midnightscribbles

Superman

2012-01-23T10:49:00.000-08:00

Can you read my mind? Do you know what it is that you do to me? I don't know who you are. Just a friend from another star. Here I am, like a kid out of school. Holding hands with a god. I'm a fool. Will you look at me? Quivering. Like a little girl, shivering. You can see right through me. Can you read my mind? Can you picture the things I'm thinking of? Wondering why you are... all the wonderful things you are. You can fly. You belong in the sky. You and I... could belong to each other. If you need a friend... I'm the one to fly to. If you need to be loved... here I am. Read my mind.

The Hindu: Only a conscious public, not rules and laws, can deliver autonomous and incorruptible legislators. By Prof Arun Kumar

2012-01-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

Strong watchdog institutions in a weak democracy make for a tall order.

The Lokpal Bill failed to become law in 2011. The Lok Sabha passed it after some acrimony, but the Rajya Sabha did not even vote on it. Three views emerged during the debate inside and outside Parliament. First, it is a weak Bill not worth passing in its present form. Secondly, it is better to have some sort of Lokpal even if it is not what it ought to be. Lastly, the Bill would create a monstrous institution that will undermine Indian democracy, especially as it would affect the functioning of legislators and the Prime Minister.

Many parliamentarians (publicly and/or privately) understandably supported the third view, given that either they themselves or some of their party colleagues face charges of corruption. They argue that Indian democracy is one of the best in the world: so why disturb it by creating a new institution that would have powers over the people's representatives. While this argument has some merit, perhaps their real worry relates to the possible truncation of their capacity to wheel and deal. Do they not see that the public is angry with the politicians because it believes they undermine democracy? A Chief Minister resigns over corruption charges, but installs his wife as Chief Minister. Many who are accused of corruption have become Chief Ministers or Ministers. Politicians often make public statements, only to deny them later, showing utter disregard for public opinion. The public has reacted by increasingly becoming contemptuous of them.

THE MIDDLE PATH

The middle position prevailed in the Lok Sabha but not in the Rajya Sabha. The argument is that it is better to have some kind of Lokpal than none. A middle path is favoured over extreme positions. However, can the position midway between two incorrect positions be automatically considered correct, or even that which is midway between an incorrect and a correct position be a correct one? It was argued, for instance, that even if the Central Bureau of Investigation remains under government control it may be granted more autonomy. The moot question is whether such a CBI can be effective.

Some people suggest that the absence of constitutional status would weaken the Lokpal. It is true that constitutional status rather than statutory status is better. But how would that by itself make the Lokpal effective? It is argued that a government that is unhappy with a Lokpal can remove the body, as happened in the case of the Punjab and Haryana Lokayukta, or have the Bill modified through a simple majority in Parliament. However, in today's environment this would be difficult since anti-corruption movements are stronger than earlier. The moot question is: how would constitutional status help curb corruption if the Lokpal itself is weak because of the inadequate provisions in the Bill? India has several constitutional authorities, such as the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Central Vigilance Commissioner, to check malpractices. Yet, illegality has only grown.

ELECTION COMMISSION'S EFFORTS

Is it the case that because the Election Commission is a constitutional body it is successful? Elections to five States have been announced. In this season to fight corruption, the Commission has announced steps to reduce the role of black money in elections. Income tax officers will be posted to monitor expenditure, bank accounts will have to be opened by candidates to route funds, and so on. These seem timely since much black money is used in elections, resulting in the forging of ties between politicians and the corrupt. Most candidates spend way above the election expenditure limit since they buy votes, hire workers, travel, organise meetings, and so on. The politicians accepting funds know that a quid pro quo is involved. There are also the wealthy fighting elections using their own unaccounted funds. They pay off the party leadership to get nominations. They may not be obliged to others but their motive is not selfless service, rather the furthering of their business interests.

Election Commissions have tried to curb the role of black money in elections, but the politicians have proved cleverer and circumvented it all. T.N. Seshan as Chief Election Commissioner cracked the whip, but many politicians have said in private that he only succeeded in driving spending underground. There are reports of large cash movements during election-time. It is good that this would be monitored, but will that be effective? One election organiser of a candidate in the last parliamentary elections admitted that money came in sacks. Apparently, counting machines were installed in safe houses where cash was counted and distributed.

In the last two decades, no Election Commissioner has been accused of being corrupt, though there have been accusations of bias. Yet, the Commission has not been successful in checking malpractices that result in the compromised getting elected — who then claim legitimacy and propagate corruption with impunity. Instances of booth-capturing have declined, but new forms of grabbing votes have emerged. There are election expenditure limits but these are hardly kept. Parties and candidates are supposed to get their accounts audited, but how can unrecorded transactions be audited?

The failure of a constitutional body like the Election Commission to check the growing scale of corrupt practices has important lessons for the reform of the existing watchdog institutions and the Lokpal. India has a multitude of watchdog institutions, constitutional and statutory. What is their experience?

The CAG audits government departments to track malpractices, but those in power have found ways to get around it. Intelligence agencies (the Intelligence Bureau, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and so on) keep tabs on important people and their wheeling and dealing and hold vast amounts of information, but illegality has only grown. There are the CVC, the CBI and various police agencies. Government departments have their vigilance wings. There are agencies to protect the environment, but the powerful violate environmental laws with impunity. There are regulatory authorities (such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) to check private business activity, but they could not prevent the 2G scam or insider trading in the stock markets. The Reserve Bank of India regulates financial institutions, but it has been found wanting, as in the Harshad Mehta scam, the failure of cooperative banks, and so on.

The Information Commission oversees the Right to Information. It has shown some success, but increasingly the whistle-blowers are being eliminated and its success has remained limited to the highly literate. The media have exposed innumerable cases of corruption, but now sections of them are entangled in the vice of paid news. Some media stars have been found to be hobnobbing with the powerful and the compromised.

The judiciary is an independent constitutional body, yet the number of cases of alleged corruption against judges is increasing. Cases are piling up in courts, and the number of pending cases has crossed four crore. This has resulted in miscarriage of justice in many instances.

WATCHDOG INSTITUTIONS & RULING CLASS

In brief, neither independence of functioning nor constitutional status has helped watchdog institutions to effectively perform their assigned tasks. The reason is that democracy, the super-watchdog which should deliver all-round accountability, has become weak in India. The ruling class has played havoc with the watchdog institutions so as to control them for their narrow ends. That is why the demand for a strong Lokpal gained momentum. Democracy ought to have ensured accountability of institutions. Votes should have weeded out the corrupt but just the opposite has been happening — the honest rarely win elections.

Democracy has become formalistic. Legislatures should check corruption but it would not be so if the elected are beholden to the corrupt or are themselves corrupt. The problem is political; it cannot be resolved through technical fixes or by having more laws — these are anyway being circumvented. A weak democracy presents a no-win situation: if a democracy is weak, the corrupt get elected and misuse their autonomy; if the legislators' autonomy is curbed, democracy weakens. Only a conscious public, not rules and laws, can deliver autonomous and incorruptible legislators.

That is why today there is a need for political movements that can change the national consciousness, a task being addressed by the movement against corruption and for Lokpal. So, the question is, can there be strong watchdogs in a weak democracy?

(The author is a Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. E-mail: arunkumar1000@hotmail.com)

Keywords: Lokpal bill, anti-corruption movement, India against corruption, anti-corruption watchdog, India constitutional bodies

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2012

2012-01-04T02:03:00.000-08:00

Early morning, by the pillow...

2011-12-20T08:16:00.001-08:00

It's a fungus. It's there in this race. We are damned for it. We and the million generations to come. No matter how much we build, it grows along, eating on the insides, making the cavity bigger. There are no real architects here, only people who labour with stone and dust. I have known this all along. But when we drink in that pessimism, the cavity tears apart the whole. Sometimes even a semblance of normalcy can lend someone hope...

2011-12-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

There are different ways in which they show it. Every one has a different nod. But they are all saying the same thing. We get confused in the babble of tongues. Half the time, we don't really listen. We only hear what we want to. If only we shut out the silence, and let others in, then perhaps we will find that it is not so lonely after all. I have come home now. And I know that everything from now on, will be just all right.

2011-12-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

I was wrong all along. Someone does hear em. Someone really does. Each and every word I utter and those that don't even reach language. Just like that story of a woman in love. She wrote him a million letters. Letters that never reached their destination. But they never really got lost on the way. After years and years of separation, he returned to her. He came back and apologized for not having understood. Their youth had turned to snow. But the feelings beneath had never really changed. Today, when he came back, he put her in a white envelope. And posted her home.

Questions

2011-12-20T06:39:00.002-08:00

I wish I were like him. I wish I were him. When I was a little girl, it was a fight with an imaginary shape. As delicate and pointless as the piece of glass, standing testimony to my fears. I don't know if I have really been able to muffle those shrieks. But now, it is yet another fight. Now, it is all about what brews inside. But I can never learn to be him. You are either built that way or you are not. Is there something faulty in the motherboard? One can learn the art of flirtation, but can one really learn how to love? I must surrender all ego. I must surrender my frills. I must disappear into the background.

Predicament

2011-12-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

From the moment he opens his eyes, to the moment he shuts those weighty lids, he grows more and more blind. He had fought it all his life. In his family.In his village. In his state. In his school. At his university. In his classrooms. And today, he was married to it.

No matter how hard he tries, he can never defeat it. His monster is formless, yet it is in the air that he breathes, the bread that he eats, the water that he drinks. It is in her eyes,when she looks at him. It is there between them. Once upon a time, there was nothing in between, but now, nothing can grow on that soil.

2011-12-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

.... and finally caught!

"Idhar udhar titar bitar, daudte phire."

Make - hay - while the sun shines

2011-12-19T09:30:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's flowers am I,
And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew.
Young maidens came and sang me to my death;
The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud,
The shroud of my last dew.
Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me
Must needs make way for all to-morrow's flowers.
The maidens, too, that sang me to my death
Must even so make way for all the maids
That are to come.
And as my soul, so too their soul will be
Laden with fragrance of the days gone by.
The maidens that to-morrow come this way
Will not remember that I once did bloom,
For they will only see the new-born flowers.
Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back,
As a sweet memory, to women's hearts
Their days of maidenhood.
And then they will be sorry that they came
To sing me to my death;
And all the butterflies will mourn for me.
I bear away with me
The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low
Soft murmurs of the spring.
My breath is sweet as children's prattle is;
I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness,
To make of it the fragrance of my soul
That shall outlive my death.

The shell and the book

2011-12-19T08:37:00.000-08:00

"A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds,--strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The child's face filled with wonder as he listened. Here in the little shell, apparently, was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to its mystery and music. Then came the man, explaining that the child heard nothing strange; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a multitude of sounds too faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes. It was not a new world, but only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child's wonder."

Track Record

2011-12-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

Week Before: At least 2 kms walk + 2 kms jog/cycling

19th December 2011

Walk: East Gate and Back

Jog: 3 rounds of the stadium

20th December

Yoga including 20 surya namaskars

The East Gate jog routine

21st December

I hour Yoga

5 Rounds of the stadium = 800 m X 5 = 4 km

10 minutes cycling

2011-12-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

Happy!

***

A quote:

...The devout Mussulman picks up and carefully preserves every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may perchance contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously important to be neglected or lost...

2011-12-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

Whenever

She is happy

And whenever

I make her sad

She steps

Out quietly

And talks

To the birds

2011-12-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

I wonder

I really do

Where did

It go?

One fine day

When I opened

My eyes

I knew

That it had

Gone forever

Never to

Come back

Again

2011-12-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

It was just that

There was nothing

To say

Nothing right

From the beginning

Till the very end

I just sat there

The way I sit

Here, right now

Staring at

The computer

Screen, rusted

Finger tips

...

2011-12-17T10:48:00.001-08:00

...Sometimes they look prettier from the outside...

...I peeled myself off the bathroom floor...

...I admit it is tempting to wish for the perfect boss or the perfect parent or the perfect outfit, but may be the best any of us can do is not quit, play the hand we have been given and accessorize the outfit we have got...

...How do you retain a sense of value when you have nothing concrete to show for it because at the end of yet another long road, when all you have left are war words and self-doubt, you have to wonder what is it all worth?

...Even before the first leaf falls you can hear the seasons click. The air is crisp, the summer is gone, and for the first time in a long time, you need a blanket in your bed...

Someone else's tale

2011-12-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Sanskrit word Itihasa implies not o much what happened but what people said happened - "That's what he/she said happened" - narratives, inevitably subjective narratives...Wendy I love you

Oooh this is like a purrrrrfect midnight orgasm:

"I confess I am one of them - who go straight to the back and look at the notes and bibliography first, reading the book like Hebrew, from right to left, to see where the author has been grazing, like dogs sniffing one another's backsides to see what they have eaten lately."

Quote-Unquote

2011-12-16T14:02:00.001-08:00

"That's the funny thing about needs. When you get them met, you don't need them anymore."

Savita Bhabhi: A Draupadi by choice?

2011-12-16T11:11:00.001-08:00

Savita Bhabhi has dove-shaped eyes, spotless, milky fair complexion, juicy red lips, a sensuous and curvaceous hour-glass frame, a bursting bust line, shapely thighs, meaty hips and most importantly, a democratic attitude towards love. In looks she is a combination of every chaste and worthy K-serial bahu (daughter-in-law). She never forgets to wear her mangalsutra and her red sindur is displayed like a showpiece between her neatly parted hair.

A good Indian wife is a virgin before marriage. She is loyal to her husband and never dares to look at anyone else. She keeps herself busy with household chores awaiting her husband’s return from the office. Anticipating his return, she prepares his choicest dinner and doesn’t eat herself even if he is late. Her character is completely spotless. She is an incarnation of Goddess Sita herself. But our dear Savita is an allergic reaction to this very Sati Savitri construct. An Indian male would always choose to marry a Savitri, however always desire to bed a Savita. After all, Savita features as India’s most successful comic porn star and is widely available on the internet. Her online brothel is among India’s most thronged by lanes. It is among the country’s hundred most viewed sites and has been translated into at least ten languages. In less than a month’s time, the website had 3911 registered users, simply by word-of-mouth communication.

Created by Puneet Agarwal, Savita Bhabhi is a twenty nine year old titular woman. Her tales of sexual (mis)adventure sprouted as soon as she turned eighteen (she was legally within the lines when it came to having sex) with her own cousin brother Raj and continue even after her marriage. She has a long list of amorous affairs since her college days. After her marriage she tried hard to remain faithful to her husband Ashok, however his workaholic nature did not suit her sexual appetite and very soon she devised ways to keep herself satisfied. Every episode of Savita Bhabhi involves her having sex with random men or fantasizing about it. Apart from her steaming figure and beautiful face, her bisexuality makes her all the more desirable.

Savita Bhabi as a character is simply a projection of a typical Indian male’s fantasy (or perception of a loose woman) – a frustrated yet beautiful, married housewife, who literally tears her clothes apart on the sight of any prospective affair. She is an actualization of backdoor gossip and scandal. She is an irresistible man-eater who doesn’t spare her own relatives or servant boys. Even though her fans mostly include men and even though her flesh and blood is sucked out of every existing stereotype of a nymphomaniac, Savita Bhabhi is much more. Savita is a woman who chooses to be the hunter rather than the hunted. She celebrates feminine desire by making her libido, her sole drive in life. She bears all, in every sense of the word, in most importantly choosing to break the silence of repressed acceptance, by talking about her needs, by voicing her pain of being ignored by her husband, and by making it clear that one man cannot feed her plate. In a country where women are not even aware of marital rape, where women have no or little sexual exposure/education before they meet their husband, or even if they do, where they dare not speak of their sexual escapades, where they enjoy sex without demanding an orgasm, where they part legs according to the wishes of their partner and shy to demand otherwise – Savita is most definitely an aberration. Not only does she willingly cuckold her husband, his presence or lack of it doesn’t matter anymore. She can in any case never find solace in one. She will not be a Draupadi by chance but by choice.

Bhabhi is a clever title for an Indian porn star – a nasty concoction of irony and debauchery. It combines an astute reading of the Indian sensibility, with the ability to poke it in the eye. Patricia Uberoi, a sociologist and author of Family, Kinship and Marriage in India, sounds amused when asked how an anthropologist would view the appeal of the bhabhi. “The brother-in-law and bhabhi in India have what anthropologists call a ‘joking relationship’. He is traditionally her confidante, her ally; the cultural license in this sort of relationship is almost institutionalised. This sort of layered response to a bhabhi just does not exist in the west.” So Savita Bhabhi really is an Indian product. Uberoi cites the 90’s smash hit Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, a family film that sanitised a range of erotic relationships in popular culture. The film carried a whole erotic register just below its surface: the

bhayya-bhabhi relationship was usefully immortalised in songs and purple sarees.

What are the reasons for Bhabhi’s never-ending popularity? What makes her so irresistible to her readership? Indian Graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee who is in the process of writing a factofiction collection on Indian sexuality feels that “you have to be repressed to write good pornography.” About his own escapades he relates his experience of an exotic red light area, “I was fascinated when I saw these prostitutes in Amsterdam, coming as I did from the usual anal middle class and its protected environment where sexy was Ms Peters, the geography teacher.” The straitjacketed sexual environment in which literary erotica is hatched is so oppressive, it usually ventures into the truly outré and kinky sado-masochistic domain. The fun of Savita Bhabhi also lies in its ability to make fun of every stock romantic situation, every cherished memory by stuffing it with unimaginable, wild sex. It is also an example of how anonymous blogging offers a playground for the subconscious to freely manifest itself, thereby resulting in the creation of a literary classic. In fact many of the plots of the cyber series are created with the help of viewer input, in the form of confessions of their own affairs or fantasies. The Savita Bhabhi illustrations also function as visual satire: reminding us as they do of the erotically charged pencil work of Amar Chitra Katha and even the seductive curves of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in our pious calendars.

The tales of Savita Bhabhi’s sexual escapades are as typical as her character. The plots of most erotic and pornographic tales (literary/comic/cinematic) in today’s day and age are far more graphic, titillating, varied and developed. In contrast Savita Bhabhi seems fairly plain and traditional. The success of Savita Bhabhi then lies in its simple ideas which are short, crisp and direct and therefore relatable to a larger audience. Puneet, the creator of Savita, puts his heroine in characteristic porn locations and circumstances – be it a barn yard, an interview table, a kitchen slab, a doctor’s operating room or a public toilet. The storyline of her escapades is also rather predictable. She has sex with two teenage boys who accidentally chance upon her flat when their cricket ball drops into her house. She has sex with a hot male doctor who more than feels her up under the pretext of a routine medical check up. She has sex with her employer who wants her to be his office slut from the day she goes to interview for a job at a corporate office. She has sex with her servant boy Gopal by ordering him to massage her body. She has sex with a Bra salesman after she physically matches his merchandise to her breasts to see which one fits her size. She has sex when invited to couple’s place along with her husband. While her own husband and her love interest’s fat, ugly wife sit in the drawing room, Savita Bhabhi woes her man in his own kitchen. Most of these sexual encounters happen unplanned. It is not as if Savita Bhabhi deliberately creates such a situation. She just happens to meet men accidentally and the rest of the story unfolds automatically. However, even though she feigns to be innocent and swears that she didn’t want to be in the situation that she is in, she is the one pulling the strings of every man’s pants. She makes sure that the men she desires, desire her equally. She makes sure that they do her justice in bed. It is almost as though she wants to squeeze every single drop out of a tiny little lemon.

The Showgirl

2011-12-16T10:36:00.001-08:00

"Do I look happy? I should — for I was a child nobody wanted. A lonely girl with a dream — who awakened to find that dream come true."

The journey from Vijayalakshmi to Silk and yet another from Norma Jean to Marilyn. A painful birth, sexual misadventures and assaults, the image of a sex diva, tragic love-less lives and mysterious circumstances of death. There is something worth exploring in here...

An interesting point to note is how Marilyn Monroe becomes the template for a dumb blonde archetype and Silk Smitha is rarely given any consequential dialogue. She is never given any real flesh and blood role, but is either seen as flesh or for flesh. She is exploited as a marketing tool to sometimes even promote critically acclaimed yet unwanted works of cinema. Oodles of Oomph and a tight scotch tape across her red lips - at least that turns some people on!

Oyasumi Sigh Sigh

2011-12-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Is there any way to know for sure? What is it that I really want to know? Would I really want to know the truth? Is truth such a stable entity? Or like those electrons buzzing around, defining the reason for valency? Is valency nothing but a chemical attraction? And once those elements do combine and we reach a stable compound, what if that really happens, what then? If all that is to be known is known - what else will there be to it? Is there always an answer to a question? Is there always only one question?

One day

2011-12-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

They make their own paper. They knead it with their own hands. They make their own paint. They look. They listen. They soak in. Step by step, they learn to learn. And after many years of patient practice they still continue to...

To Read

2011-12-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

And it feels wonderful to not hear it at all. To finally fall, fall fall - into her cleavage. It feels wonderful to dish out the story. Meaning is always there. Isn't it? In between the cracks.

In progress

2011-12-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

Aah! Writing more love letters to me. Wonder when I will pick up the pen again and all those scrolls. Wonder when those piles would disappear. Wonder when I will finally wipe off the dust? Well never. Otherwise how will work ever manage to work itself out?

The woman with the telling smile

2011-12-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

When I finally saw that photograph, I knew what she meant. It was perfect. The river, the balcony, that leaning gaze. I like flaws, you know. When everything always goes just right it seems so iffy. It seems so rightly wrong. Yet that photograph, was different. When words formed an image in my head, it seemed so unreal. But, I guess the cinematic beauty of that country only seems like a movie set. The Cherry Blossoms however are for real. So is the wood, the paper and the glass. And the sound of water, running water...and like she would jokingly say, not a running tap!

Tatami mats

2011-12-15T16:02:00.000-08:00

Scared so scared to pick up the brush. It was always the other way round. Semantic codes now seem more comfortable. The limitations of our smug lives and those cups of tea.

Clue

2011-12-15T16:01:00.000-08:00

Stolen glances

Pauses

Silences

That is just

Where

They Hide

Frenzy

2011-12-15T15:46:00.001-08:00

What I loved most about her

Is the way she danced

All by herself

In the middle of strangers

Off the tune?

Off the track?

Off the mark?

Jumping up

And jumping down

Beating up a new beat

A salsa and a twist

In her own two

Shoes

Click

2011-12-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

I miss the smell of paper

Of slipping something of

Me, quietly just like that

In between

2011-09-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

Winter flaps her brutal lashes

I swim across to my bay

But green has turned dusty brown

And I crumple like an old sheet

Into a plastic wastebasket

2011-09-14T12:48:00.001-07:00

When words cannot say all

What comes out

Is poetry

Palette

2011-09-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Let us run away

Just the way

You once upon

A time

Used to say

Your burning brush

My fingers and nails

Into that canvas

We never found

Reds and greens

Blues and Yellows

Purples and Browns

Blacks and Whites

Let us paint

Our faces

Our lips

Our naked bodies too

All day

And all night long

This time

We will not

Be afraid

No one will see us

And even

If they see

No one can say

That one colour

Greeting another

You in me

2011-06-29T13:31:00.001-07:00

Time eventually always runs out.

2011-06-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

And another

2011-06-27T12:19:00.001-07:00

I guess it is impossible to muffle silence, so why try?

Another night

2011-06-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

My mind wanders off to lanes I should not tread

I

2011-06-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

For that one hour, everyday, when I push and pull, my mind is full of nothing. That is the real pleasure of doing Yoga...

A stray thought...

2011-05-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, lies have a way of digging deeper than the truth...the way censor boards in India reveal more about the country than national emblems...

I quit

2010-12-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

I realised after three years of doing absolutely nothing, that if I have to do anything at all I better get out of facebook.

SMS

2010-10-14T09:53:00.001-07:00

To wait had it's own romantic poesy. Now I find its beautiful silence silenced in a mobile ring.

Mask

2010-09-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

The internet is a universe of sorts? The big bang theory of silence;)

Performance

2010-09-20T12:33:00.001-07:00

Things fall apart and I emerge on the scene. The messiah in other's troubles seeking some silly validation.

Procrastinating Procrastination?

2010-09-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

One day I will do more than, just begin.

A little something about me

2010-09-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

Brushes brush aside my fears. Alphabets, obviously spell them out. Canvases are more fun, in that sense...

?

2010-09-18T12:51:00.002-07:00

I forgot how to write.

An idle thought

2010-09-18T12:51:00.001-07:00

Imbalance has always been my balance...

Confessions of a Shopaholic

2010-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

Bargaining for a new identity. Looking for discount coupons.

A breeze

2010-08-22T10:27:00.001-07:00

Predicament?

2010-08-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

What I have, I never had. What I have, I never will...

My long jogs

2010-08-07T03:11:00.000-07:00

At the end of a long day, I need a short little moment to pan out me.

Trivia

2010-08-07T03:05:00.000-07:00

They crawl out from within
Straightening costs 500 bucks at a decent shop
Some girls use an iron and hot towels...

A constant

2010-08-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Caught between two pages
A spiral bound?

Poesy

2010-07-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Creation
Is pure
Though
I realised it's worth
When
I lost my
Own

Blogging

2010-07-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

And so
I am finally
Happy
A couple
Of clicks
Down
A syntagmatic
Chain

Hide and Seek

2010-07-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

So,
Everytime
Misanthropy
Reached its peak
I climbed
Its steepy slope
And searched
Hope against hope
For angels
With fluffy wings
Basking
In the clouds

Screen

2010-07-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

The itch goes away
As soon as I find
My notepad

Craft

2010-07-12T22:03:00.001-07:00

Going back and forth
Forth and back again
That's how I remember
An old lady knit
A new sweater

Appropriate

2010-07-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Blank verse and a blank page
Poesy and prose
White ink and a pen I made
My own

Most of the time

2010-07-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Pointlessness. That too is a state of mind.

Certainly my past

2010-07-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

The art of enjoying pain.

Bad business

2010-07-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

Earlier I distributed smiles.

Once again...

2010-07-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

The pillow has gone cold.

When happiness found me

2010-07-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

Gurgles and giggles

Half-chewed words

Ear bites, tongue tugs

And more...

Oblivion

2010-07-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

I sat smug in my time machine
And lost the remote control...

Crucial

2010-07-03T00:31:00.001-07:00

In the 'mean' while everything happened...

Embryo

2010-07-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

It feels light. Very light. To let go. Now I can grow my wings and fly again:)

Internet is my whore

2010-06-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

There are times when you do absolutely nothing and it still feels profitable. That is why facebook is so popular.

Let go

2010-06-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

And then
I remember
Thinking to
Myself
That Vengeance
Ate her own
Mother

The girl on a bike

2010-06-22T09:13:00.001-07:00

My truth

2010-06-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

I would rather have had it...
Straight to fire.
The frying pan
Was never an option.

Too sweet

2010-06-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

Faff

2010-06-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

And so there are days...
When you write
Bad poetry...
That too my friend
Is cathartic...

Faff 2

Bad poetry

Is like bad sex

Just sleep

Over it

A loop

2010-06-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

And then I realised
That I had realised
Nothing at all.

White (Wo)Man's Burden

2010-05-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

I dedicate this poem to the one woman who helped me accept me as I am.

Helen Cixous I love being Medusa.

"Once upon a time"
I heard a clinche beat
Words re-sounding,
Tapping empty feet
"My body is a wonderland"
All that I can infer 'Mr. Adam(s)'
Is that he came, he saw and he conquered.

Chaos, wilderness and the 'Other'
Adjusted itself to a paradigm
Hoarse cries and Gypsy music
Re-aligned to 'fashion'
Patterns, metres, and the iambic

I was music, now I am orchestra
A puppet swinging to the 'Master'
A western tune, an Indian ear
Laces, dresses, frocks, frills and make-up
Bleaches, perfumes, and waxing modules
Pe(t)di-cures and man(y)i-cures
Weighing machines and measuing tapes
Mirrors and Photoshop techniques

I am Indian Sir and Madame
Facial hair and side-burns
Plump, not a flat screen
Breasts not mosquito bites
Thunder-bolts not sticks

Yet I bleach, prune, cut, chop
Mend, repair, fix!
Watch the tape grow smaller
With every b(y)ite
Enjoy pop-rock-hip-hop-this-that-and-the-other
Revel in postmodernism
Use-and-throw
Until I am
Ready to fit
Into
a
Waste-basket

Gandhi vs the Mahatma

2010-05-17T16:34:00.001-07:00

Varuni Sinha: The beginning and the end suffice. The Capital which starts a sentence and the Fullstop which brings about a certainty. Ambedkar died quietly, peacefully in his sleep. The so called Mahatma found an end in an assassination. Much like Dr. Frankenstein murdered by a Fiend of his own creation(?)...

Last three hours invested (hopefully) in watching a play at KC OAT, JNU...Gandi and Ambedkar...Have an examination tomorrow, but who gives a damn...DU and your system of numerals...marks...attendance...internal assessment...is not worth the learning in classrooms OUT(SIDE)!! Mr. Sibbal and his 'glorious' (western!!) enlightenment regarding higher education is such a big farce...someone needs to make a play on that! On that note I say Goodnight and give two hoots to what will happen in my exam tomorrow!:P

14 April at 00:57
Muqbil Ahmar: Hmm....the play was nice...i should say...content wise gandhi was made too much of a scapegoat..think gandhi-bashing is in these days or should i say it was the lure of romanticism...white can only stand out if everything else around it is competely black...whereas life has more shades of gray than either of the above...though gandhi did have negative aspects...he cannot be completely sidestepped...

14 April at 16:10
Varuni Sinha: What you are saying is perhaps in line with the chap in the audience who said..."i understood the play sir but could you throw some light on the contribution of Gandhi" Ramayan khatam ho gai aur janab poochte hain ke Ram kaun thi?;)

My problems with the "man" are as a woman first, the treatment he meted out to Kasturba and his neices, it was never no "Experiment with Truth" but the arrogance of a hedonist strategist in every realm of life...personal or political...no wonder his son went mad!

Also, there is a difference between a Lion who clearly is the King of the forest and a snake, a slimy creature who catches it's prey unawares...of course Gandhi cannot be dismissed and that's what makes this so called "Father of the Nation" popping his bald shiny face out of every note, coin bla bla..all the more dangerous...The sway he held over the common man...the nicely planned chess game he was playing in the garb of a nanga Mahatma...

Of course his views on caste are a complete farce...which we anyway saw yesterday! His only claim to fame being that one fine day when he was thrown out of a train!

Also Muqbil Romanticism is an escape from reality..into the pastoral...or nature..or whatever...when the mahatma is deconstructed bit by bit...when the image of the man behind the mystic emerges...we are looking reality in the eye!

2010-05-17T16:33:00.001-07:00

RT

2010-05-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

Neglect is like the ashes which cover a fire: perhaps keeping it alive, but preventing its heat from being outwardly felt. When self-respect dwindles, neglect does not seem unjust; for this reason, it causes no suffering. That is also why women are ashamed to feel pain." Tagore

"Inessential rubbish can easily find a place around our houses, because people forget it, but an inessential girl is in the first place unwanted, and moreover impossible to overlook; hence she does not find place even in the rubbish heap." RT, The Wife's Letter

Imtiaz Dharkar

2010-05-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

Quote-Unquote

"Maybe there is a country/
where all of us live,/
all of us freaks/... See more
who aren't able to give/
our loyalty to fat old fools,/
the crooks and thugs/
who wear the uniform/
that gives them the right/
to wave a flag,/
puff out their chests,/
put their feet on our necks,/
and break their own rules."

ID

Virtual Refraction

2010-05-17T16:29:00.003-07:00

Living life in computer screens. We miss the real picture.

(F)Art

2010-05-17T16:29:00.001-07:00

Art and life, life and art, art of living, the artifice in life, life in art, life and death, truth and deceit, the death of an artist? Birth of meaning? Art for art's sake? Splash paint at random on an empty canvas and one fine day, one fine idiot will frame it and call it a masterpiece. Only after the idiot who splashed gained currency. Art...simply fart?
22 April at 02:49

Why I am fat!

2010-05-17T16:28:00.001-07:00

The human body suffers twists and turns the moment it emerges from 'the' deep dark sticky passage;) But what's more fascinating are the twists and turns of the human soul! The labyrinths through which we try and search our sense of 'self'! And somehow Satan helps me more than the Holy Trinity! HAHA!

To my friends and all our nights together

2010-05-17T16:27:00.001-07:00

Have searched/ And searched/ And given up/ Too late?/ An idle hunt/ For diamond dust.
26 April at 11:23

And they attacked the Artists once again

2010-05-17T16:26:00.001-07:00

What is art? Let us appease Walter Benjamin and believe for a second, that true art with the soul of a real "aura" is art. Manufactured, processed art, for mass-consumption is a degraded format. So, WB wd say photography is inferior as is the art of film making! Or is it? Why such boundaries to mode of expression which... flouts boundaries to begin with? Which begins and ends in chaos?

Then I think of art and artistry...I think of the way a commonplace housewife arranges her crockery, of how a 3-year old doodles on blank sheets of paper, of how words in an ad-punch line compel a 16-yr old to buy his IPL shirt, of how Chacha-chaudaries in one part of the world and Super-man in another captivate beyond their chaddis, of how a sun-... See morebaked, tired, yet sultry labourer ties her ordinary sari seductively around her waist, of how dog-shit and the marks of an ignorant horse on paper are sold in billions...of how art constantly imagines, invigorates, challenges and changes what art essentially is...Only because there is no essential category of art...look around and the very structure or lack of it is art...or not...some call it the design of God, others less poetic (?) call it the stamp of science!

Rain Rain come again, (not) another day...

2010-05-17T16:25:00.001-07:00

Was so funny last few days ..the clouds always lost the battle against the winds, finally our hero won!
30 April at 23:31

A Lesson in Linguistics

2010-05-17T16:22:00.002-07:00

T.S.W 1970 I take it you already know/ Of tough and bough and cough and dough?/ Others may stumble but not you/ On hiccough, thorough, lough and through./ Well done! And now you wish perhaps,/ To learn of less familiar traps?/...

Anti-Mirror

2010-05-17T16:22:00.001-07:00

Measuring and tapes, weighing and machines, fairness and metres, jobs and lip jobs, plastic and surgeries, suction and lipo-suction, cells and cellulite, fits and anti-fits...All of 'them' tending toward a 'Perfect' Zero.

Origin

2010-05-17T16:19:00.001-07:00

Thankfully Plates dished out the Himalayas!

Toli, Near Rithakal (40 mins from Satpuli, 2 hrs from Kothdwar, Overnight by Bus/train if "home" is New Delhi) Pauri Garwal, Uttaranchal
12 May at 00:40

Loop

2010-05-17T16:18:00.001-07:00

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Kishor Kumar, Manna Dey, Lucky Ali, Cheap Bollywood, Punjabi, Hip-hop, Metal, Pop...back to Nusrat, stuck like an old tape-recorder...sleep is too sleepy for me...

Zero

2010-05-17T16:17:00.001-07:00

Scrubbing, cleaning, rubbing, brooming, dusting, sweeping, mopping, erasing it all out....

The Dog Woman Barks

2010-05-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

A Blank Page? Dip your pen, write his-story...

And we will write between the lines...
Medusa will seduce you
Bertha Mason will shout
Attics/Margins/Anti-grammar/poesy not prose...
Then. Silence. Eve(ning) fading into a dark night.
Aporia, Dr. Freud? Chew the "Apple Seed".
Call it a case of hysteria?
A "lack" you say
Camaflouged, "I say" in White Ink.

Water

2010-04-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

I dont want to
Add, subtract, multiply, divide
Anything...

I want
Life to do
The editing
for me.

Space

2010-04-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

Expressions
Itchy Lashes
Wavering
Brows
Raised too high
Lips locked
Too tight

Country side

2010-04-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

Winding road
I ride you, you ride me
Woman on top
Upside down?
Toss me to to the left
Twist me to the right
Carry me, sea breeze
A feather light
Quietly afloat
In every
Itching mile

Ponder over this one

2010-04-03T13:41:00.001-07:00

"No mortal is so great that he cannot be contained in a prayer."

:Brecht, Life of Galileo

The Blink

2010-04-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

You gave me
Magical moments
In a slippery
Hour Glass...

Dear ________

2010-04-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dear stranger
I love you
Strange love
Strange it is
Strange you are
Strange I am
Strange are
The strings
Of time
Which strung us
Strangely
Apart?

The Bastard

2010-04-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

The nameless child
Wonders
At his misfortune
I sing him
A soothing song
And I say
It is all right dear
Look from within
To look, open your eyes
Open them wide
And you'll see
See and embrace cosmology
The heaven and earth
The sun, the moon and the stars
Not aligned against you
In any maligning
Conspiracy

Kick in my arse

2010-04-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

Feminism loves misogyny
Law loves lawlessness
Criminals are most desirable
In their innocent
Crimes

Plato's Reel

2010-04-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

Light falls
An Opaque(?)
Obstruction
Comes
In the way
A shadow
Ensues

An Image is
An Inverse
Reflection
In the human
Eye

One day
I caught
A shadow
On my lens
Like a butterfly
Between
Tiny hands

We played
Hide & Seek
Shadows of shadows
Chase shadows...
As the shadows of night
Close in.