The Miscellany Manifesto

Random Musings of a Transient Soul





Gmale Comes To Town

16.6.06
Remember watching Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak? Remember the hero and heroine's friends, those disposable cupids who helped them elope and be naughty? Yeah, I almost turned into one this weekend and I didn't even know it. Here's the sordid tale of the Gmale, the to-be Gfemale and their untrustworthy sidekick.
Sparse readers, you might have encountered a certain creature called Aunty G in my previous posts. I shudder already. Yes, its the same Aunty G of the "Ladki balik hai, shaadi kab karegi" and "Upar bhoot hain? Accha? Main jaaon?" fame. G force is back with a bang; and if you look past her big bang you will notice her son, the Gmale, running behind her tied duly to her apron strings.
Gmale and I have had a lukewarm Hello-Kaise Ho-Goodbye friendship over the last 2 years. Mighty clever fellow and one of those Yes Mummy types. Not that it's a bad thing, but I feel like shaking his 6'4 frame silly, squeezing all the Navratna Tel out of his hair and telling him "Get a life boy, you're 23 for God's sake!" However, since we are only lukewarm with each other and he's almost always away at his hostel, I can't.
Gmale is doing some sort of engineering course on the other side of town and rather than commute for 4 hours everyday, he lives on campus. Now we all have Gmale figured as the posterboy of the SeedhaSadha variety. But ha! Things are never the way they seem, right? Right! Twist in the tale, sting in the tail- by Curious George, I love it!
See, Gmale went out and got himself a life- along with a girlfriend (Gfemale), a bike his parents don't know about and a warning for expulsion from his college. Oooh, sordid sordid. I only found out when he called me, of all people, and told me about it. Since he calls me didi (because he's 2 years older and calling me didi makes a lot of sense that way) I listened him out patiently and made all the appropriate um-hum, yes yes, ofcourse and no absolutely not sounds when required. All the while wondering alternately, are you serious? and, so why do I need to know this? Things became terribly clear very soon.
Gmale and the Gfemale want to get married. They're sure the parents won't have any of it, lingual barriers and all. I feel really bad for them, as bad as I could feel when I'm jumped with someone's dirty laundry and asked to become a last minute dhobi. You see, Gmale wants me to be a witness at the Registrar's.
Now this isn't me washing their dirty laundry at the wrong ghat, I shouldn't be talking about his personal stuff here, but what to do? This is as crazy as things have gotten in Bangalore over the last 2 years. Imagine, 2 years and no madness and now, 2 days before I go, huge dose of madness. Such is life. And I am clueless.
I'd love to say I consented to becoming their witness and I'd love to say that I approve and it's soooo cuuutteee or something equally airy. I refused. I couldn't do it. Chicken. Quite apart from the fact that Aunty G will hunt me down and strangle me with her loose apron strings, I cannot become a co-conspirator in this escapade. This sidekick abandonned the sidecar even before the motorbike kickstarted.
Gmale was audibly upset but gracious. Thank the Lord. I don't have a clue what they'll do next. Hope it's nothing as stupid as asking me to become their witness. I wish them all the best, whatever they do decide to do.






Beginning the Goodbyes

So the goodbyes began today. First of the lot and I was a tubelight as usual. Saw the Dhond Platoon for the last time before the next time. I know we'll meet soon, maybe that's why it didn't feel so painful. But then again thats what I convince myself of everytime I say goodbye to anyone. It was painful saying goodbye to everyone, Aaji in particular. The two of us even went for a little girl's evening out yesterday- lots of fun apart from the hunting down the rickshaws bit.
SJB and PS are scouting for eligible porgis, and I'm sure our hunks will find them soon. Infact, PK and SJ (are you reading this?) are also on the lookout. I really hope they do some sort of a wholesale marriage bonanza thing. It's going to be a lot of fun- the preps are always tons of fun. Last night was good, we all sat down after dinner to do some major leg-pulling. SJB was interrogated endlessly about TiMu Patel, to little avail. We only got her real first name out of him after much prodding, still, it's some progress!
As me and mum waved them goodbye from the balcony, tubelight as ever, it hit me then that the next time I see them it might be at their weddings! Imagine all the leg-pulling I'm going to miss over the coming months. The boys are all grown up.






One Day Poems

14.6.06
Just smooched a brilliant idea from the NYT. Read about an anthology called 'The One Day'. I tried Googling for it, in vain. It's by a brilliant poet called Donald Hall who has just been named the 14th Poet Laureate of America.
It gave me a great idea that I'm very keen to work on. I was keen on understanding the source but since I can't really find it, I'm just going to smooch the idea of The One Day poems. I haven't been writing since the demise of Dioscouri, my other blog. [There's still some stuff there that needs to be sorted- note to self.]
I'll be in Mumbai in less than a week's time. For now, I have a schedule cluttered with talk, shopping, eating chaat and other roadside goodstuff, sleeping over, going out with ReenuBaby, going to Vaslai to Bappa and Pacchi's house and attempting a 6mile cycle trip through village fields to the beach. Don't know which day I'll pick out of these, or perhaps set a day aside. But I plan to go out, be quiet, walk a lot (maybe South-side) and write about it. Who knows how it'll turn out. I can't wait though. Imagine, a whole day dedicated to walking, Mumbai and writing- 3 favourites!
Pattern of writing: undecided. Will probably keep it free verse, maybe para-prose. Let's see. If its any good and I end up not tearing any of it, I'll put it up.
I'm excited! :)






Fanaa: Destroyed in Lameness

12.6.06
Things have gone slightly upside down of late- practically everyone we know in Bangalore seems to be moving houses. So we went to SD's house yesterday to lend a hand. But everyone turned out to be so pooped and well in need of a break, that we decided to go watch Fanaa instead. Surround sound at unhealthy decibels is never the best idea for relaxation, but atleast everyone sat in comfortable seats for three hours and had no boxes to think of.
So off went the platoon. After reading reviews that ranged from bad to ugly, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. But hey, a critic who has seen the movie and is critical is better than a cynic who hasn't seen it and is cynical nevertheless.
Right off- the movie is so chock full of 'What the fuck?' moments, I think I uttered the phrase with alarmingly increasing frequency and disbelief as three hours of lameness passed me by. How could it break weekend Box-office records when it's so weak? It makes no sense for God sake! Parents who send their daughter off to a new city with bimbo friends and teacher to find a shehzada, supposedly intelligent girl lets a weirdo guide cop numerous feels without any sense of shock/anger/burning fury, bimbo friends and teacher allow weirdo guide to carry on shenanigans and actually stop train by pulling chain so that they can facilitate a little walking into the sunset moment- wtf? wtf? wtf?
Then if the first half wasn't senseless enough, they tacked on another hour and a half on mindless storyline in the name of entertainment. Army admitting senior officer without suspicion or so much of a background check, parachuting->snowboarding->chase on snowbikes (Voices in my head screamed: Are you serious?), Rishi Kapoor floating beneath the ice (Hahaha), Tabu in the worst role of her lifetime (I hope), helicopters crashing mid-air. The list of celluloid woes is long but I can't even remember half of the self-righteous, ridiculous crap!
Oh, and what about all the great actors wasted in the name of Lame and Lamer guest appearances? So much fan-bloody-tastic talent totally wasted on a weak story and barely there scenes. What a real shame. Here's my list:
1. Satish Shah
2. Lillette Dubey
3. Shiney Ahuja
4. Kirron Kher
5. Tabu
6. Lara Dutta
Can't really recall any more names. What a waste though. Some of these characters could well have been omitted: all in the name of star power. Still, who can debate the filmmaker's good sense if it did so well at the BO? In fact, most of our donkey tired platoon also loved it- what to do?
All in all, a 16 day love story full of ridiculous moments and unintentional hilarity. I thought it was a waste and not only was I destroyed by Fanaa's lameness at the end of 3 hours, I got a lovely migraine as a return gift too. Nice.






Limbo Bimbo

6.6.06
NB feels like she's between decisions, I feel like I'm between chunks of life. I've arrived safely in Limbo and that'll be my postal address for the coming weeks. I'd like to introduce you to Limbo. Its a dodgy place, at best; but it deserves an introduction and it deserves an introduction from someone who knows their way around the place. No, you're wrong. That someone isn't me. I only stumble, fall, scrape and bruise when passing through Limbo. But I'm beginning to find my way around it- or so I'd like to think. Humour me. Here's a brief guide to Surviving the Space Between the Parts of Your Whole, ie: Limbo.
First of all, what is Limbo? Limbo is that place that comes bang before a big change. You're neither ringing out the old nor quite ringing in the new, you're just beginning to get used to all the ringing you're going to have to do. It's disorientating, and that's the understatement of the day. It's that time, that place, where you know change is about to happen, but your brain is still in that relatively happy place where comprehending the change completely is slightly beyond the capacity of its imagination. So it's a slightly blurry place, things seem to 'just' happen without their being affected by the illusion of your control. Know the feeling yet?
Limbo is an odd place to be in. How it treats you depends upon how you treat being there. It's a little nasty in the beginning. I mean, imagine it if you will, you know life is about to turn itself at slightly awry angles and things are about to be different- but the degrees of the awry angles and difference are still lost to you. How different will things be? How upside down can life get? That's the tricky bit. It is terribly difficult to predict. You could rely on your imagination (for the likes of me, even slim wisdom gained from past experience) but its a difficult deal- not because the breadth of one's imagination doesn't suffice, it's simpler than that- the imagination, my imagination, just doesn't think of all the unplesant things that could come with change. So limbo often ends up being a ridiculously content time where one imagines the coming of Utopia with change. That, 9 times out of 9.1, doesn't happen.
Limbo is a place populated by decisions. Well, there's a lot of indecision hiding in the shadows of Limbo as well, but in the light of things, Limbo is full of decisions and choices that must be made. From the sorting of things, of the debris of life that we collect as we go along to the wasted emotional baggage that we could do without, choices must be made about keeping and discarding. Choices are to be made about the worth of things and their value in our lives. So I suppose change is good in that way, it helps you get rid of the stuff you don't need any more.
Limbo is bittersweet too. Not only things, people are also left behind through change. Somewhere through Limbo it becomes painfully apparent that the comfort of old friendships and old loves must be lost. A new set of people must be understood, efforts made again, ties tied again. Limbo is that place where the loss of the old and the uneasy excitement of the new mingle with each other.
Perhaps the greatest element of Limbo is its instability. The solid predictability of things is suddenly gone- and for me this is perhaps the most unpleasant part. It is perhaps why its so hard to imagine the quantum of change that will hit us. Neither are we in the new yet, nor have we left the old. It's just a strange, uncomfortable place in the crevice between the two. The newness of change is wonderful for some, horrid for others. I suppose its just the way we choose to deal with it.
It is full of fear and joy, decision and indecision, the light of excitement and the shadows of anxiety. It's just a giant periodic oxymoron. And I suppose we all go through it. Everyone faces change once in a while, right? I'm hardly alone. I guess we all just deal with it differently. Some choose to block it, others embrace it, some fear it and others revel in its choices, some are silent about it and others philosophize cryptically on their blog.






Ten Days In This Life

5.6.06
Celebrated birthday...bought The Argumentative Indian off the streets...fell in love with Amartya Sen...gave some silly exams...played Monopoly and got very angry at SJB for trying to eat a fake Rs50 note...resolved to drink more water...got a wonderful album from parents...cried a little...laughed a lot...missed friends...got soaked...danced after last exam...was shooed out by college watchman...ate sinful amounts of cake...felt thankful...went to Mid-Year Strand Sale & picked up fantastic books...developed mini crush on guy at Sale (no picking up going on there)...missed Miscellany Manifesto...was constantly online despite best intentions...ate with mouth open and felt embarassed...got brilliant birthday CD from Mumbai friends...resolved to get my hair cut by Brilliant Vishal...taught little Rohan to roll his tongue...cleaned my room...got very mad at Journalism professor...watched trashy Marathi soaps with Mum and supplied background scores and extra dialogues and commentary...took sidey pictures with camera phone...dreamed about failing exams...was woken up by Cookie licking my face...wrote my name in Elvish...hugged college friends goodbye...ate Biriyani and Gulab Jamoons...made fun of Mossy's post honeymoon-ness...had sudden bouts of wisdom...argued with SD for the heck of it...read poetry...was blissfully happy...and still enjoying it's after-effects...






Done. Nearly. But Done.

3.6.06


I'm done with my exams today. And I couldn't be happier. My last paper starts in one hour and 39 minutes and three hours after that- Freedom.






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"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do." -Epictetus.
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