"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."
— Neil Gaiman (The Kindly Ones)

Because

Ah, because the world is round, it turns me on
Because the world is round, ah

Because the wind is high, it blows my mind
Because the wind is high, ah

Love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is you

Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue, ah, ah, ah, ah

- Because

Dana Fuchs, Jim Sturgess

So be it.

I woke up at 9:30 today, my mother's aim has been fulfilled: it was because of a false alarm that the police were towing away our car (so random!), but I did wake up, and didn't go back to bed. So now I'm fully ready, waiting for 12 o'clock so I can go meet some pals. Like, finally.

Yesterday was a bad day for all us Nadal fans. Very, very bad day. You know, Federer has the style, Federer has the charm, but Nadal is the man who epitomises all that talk of mind over matter, and the power of believing that you can do it. There are countless instances where he picks up shots, or hits shots that you'd never think were possible. Just impossible shots. Just mind-blowing; every single time. It's a common rumour that he plays on two courts when practicing, so he covers double the ground, making a single court look like a kids court. Yesterday also, we saw one man fighting against his illness, fighting against himself, and fighting all the forces that were against him. In the peak heat of Australian summer, he was sweating thrice as much as a normal person, but he continued; he probably knew he was going to lose, but he finished the game nonetheless. Yes, he never going to be second after Rod Laver for his streak of Grand Slams won, but he can surely keep up the number one rank. Kya yaar, aadmi ko aaram se fever hona bhi allowed nahi hota sports mein! :(

Also, I saw The Social Network yesterday. It was a good film, nothing extraordinary though. I also felt that they made Zuckerberg out to be this golden boy, forever cool, never wrong. And Saverin the bad guy. There can easily be made a movie making Saverin look nice and Zuckerberg really pathetic. So I think it wasn't a very neutral film, with emphasis only on the story. Otherwise, pretty decent. And Andrew Garfield is cute, as always.

Anyway, phone calls coming in, friends are arriving, till tomorrow!

We can start over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3ZbNRH1Wc

Reel-ing

I'm typing this right to left, for no other reason than the fact that it's quite cool. And new. Obviously. There was  this one time when I owned a diary that had the dates and names of months in English and Urdu, and I actually traced those in Urdu and learnt how to write the names of the days of the week and months in Urdu. 

Anyway, so yesterday I saw this Japanese movie called love Letter. Utv WorldMovies is quite cool, yes. It was, a very, very beautiful movie. It was about this woman in one town of Japan whose fiance dies while mountaineering. His name was Fujii Itsuki. Now while going through his junior high yearbook she sees his address in another part of Japan and just out of impulse, mails a letter there. What she doesn't expect, however, is a reply. So continuing the correspondence, she finds out that that Fujii Itsuki is a classmate of her fiance. Curious, she asks the other Fujii, who's a girl, to share all her memories of junior high with her. Fujii does that, and the memories turn out to be a little unpleasant as the boy Fujii was quite unfriendly and queer. Hiroko, the fiancee asks Fujii if there ever was a romantic relationship between them. Fujii denies it saying that the same names actually caused them a lot of problems, making them the centre of a lot of jokes by their classmates.

Eventually, Fujii starts remembering more and more about her junior high years and starts seeing her classmate in a new light. Ultimately a lot of incidents and discoveries make it apparent to her that Fujii actually liked her. This gives Hiroko the impression that Fujii proposed to her because she physically resembled his classmate. She thinks that the love at first sight wasn't really love at 'first sight' for him. She doesn't get upset though. What happens is that both the women, through the correspondence, fall in love with Fujii Itsuki, a dead man. 

In the end, Hiroko pretty much rejects a friend of Fujii's, who's interested in her. And the movie ends with nothing definite. It was a really gorgeous, abstract, artsy film, with a lot of places where the viewer's interpretation fills the gaps. This reminds me of a lot of people's reactions to Dhobi Ghat; the whole unclear, vague thing. I find it quite interesting how different people, based on their personalities, experiences and temperaments can attribute wholly different meanings to simple incidents. It's the true meaning of art to be able to be interpreted in diverse ways; poetry, paintings, instrumental music, there are so many examples. Let's hope Indian cinema also becomes more like that, and less rigid in its story-telling. 

Lastly, I can't WAIT for Kiran Rao to make a movie on Delhi. Lol. 

New Directions

Check out thenthperspective.blogspot.com. :)

Tick tock

I love the mornings. Specially when I can spend them in bed. But my mom doesn't. Her best mornings are probably those when I'm up early. Hence the undying, unhindered, unbeatable demands of getting up early 'at least now!' So what do I do - not get up till one pm daily. Amazing fun.

But today was a different day; I woke up at ten, three hours before usual: I had my dance rehearsal today, and needed to practice. When I wake up early I love standing in the balcony and watching the humdrum of the people who do get up on time. The office goers in their suits, the vegetable sellers with their thelas, people buying them, people washing cars, with large slops of water that probably leave the road cleaner, and random people on cycles. I see a lot of beauty in routine; there's such unbelievable security is knowing what is going to happen, in knowing exactly what you're going to do when and when you're going to finish that and do something else. Initially I used to feel surprised when people said they had difficulty in following their timetables, for me life is so clear and easy when I have a plan, once you have a plan you just follow it, pretty much unquestioningly, you don't have to think about what to do with your time, whether you should play or sleep or listen to music or study. And I'm not talking about automaton, machine-like obedience, you can always change the plan, there's full flexibility, what I'm questioning is the need; if something out of the ordinary happens or if you don't feel like doing what your plan says, change it, but just do it before the day is over.

So yes, The Pendulum of grade ten was one chapter that I totally understood. Lol.

I danced properly after a very long time today. And I cannot explain how totally awesome I'm feeling right now; like our friend would say, my heart is all warm and fuzzy. I've always wondered why I love dancing, what exactly I love about it, but there's a new answer every time. But more on that later.

Yes, I'm there

The gate has crashed
Has my hand got stuck?
In my mind it has.
I cry over it
I shriek with pain
I've lost my hand
And there's no solace
... In my mind.
The gates to my consciousness open.
The dream bursts,
My essence has prevailed
I am more than I expected
I see my hand,
And it's beautiful.

Along the journey ...

I'd gone to the library today. To start on my projects. It's funny how things are always interesting when you begin and invariably become boring towards the end. But that might just be my Gemini ascendant making it hard to be too stable.

I change two buses to get to Indian Law Institute, Bhagwan Dass Road. And I feel very grown up and very independent when I say stuff like oh, you know, my first bus came like 15 minutes late so I missed the second one and got late. Don't mock, the first time I changed two buses was on 3 Jan 2011. So.

Today I ended up giving my seat to old women on all four buses. But I like standing; standing there and looking out of the window, standing is super fun. Except when there are too many men around. I've realised that men are quite hate-worthy, in the general sense. On second thought, I'm probably shifting hate for one man to his whole creed. But when I think of some incidents, and believe me, these aren't few and far in between, it's probably right to feel that way. But then I think of some men I know; and these are truly few, and I can't get myself to think anything negative about them. Not even on the worst days.

Also, I've finally got a copy of Mein Kampf and I'm going to start it Today. Yippee.

To Say or Not to Say ...

Hello, yo!
It's a bright, warm morning; nice enough to get me into BlOgG3r mode.

You know those times, when some incidents happen, and leave you feeling weird. You think you've dealt with it fine enough, and then some little things happen, and kick that raw nerve, and you realise you haven't really pushed it under the carpet all fine. And the worst part is, that you want to tell someone how you're feeling, but you can't really tell someone without telling them what happened, and you do not want to tell anyone what happened. So it's a vicious little circle, if I may. So obviously, you do the whole 'woman of substance' thingie and 'draw upon your inner resources' and kick the problem in the face. And pray that teeny-weeny remembrances don't break the wall. Sigh .. how we make up problems of our own ...

Sometimes I wonder why humans do half the things that they do: I seriously suspect a very strong, though latent element of masochism in all of us. It's true. We love; people, cities, pets, anything, when we know for a fact that it isn't going to stay, the people will disappoint, as a rule, the cities we'll leave and the pets, well, will die. I know - Streisand says in The Mirror has Two Faces that we love because while it lasts it's the best damn thing, but the question remains - why. We trust, again knowing that it won't be held always unless you're one of those types who trust with naivete. Again, I'm calling that trust naive, when indeed my point is that all trust is naive. SO we love hurting ourselves. The worst part is, that when people who refuse to love and trust are called heartless, and the ability to indulge in the above-mentioned activities is called being human and all that crap. Logic has died an undeserved death.

Another Vindication of our Rights

About a month back, I was travelling from college to home in a metro. Because it was rush hour, and more because its empty than other reasons, I was sitting in the ladies carriage. The other coaches in the metro were so full there was barely any space to stand. So a lot of men started entering the ladies carriage and standing, initially near the interlinking of the two coaches, later they came in nearly halfway. Needless to say, this was considered a violation of womanly space and everyone felt very uncomfortable. Old ladies started whispering to each other, but no one really said anything out loud. Then at the next stop came in this middle-aged lady who asked the men to move as soon as she entered. The men didn't, quite typically. She repeated, to no effect. By now her action had given everyone else the required spark, and all the women started talking together and shouting at the men. Still no effect. Then the Bond lady took out her phone, and proclaiming that she was calling the next metro station, she dialled a number. Men started moving out immediately. But there were still the obstinate types, confident in I-know-not-what who stuck around. The call went through and the woman started complaining; turned out there's a very heavy fine for entering the women's compartment, this amount on being spoken out aloud by the lady, nearly all the men moved out.

And so the Bond lady saved the day. When this incident began, I was hesitant about saying anything as I didn't expect them to come in halfway, plus I had to get off in 10 minutes. But after that particular woman shook things up, I felt immensely ashamed, and I thought that this inertia, and this reluctance to take initiative is what plagues Indians, and more so women. And I, an educated woman of today, fully aware of this situation, again chose to not do anything to change things.

Coming back to the point, the attitude of that woman, and her zeal is worth emulating, and indeed is what is required to direct change in society. All this might sound very preachy, but I know of no other way to put it, and yet I have to say it, if only just for myself and nobody else.

I'll end this post by saying, very simply, that I will try to not sit down and accept everything, and will take action and show strength.

After the Sojourn

Yes, yes, I know it's been long. Very long indeed. Through project submissions to project presentations to the end-all of exams, the semester's come to an end, and I'm still wondering where it went. But the holidays have been good. The birthday on 10th was different, none of the usual fluttery celebrations or childish gift-shopping this time, girl's turned nineteen, time to act grown-up. Lol.

Have you ever woken up on a morning brighter than usual, the sun ablaze and yet not warm, woken up to the sound of someone playing sweet music in the background and just felt incredibly light, and incredibly new inside? Well, I have. It's like nature is giving you a signal that bad things have happened, and bad things are going to happen in future too, but this one morning, this one moment, it's all good: life's beautiful, and you need to see that beauty, you need to recognise that you can make it all okay just by wanting to make it okay.

I read Osho occasionally, on one such occasion Osho said that when you're feeling an emotion, however pure or strong, don't label it. Don't say 'I'm happy, or I'm ecstatic', because words have a certain meaning and therefore a certain scope, happy means a feeling which is more than dull, and less than festive. He said when you're just feeling an emotion it doesn't know a range, the feeling can change, grow, or lessen. but when you put a label, you confine it to a range from where it cannot grow. And that's obviously not good when you're feeling good. Somehow I see great truth in this simple logic, and I do try to follow it. Not when it's a negative feeling, of course, and you want to stub it right there, when it's a little unpleasant so it never gets too big.

So that's what I did that morning, I just looked out of the window, saw a bright day, listened to the music, and  then, with my heart full of colourful butterflies, I turned and went off to sleep again. That was a nice day. :)