my my it's been a while

once love was innocent and free it was true and i pointed to trees and dreamt of waters, of bright lights and yellow upholstry and found peace in glee and sleep in wide eyes once love was innocent and free it was the wind in bamboo forests it was feet in broken bathroom tiles blue rubber and eaten corn cobs and splashing rainbows in petrol once love was innocent and free

"MAYA ANGELOU'S" BEST POEM EVER.

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. a youth she's content to leave behind....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to retelling it in her old age....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..... a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .... one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who lets her cry...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .... a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... a feeling of control over her destiny...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... how to fall in love without losing herself..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without; ruining the friendship...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... when to try harder...
and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... that she can't change the length of her calves,the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. .whom she can trust,whom she can't,and why she shouldn't take it personally...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...where to go...be it to her best friend's kitchen table... or a charming inn in the woods...when her soul needs soothing...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... what she can and can't accomplish in a day...a month...and a year...

"I don't need drugs to make my life tragic." -Eddie Vedder

farm

is something wrong with my lens or is it that i just cant expose properly

WILD TRIBAL PASSION FRUIT

my favouritest fruit in the (awoooh god i love it - gutteral) the whole whole fuckin world.

Meanwhile Mario Giacomelli

i stumbled upon this man. Mario Giacomelli. I haven't heard of him before Sorry if i am causing any people to gag out of shock. I only clicked on his thumbnail cause cause his lastname ended with elli and I like reading about people who eat cheese and tomatoes.

Extract from interview -

Frank Horvat : What about the camera? It seems that you don't have the same camera as everyone else, a Leica, a Nikon or a Kodak.
Mario Giacomelli : I don't know about other people's cameras. Mine is a thing I had cobbled up, it holds together with tape and is always losing parts. All I need to set is the distance and that other thing - what do you call that other thing? I'm not a fan of mechanics. I have had this camera, still the same one, since I started taking photos. It has lived with me, shared many moments of my existence, both good and bad. If I ever lost it... well, the very idea of having to live without it pulls at my heart.
Frank Horvat : But where does it come from?
Mario Giacomelli : I had it made. By dismantling a camera given to me by a friend and removing whatever seemed useless. I only need distance and that other thing - what's that other thing called again? I don't know how these machines work, what counts is that light shouldn't get in. It's just a box.
Frank Horvat : And what film do you use?
Mario Giacomelli : Whatever I get.
Frank Horvat : 24 by 36 millimeters?
Mario Giacomelli : Don't ask me about millimeters ! I use the larger film, not the smaller one. I've never used the smaller one.
Frank Horvat : So, six by six centimeters?
Mario Giacomelli : Don't talk to me about figures! I only know that six by nine becomes six by eight and a half.
Frank Horvat : So you get12 photos per roll?
Mario Giacomelli : I can't remember, but I think it's more like ten. Ten, not twelve. What's important is that there shouldn't be too many. Once I won a competition and was given a small size camera as a prize. But I didn't know how to use it, it was too fast for me, it didn't participate as my own camera does, it left me no time to think, made me press the shutter for nothing. I felt deprived of what makes my greatest joy, which is the waiting, the preparing of the image, the winding of the film, the replacing of the roll. My own camera is exactly what I need, it suits my character.

So i had to detour to kolkata because imphal was hiccoughing. The new president dint even make it to the top half of the front page. doesn't make a difference to imphal as the ferment of the amada/bangla script fight had begun to fizz. To add to it, the farm birds were catching the flu. We played with our cats and cocks, fought like cats and cocks and woke up in the morning to more pineapple at the table and bitter herb to clear any worms.
Before I came back home to kolkata, to talk to my gran before she loses all her hearing we went to churchandpur (and loktak on the way). Loktak was a fractured heaven. Supposed to have been one of the most intensely beautiful spots in the world, with uncomparable geology/geography/peace. Stopped by, and went off to Churchandpur. A very pretty village led upto by wetgreen paddy fields and wetclouds coming down on hills. So when i ask H's mom, so what did you plant here? She said, O we planted paddy no, now they plant soldiers.

manipur can't even make matches

As the plane approached imphal, i could see cubiques of silt water in green and earth grey, paddy fields and along their perimeters lone mat woven roofs. Sometimes the land spewed up hills into the heavy sky.

As we got out of the small plane that would take off to aizwal shortly, I saw a bush of the thorny poison fruits I played with as a child with my brother, making swivering things. The air was sweet, yes sweet. And there were dark berried flowers. There was a doux rain in the air. I say, in the air, because it almost dint fall. No gravity. As if the air was precipitating its waters. (And shy fairies would take out their kayaks.)

Plenty men in guns everywhere. As we waited outside the airport for H’s pa to come and get us (since no communication could be established, roaming blocked and no PCOs) there were children (from the village, H pointed out) proudly in their uniforms, young women in the latest HK fashion of skinny jeans, kitten heels and feminine tunics (jeans to protest against its ban, or just), local muslim manipuri women in traditional phanek of horizontal stripe skirts and shawl worn like hijab, local hindu women with phanek (half sari) always, always mismatched with handloom skirt weave, bright printed polyester second piece and random short tee. :d

After a long wait, (especially as I started getting cranky) with too many armed men, we decided to take a rik. 150 bucks for 15 mins ride home to Lamphel. A large colony of wood-brick cottages and woven mats to separate each home with garden. Closely packed. I say, a colony of cottages, perhaps because I saw no people outside.

Soon, H’s Pa was home. We missed him by a few minutes I guess. And I had the most touching welcome I had ever had in my life. We gathered in the living room and his Nu and Pa said prayers. I don’t know what he said, but it was very peaceful. He said, we must thank god that you have reached home. This is our home. Make it yours. We will live together for some time. Nu said, my children are away, this is how we live. Everyone speaks in the deepest of voices, very softly, very gently, no quivers, no sharp intonations, compressions and liberations of air when consonants give way to vowels like the Buddhist prayers pillars in monastries.

In the evening, girl cats come home to rub their noses on us so we may be taken by their sweetness and give them a piece of fish. So do the mosquitoes for a drop of blood. H’s pa brings out his stunner racquet to en-zombie those bnuzzers. The racquet is then my limb for the rest of the evening.
The cocks and hen cackle like geese, the bees more disciplined than the siren happy armymen at the airport, go on with their honey, while I run around stunning mosquitoes.
At dinner, I ask if it is a Manipuri specialty- this racquet. Nu says in her prayer voice, “Manipur can’t even make a matchstick. We only weave cotton and silk.”

water kingdom!

water kingdom

o i wish i was writing this last saturday. i had the most amazing weekend after really really long. what a thrill. it was so frikkin amazing i want to go back. and it was so frikkin amazing when i was back at work on monday i had no frikkin clue what client i was doing on friday. took my little darling sister out and also went out with ms. agrawal after really long. she'd heard so much about my sis and my sis had heard so much about her. they got along so well too. these pics are on ms. agrawal's sexy phone.

actions speak louder than words
suddenly found meaning.
in my carousel
lies. lies. lies.
more lies.

new buildings coming up at nepeansea road. i had NO idea that there was any plot left. the old parsee bunglows have been / are being broken down for tall tall tall buildings.

one of them is this, right across my home.

Jemima

hen's neice jemima is so used to being put to sleep by him

i don't know how she'll sleep now without hen's nursery rhymes in opera.

meanwhile, she continues to make donald duck faces diligently as she's been taught by that

goon. i'll put her grown up pics when i find them.

so kanchi has finished her international MSc in clinical research. hope to meet her soon. These are her from Cranfield.

La Figlia che Piange 1917

STAND on the highest pavement of the stair—
Lean on a garden urn—
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair—
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

H has left the city. H is leaving the city.

Hen's sister is getting married next month. He's gone home to fix things. She will be expelled from the zomi church for a year. So Priscilla will now be.....Lalrhamlun (Priscilla) Ramaswamy? and I'm going to be witness :D :D :D i'm so excited.

That's H and me in the Boys common room in SY / TY. me looking like moron cause the cam clicked few seconds here or there. H looking honest and peaceful cause he is.

and while i'm at it, here's a nother one of H and me. This one's in Pune, at harita's. H is leaving the city he says, for Pune. Deccan college he wants. But i think it's just the jumbo chicken, fillet o fish at burger king that's drawing him there. And riding bikes. I Hope he finds his light.really really. I still think he should go study agriculture and live his dream of buying a hill and starting his orchid and pine apple farm, dunno if business is his thing though. Or become chef. omg omg i know harita and nishant pushkar singh will second that. The last time he made chicken with almost nonexistent spice/condiments, all of us stared and stared and stared at the clock and decided to miss the train back to bombay so as to not disturb the 'feeling' of fulfillment. That silly boy shouldnt get into criminal sociology and rehab.

henry my boy, spike it up! do the jig! life's good. and STOP EATING FERMENTED FISH and raw Marve shrimps. That's whats giving you the loose motions.

"A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality."

"Can love and peace live in the same heart? Youth is unhappy because it is faced with this terrible choice: Love without peace, or peace without love."

"When the white man came, we had the land and they had the bibles. Now they have the land and we have the bibles."