learning to be like cool...

it might sound like such a passe thing. but learning to be cool is certainly one of the toughest things that i have ever done/am trying to do/am aiming to do...especially from Cool himself!!

...life at the MSU Boys hostel is certainly a handful and it brings with it a lot of very interesting moments that are a result of the multitude of insane characters that abound about. take for instance my residence hall and its inhabitants. MM (Manubhai Mehta) Hall is definitely up there when it comes to having the cream de la cream of mad people...a ghetto of three distinct communities, it is the early 1900's LA/Chigao of the MSU campus...and admist all of us, the two most stand out characters are definitely 'Kutta' and 'Cool'...

lately Cool has being setting the standards for the kind of attitude that i so sorely need to somehow cultivate. it's interesting how he has taken the beatings and abuses of D i such a sporting spirit. almost as if it were a part of life and something that he simply has to deal with and get over with as soon as possible. but i'm damn sure that it musn't have been an easy thing to do. when the person you 'so completely' trust turns around and kicks you in the balls, one certainly feels very much let down. what had he/she done to deserve it? hadn't that person unconditionally given everything to the other person? almost to the point that one could say that he/she was like a puppy following around it's loving master...and when that person does something so irrevocably vile it is indeed an unpardonable sin...

...it makes you feel like a pathetic insect. your entire attitude towards life changes. you may seem to be doing just fine on the outside, but in reality you are a shattered wreak. everyday becomes an ordeal knowing that you need to lick your wounds in private and put on a brave face while they heal. and they take a long time to heal. and when you see/hear about that person everyday or come face to face with memories of better times, you simply don't know how to go about with it. you smile and walk on. but it hurts...

...trusting that person again becomes a hard, almost impossible thing to do. there is so much of emotions running around between Cool and D, that it seems almost ridiculous. after all, isn't Cool just the adolescent dog that lives in the MM dorm and D one of the senior students!! but still, Cool has taken his share of life's harsher moments in good stride. he simply steers clear of D nowdays. he hasn't forgotten, but it reamins to be seen if he shall forgive. and more importantly, will i ever be able to forgive and forget??

i do not know. but it's definitely interesting as to how much one can actually learn from a dog!!

:)

in a trance...smoky trance!!

hey!!

...its been a while and i certainly feel as if its been a long while...but here i am, alive and kicking as usual! :)

anyways, don't really know how to go about with this post...so i guess that i shall just go with the flow...maybe highlight some of the more worthy events that have kept me engaged...and then there is always the "fuck it, i was too busy sleeping" quote.

well first and foremost i gotta say that all that reading paid off big time. i mean, my paper/presentation at the Kafka Fest at the university was well received success...some cringed, some squirmed, some were aghast at my words, a lot of them coughed but the end result was that i was able to pull off what i wanted and shock the people present in the true Kafkaesque sense. got a video of the entire thing as well...its in the process of being converted into a digital format and is being edited. then i shall put it up online. promise.

secondly...Mommy is back!! i finally caught up with mom after almost two years and three months. and it wasn't as hard as i had presumed it to be. i survived it, she survived it! :)

apart from these two main major newspaper headlines, everything else seems to have fallen into a hum-drum routine sort of existence. exams are approaching fast, and i am caught up with a bit of studies. a friend (my ex roommate to be precise) is in the hospital in the ICU and so a fair amount of time is being spent paying regular visits to the hospital and spending time besides him making sure he doesn't do anything silly in his sedated state. i still have a paper to write on Sartre that my lecturer is begining to complain about (but i have no bloody intention of writing it. not right away at least). and i need to get out of this cyber cafe and meet up some people in say 10 mins and then go see the sick bugger!!

so hasta la vista...but shall be back again, sooner, this time.

ps: can't but help feeling Transcendal!!

call of the conscience...

it's about time we listened to the voice inside of us...we have only one planet...only one home...

...its time to do something about it...its time to stand up and take a stand against our planet's destruction...time to join hands and become friends of the earth and not its foes...

ok...maybe i'm just in one of my activist moods today. but its on days like these that i find the inner urge to stand up and recognize my potential as a means of changing the world around me for the better. and that, i presume, speaks a lot!!

if only we all could find that voice within us more often and with more clarity!!

ma...

mommy's coming!! :)

yay! i finally get to see my mother after almost 2 years when she comes to India this march...i have butter flies in my stomach over this matter...its been a long time and we've both changed so much in this period...changes can be good. changes can be bad...

but right now i just need to once again lay my head in my mother's lap, close my eyes and go to sleep completely unperturbed by the world around me while she gently stokes my hair

...i'm tired and exhausted. the last couple of days have completely drained me of everything...i need my mother.

mommy, please come soon!!

Amores Perros...indeed, what a bitch!!

an entire pack of cigarettes...Spanish movie...and its already 5 am!!

...sometimes one needs to let go. just collapse into nothingness and let the fucked up part of your mind take over. sometimes its the best thing to do. especially on a night like tonight. and maybe, you will be lucky enough to come up with something as incredibly ridiculous yet brilliant like what Saad came up with...he's a fucked up bastard alright. but tonight he can take solace in the fact that i am way too fucked up in my mind...for once he's saner than I. blah. blah, time for me to shut up...read on!

Plato And The Velociraptor -


So, so you think you tell,

weed from mead (meat or whatever),

suku from deepu, blood spatter from pleasure,

can u tell a brain from an a rice grain,

an oligarch from an anarchy

do you think you can gun, gun it to the max?

and did they get you to trade guns for babes?

hot hash for cash?

warm blood from cold?

frozen dino for yogurt?

and did you exchange Socrates for a war in Athens with Plato tied to loose change

how i wish, i wish you would play, you gay dino from Thermopylae

so, so you think you can tell.

a velociraptor from Hannibal Lecter;

we're just two lost souls, one explaining the republic and you eating on my severed pelvic

me crying over the same old topic (world peace and free trade)

what have we found? the same old thing......

never explain a dino your intellectuality

or you might end up in the belly of that sweet monstrosity

wish wish Socrati was here.

i wish i had a gun...no even better, a chainsaw!! wish i was there at the battle of Thermopylae fighting a million Persians (yes, you all guessed right. i have indeed been reading too much of history of late and watching violent movies )...my anger needs to be let out...no not anger, rather disappointment.

maybe i need a bottle of Vodka (screw Gujarat and its prohibitory laws)!!

the death of a hero is always the worst...when the invincible is vanquished...it sucks.

goodnight...

*update: ok make that a pack of cigarettes and a pack of beedies!!

a dead man on the floor and a ton of chocolate in the fridge...

well, the MS University internal examinations start from tomorrow!! and the funny part of it all is that our lecturers are the ones who are the ones advocating the futility of such exams...in the words of one,

"So, you guys are worried about studying for the internals?? you know, its not even necessary to take them in the first place." :)

...now in the face of such excellent advice what am i supposed to do?? study??

anyways, have been going through my share of movies over the last few days...crashing over at Saad's sure has that as an added advantage...you get to watch all kinds of stuff...good stuff. that guy sure is one crazy movie freak. but he's a great pal and i love him. watched 'A Bitter Sweet Life' last night...Korean movie with subtitles and slick action and damn nice suites!!

...we guys finally crashed at 5 am, only to wake up when the woman called me at around 2 in the afternoon. she sure wasn't pleased at the idea of me still in bed and made me do the 'stand on the bed and wave your arms' routine (in a classic case of meri billi aur mujhise meoow. usually it is I who make her do all that shit early in the morning)!!

well, so Saad is still on the floor sleeping like a dead man...so badly wish that someone calls that bastard and wakes him up...or else i shall have to go and kick him in the ribs to get his arse moving. but not before i first go through the ton of chocolate that lies in the fridge! hurray to Saad's mom who sent him all that.

anyways, Chirag's gonna come over some time soon. he has got hold of some study material that might help us be better prepared for the paper tomorrow. and yes, we are studying for the exams. who listens to em' silly lecturers anyways!!

;)

ps: we need five buckets of blood!! ...don't ask why...

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!!

*

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.