I must be an acrobat
Posted by: gousgame on: January 14, 2010
nil carborundum illegitimi
Apparently that phrase translates to – ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’, which was used by a WW II General as his motto. We do learn strange things from the songs we sing.
I love songs that make you feel like someone just walked over your grave – which send a neat little shiver down your spine. Not because they are spooky or anything, just that they hint at something dark and gloomy. ‘Elanor Rigby’ for instance. Or ‘Cemeteries of London’. Like Lessing’s ‘The Fifth Child’ or any of Ishiguro’s set to verse and melody.
I like my dark rooms and my table lamps. A friend once told me that I think quite like a cave man would. I reckon there is some truth to that. I’ll have my dark cold damp cave lined with warm cozy furs. I’ll need some books and beer though.
And now that world space is dead, I’ve moved on to internet radio. To me the radio shall never be a relic of the past.
I would like to smoke a cigar. Just once – so that I can say that I have. Much like the time I ate a snail.
Of things that have gone by and things to come
Posted by: gousgame on: December 30, 2009
World space radio is dead it seems. I shall no longer awake to old Hindi music in Chennai. An era has ended. It also appears that the year is about to. The decade even. Why do I not then mourn?
The world is full of people looking back at the year gone by and looking forward to the year ahead. There is even the bunch who do neither and resolutely cling on to the present like they would to a truck careening over the edge of a cliff. Actually, I’m not too sure anyone would cling to a truck like that but this bunch would.
To be in the present at all times is to be unimaginative. To be in the present on new year’s eve is to be a rock unmoved by the wind. I am neither and I go where the wind will take me.
If I was the rage this year, I would be SO last year in but a few hours. Discarded and forgotten, my moment would have passed. Should I then be happy now in these moments when all tend to reckon of things gone by and things yet to come, that I was not the rage this year? Should I rejoice having been nothing special for the comfort that it offers me now by precluding the possibility of the new year holding the threat of my becoming ordinary? Or should I grieve that an entire year has passed by and I seem not to have done much which mattered? If one could decide how one is to feel about such things I understand now that the world would be a very difficult place to live in. It is good then that we have little control over our emotions, for with control comes the difficulty of having to control.
I don’t know if I made much sense. I don’t know if it mattered. I do know that I would have said it all any which way. I suspect that I will go to Scarborough Fair in the coming year. The canticle points and the country beckons.
The resolute need no resolutions and I am resolute in my intention to have none. A play of words then to bid this year adieu.
Breaking News – The Hindu printed a funny article.
Posted by: gousgame on: December 25, 2009
One must not only blog, but blog about blogs as well. Well, at least link to blog posts one loves. Here’s one post which had me doubling over in splits. It would help if you understand tamil (written english ishtyle) though and read it till the end. (Thanks Akshay for reminding me of the guys blog – turns out we were talking about the same chap da!)
Occasionally, The Hindu comes out with something apart from their ridiculous ‘intellectual’ airs of self-importance which would qualify as pretty funny. (My dad now claims he buys the paper only for the obituaries and the crossword. I like the way they think they are Chinese.) Today was such an occasion, although I’m unsure whether they really realized that what they printed draws a laugh or two, since they placed it in the Editorial Page. A scientist is livid, it seems, with Holiday Cards containing eight edged snow flakes. It irks him because it has been known to mankind for at least 400 years now that snowflakes can only be six sided. Once The Hindu was done with applying its journalistic mind to this quite anal-retentive viewpoint (or rather, once The Guardian was done with it and The Hindu ripped it off), the issue was suitably intellectualized to read as fundamental clash between the disciplines of art and science.
Snowflake anyone??
For the blood is the life
Posted by: gousgame on: December 23, 2009
If I fell in love with you,
Would you promise to be true?
–
The Beatles
There’s just something about those lines which is bloody brilliant!
On another note, I am almost through Stoker’s Dracula and I have to admit it’s been one hell of a read. If ever a book was worth all the hype this one was it. If you haven’t read it yet, I would urge to go right out and get a copy for yourself. Try reading through it in small bits, a little each night. Use a reading lamp in a dark room for the added spooky effect. I loved reading it this way, and I reckon I’ll do it again sometime in the future. Like the saying goes, a book worth reading once is worth reading again.
I think I understand why they chose Van Helsing to base a movie on. Apart from the Count himself, Helsing is undoubtedly the most enigmatic of the characters in the book. There is just something so endearing about this eccentric, quite mad Dutch scientist. The man’s tendency to break into sombre, gravely intended but quite comically worded preludes to his brave actions are a treat to read.
Oh.. and there is Reinfield. I think I will dedicate an entire post to Reinfield sometime soon. He is quite simply superbly warped in the head. He is a lunatic who eats flies, or lets spider eats flies and he eats the spiders instead. Or he lets sparrows eat spiders which eat flies and he himself eats the spiders. He counts them off too.. the ones he eats and the ones which they eat and so on. He has a nice logic to it all, a purpose towards the achievement of which he is very resolutely set. And I though Hannibal Lecter was weird.
I think I will try some Sherlock or good ole Feluda in a bit. I’m in the mood for some mystery.
Back to work tomorrow – the fever has passed.
Brood
Posted by: gousgame on: December 22, 2009
Since the last time I posted, not much has happened that has been worth talking about. Someone who reads my blog thought I should write more often lest I forever remain off the blogroll and on the feed reader software. Another has told another that she thinks I will write a novel someday. The latter of the anothers told me of the former of the anothers’ prediction and I nodded assent. I will finish writing a novel someday, all though what will become of it I cannot say.
The New Year is around the corner, and I worry that I shall not have much to say about it’s Eve. It is not that I have no plans, but it is rather that I know not how to execute them that frustrates me. I wish I was elsewhere and with someone else.
I have taken to journalling, and saying things in a notebook. Things which don’t reach this blog and never will. I do it partly because I have a lovely fountain pen which my father gifted me. I like old fountain pens, if it weren’t that my gathering instinct has been adequately satiated with the bookmark collection, I would have collected fountain pens. I have a fascination for all things literary.
A friend is going through difficult times. Could it be that her slumber is so sweet that she never wishes to wake up? Perhaps. Or could it be that she does not know that she sleeps?
Have you ever wondered about the irrelevance of opinion?
NUJS blues and them basterds!
Posted by: gousgame on: October 25, 2009
The five things I miss most about hostel (in no particular order)
1. Walking down the corridors at around 5:30 AM brushing my teeth and almost always bumping into a Sroyon engaged in the same act.
2. Being able to knock at Ayan’s door every 30 mins.
3. Corridor/Random person’s room gossip sessions.
4. IP Messenger and all that came with it.
5. My room!
On another note, I had a pretty surreal conversation with a 60 year old man at the video rental place last night. It went something like this:
Old Man (to the video rental woman): Do you have that movie Valkyerie in your collection?
Video Rental Woman: No sir, it went out yesterday.
Old Man (once again to the video rental woman): What about that other one about the World War II period which released just now? I forget its name. It was some “bester” something.
Me (butting into the conversation): “Inglourious Basterds” you mean?
Man: Yes yes thats the one.. inglorious besterd is it?
Me: (looking at old man): Inglourious Basterds.
Old Man (looking away quickly to the video rental woman upon realization dawning – Exit straight out the door)
Tarantino I love you!
Remembering Heisenberg
Posted by: gousgame on: October 17, 2009
I was never one for understanding the intricacies of science, even at the very modest higher secondary level. However, one of the concepts which I managed to grasp was the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The principle postulates that one can never know with absolute certainty the precise velocity and position of an electron simultaneously. I’m not really sure why this principle was so important, having severed almost all contact with my studies of science on joining law school, but I do know that it was considered monumental.
Well.. anyway the point is not whether his work was revolutionary or not. The point is this – he died eventually, much as most of our kind are wont to do. And upon his death some other genius set to work on things more interesting than atoms – I speak of the one who fashioned dear Heisenberg’s epitaph. It reads thus – ‘He lies somewhere here’. That REALLY cracks me up! (P.S. I hope I don’t need to explain why)
This entire business got me thinking in my rather morbid way as to what I would want my epitaph to be. A few minutes into it made me realize that I could have no epitaph on account of my religion. My body shall burn and when the wind scatters the ashes I too shall be truly lying ’somewhere here’. I hope Heisenberg realized what he started off with all this uncertainty business. We can’t all just lie ’somewhere here’ upon death – what would the poor grave-diggers of the coming generation do? We must be considerate and at least draw up maps. And besides, I have never been one to wander – my soul has always remained firmly tethered to my navel and sheltered by my underwear. I like wearing my underwear high – reminds me a of a certain history professor i once had. I just don’t think I will be able to the adjust simultaneously to being dead and scattered – it shall be the end of me I tell you.
A few more minutes after such realization dawned, I was left deeply perturbed. I couldn’t reconcile myself with the idea that there shall be nothing etched in stone to remember me by. We don’t truly know what the afterlife would be like. For all we know, we could be doomed to eternally look at our epitaphs – to ponder and introspect about why the world chose to say such a thing about us at a time when we could possibly have no recourse to a defense save terrorizing them by becoming a manic headless spirit horseman by choosing to return from the afterworld. That would be fun. What would be terrible would be to have to stare at blank wall and thus have no excuse at all for being a nasty ghost.
Personally, I have always held a conviction that my journey through the after life will be a meaningful one. It shall be one of opportunity, of deep conversation with others amongst the faithful departed about the mistakes we made while still alive. Most importantly, it shall be one where I cannot be blamed for the deathly pallor of the woman who would share my bed.
Well.. I shall let Heisenberg be for the moment. Hope you had a great diwali folks!
I’m at a place called vertigo.
Posted by: gousgame on: October 14, 2009
- In: Rants
- 2 Comments
The High Court is full of strange people indeed. Robes almost as if from the medieval ages are passe, people sport the weirdest neck gear (we call them ‘bands’ for some strange reason) and they sure can carry on some random, would-be-offensive-if-only-it-were-not-so-hilarious conversation.
For instance, the other day, while I was in what people call
The Section’ (thundering drum roll in the background – its that dreaded place where the advocate clerks haunt, and juniors are banished to if they displease their boss) I happened to overhear a snippet of conversation between two other similarly languishing advocates who were passing me by. No no no, don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, if anything they were the ones being indiscreet for I realized that for some strange reason – they were talking about me! Much to my anguish they were discussing how much a guy like me would suffer if I had vertigo (I’m 6 foot 2 for the uninitiated – by High Court standards that would be ‘giant-like’). I attribute their malice to the fact that I’m different from them in other respects too – I still have some hair. Not that they could get a good look at my head – frigging midgets that they were.
I’ve noticed that the High Court Dispensary is conveniently located near ‘The Section’. So is the High Court Dog (black mongrel) and the High Court Cat (white i dunno what you call a mongrel cat – smelly cat?). I spotted the Dog in the Drafting Section and the Cat in the Company Petition Section. There must be some symbolism which evades me altogether.
However, I must state for the record that ‘The Section’ is far from deserving the title of the ‘most agonizingly bureaucratic place in the city’. That honour without doubt goes to the regional passport office. My travails at that place have left me so traumatized that I cannot speak much about it. Suffice to state that on the basis of my rudimentary knowledge as regards such things, the change-of-address on passport experience is not very different from the first sexual experience for the uninitiated i’ve-never-watched-any-raunchy-movie-scenes angel. When you think that you’ve filled out all the forms and fully ready for the grand entry, you don’t really know which place does what.
I’m back!
Posted by: gousgame on: September 30, 2009
A guy named Ed Balls is seeking to put school bullies in their place in the UK. ED BALLS!! Can you imagine that poor chaps life at school with a name like ED BALLS! I can almost picture Cartman on his megaphone. .. “Heeey Ed.. why do they call you BALLS? Do you scratch your balls Ed? Do you?? eeeehh!”
Also in other news - a clown is being sent to space – no his name is not Laika. He apparently plans to sing a poem for all of us on earth too while hes there .. it is to be about clean water and how everybody should have some. I await with bated breath for the youtube video of this one.
I’m back then.. lets see how this time goes
Morning Reflections
Posted by: gousgame on: December 22, 2008
The most wonderful thing about reading a novel that early in the morning is that your mind drifts to the weirdest of thoughts. For instance, it suddenly popped into my head from god-knows-where that ´Life´ is a curious game of tag played between the ´Self´ and the ´Self-esteem.´ Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn´t; but surely I wouldn´t have thought of something like that in any other setting.
Coming back to the subject of coffee, I must admit that I have become an addict. The urge to get to Costa everyday is overwhelming. I should do something about it. Or not! The best thing really would be for my family to stage an intervention. Or not!
O! I have started collecting bookmarks! Thsoe things look pretty darned cute. Please feel free to contribute to my collection. I currently have as many as ONE.
