors in my head when I think of the crusher. Good thing. Because words would have confused me and not blended in so well. The nerve behind my ear is about throbbing so hard it's as if it'd burst out and all the colors' would splatter slowly  forming almost legible words; trying albeit not entirely successfully to pass on the message.

Change

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton Season 2 edition 18; the eighteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Perched on a rooftop wall, I looked down to see the tiny aggressive bodies running with stones in their hands towards the uniformed lot. The multitude of stones hurled did not deter the latter, since by now it had become a usual day-to-day affair for them. They could just take out another tear gas shell and throw it at the protesters. This would stop the buggers , at least for a while. 

They run from various directions and charge. In the background there is the rising smoke and the ringing echoes from the smoke grenades and rubber bullets being shot almost habitually at the screaming students.

This is a scene I witnessed in the midst of the students' agitation which has been going on in order to attain separate statehood for a certain section of Andhra Pradesh in a University, which is a stone's throw away(literally) from mine. As the world rises(cf. the middle-east) against the old systems and prejudices and practices - never mind the futility of many such endeavours - one becomes increasingly aware of not only the hustlers but also the people who are supposedly uninvolved.

My eyes glued to the, almost dramatic, scene below see that on one half of the road, the protesting students and the RAF were after each other contentiously. On the other half which was just a divider away, there was normal traffic - lovers out on a romantic bike ride, parents fetching their children from the school, families going for a movie, a bridegroom on his way to his wedding in a glittering, decorated car etc, too busy living their lives to even bother to give the warring side of the road a glance. There was an occasional spark from a gun shot visible from amongst the trees. The wind also brought with it the evening azaan from the nearby mosque which went unnoticed by the crowd involved/captivated by the happenings. If one looked at the sky, there was the setting sun which brought the promise that yet another day of agitation would soon come to an end. 

picture credit: liveindia.tv

Everything is blue.

Everything is dead.

Everything is mixed up.

I see a bright door, yet i am painted black.

At this moment, looking intently at my goosebumped arms, lost in the humbling thoughts that filled my mind, I felt immensely insignificant with respect to the larger order of things in the world. Suddenly a witness to the collage of all human emotions and passions- politics, hatred, possessiveness, love, mundane every day life, anger, frustration, curiosity, religion and even love- I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by this strange yet entirely matter-of-fact event. 

Maybe I am supposed to take up some charge and shout more slogans; or put down the cellphone, log out of the social networking sites and start signing more petitions, maybe I am supposed to go out and join fellow protestors and pelt some stones. But I haven't heard my calling yet.Should I just act because it is the 'in' thing to do? Or simple wait for a time more suited. Should I take a moment to see, feel and interiorize whats happening all around or simply turn my eyes to something brighter and walk away? I am not sure. Maybe I am supposed to come out of the passive unconcern that has set in my disposition. But it does not seem the right time to wake up yet. I shall be irresponsible by not acting, as many have already acted irresponsible with the power of action in their hands. I shall simply dream of a change; of a less-complicated, less chaotic world. A change which the entire world is awaiting with anxious eyes and held breaths. Until then,

Everything is blue.

Everything is dead.

Everything is mixed up.

I see a bright door, yet i am painted black.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Unusually Unsaid Understanding Vol .II (Stairs)

Among the mapped out uncertainties and the vague certainties, the spiraling stairs lead to the , even if undesired and neglected, destinations.

Stairs, Charminar

p.s: the p.s here

True story

My friend (say B) and I(A, for the obvious reason) thought we'd order in dinner tonight.

A:  What do you want?

B: Chinese?

A: sure. (hands her over the menu)

B: Chicken in Kung Pao sauce?

A: Ok. How about some noodles with that?

B: Ok. You pick.

A: I don't know what to pick...ummm...suggest something.

B: Just pick something funny.

A: Okay. Veg. Basket noodles?

B:  Cool.

*The food arrives*

And what we see in front of us makes stuff for a good community laughter.
B asked me to pick something 'funny', I didn't know I could do it so well.
Even my food has a sense of humour. :-l


So this is what we ordered:

 This is what we got:

The noodle basket and the veggies

polithinks: #slapyourself if you ordered Chinese noodle basket and you actually got a basket made of noodles.

The crack between the heart and soul

"The worst is not,So long as we can say, 'This is the worst."

- King Lear

Sometimes life is an episode, if not a full-scale spectacle of a movie; a tear-jerker nonetheless.

It occurred to me, does not matter when, that the notion of what is ‘real’ hardly explains what goes on in life. It is, in fact, a major understatement. Sublimely reel and subliminally surreal, is what I say it is.

I write this post on the eve of the 1^st anniversary of one of the major crises in my life. I seem to have come a long way, a very long way (sometimes it does feel like years and decades have passed between then and now).  I trust , I admire , I am in awe , still , of things , people and events but  these moments are rare and far spaced out now, kind of reminds me of the molecules of the gaseous state of matter I used to imagine floating by me , when we were being taught the difference between different states of matter.

I did have a solid state. I wasn’t a cynic all my life (I feel like an old granny speaking through the specks of memory). I didn’t think I could doubt and still love. I loved and lived and forgot to ask what my mind wanted to me to ask. The heart and the mind were, then, to me binary oppositions. The heart said what is true and the mind said what is right. It worked well for me until this very day last year.

 That was the day the mirror cracked to dissolve the wall I held up between my heart and my mind. I realized what being a human being really is. I have a heart and a complex mind for a reason. I am not some primal soul with a mysterious connection with the super/supra/Para/hyper-natural. I gathered that I fully realize my being not only by striding towards  big umbrella terms like humanity, success, achievement, happiness, knowledge but rather just by using correctly – rather than fighting it- the intrinsic algorithm between mind and spirit.

I do not think I have reached the state of perfection yet. I am, in fact, a long way from it. But I am at least trying. The rule, now that I see it, is LOVE->;; DOUBT->;LOVE and not Doubt->;; Love->; Doubt. You never learn to love somebody, listening to your heart and mind, rather you love and then learn that it’s not perfect and still love.

I have loved my family, questioned its loyalty towards me and vice versa and came out of it feeling sure it is love. I have loved God and wanted a presence  when I was in need, couldn’t see it, doubted and came out knowing that the very fact that I could doubt hence search within myself powers to come out better is in itself the presence I craved. I have loved a person and even though there is in no way a ‘happily ever after’ in view even in long shot, I can finally feel that in spite of all of it in moments of great isolation even a thought changes my mood. “The talisman of life”, to quote someone who manages to give me regular doses of food for thought, “should always be ‘in spite of’ and not ‘because of’”. 

At this moment when I can, on one hand, can feel my heart being churned like the fruit-shake I feel a sudden craving for, I cannot help but feel that that there is an aweso-ndary surrealistic quality about the whole thing that is almost satisfyingly cathartic.

Quietly the sugar crystals fall in the hour-glass of my life

The lines on my palm = The threads of a web

The footsteps I leave behind = The make-up on a B-grade movie's C-grade heroine

The pillow on my bed = The absence of your presence

The cello-taped routine = container of  my chaotic life

The book lying by me = The world I escaped to last night

The phone-call I never made= The moment I want but can't realize

The posts that come out so often= The typed word that my thoughts so easily garb

The anklet I suddenly feel like wearing = The rhythm I want to bring back to your life

The blue that tints my toe nails = The hue that keeps me from you

The seconds I hear ticking = The dripping tears I can feel no more

shared with poets rally week 43 

The real world is too fucking unreal!

This---^  is not what this post should be called. It is about Holi. The more apt title would have been "Holi Hai", "Rang De" or something that is happy and emanates good vibes. But I guess the context i am in forbids me to do so. The following post might seem  unplanned and desultory, which in a way it is, but this is the best possible way I can put all my thoughts and reactions down.

Yes, I played Holi. I have always liked playing Holi. I love colours- in my wardrobe, in and on my notebooks, on my walls, my toothbrush, the covers i put on my books et al. So naturally Holi, in a way, is my kinda shit! 

Yes, my hands are still crimson. Somehow the pukka colours have kept their promise. It makes me wonder though, how things work the way they do. How the same thing can be seen and contused in ways that can sometimes question your sanity. The hands which I see as coloured by innocent smearing of colours and joy on others with no intent of any animosity are seen by other as blood-stained hands which are guilty of strangling someone's sentiments. 

Yes, a part of me dies every day and I grieve, I look at others rejoicing for the loss they didn't face, cherishing something they might have lost but didn't. I smile a reluctant smile but am slowly seeped into the mood. The grief persists but doesn't force itself unto other. I cry, SO WHAT! I do not want the world to cry with me. Seriously, I don't. 

Yes, I have thought about death nth number of times. What happens after? How does one feel the moment before? These are almost classical existential questions, don't think anyone who lives even a moment as human escapes them.Its easy to die, but hard to remain dead. I will live through the life that I would leave behind, if not in the grand history of humanity(a term I am supposedly not allowed to use, since I am an 'inhuman moron' ) but surely in a history that some will care to remember. It is for them that I want a celebration, even if there are tears. A frigging themed funeral in fact. With good music, great food, coloured costumes and amazing pictures that remind of a life lived fully. A life lived spontaniously(read un-diplomatically). My point is I live to make people around me happy (of course I don't succeed always, but my intent remains) why would I , when I die somewhere in the vague future, want to leave them sad.

Yes, I am saddened by what I saw in last few harrowing hours. I am shocked how at how simple I take matters to be and how equally convoluted they actually are. I am distresses by the how inhuman I really am. I am disillusioned by the glamorous prospect that the knowledge I am trying to gather stands to promise.

May be I am spoiled, sadist, and ' cosmopolitan, half-baked Sylvia Plath, with an obnoxious over-dose of neo-liberal individualism'(probably the best compliment paid to till date, even if done left-handedly.) and with a profuse overflow of 'ego-fuckin-centric insensitivity'. But seriously, I am tired, exhausted of all emotions and intellect and all I need right now is probably a nice bath and a huge, no ginormous bowl of my favourite sundae.

Yes, I will repeat the title here, appropriately without footnotes or commentary--> "The real world is too fucking unreal"

A pathetic rhyme on a pathetic moment in life.

What is real? I gave up the search.

Is it the breeze the fan makes

Or the pictures of you sitting on the perch;

The glow-in-the-dark stars that hang from my ceiling

(why are they to me still unknown)

The flowers that Winnie the Pooh holds

Mom's smiling face blinking on my phone?

Are you - even the I that speaks-

("you have  such beautiful EyEs!")

real enough to be touched;

Touched, reached, moved?

Are you the- Aye sir, I quote-

"drunken vainglorious lout"

No, you are the one spitting words off of an unwashed mouth!

I - an Oedipus now- ran away but closer to my fate

The same one, yes sir that very one,

the one I had once so easily  tamed.

The clock ticks, nothing seems to change anymore

except the fading emotions-unsmiling-

refuse to even feel sore.

Thus lies a pathetic rhyme on a pathetic moment in life

Is a naught now what had been once a rife.