Killing Twain and Wodehouse American Style

I am afraid. I am very afraid. Planet Earth is slowly but surely morphing into McWorld. American culture, like all world cultures, has a lot to be said for it. It also has a lot to be said against it. If all the world fell into this melting pot, with a pretty large portion of Americanization poured into it, it would become amalgamated into some sort of scary, uni-dimensional, US-colored organism. Familiar things beginning to act queer (and not in the sexual sense) while no one around you is not icing it, is the stuff that edge-of-the-seat horror films are made of.

Old Movie Orgy

Since my trip to Chennai when I picked up a whole bunch of old, old movies, I've been having a movie marathon of old films. I wonder what it is about the black and white era that fascinates me. Sometimes I think that living in them would have been a dream life.

Being wildchild

Am I really the wildchild I think I am? There's a pretty eclectic assortment of persons I could be. My mind operates on the cusp of grilled bread and wild honey. That no-man's territory where the pine forest meets the willow by the lake. That part of the mindsphere where a man bringing coffee to bed meets a man passing the mustard at a McDonald's. But I'm not only about the honey and the man with the coffee. I'm not all fairy fluff coz I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

I don't wanna be a moviestar. And romantic as the idea of being castaway on a paradise island eating berries and peaches and dressing in cherry blossoms seems, I know that I'd hate to be marooned. Coz I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

I could straddle a horse and play brash highwayman crying murder. I could be the bridesmaid that steals the groom. I could be the crepe-clad Catherine destroying Heathcliff. I could be rotten through and though and walk on the wild side. But I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

Living on roast lamb and rum in the Ashbury countryside with a French maid and an English butler is a possible way of life. But not one I'd pick. Equally unappealing is the vision of the sultry Vogue woman blowing cigarette smoke rings in a highrise in Manhattan.

Champagne by candlelight, sharing kisses in the moonrise, walking hand in hand on the rocky ridges, ragged thrusts by the seaside sands.. I want to explore unbridled lust but something whispers that I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

I am too rooted in the prosaic to explore the fragmented pieces of my imagination. And the the fragile fancies of my mind would be broken on the crags of reality. The ethreal beauty of the idea will be crushed out when it meets existance. Black and white is never as magical as sunlight on a diamond. For I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

I am the essence of the eternal dreamer. Having a dream gives a hope and a tang to life. And I tremble on the edge of the person I am on the outside and the person every fibre in my body strains to be. And damn! Sometimes I freeze! And sometimes it burns... I'm not the wildchild I think I am…

If I wasn't doing what I am doing….

For the second time in the last six months I had this question asked me… "If you aren't doing what are doing, what would you be doing?" What would I be doing? What would make me happy?

When I was at school, I wanted to have a cross between a home for orphans and an experiment in education. One house. About 30 kids. And me as Big Mama. I had a lot of fun planning uniform designs, classroom décor and syllabus.

I don't know why I never pursued that dream, but somehow it didn't seem practical to take that plunge.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

You know how it is when a bunch of women get together… We talk about ourselves. Relationships. Work. Relationships. Men. Relationships. Philosophy. Relationships. Non Family stuff. Relationships… You get the picture…. And like all discussion, it gets me thinking.

What is this with relationships that make us hyper-micro-analyse it? Is it that we want relationships? Yeah.. kind of… But not entirely. Is it because we are at some level involved in unsatisfactory relationships? Probably… Is it because relationships are interesting to talk about… We’re getting close now… The real reason, though, is that we see a lot of relationships that have untapped potential. We look around and say “Why not!”

And really, why ever not… And the reason a relationship does not reach its potential is a lack of passion. Passion, not just in the sense of hungry kisses and tearing off clothes in the back of a car… but just passion to be with someone you really care about. And who really cares about you.

Couple of years ago, I was in a chatroom and I met this chap from California.

It’s time to cut loose and start new

Coorg has been refreshing and releasing in a way that I completely did not feel before. I am ready at last to trash the clutter and move on. I came back and realised that I needed to set things right not go with the flow the way I’ve been doing.

Sometimes it’s amazing how fast I get caught in situations that I actually don’t even particularly care about. I shortchange myself to make someone happy and I am last on my own agenda. When I moved to the city, I had a set agenda, when I moved into the new house I had a set agenda, and I have no idea where in damnation I lost sight of my goal in the mad rush for what… I don’t even know that.

Snapshots of Coorg

The ticket collector at the bus stop taking down the number of the car we left by...

The woman who sold us honey and spices with a shy smiling face...

Sitting by the Abbey falls with our belongings on a flat stone munching on cream buns...

The candy floss clouds moving over Raja's seat...

Walking down the roads of Coorg bag and baggage discussing religion…

Discussing spirituality and self on the half built balcony at Serenity Home…

G and I gorging on Apple Pie and chocolate cake drowned in Cool Blues in an attempt to get over the cancelled flight plans….

My new pink bag….

The adorable 19-year-old who tried to hit on us at the Tibetan settlement with a "How Sweet!" How his family laughed at him. Poor darling…

The smile of the old Coorgi woman at Dubare as she told me where I could find a place to change…

The wet cool waters I slipped into at Dubare…

Our host's question: "So which college are you guys from?" YIPPPEEEEEEE!!!!

The bus we almost missed as we sat gossiping in the bus stop. …

The insane insect that was attracted by our feet in the Abbey Falls…

The smiling child who gave me the dried fallen flowers she had carefully gathered

Another shy child who wanted earrings like mine…

The gulmohar tree in the middle of nowhere….

Snuggling into the bamboo tree house at Nisargadama…

The Mommy elephant who was so feared that the mahouts treated her baby with more respect than was accorded to giant tuskers…

Feeding cucumbers to the deer at the deer park. I touched them. They felt so soft and lovely….

G swinging me in the middle of the silent bamboo park…

The silence and peace of the Tibetan Monastery…

Chinks in the armor

We’re all cocooned inside protective layering. Reckless has plain brick fortress. Those who try to get inside the inner circle hot stone and feel the chill. Emotions, the person inside, even speech, is held so close to the heart and given to the outside world in really tiny doses. It almost seems that she is devoid of emotions. Dead. Dumb. Perceive her anyway, but she is so enlightened she does not even care about your perception.

Whispers in the moonrise

Every now and then I sit down and compile a list of my favourite words... Been a long time since I took a count, so here goes...

whispers (all time favourite), candle, moonrise, straddle, brash, ashbury, countryside, willow, burns, bridesmaid, french, grill, edge, marooned, seaside, cherry blossoms, rum, lamb, essence, eclectic, cusp, forest, pine, roast, cigarettes, ragged, thrust, berries, wildchild, manhattan, castaway, bread, moviestar, murder, rotten, damn!, kisses, fragmented, rooted, trembles, ethreal, eternal, magic, freeze, coffee, musk, fragile, broken, peaches, maid, sandy, mustard, crepe, sultry, ridge, crag, smoke, champagne, crush.....

Out of 60 odd words, more than half have "R" in them. Have realised that as always, words with "R" in them do things to me. Good things. Don't feel the same way about other alphabets. Want to write a post using all of the above. A rather tall order since they're all so different. Other than the "R," no common thread connects them. Let me see, though....

The fine art of flirtation

I was talking to a few newer members at work. Two of them asked questions at the same time. I had answered a couple of the guy's questions before so I decided to answer the girl's, "Will get to you when I'm thru with her, Z. I haven't had a chance to spend quality time with J since morning." "You flirt with my roomie also l just like this, don't you," said J with an accusing finger pointed at me. "Moi? I flirt with everyone darjeeling," I said.

And that got me thinking. Confirmed when the awesome foursome sat down for post lunch gossip and B said, "I don't mind when C flirts because after all, that's her thing." What? My thing?

Riding for a Fall

Been recently hearing a lot of stories about clingy people in the last 6 months, that I have developed this theory about this. And of course, what better place to advertise one's theories than one's blog. (This serves the dual purpose of telling people that I do theorize on my blog as well as rant... as well as talk nonsense. Thus I do something real on my blog.)

Anyways, my theory is that all of us are, as a friend once put it, "cases for charity” at some time or the other. There is however a class of people I call the clingers or the needy people, who just can't seem to get beyond that phase at all. They tend to be broody and mysterious and do reckless things that most "normal" people would not. Which is probably half their attraction anyways.

Air kissing the glitteratti Culture

One of the first things I noticed about the MNC world is the air kissing culture. It seemed to generally pervade every organisation here. You saw it at all the places where people gathered. A lot of "How was your weekend?" Oh, how awesome you look," is so thrown at you during the course of the day it ceases to be of value.

Do people even realise what they're saying sometimes? The forced niceness sometimes makes me crosser than a hungry grizzly with an infected dental cavity.

The secret of life

Been reading Oscar Wilde. And discovered the key to extracting joy from life. The secret to life is to take pleasure in being terribly terribly deceived. I felt as I read that line that I had come home. I had discovered everything that was there to know.

Of all the things that people are unhappy about... I mean really really soul-killingly unhappy about, being betrayed and deceived is the worst. Even poverty is made more unbearable by exploitation. You get cheated out of your wages; you get turned down for a loan from someone you trusted... And that hurts more than actually being in financial low water at that point in time.

This can be sort of transferred into any negative experience you have. It's the fact that you're let down that hurts more than the loss of the experience itself. You feel more sorry that you've been stood up than that you missed the movie.

Now what if... What if you go through life a lot more rashly? Not afraid of being betrayed or let down. What if you make plans to go out with someone, knowing that there's a possibility that he/she won't keep their word? What if you can take that kind of deception and distil from it only the fun times you had together, won't that be completely totally cool?

Why not be gullible? So much better than being cynical... Is it too much of a risk? What do we lose anyways? The most that can hurt us is that someone we trusted deceived us. The secret to life is to take pleasure in being terribly terribly deceived...

Cross week...

What an utterly cross sort of week this has hitherto been. I was on a roll on Monday, playing pranks and having a laugh. And now, am merely tired. Signs of old age finally showing up? Possibly.

Went home with intentions of working. Watched part of an old old Tamil film instead. I do have a fixation on nostalgia. I am of the generation that grew up on DD.

Finding Neverland

"She was now forty years of age, childless, and with that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young." Oscar Wilde was talking about Lady Windmere, but this could apply to any woman (or man) who's young and fun to be around with. I was in the cab the other day when a plane passed by. "See! Plane!" I pointed. My cabmate stared. "What happened?" "A plane was passing." He smiled indulgently. He had grown up. Flight rates and routes and flying miles fascinated him. The engine and aeronautics interested him. To see a plane and feel pure joy.. He had lost that.

Isn't it sad that people grow up so much that little things fail to cause that wondering sigh. When all the insanity and recklessness is driven from us. When we cease to giggle. We stop finding PJs funny. When we stop using slang. Where's the magic lost. When we stop going through a lot of trouble just to cause annoying people a little bump in the road. Is everything blasé in the grown up world. Can't we be mature and gullible all at once. Isn't it worth having people having a laugh at your cost once in a while if it's a really good laugh? Give me Neverland anyday...