pune!

i love reading fashion reviews.
One i found well written and good

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/fashion/14CRITIC.html?_r=1&ref=fashion

it's over

"I Was Michael Foucault's Love Slave"

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by theory,
well-fed complacent leather-coated, dragging themselves through the
Caucasian campuses at dawn looking for an angry signifier."

BY CAROL LLOYD
ILLUSTRATION BY JORDIN ISIP

http://www.salon.com/feb97/loveslave970210.html

short term goals - long term goals

So now I am only entertaining 1 week goals. Write the shortest answers to all the questions, revise, destress, detox, yoga, wake up on time, sleep early, drink lots of tea. But I keep imagining myself in a bikini somehow.
So my next goal is to wear a Bikini next year in Goa. So if nothing else happens to my life and I have to get back to the start again. I'll celebrate by wearing a bikini.

Step one. Get a bikini. A certain someone decided to get me an orange yellow (the macintosh glare type)string bikini. The person who designed that wasn't exactly a suspension bridge engineer and my body needs to prop itself up and shed some dead weight.

I did wear a bikini top the last time (i dunno what happened to all the pictures)but this time I want to kayak in a bikini.

Step 2 - how to not look obnoxious in bikini
They say A bold print string top will help draw the eye to your top half. SURE.
And there are these complicated bikini workouts that if I could do, I wouldnt need the workouts.
I guess I'll not eat any sugar and exercise everdy. Besides living in Kaivalyadham for a month.



If none of that works I'll have to do the flowerchild look to be absolved of the rest of the bikini sins.
Pigtails, flowerclips, stripe socks and a smile. So I'm just a girl having fun on the beach.

Dont get me wrong. It's not sour grapes that i want to look hot and cant. I dont want to look sexy. I just want to NOT look like anything. I just want to look normal so noone looks at me and I can sit on the beach in the rains and not worry.



I like...

I want to 1.

i want to collate narratives from around the world. Learn how people naturally tell stories if that is possible, (i.e. to naturally tell stories). I will have to study cognition then i guess. Cognitive Psych and Narratives. Maybe some anthropology.
I'm in love with Russian (Belarussian etc) emotives in their folk narratives and I just love the japanese Noh premises. I think I can study this for the rest of my life.

News you can Use

Domino's Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat



Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

chandrani needs to get a life

Gah

that post was for nobody really. just the rain that makes me like this every year. pathetic.
i could write to the dearest swollen wood at the creak of the bathroom door even

to whomsoever it may concern

Dearest

I am listening to angels sitting by my windowsill and wanting to live again
Between the curtains and the rain

I want to fall through your hair, and levitate between the flotsam rain that does not fall and does not rise. Waiting for fish to fly

one more time

and dream of yellow laburnums kissing in the streets
one more time

and be a fool again one more time

the little baby

due april 17

this birthday my brother asked me what i wanted
i dint know what i wanted so i said, you give me options
he said, you want a rat snake? a constrictor.
you want a boa?
you want an alligator?
or maybe a bearded dragon.



so i gathered it was in jest and let it be.
of course he was very hurt that i could not make up my mind.
so i said, ok i'd love a bearded dragon. wow. how cool. i love beards.
then he said, but you have to walk it everyday and it has sharp claws.

ok ok! get me a rat snake then!



pleasantries done with. I forgot all about it. One day he calls and says, your gift is here.
a REAL RAT SNAKE! !@#$
it's small now. says he'll send it to me by air. apparantly they pack them in an ice box so theyll hibernate till they get here.

and i can feed it "pinkies" i.e. lab rats every week. It's easy he says. they're kind, because you feed them. and you can walk it once a week!



he says but dont leave it around too much, theyre good escape artists.
i picture me taking it to the housing society's secretary's house.
taking it for a walk the way she takes her dumb pom.
can you put leash around a rat snake?
Can i walk it around thakur village? I told him there wont be place in the house for it maybe.
it's small now but these things grow up to be 6-7 feet or so, domesticated even.

kalboishakhi

it's true it's true, it drizzled this morning

kalboishakhi

kalboishakhi is here.

the air will clear, the clouds will fall,


clouds will move, so will trees.

suddenly still and suddenly violent

winds will fly, so will the utensils my grandma left on the terrace, the sarees, pajamas and then the clothesline if it hasn't given way. my sister is little and thinks she came from the blue star, i am little too and want to feel the kalboishakhi sweep me away. but children dont stray on terraces during the storm.
we get swept away.
we imagine where landing in fairytales caught in the hurricane. we deliciously feared kalboishakhi. closed our eyes but loved the rage.
the wind would wind around wild...
then
it settles
the windows that wouldnt close would have broken panes, and we would wind around the teracce to look for frayed rose calyxes, alo mashi's red saree on our terrace and my grandfather's dhuti on the tv antenna,
and fantasicing the sounds and feeling intimate with the skies.
sucking on the tamarind seed long after the skin has been eaten.

Slithergadee did me in

The Slithergadee has crawled out of the sea.

He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me.

No you won't catch me, old Slithergadee,

You may catch all the others, but you wo--

excerpt 1

from June 29th, 2005

In today's excerpt, John Steinbeck eulogizes his recently deceased friend, Ed Ricketts:

I have tried to isolate and inspect the great talent that was in Ed Ricketts, that made him so loved and needed and makes him so missed now that he is dead. Certainly he was an interesting and charming man, but there was some other quality that far exceeded these. I have thought that it might be his ability to receive, to receive anything from anyone, to receive gracefully and thankfully, and to make the gift seem very fine. Because of this everyone felt good in giving to Ed--a present, a thought, anything. Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver...It is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, if it is well-done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving, you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well. It requires self-esteem to receive--not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.

John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Appendix, ""About Ed Ricketts"", Penguin Books, 1951, pp. 272-3

I guess Sarah Carmen is the boy's dream and the man's nightmare.

The rumble of a train on the tracks, the purr of a hairdryer, the rhythmic drone of a photo-copier are all enough to make her go oh oh oh, ahhhhh. She had FIVE orgasms during the 40-minute interview.

Sarah, 24, suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs. She was prescribed anti depressants at 19 and that is perhaps what got her on. "In six months I was having 150 orgasms a day—and it has been as many as 200." WOMEN who suffer PSAS constantly feel on the brink of the powerful and rhythmic muscular contractions that orgasms cause.
It may be that some inflammation or infection in the pelvic area is stimulating clitoral nerves.
Some psychiatrists believe PSAS is simply a psychological symptom of some emotional crisis—it's like a broken heart expressing itself as genital sensitivity.

aeroponics

Aeroponics - process of growing plants in air. The roots get more oxygen directly, it does need some mist though, and nutrients reaching the free floating roots.
(contrasted with geoponics)

no more old phone

of all the replies i received regarding my stolen phone, this was the sweetest -

bONES,

I would say that's perfect. They can take away your phone... not your moon.

Any illicit messages sent will be duly regarded.

you are in my neighbourhood - why aren't we meeting for lunch then?or coffee... muffin... sugarcane... what have you?

:_)

And then he forgot to send me his phone number.

etsy's art and ghosts

...sometimes they get along

sometimes they don't

it all depends, really...

stuff around india i want to do 1

Meet one of the amazing oceanswimming elephants of the Andamans.
Join them for a snorkel in the waters at Havelock island, at Beach No. 7.
Get photographed together under water.

ambiguity

ambiguity (am-bi-GYOO-i-tee) noun 1. Doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation. 2. Something of doubtful meaning.[From Latin ambiguus, uncertain, from ambigere, to go about : ambi-, around +agere, to drive.]


AMBIGUITY Ambiguity is one of a handful of English words whose meaningdescribes itself. In other words, "Ambiguity" is ambiguous. It refers, onthe one hand, to a situation of imprecision, of obscurity, because morethan one interpretation is possible. On the other hand, something ambiguous can be understood perfectly well - but from more than one point of view. We are amused at the fable of the elephant and the six blind men,each of whom understood the elephant to be a very different animal. But weseem to lose that good-natured perspective just in time to assume that ourown point of view on the world is more accurate than that of many of theother human beings on the planet. We avoid ambiguity as much as possible,feeling threatened that it may expose our own point of view as merely anoption. But we should embrace ambiguity. After all, each of our eyes sees aslightly different, two-dimensional, view of reality. Those two images aresynthesized by the brain into a single three-dimensional image, which wethink of as "more real" than a 2-D view. The more points of view we are ableto see, the more clearly we understand the world around us. Reality isambiguous. Ambiguity is synthesis. I like to think that looking at everything - not only words -from alternate points of view, can enhance our understanding of the worldaround us.


http://wordsmith.org/words/ambiguity.gif

sometimes they get along 1

"they tumbled to earth
without sound
softly
visitors in the night turning to day
though they had wished
to remain beyond the clouds
just for the turning
of the hours"

"it is not like the one you found at the treetop
but more like
the balloon
you have been chasing after
leading you to distant ports and harbors
taking you away from home"

from art and ghosts

From Secret girls #3 #12

nts

W - 8/4/08

Lat: in medias res // tr: in the middle of action

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

then she wore a hat that looked like an outstretched raven, and pretended that the king's health depended on it,

a pair of adobe huts on her mind and a pair of iron ingots in her hands, she traipsed along the earthpath hoping for a gypsy or a hobo at least…

“True true”, they said, “adobe it has to be. No rainfall for 2 years now. Can’t kiln.”
A puddle here, or a julep these days isn’t any match for those manna showers that stretched the latitudes before. Yes.

“Find me a tiny pony, will you?”, she cried. “My legs are lithe and white from skipping stones across the Pyrenees but these adobe huts weigh so much.” Time to find a new home.

Came along a gypsy pony.

She crossed her legs over Finns, this pony as lithe as her legs, with hair as buxom as her bosom, that rose and fell like the inchcape bell. As they hurtled across the skies.

White Cube

I used to be a stuck-ist for a while till i found myself pushed into the White Cube last year.
Now i like peach blossoms on my clothes and daisy studs on my earlobes. Flowerchild is only a show from the last Antwerp.


I will return.

If not through the burst of yellow wildflowers in the soul,
through the truth tables of p and q.

stuck

"because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left."

- Umberto Eco, In the name of the rose

saraswati puja
They say that, on the day just after saraswati puja, the temperature shoots up. it does, every year. It did this time too. I wonder what it is about.

i was going through some childhood pictures of my friends. This one stuck to my mind more than chewing gum on a school-bus seat.




tabish and his dear mother

pinku.

have you seen a smoker with lips as pink as these?

an older picture....

no direction home

I was cleaning my comp and come across half a .doc autosaved from at home in Malabar Hill. So I just quickly decided to post it. Another pathetic post.


I am sitting at home at it’s echo point and the feeling sinks in that I wont be here any longer. Soon I’ll be in a new house, trying again to love it. My ciba home has been demolished. The forests, it’s fairies, the akaks in my balconies, the possibility of leopards at twilight when they managed to flee from the national park, the children the get-togethers the grass, the big eagle I was mortified of, the secret rose garden and out-of-bounds animal testing centres that ma knew I’d been prowling around because of the smell it left behind, lotus ponds I put my hand into that killed ma in fear that there’d be snakes, running away screaming from that big snake under the jamun tree, playing wall-tennis before everyone came down to play, discovering menstruation, obsessive infatuations, poison trees, collecting cotton, finding out that stuffing stolen roses in our shirts wont dupe watchmen, watching film city/malad junction from third gate, cycling evenings, up the road that’s now some highway or flyover near what is called mohan gokhale rd.,
Shkl said, go get your closure before it’s late. So touched the walls of my empty house, thinking of all the associations and the moments I’d had, the fights and loves and discoveries and relationships. And then, I switched off all the lights and sat down at the
of my first girlhood kiss. Where I learnt that someone can love, clean like a monk. Where I learnt that relationships are inherently simple, if you have the heart to be honest.
And went off the sleep between my parents. Tomorrow morning , I will wake up late, get into beige cream clothes, go to a temple and leave the house without too much mulling.

I’m in my new home now. Doesn’t feel so new. Adjustments made. I like it sometimes.The pool's nearby. I don't have to spend an hour getting to bombay gym for a half hour swim with snoots. Just that when I’m in town, I have the tendency to get into a 122 or a 108.

i want

Hana

i saw you flailing in the wind.
white like the roach that once came out of my basin.

je t'aime, moi non plus.

iwanu ga hana. not speaking is the flower.

HELP

My mother has given me an ultimatum. i need to tell her what my ideal partner should be like, so she can start finding. i need to be marriaged soon. my 95 yr. old grand mother says i am aging.

i can't think of anything. do help.

all i can think of is that his grandmother should be nice if she is alive so i can call her dida and ask about his childhood and then hers while i maalish her knees because she's got arthritis. and she treat me like her grandchild.

and his parents should love me. so that when love is lost between us two, i can go to them and they chide their stupid boy for not being kind to me.

and cultural continuity. so that when love is estranged, i feel comforted in familiarity of the cycle of festivals.

reminded me of my pondi trip

it was a trip. yes.

imagine this image cleaner, that phakashe yellow contrasting.
imagine this a little more azure.
imagine that mistique wave in the sky to be more defined.

that was the image.
need to clean my camera. GaH!


and then on paradise beach, i went back and stood in the lagoon, not a wave i could hear, not a rush,
only a surge inside me, as crustaceans crawled over my sinking feet,dragging their conch homes and fishermen's heads in the backwater, away sunken.
and i felt like i was me again. paradise.
alone. amazing.

i wanted to say i want to be in the sun with you
hold me, let's watch the stars
rise, while our hair catch the winds

and i said, "**** **** ** ** *** ****"

iwanu ga hana
not speaking is the flower.

namrata fasts on tuesdays

no food.
no kisses.