Bliss!

i came back home
in my mind,to a houseful of people
and yet as i opened
each door
they revealed empty rooms
echoing with silence

my paradise was complete

i crept into my room
half expecting my roomie
to emerge from underneath
the bundle of bedclothes
no such rude surprise
awaited me

my paradise was complete

i got into bed
i put the volume up
tori played
and i worked as
the piano filled up
the silence i had been coveting for so long

my paradise was complete.

Dedication to a friend

he had blood in his big brown eyes
he did not conform he hated undergrad

he was a loner he never listened
always listless he seemed sad

he is still confused as he was then

groping in the dark
he seems to be heading for mirages

i pray everyday to an unknown god
i pray he finds the future
the future which will accomodate
this unaccomodated guy.

feeling old!

I am getting old perhaps - I drove to Ithaca this weekend - it was a bunch of eight - it was fun but not satisfying - my roomie obeserved it in the photos - i am beginnning to like less and less people around me - dealing with too many people together is just too tiring - and i do not like putting in the efforts - i dont like blending in anymore - going to a nice place is no more - about running around like kids anymore - i wont mind that for a while - but i do like to just sit around and laze - i would have loved to just sit near the waterfall - and just look at it - intead of takinga thousand and one pictures, i would have just liked to sit beside the lake under a nice shade - sleep off - wake up again to watch the scuba diver trying to catch ffish with his hands - watch the young dad trying to teach his impatient son to fish - watch the ducks floating on the water - just sit there and watch - nothing else - think my own thoughts - go into my own dream world - but i couldnt i had to keep other people happy - i had to run around and play frisbee - i had to go where they wanted to go and whe they wanted to go - the real fun was when i drove the car all by myself beside cayuga - playing my kind of music - and after wards when there were only three people in the car - when just the three of us roamed around the campus - i would have loved to sit there on campus for sometime also - and just enjoy the view - or just look at the lovers makingout on the grass - when i tried to do that - there was too much antagonism - i could see it in their faces - i could feel it intheir body language - so i set out to unravel things - i dont like tensions in the group - it got sloved also - but i didnt like exerting myself even that little bit - it tired me - maybe i should go in very small groups from now on - just the ones i want - its scary how like my father i am becoming day by day - even more scary is the fact that now i have an idea of what my future would be like - if i follow my dad's golden path - and i dont know if i have the courage to live by myself like that..........

Birthday Blues

Everytime its been my birthday since i think my 15th i have cried on my birthday ........ without fail this is what has occurred again and again and again. Each time someone very near to me has made this happen has somehow spoilt it for me. This year was also the same , my eyes are filled with tears and they are just waiting to roll down my cheeks - but i realised something this time its not the fault of others but of myself - i think i build up too much expectation about this one day and when it fails to live up to its expectation i get disappointed. Grow up Bips!!! Addedto it this time was the fact tht this is the third b'day i am spending away from home and i miss just having my parents around me on tht day, I wish I could spend my bday with only the select few I want in it - instead of making it a social event but as one of my friends said today - as you sow so you shall reap....................... anyway happy b day bips cheer up!

My journey through music!

While growing up what used to play at our home -
Dad's Jazz favourites
Mom's western classical
Dad's easy listening tapes from here
Mom's opera spools
Dad's anything piano as long as it was soothing for him to go to sleep
Mom's joan baez and leonard Cohen

Once I started to influence things a bitat home

Chitrahar- on Sundays - Dad hated it, playing hindi film songs at home was a BIG no no - it was trash, Ma didnt care as long as me and dad arguing over the music didnt bother her - She didnt understand hindi anyway.........

First tape i bought - Kenny G - Breathless - heard him playing with Michael Bolton at a Grammy function- thought he looked like a greek God and bought the tape - was madly in love with his music - and darted evil looks at dad when he said Kenny G was ok but nothing when compared to real Jazz - I thought"OHHHHHH........old generation they dont know how to appreciate music", Ma was happy that at least it was not Hindi and so when I made her sit down and listen to it in order to get her support against dad she wudnt have to go thru the pain of asking me what everything means.

Next tape - Michaels Learn to rock - dad didnt have much to say about it i guess he had gven up on his daughter who had the most plebian taste in music, listened to hindi songs and stuff....... he would at least tolerate it playing once on his music system but then he would change it to his stuff

Next tape - I dared to spend Rs 40 on a Roja tape - I had just discovered AR Rahman and the reggae beat in Chinna Chinna Asai had impressed dad also - he said Hindi music was coming of age finally, so highly encouraged I made him listen to Thiruda Thiruda - and was disappointed again - " Bah! you call this original music? He has simply taken everything from operatic music! So i was downcast again!!! Ma was pretty happy to hear the operatic influence but then again it was in Tamil - language problem!!!

By this time I think Hum Aapke Hain Kaun hit the screen with Madhuri Dixit's hip swerving Didi Tera Dewar Deewana - I used to watch a lot of Superhit Muqabla at that time- Madhuri Dixit thanx to that grand dame freed my field into Hindi music and films. Baba was absolutely mesmerized by her smile and dancing and Bam! Hindi films werent that bad anymore........... poor mom now had to endure both of us jabbering away about the stuff on screen while she would be still asking what was said 15 mins ago on screen, but she has achieved a lot i must say can fluently understand hindi now adays. Now poor dad i think i pulled him into the deep dark murky world of Hindi films and soaps kicking and screaming( ahhhhhhhhhhhh! can u beat tht). I think I took from one level of mediocrity to another LOL!

But thankfully I came out of thay phase of trying to fit in with everyone else's choice of music and found my own- vivaldi, menuhin and grappelli helped me do that. and I came back to y roots so to say, allthe boy band tapes, yanni, and hindi film songs went into seclusion - tho there were some still here or there which still crept up - Lucky Ali i still like him....... but Dad visibly let out a sigh of relief as i came back to mom's tapes of Joan Baez, Simon Garfunkel, Dad's saxaphone tapes and started playing the Piano.

And in my undergrad I surprised and i think pleased my Dad - when I actually introduced him to some jazz ( thanx to Simon)he had not heard before and he loved it - I felt really proud that I had made him happy with my NEW and IMPROVED choice! He actually made me promise that I'll leave those tapes behind when I was coming here.

I still listen hindi music , I still listen to boybands I still listen to Sting( dad didnt like his jazz attempts) But I have started to experiment with the kind of music i hear - thanx to Karthik and Jatin and man do I love it!!!!

At present am listening to - Jeff Buckley - Live from the Bataclan - and I love it! and thinking of getting hold of the CD for Dad .

I am finally returning to all that I was running from - terrible homing instincts I must say!


Dedicated to Raghu Karuturi - he asked me to try and write something humorous - I hope this atleast makes you smile a bit ! I tried!

one day in the life of info comms

i look down on this world
red tables black chairs
a few mournful souls
at their usual grind
i look down at them
through a tinted glass
another one comes
disshelved hair, glassy eyes
intent on the screen
looking around to take note
of others in similar misery

i am sad today
for no reason at all
and maybe
i see thru a tinted lense
and find all else dull too
maybe its the music i am listening to
maybe its just the phone call
i cant tell

i go back to watching
the few lonely souls
staring at their screens
maybe i finally saw thru the screen today
or maybe its just one of those days..........

the first shower of spring

The title above seems to make it seem that this will be a dreamy blog about the first shower of spring, after a long hard winter in upstate new york - when you see the first leaves come out lining the gnarled branches, when you can smell the wet damp fragrance of the earth, making you aware of all the possibilities it has hidden beneath it, there is an obvious sense of contentment that fills you........... yes all of these factors are latent in this piece, I am not denying any of that - I was struck with an odd kind of a joy, when we suddenly had glorious blue skies and sun that burnt into your skin a nice amber glow, i loved it, I made my students come out in the sunshine and read Much Ado About Nothing......... it was simply glorious, I liked the winds too which blew around skirts and hats and sometimes people also, and the rain that came with it brought with it promises of lush green grassy slopes on campus and a beautiful bottle green nature preserve again. But this was not the whole story.................... i guess poets in an effort to make everything appear beautiful leave out the realities of the situation. so today i take up the gauntlet to talk about the other side of the first Spring shower.

The true story of what happens after the first shower of Spring:

It was Monday that the weather began to change - it went from sunny to cloudy but i still sat outside beneath the tree hoping to get a few more mins of sunny warmth. In about another half hour the cold winds started coming down the slopes and i gave up all thoughts of sitting out with my flipflops on. I trudged inside the grim library with its jail like concrete walls, stayed in for another three hours and finally left the building at 9 at night. While on my way to the bus-stop I noticed that there had been a fair amount of rain - the first shower of Spring - the ground was giving off a nice damp pregnant smell, much like the smell of freshly cut grass, there was an air of hopeful inactivity, something would begin to get to work but had not started as yet, I could not quite make out what it was. I boarded the bus still pondering what it could be. It was when I got down at the usual Baldwin stop and started walking towards home that I noticed it or should I say them. Baldwin is a long street with absolutely no obstructions so the wind blows straight at your face. The only respite is if you bow your head in absolute obeyance to the winds wish and walk with your eyes looking at the pavement.

Thats when I noticed them. I had totally forgotten about this incident, but it had been the same last spring also, with the first shower they came out in a burst of activity from their dank dark homes to make the soil breathe again - the earthworms - but what i saw on the pavement was not a picture of regeneration but of death - with the first drops of moisture reaching there tunnelled homes the earthworms come out, they dig up soil and you can see the squiggles of soil where they have dug through it. Its probably the best thing for the soil, to have all the nutrients in it shifted and made available for the dormant seeds to grow from. ANd yet in their over zealous attempt they wiggle out too much and end up on the hard damp concrete pavement where no amount of their attempts can help in digging holes and thus they lie their exposed to the rain, without shelter untill they die. When the shower has ended if its still daylight the birds come out and have a royal feast, coz this is not an isolated event the pavements are seriously littered with thousands of carcasses, if i may call them. If on the other hand it happens at night like that day, then wayfarers like me have to perform an intricate ballet over the bodies to reach home. I dont know if anybody else has noticed this phenomenon but i am extremely aware of it because i hate earthworms(at least to look at) they are wriggly and slimy like snakes and on top of that they are so small i always feel they are gonna climb up my feet, especially that day with filpflops on , i must have reigned all possible curses on the critters for being on my path. Believe me when I say this that I do not have even an ounce of sympathy for the little critters but something that day made me think of these lines from T.S.Eliot:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Slow Like Honey by Fiona Apple

this song had been a favourite since the first time i had heard it, a day after my 23rd birthday, now as my 24th birthday is coming up i looked up the lyrics( i could make out the lyrics before hand but never really went thru them in detail) and rediscovered the song in a way, and the song reinforced its position in my list of songs i like:

So this is for everyone:

Slow Like honey

You moved like honey in my dream last night
Yeah, some old fires were burning
You came near to me and you endeared to me
But you couldn't quite discern me

Does that scare you ? I'll let you run away
But your heart will not oblige you
You'll remember me like a melody
Yeah, I'll haunt the world inside you

And my big secret, gonna win you over
Slow like honey, heavy with mood

I'll let you see me, I'll covet your regard
I'll invade your demeanor
And you'll yield to me like a scent in the breeze
And you'll wonder what it is about me

It's my big secret, keeping you coming
Slow like honey, heavy with mood

Though dreams can be deceiving
Like faces are to hearts
They serve for sweet relieving
When fantasy and reality lie too far apart

So I stretch myself across like a bridge
And I pull you to the edge

And stand there waiting
Trying to attain
The end to satisfy the story
Shall I release you?
Must I release you?
As I rise to meet my glory

But my big secret
Gonna hover over your life
Gonna keep you reaching
When I'm gone like yesterday
When I'm high like heaven
When I'm strong like music
'Cause I'm slow like honey, and heavy with mood
-Fiona Apple

ramblings

I have always been afraid of being transparent to anyone: guess it stems from the fact tht I could never keep anything from my dad...... he would always know wats on my mind, what wrongs i have done, what wrongs i am about to do, which exam i am gonna flunk, there was nothing which i could keep from him.....not even if i was trying to watch "A" movies on cable at night, he would know tht too..... and having to confront the question of whether i was watching it last night was an ordeal at breakfast, it would make me squirm in my seat and that ordeal changed me in many ways...... since I knew very well how you can feel if somone puts you on the hot seat, i kind of made it into a quest that i will not let other people feel the same way, and thus from then on i was on a quest to make people at home with me - which means that i became the most diplomatic person you could ever be.......... it was nice at the beginning there was absolutely nobody who did not like me, i was not exactly the most popular girl but i was one of the most liked ones. tho there were instances when people did not like me becoz i was too goody goody for them, but generally i was perfectly happy with whatever public opinion there was out there about me..........

but it was only after i came to Binghy that things started changing...... i applied the same theories here and it worked in the beginning, i became everyone's good friend, I could basically walk into every Indian apt, in my apt complex and feel accepted. But then it strted to get really ugly. Back in India no matter what you always have your family to fall back on, here you have only your friends to fall back on and thus you rely on them like family, so I soon began to be inundated by what you might say were "too many" close friends and it was hard to keep on juggling between all of them. It was not like back home where I could juggle between all the people I knew without anyone trying to put a sovereign seal of friendship on me which could not be transgressed. Here it became something like warring factions, if you are friendly with one you cannot be friendly with the other, that sort of thing, it became stifling. then there were times when i felt claustrophobic because too many people had too many expectations from me. To run from them and for a change i cultivated some outside acquaintances - it was much more relaxed there - i could come and go as I please, but after awhile I was questioned there also about my so called allegiances to these groups, it stuck to mere leg pulling in the beginning but afterwards questions came up like - do you have to be a people pleaser? do you have to mold yourself to everyone else's choice, taste, then how do you know the actual you? i cudnt understand the questions int he beginning - I was into this orgy of attention seeking or was it security blanket search and anything that seemed to accept me was comfortable. I could spend hours in inane talk about boys and gossip and feel comfortable. And yet I felt even more comfortable discussing about the more practical aspects of life, or the more interesting ones - those which were still virgin territories for most people or those which even if they had experienced they did not have the words to describe. I used to think I was the more homely kinds, the ones who would be happy with the same grind throughout their whole life, but I discovered here I am not , I love new experiences, and if i am too afraid to venture into them myself I love to know how other people went through them. I had one friend who was excellent at this and yet there was the sam complaint from him - he was afraid of me coz I was so diplomatic and would always maintain a certain distance and yet it was exactly becasue he could tell this to my face that he could be around me.Interesting right? well so what was i going thru? a transiton between knowing what i really am - and just finding comfortable places to fit in which were easy to deal with?

I left that place and moved to an apt which was more isolated, and perhaps the move has helped me figure things out. It would be very wrong of me though if I do not mention my two friends who helped me perhaps to at least become aware of other ways of being. One of them spent hours at times trying to tell me what was different in other people which set them apart, which made them attractive as people but I could not get it then. Now I know what they meant at least in part I guess. That time I spent getting to know them was perhaps the best I have ever had - it was not easy, i used to fall short in trying to match upto them, i used to be exetremely gullible at times I still am ..... They themselves said thatthe two as a combination were deadly for me, they truly were....... The worst was when I grew insecure about their combo i guess, somewhere i started veerieng away from the one i was closer to actually and stuck to the other one........silly isnt it?........ i had this constant insecurity of being judged......... an old throwback to the days when my dad used to judge my character from my every move. I used to hate that and yet funnily enough i fell for a guy i thot was judging me , I was apprehensive about him and yet i fell for him.......... very strange.......... but at least after everything has happenned I now know what kind of company i really like, thts been the best that has happened after this whole affair, I had set out to write about something totally different and ended up writing something quite different but anyway as long as it is out of my system its good!

wishes

how long can one hold on to a wish? how long do you pray to yourself that things, fall into place and, that one true wish you have, comes true? Every god damn movie out there seems to preach this fact that if you have the determination and the drive to do it, you will achieve what you want. But movies are a parallel reality humans have built up to portray all those things which they find intangible, to appear to be real...... but seriously I have this one wish this one absolute hope and I would like it to come true , so how do i go about to make it come true? there are no fairy god mothers who come out of the darkness, to help you make chariots out of pumpkins and oslers out of mice..........who do i go to make my dream come true?how can any effort on your part to achieve a dream come true if it depends on the wishes of another? you definitely cannot change another person's views and opinions by wishing your hope comes true, whats the shortcut in this case? Do you just pine and wait and then take the realistic decision and just move on? But that seems so half hearted, its like you gave up, and yet its the logical decision..... the most sane one! But then will not you feel that you are living with a compromise the rest of your life? Will the people who have actually gone through this speak up, i need to figure some things out here and they are crucial cause on your answer depends the fact of whether my life will have a purpose or not!

04/03/2006- ok tht was a bit over the edge, guess was feeling exetremely frustrated at the moment - i guess my life will have meaning no matter what - just because I have enjoyed every part that I have been through till now......... and I still have the patience and the curiosity to go on and wait for what life has around the corner for me............ hopefully( hoping again!) it should be something nice and perfect for me.