Basic.Space

So Ive been listening to a whole lotta The Xx lately, 

and they've been filling up a lot of

 the empty space around me.

Navrathri has swung it's way around Ahmedabad.
The season of sparkle dust high in the air, mirrorwork evenings are hot under yellow light and burning feet, people moving like cars on the highway.
I don't love this time of the year too much. The beat of the drums sounds funereal and disturbing in it's increasing feverishness, and reminds me of the same. You know, yellow fevers and 'passing-ons' (such a silly word, Whately, I know.) and bad news lapping over the mood. My asthma acts up and inhalerblue mornings last till the drugged hour post-noon. 


Most of all, my home is empty. Flatmates are off dancing in a blur of orangewhirl merry-go-round, and the night does that funny thing where it goes all cheap drugstore rubber-bandy on me. You know those yellowgreenred elastic pieces in packets for 5 rupees no? They stretch and stick to one another,mewling in horrid tones, and suddenly split down the middle in when you least expect it.


Last night felt particularly empty. The room was bereft of it's usual pleasant company and my laptop charging itself to glory, as shots from my film rendered away. My orange lampshade gave me filthy looks, as if to nullify it's function as a potentially warm friend. I could feel the hard, cold fingers of an off-mood reaching out to me.

 So I had to get a fix, yeah, I hadta getta fix.

Hot buttered toast, burnt on the edges and sprinkled liberally with cinnamon-sugar (My newest FabIndia love: loose ground cinnamon with brown sugar and nutmeg. Divine.) was followed by a mini canister of tea and might I confess, that I nearly forgot what coffee was for a second? Shame on me. So fickle in matters of the culinary heart and simple pleasures. 
I didnt even need a playlist to colour up the scene, and peaced out in a blur until company came around 2am.

Oh, the glorious phoenix arising from a simple gas-stove!

Basic space is all you need, apart from love and chai.

Magic without a T.

Image from somewhere in the internet's depths.

I have an archive of beautiful images from around the place.
Photographs, posters, fashion and artwork which is exciting, inspiring, technically emulative or simply something I'd love to keep around me.

The above image popped up and reminded me that today is

The Day I Gained Purpose in Life! 
The Day I registered my grad film, my final year project!

that I don't write much save Tweets or the teensy blog/ DA posts.
Which is sad, really. 
There's just so much less to think about when I write. It's easier to put words together in text, than have face-to-face conversations or participate in stilted Facebook chat sessions.
(I should just post on my Blog. And tell people to read the daily RSS before we meet.Simple aforementioned problems solved.)

Coming back to the point,
Words are powerful. Radical Self Love from my favourite blogger in the world confirms that.

The more I realise that the only thing constant in life is change, I love life a little bit more. The minority of happy people on the planet can subscribe to that notion.

The Now is:

The unbeatable roasted lush of Coorg coffee, made in a steel filter every Ahmedabadi morning
September weather spells of warm wakings up in the cold morning
The unavoidable,hilarious and exasperating daily updates of the neighbour dogs,brought to you by your lunch buddy 


Skinny lizards skating over  the peppery ceiling searching for roaches
The new forevers of rediscovering Neruda on a tattoo quest
The old forevers of Radiohead,Jefferson Airplane,T.S Eliot and
the blazing nows of the Xx, HerSpaceHoliday, Vampire Weekend and all the indie music in the world made for you and only you


Ego-tickles and skin-tickles and goosebumps,
Beer and perfectly made eggs in honey-teriyaki sauce to share,
Letters from never-lost long-ago-still-here girls in penguin swimsuits who
made houses out of orange tang, dinosaur baths and magazine covers FYVP  when
the roof tiles were unguarded and  comfort came years, years later in a car-ride


Sister cats waiting in Mysore town with babies that are sprouting like acrobats
Photograph sleeping in folder not awake not  yet not again
Insomnia over  coffee dates and dirty drawings of furtive couples in stretchy pants and brown sugar

spells now in not so many words,

none at all.

  
  

It's on Loop.

I'm so lost that it's wonderful and not asking to be found.

Lost like

Songs on loop about the sea and and finding the stairway to higher hopes.
Finding a way to the ocean after wanting it for a year.
Air travelling into one ear and out another one.
Burrowing into comfort.
A lot of chai all at once.
A really long movie that felt less like a speech and more like a lyric.
People appearing like a cloud of smoke and dis-apparating right before brain freeze.
A line of books ready to be drank into skin,lined up on a clean shelf.
Consumerism over comedy.
Foolish frivolous talk without the alcohol kick.
Headphones is ignorance is bliss.
Treetops over very deep blue brightening skies.
Eyeball seeking dark room in bright house windows closed.
Writing today because inkpot is brimming.

So lost that I dont ask you to find me with a blissful smile.

Six words speak so sense

Feet in socks
Winter bite unheard.



Recently joined a group called Six-Word stories on DA.
Its a great exercise to get me writing more, and value the skill it takes to express more in less. Namely, writing a story in 6-words.
Stay tooned.

Things I love When Im Wise

Things I Love Appreciate and Hope-to-think-of-more after having my wisdom teeth pulled out(yank,to be precise!) a week ago.

-My growing collection of teas. It's like organic farming out of a packet.Out of the nine current lovelies, its organic tulsi-ginger which does the trick and washescleanthebloodstream. Organic India,you're rather wonderfully good for me.

-Giving the mirror LESS IMPORTANCE.Its amazing how a swollen jaw can distort your entire appearance, to your own eyes.I still can't recognise myself(and apparently,neither can my family hair stylist who thinks Ive aged centuries!)but hey,it's okay.See next point.

-Glowing,healthy skin(It glows in the dark too.) which must credit from The Mummy's endless doles of turmeric curds,chocolate cows milk,soaked almonds and...

-Papaya sitafal passionfruit yoghurt smoothies!Yum,yum,yum.They can pass me shady lines at any given time.

-Finishing a really well written book in one go. Thank you Michael Cunningham,for giving meFlesh and Blood. The cover was nearly as irresistable as the throw-away sale price- FIFTY RUPEES!Horrific,no?

-My green room,tantadantaaaadah!

-Got to love hand-me-downs!My aunt's plastic earrings from the 80s.So plastic!The Mummy's aerobics tights in with neon pink,black and blue swirls.Also from the 80s.

-Setting my caller tunes so I feel different inside each time the phone rings.(Hello,I just love some people a little more.)

-Watching Very Trashy Reality TV. I even saw a re-run of EMOTIONAL ATYACHAAR with full devotion.

-Getting a high score on Mah Jong Titans and vowing to play for real. I am so multi-cultural. I think I love myself a wee bit more; it's addictive. Next I will wear that new velcro-attachable saree.

-Revisiting a piece of art that means that little something more, each time.

Thanks to GalaDarling, one of my favourite bloggers for rooting these things out of my head and into the air!

Blue whale in the rain speaks of no trains.

By the sea
it rains
pours

endlessly.

buckets and katoris and spoons
of flailing cats and dogs
caught mid-flight, gasping
between the high and the fall.

a word-dismissive script
of piece-meal stories and haphazard,wide-eyed people
sits on my lap.

By the sea, the rain shivels into thread-bare ropes, and starts to sprinkle the city with images of what is now yesterday.

Batallions rise in the evenings
heaving over the water in blackening smoke-fish patterns.

and the nights grow longer,
and the rain plays havoc with trains,
and the pages get dog-eared with forgetfullness,
and rabbitty looking blue whale thumbs get lost in different spaces,
and an unexpected music greets the dawn,
and a new day that dissolves into the next and the next and the next one again,
and the weekend sprouts 2 extra limbs with a sudden,'hello'.

..When I go to Bombay and come all the way back.

Listen to 'Down by the sea', Morcheeba.

Goodbye Summer,Im out of love with you.

Dear Summer,
It was nice knowing you. We spent two months together and it was grand.
The couch was our home, and reality show ratings went up.
I started swimming again cause of you, and proclaimed my love for getting myself back in shape. Truly a landmark moment.
The proclamation,I mean.
I created mine own muse, fashioned out of ingredients that I dare not spill out here. The wall posts have ears. So I painted on rainy afternoons, went vegetarian on and off, learned to dance (Or rather,dancing came to me.Okay,I Wish.) and became a Deviant. and most importantly, listened to lots of music alone. Unremarkable that it may sound, I rarely have put in effort to listen to a piece of music without multi-tasking.It's like eating without a book in hand, or a face in front of you.

But Im out of love with you, because I'm moving on. You see,I have a wonderful room that faces the riverside and keeps itself supremely clean and resounds with Morcheeba, Chopin(!),Radiohead and the Beatles. Beyonce is good stuff as well,thank you Jazzy for opening my eyes out to the world of dhinchak phun music. White curtains and incense and them trippy moringa lights on the walls, my goodness, it's almost heaven on earth.
Did I mention that I'm there only after 1 in the morning?
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.Absence makes cellphone clocks wear the battery down more. Absence sounds like Absynthe .It's a nice word.Horrible taste.
* Absinthe, an alcoholic beverage
* Absynthe (album), a 2003 album by Monsieur Camembert
* The Absynthe, a Trent University campus newsmedia organization
* Absynthe, A song composed by Paul Kalkbrenner, part of the album Berlin Calling
[Thank you Wiki.]

So, I will continue to spend my life in such self-sustained peace(That's not entirely true,I like people lots.) and
~Go to Jaisalmer/Goa/Hampi this year.
~Soopertamify and work on Cut Here, the Film magazine.(Shreyas, you can take a bow.No wait,I will.:P)
~PS,I'm continuing to work for Film Club this year as well. Old habits die hard.
~Make posters(Spirited Away,coming up:))
~Think of more things to do, make bigger lists with extra neon smileys,


and then get back to be less frothy and more cynically myself.

Wonderla.
Ta.

The smell of Summer

It smells of dust.
Dust along the underside of the wall that bellows up when I push my bed closer to the fan.
Dust on my bookshelf; there's a faint odour of guilt staining the edges of pages I haven't visited for many moons.
Dust on the rim of my purple spectacles.The closest anyone's come to doodling my likeness is when they colour in chunky purple frames. This is regardless of the fact that I barely wear 'em.
Dust on my sore pink toes and dust inside my Rockstar chappals.

Two glorious months in which anything can happen. I could go to Hampi or paint a pretty picture or read LOTR for the five-and-a-half-eth time.
Better yet, finish my comic book. Yet again. Surprisingly,I never got bored of it. The story refuses to die- I suppose it has links too personal for me to not imagine recreating it over and over again.
Oh, and how about baking a storm?A literal mountain of mousses and brownies and lemon crumble cake. That recipe for Banana-peanut butter bread has been stalking my brain for months now.

And I'll finish listening to all the assorted,much advised music on my I-tunes. And listen to Rubber Soul for the billionth time in a week, as it sounds better each time it flows through me.

And I'll make more resolutions and keep working like the day's going to die soon and plan and plot and feverishly obsess over exactly how profitable and 'all that' my next semester will be.It's nice to become this different sorta person over two years.

And I'll breathe in clean air that smells of sunlight and lazy sprinkler-studded grass and dream some more.

Hello,Summer.

Dear New Year Fairy...

Dear New Year fairy,
You are a product of my own imagination. As with most products, your functionality is baseless apart from your consumers' personal inadequencies and unfulfillments.We'd like to call it wishful thinking.
Since Xmas was uneventful and I gave up on feeling Herr Klaus's Xmas love the minute I left home, you're the only one I can write my wish list to.
The below agendas will make me a better person and a happier,more peaceful one at that.I predict that I'll become wiser in ways I can't imagine by engaging myself in things that I love and believe in.
I'm a strong believer in personal intuition and hate structured planning.So here goes.

1.Start finishing my graphic novel.The course I waited for too long for is over,and I need to keep this story alive for a very personal reason.
2.Listen to the lyrics of songs I frequently play.Its a revelation.Despite the fact that Im sorely tempted to just interpret them any way I want to.
3.Spend time at Byllakuppe, the Tibetan settlement enroute to Coorg.I get a short lived sense of peace rekindled by the feeling of slow-burning excitement in the pit of my stomach,every time we stop by.I'll do my dream project there.
4.Run my finger along the curve where the tree trunk coils,and sinks smoothly into the earth.I forgot how much I loved doing that.
5.A week at Auroville. With someone I love and respect for all their kinks.The coast,kilns,heavenly bakeries nd fascinating people there call.
6.Grow my hair till it resembles overgrown tendrilly vines licking at my bangles.The poor locks were shorn this summer and are still undergoing emotional trauma.They need respite.
7.Worship work. It distracts when you need it to.
8.Write more. It nourishes me. You need to keep doing things to remind yourself that you're alive.
9.Value the people I dont value nearly enough.And perhaps feel less,for those I regard by virtue of their status in various contexts and not for whom they dont project themselves as.
10.Laugh more.And hold that feeling inside,like tightly winding an escaping balloon's string around your finger.
11.Work more for Film Club. It's so much bigger than a free audi screening.
12.Not think about thinking too much because it all just adds up. I keep discovering exactly how much one can layer thoughts over thoughts. Chunky Bakery puffs are healthier!
13.Smell the rain!
14.Love aloneliness. Not loneliness,that can stay for the poetry and the blue funks on sunday evening. Aloneliness is letting go and liking yourself and feeling the presence of many strange and beautiful elements in the little bubble hemisphered world around you.
Amen,
it's not too much to ask now,is it?