city life...

the past weeks brought with them a fair share of everything...nostalgia, remorse, angst, fear, fatigue, exuberance, joy...all these emotions manifested the feelings inside of me...here i sit, trying to put down in words the feelings and the emotions that encompass me, and i know not whether i do a fair job or not.

what if there was no language? what if words never existed? how would we express ourselves?

...some would say art...some would say expressions...but i still prefer words. without words, i would be hopelessly lost!!

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one of the most soothing and calming experiences of the last two weeks was the early morning ride in the rickshaw from my aunt's to the ST station through the walled/old city of Ahmedabad...half past six in the morning, darkness that preludes dawn still hanging around, the people slowly awakening...the children all ready in their school uniforms making their way to school, the small shops opening up for yet another day of business...

"the daily grind of life slowly churning itself."

...the smell of freshly baked bread lingering on in the air, the cock crowing and the birds stirring in their nests; and amidst all this there was this guy sitting in a rickshaw passing by and observing all this...

i love the old city of Ahmedabad...the new sprawling cosmopolis and it's so called cosmopolitan inhabitants may not be too dear to me. but the old city makes up for all that the new one lacks...

the old city with its small enclosed spaces, narrow by lanes, the gentry and the seemingly small-time existence of the gentry is so far away from the mega malls and flashy crowd that throws up an attitude of apathy for most things except for those that are fashionably and sociably correct and happening...i belong to the new city...and yet, i love the old city. the new city is all about living it right. the old city is life.

...tamaru ne maaru, aa che aapnu amdavad...

literature and Sartre...

"what do we write? for whom do we write? and why do we write in the first place? also, what in the name of God is literature?"

such questions are incessantly popping into my mind since the last few days...and i know whom to blame...reading Sartre does that to me.


...Jean-Paul Sartre raises questions; and i can't but help raise my brow in doubt!

the return

its sure been a while since i have last been able to post, and by Jove i hate that. i miss my blog. anyways, the intricate twists and turns of life are as interesting as always. new stories about new people in new situations. each day is as new as the previous.

i can't seem to have enough of India and this has led to me personally believing that coming back to India was the smartest thing i have done in a long long time. Baroda is rocking (quite literally so) and time is flying while i pursue my dreams. but enough of me!! the humdrum details of my life in Baroda are not on review here...there are other things i must talk about; if only i could find the words...

"words, words, words"

...Hamlet said it to vent out his exasperation at Polonius's question...quite apt that i use them today when i find myself in a similar situation.

have been reading up quite a bit of late. philosophy, literature, theology, et al...you name it...Foucart, Kafka, Marx, Marquez, etc...and right now i feel like my brain is in overload. the thoughts and ideas are swarming around inside and the days are passing by in lucidity as i engage in one fascinating discourse after another with people from backgrounds as diverse as the imagination that men possess.

can't but help feel restless knowing that i know only so much. i need to know more. i want to know more. i want many things, and i cannot but help say the truth when i quote Marx:

"our intellectuals & philosophers have only interpreted the world. the point is to change it."

...i want to change the world. at least my world.