A new home

After eight years on blogger, I'am moving to a new home for Thought Warp - http://wp.me/2ebTI.
Whoever you are- the ones I know and the ones I don't, Au Revoir! 

Its like a photograph

Songs are like photographs. Let me explain.

Photographs capture moments and hold it for a lifetime.
You look at them and it refreshes moments long gone by.
Although photographs tend to fade with time, both the memory and the photograph itself.

Here's the connect.

Songs you once listened to and cherished, captured the time and space in its entirety.
They speak of a lifetime and are in tune with the mood and spirit of the times gone by.
You listen to those songs and you relive those times.

I recently got down to making my songslist from various phases in life.
Each song unleashes memories. And listening to an entire playlist gives me the feeling of having flipped through an entire album- it gushes forth incidents, conversations, people, places, warmth, joy, happiness, friction, loneliness, betrayal, deep camaraderie, genuine relationships, struggle, rebellion, growth, adventure, dreams, summertime... so on and so forth.

A photograph imprints an instant, a song captures an era.

The grass is greener. Not.

Everybody has their own struggle which is so intrinsic to her/ his own world.
To think the grass is greener on the other side is a foolish thought.

1Q84- after thoughts and reading update

I just finished the 900- odd Haruki Murakami book- 1Q84.
Last week, I read the play Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw for the book club and have just placed an order for another Japanese- authored book 'Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro.

After the long, nearly three- week 1Q84 read I can say this- only Murakami could have made this book a hit, even before it was read. The book was originally released as Book I, II & III. May be, if I read it with those intermittent breaks, I'd feel differently. Though even with the three as a bundle I couldn't put the book down.  Gripping indeed, speaks of the author's impeccable command over fiction- writing. I even lugged it along on a Pune- Chennai- Trichy trail.

The story, set in Tokya is mystery, suspence, sci-fi and a love story rolled into one. The central characters of Tengo, Aomame, Fuka- Eri are unconnected individuals within a seemingly disconnected but connected setting. More than half the way through the book, the connectedness starts to show, although it is still not completely predictable- once it has been established by the Leader on the night of his death by Aomame, their conversation draws the reader into the workings of the parallel world of 1Q84. From this point on, the read becomes murky and opaquish. Also the poetic style of Murakami starts to fade.

A great inception, that sets your imagination balloon- up to conjure the Murakami story, floats along higher and higher until it doesn't have enough fuel and so it commences its descent. Nevertheless, the book is a good read. A good tip is to judge a book by its read. Neither by its cover, nor its author.

As an aside, its quite soothing, a hot cup of cocoa in hand while you distill and process a good book when the night has set and all the sounds have receded into 'silent' mode.

Wavelengths matter

I have loved radio programs from the time I started listening to them and that happened circumstantially. During summer vacations while on the road, Dad would not miss his news updates and so he would turn off whatever music we were listening to and tune into 'News at Nine' on All India Radio (AIR). Trailing past the silhouttes of trees drenched in night light along the road, at times the moon playing spotlight on the farm fields and at other times the stars shining vividly and pointedly on moonless nights. I would gaze out of the window, intently immersing the imagery running past me cocooned in a car with my family.

In college and away from the comfort of home I didn't have much of a choice while living in a hostel/ dorm (nunnery in other words) that had (on purpose) no plugpoints- read 'no music players',  than tune into a radio show. Again, AIR came to my rescue with its two- hour rock show every night. I'd eagerly wait each night. I'd tune in at 10 pm. Only now there wasn't any external imagery running past me nor was I cocooned with my family in a car, I only had with me a gazillion thoughts buzzing in my head. It was merriment when FM got a big leeway, regulations eased and Bangalore and us music- starving/ craving souls got a 24- hour English rock music channel. 

When I went back to graduate school on another continent, who would think radio would come to my rescue! Only this time, it was internet radio. Pandora saved me!

Oflate, I am enthused by community radio and its immense potential. And delightfully, there is a buzz of activity happening in this space to make way for effective and efficient community radios in India. Thanks to a ton of pursuasion from civil sector organisations to open- up airwaves to communities which are infact public property, vetted so by a Supreme Court ruling in 1995. 

And now I find myself in pursuit of Community Radio. I know my hopes won't be lost, you've never let me down!  Long live the radio!

I will slip away but never fall out of...

I have been reading a lot lately, no other way but to do so to keep up with the ever- increasing list of 'books to be read'. 

Thanks to an amazing book club I joined in early 2011 which magnetically zapped me back to intensive reading.

I am almost finishing the Surya trilogy by author Jamila Gavin- a set that hub and I picked up at the Institute of Engineers book sale. I plan on doing a review of it soon.

Big, bulky 1Q84 is a world in itself (first book I bought on flikart.com)- takes you to another place and time and makes you almost witness a story unravel- it's not for nothing, Murakami is so celebrated.

Coming up for the next book club meet, we're reading G. B. Shaw's Pygmallion. The last I read a play was part of the Literature curriculum back in college. Eager to revisit the genre after years.


Looking through page by page, book by book,
I will skip away, but never fall out of... reading!

Fleetingness

Written back in time, unfreezing now. 

March 3, 2010, Philadelphia 

I can’t yet connect the dots. It almost seems like the dots are getting visible, but its like that hazy, blurry vision that creates an eye itch. So hazy, and yet, almost there. Enough light, sufficient vision, but  some more fine- tuning, until clarity comes through.

A stranger, wandering, albeit with a purpose. Wandering. Discovering. The newness in everything that comes with a new terrain. Even the seasons that went by and are yet to come by. Its not the newness in itself but the newness to me.

Time clocked. Days Passed. Seasons changed/ are changing- from resplendent Fall to a blanketed snowy winter. Two more months and Spring will come by and complete this queer chapter of my life.

Walking on campus that brims with energy- where life is a canvas yet to be painted and everybody is getting ready to throw in the colors, untinged so far by setbacks and disillusionment that comes with the passage of time.

I stopped for a moment on Locust Walk today. The chilly wind waning away the winter; students rushing past me wearing so many emotions, layered like their winter attire- giggling, smiling, conversing, grave. 


And I told myself that I was thankul for all the myriad experience that came to me this last year.  


For one, absence DOES make the heart grow fonder and the deepest relationship deeper.


And for creating some new ones- wonderful friendships; uncovering and gaining so much knowing and exploring the deeper ‘crevices’ of the complicated fabric of the human mind.


For almost rising back from the ashes, with new rigour, taking charge of life and charged by it.
For the Fall, the wind, the snow, the winter that’s paving way for Spring,
For Van Pelt library, Penn’s campus and the squirrels too.

I touched the fleetingness of that moment. And the fleetingness of life itself.

When you were on the other continent

Written long ago, unfreezing now. 

It was freezing cold,
I closed my window.
Frost formed,
And I wrote your name


On a drowsy morning
Steam sat on the glass door of the bathroom
Dulled by the distances and the paucity of conversation
The steam stanced like a stained glass
And I wrote your name


I nibbled on food
Mindlessly munching
I wrote your name on my plate
And fed my soul

Time moulds

Who we are is defined every moment by what happens to us, around us.
And who chisels that?

Part you, part fate, part everything in between the two.

?

Philadelphia blues, sometime in 2009

Cry that tear or smile it away?
Let the words form or say it with profound silence?
Run? Hide? Fly away?
Burn the midnight oil or sleep that extra half hour?

Waist-ful deposits made each day, worthwhile deposits taking a while to make.
New bonds take time to make, old ones so easily break.
The ones in the here and now consume all it takes, and yet, fall short of a pat.

Quixotic ideals in this quizzical world, spinning my mind in a whirl of fate
Change my face and wear a new hat.
Write a new song and dance to a new rhythm.

Armor me with grace

Patience be my artillery

So much irony

In these defenses and instruments of violence

All in the guise of crying out for serenity.

Home/ Away from home

I stumbled upon this one, sitting in my draft box (not so quietly).

And so, here's a not-so-fitting jot about the amazing bunch of women I (had to) live with through my (mostly) academic years away from home.

February 2010, Philadelphia

Living in a dorm is not a domain of new experience for me (frankly, I thought I'd had enough, but was in for another dose). I have had experiences living with every category/kind/specie of hostel mate/ room mate/ housemate and accomodation too- during undergrad in a room for two, room of four, in a hostel, as a paying guest (pg) and much later, when I was working and was at grad school living by myself with all the space to myself.

The pecking intruder- who always wants to know what you are upto, who would tirelessly explore every nook and cranny of evidence to satiate her curiosity.

The leave-me-alone introvert- who just comes in to the room does her own thing, takes her stuff goes out, comes in, slips into bed, wakes up, gets going, knows am around and only replies in monosyllables to every question in my endeavour of atleast knowing the whereabouts of the person I live with.

Queen liberties- the self- anointed queens who take every liberty they want to- from breezing into your room to borrowing everything- from stationery, food, make- up, to clothes and other favours they want you have done for them. Ah! Speak the annoyances.

There was this very dear friend with an obsessive- compulsive disorder for dust. Imagine that.

And then there were the majority of others that were on the other end of the spectrum, that didn't care a fig about layers of accumulating dust.

I had to bear with the early- to bed, early- to rise types and had some amazing late night talks with owls like myself.

The tough cookies, the talking- machines that never listen, boyfriend woers & whiners

And so on and so forth...

And then....

Those good buds that were heaven- sent :) With whom I cherish an everlasting bond and to whom I owe an ode for making those times and years away from home, feel like home, away from home.

And, my nephew decides to call his mum by her name :)

Price tags

The cost of human dignity comes at such a high price

that so many people cannot afford it, they make do without basic amenities of food/ clothing/ shelter. Decent ones at that.

The homeless of Philadelphia.

The slum dwellers of Mumbai.

And the inhabitants of Penn Station in New York City.

These are ofcourse only few places that I have seen them in.

And is true for most metropolis.

Metropolitan landscapes are magnetic enough to pull throngs of people to it.

For livelihood reasons and others.

But in this process, it also escalates the price of human dignity.

So much so that, it ceases to matter.

Layers

Life seems like a layers- full of reality and a slow, a very slow uncovering of truth.

About people, self and stuff.

Who knows what's at the bottom of it all?!

Note to self

Last of the night- outs in the library!

Customer is God

I heartily laughed while doing some course reading for a New Product Managment course.

Specifically, when I came across the term 'Consumer sacrifice gaps' the point where every customer varies in his/ her uniqueness in terms of what they need in/ from a product and what actually is out there.

Really, consumer sacrifice?

Surely am quite reserved about mass customization, and prefer retaining the uniqueness that makes each of us so different and gets reflected in all the stuff/ products we use.

But I find this terminology out of sync. Very.

Learning the tricks of a trade doesn't have to or wont make you good at it.

Thought to keep

"I can be affected by what happens to me; I refuse to be reduced by it"

Maya Angelou

After note: People mostly interpret things the way 'they' hear it, not the way 'you' intended for it to be heard. (To float some not- required jargon, its called confirmation bias, in behavioral economics). So, I often happen to be at the receiving helm, like you might find yourself...

The thought for me (and you, if you agree with me) is that such things will alter you and me, but we need to be strong enough to shrug it off, making sure it doesn't 'reduce us'.

And though this might seem trivial, these trivialities go a long mile in shaping you. Not just those once-in-a-lifetime, topsy turvy happenings. Isn't that how collective culture gets formed, bit by bit, chisel by chisel?

When the plate gets the better of the platter...

Photo by Jason Varney retrieved from phillymag.com

You know your'e in a food art restaurant when the plate is bigger than the food. Ofcourse, that's not to be generalized as much as it's meant to be sarcastic. You get my drift and that's when the plate gets the better of your hunger.

I've had my good share of restaurants, mind you, those that come in all shapes and sizes and including their plate sizes and servings too, in a fair number of countries. The 7-stars, 5-stars, 3 stars, 2 stars...road stars (road side food) too.

Visual appeal is very important to me, no two doubts about it. It makes eating a more satiating experience, by not only crunching the hunger away but also by appealing to the eyes, atleast if your'e the kind for whom aesthetics matter. But what's equally important, if not more, is that the food lasts for a few munches atleast?

That probably, a good strategy, to place more orders and make more margins.

But you know what, we'd like our stomachfuls please, if not platefuls and our pennies' worth too.

?

Amongst reasons like life changes that brought about self-editing of thoughts and experiences, I think I figured another potential link with regard to why my writing diminished.

And my guess is Facebook.

Is it because thoughts and opinions started getting channelised on FB status messages? Or for that matter twitter. Or is it that you feel the presence of people reading what you post, so it preempts you to be more active on FB rather than on the blogosphere...

Has this happened to you? Back in 2004, so many of us used to blog, and regularly at that. Not so much anymore.

Or would you just like to call blogging a phase?