A question of ethics... is it ?

This blog could have been easily mistaken for an ex-blog(connection will be clearest to the sole reader of my blog) , owing to the inaction on this web page, but this blog is alive. What has kicked it into action is a rather amusing editorial in TOI , 28th December. the article is poignantly called 'a question of ethics' Mr. Tarun Das takes great pains to take us by the finger into the world of the good heart- ed corporations, he gets visibly carried away in the process and goes to the extent of saying

"In India’s strong, noisy democracy with a very free media and about 600 million people living in poverty, corporations need to be looked up to, not looked down upon. Importantly, they need to be viewed with respect and affection, not fear and trepidation."

Now obviously implying that Indian corporations have'nt contributed to the (exsisting?) fear and trepidation in any way. People who oppose them are a bunch of psychotics who like making up imaginary enemies. This almost maternal gushing continues and Das' article takes on a didactic cum defensive note when he says ,

"Business is not only about accumulating wealth and glory. It is not about growth for the sake of size. It is about being a good corporate citizen."

Anybody reading the article could have easily imagined that either he feels un-natural love for corporations in genral and Tata's in particular(a disease lots of Indians are afflicted by) or he gets a huge discount on everything form salt to cars -otherwise to call the company's policy as comprising of strictly "No hostile takeovers.", just a few days from the death anniversary of Tapsi Malik who was found raped and murdered during protests against the takeover of land in Singur , seems a little too indulgent .

Lots of Love
Mr.Das
Hope one day i too can learn how to be a
"good corporate citizen"

The music of another world...

The end of innocence could have been a deliberate parting

For not wanting to lie dead in a sea of eyes that look

But lips that refuse to talk

Why do you mourn then?

Coming of age could have been a shattering

Of all that I thought, held everything together-

The essential goodness of ‘us’

Why do you rejoice then?

Why do you ask me if these words are happy or sad?

Words often get drained in the music

And the music will be someone else’s

Here and there , nowhere actually

Arundhati Roy writes about the judiciary and the former CJI

here

'how much will we swallow" ?

The song just changed from Prince's little red corvette to Eagles' hotel california. The same old playlist, the same old me.

Interesting day today. Koyel and i joined the protest at North Campus for a few minutes. Later in the day a talk on why the Indo-US nuclear deal is a disaster in the making. And as the absolutely delightful speaker (Prof. Achin Vanaik) said , "how much will you swallow?"
This question hangs in the air.

A rainy evening , momentary panic on being stranded on auto less dark road and finally day (almost) culminating in nice home food.

The same old playlist, the same old me.

City love

Wet streets that smell of rain, the fading day pierced by headlights of cars that look washed and clean, an old song playing on the radio and a shaky auto ride. I feel like a hedonist trying to drink as much as I can, of the beauty of the city I call home. It’s not your conventional beauty and nor is it a perpetual one. There are times when I hate the city almost with a vengeance. But today I feel a strange calm descend, I am happy; I don’t want the journey to end. If I could just keep roaming the roads of this city looking at the grand Lutyens trees that stand oblivious to the awe struck me, the lit row of shops in Janpath, that exotic looking Persian carpet which hangs at a window, that freshly painted bus, the white imposing CP at it’s seductive best, abstracted people, rows of ice cream carts at India gate, the smell of an old, dusty library with it’s old, dusty books hangs in my head. I want to freeze all of this, in now, a rainy Tuesday evening. To remember at a later time when I will hopefully be shaken out of my reverie by a child begging on the road or when I am felt up in a (freshly painted) bus.

While someone else would be contemplating afresh their love for the city. That’s how we live with her and she with us. Some love some hate.

“Pozzo- the tears of the world are a constant quantity”

--Waiting for Godot

Of love and other demons

Of love and other demons.
The search for what can never be.

Exorcise me then …try
I know you can’t .

They fake concern
I fake recovery.

Naphthalene balls smell of childhood winter clothes.

I like.

MISS DELHI

I am a woman and I do think about it everyday. For varied reasons, in varied ways. As much as I think about being alive, being a part f this world and living the life that I do.

There are days when this subconscious contemplation makes happy but there are also times when it leaves behind a bad feeling, the kind you want to rid yourself of but just cant.

The other day a couple of my friends and me literally got chased by men on the road at 11 in the night. We managed to get out of the situation but the immediate reaction of all those who ‘cared’ about us was, ‘what the hell were you doing on the road at 11 in the night?’

This question I feel is irrelevant, I mean why does a woman need to give an explanation for being out at a certain time? Why can I not go out for ice cream at 11 if I want to? Why do I have to end an interesting conversation, happening outdoors, at 9 because it is unsafe to take an auto after that time? Why do I have to wait at a party that I hate so that some other guy who wants to stick around can drop me home? Why can I not decide to walk alone in a park after it gets dark?

It is actually sickening to live with a gnawing fear which mysteriously surfaces after a certain time of the day, women living in this city are perpetually victimized. And this is done not only by the occasional a**hole (for lack of a more offensive word) but by the collective character of the city. This place teaches its women to constantly stay on the look out, it starts with the beginning of the day when a middle aged man driving a big car will stare at you, on your way to college, in a manner that would actually make you feel NAKED . Then there will be those who ‘accidentally’ bump into you, never forgetting to brush against your butt and in the evenings you inevitably go past a few ‘jolly young men’ who loose control of their facial muscles on seeing you, which makes their faces get stuck in a perpetual smile until you pass (and this process is repeated by the arrival of another woman).

And all this only comes back to us in haunting ways while walking on a deserted road at night. There are times when you desperately feel the need to be around a man, because you want to feel protected. And after that paranoia disappears you feel more helpless than helpless can be , what does all talk about dignity and independence mean if I cant decide what I want to do at a particular time of the day or night !

I feel like a helpless hypocrite when I criticize some women for constantly looking for reassurance and protection from the men in their lives, because deep down inside how much ever I want to break out of it, I HAVE to do it too.

But I only hope I can keep railing against it, even after being terribly intimidated by men in black cars and others.

Let it flow let it flow , let it blossom let it show

Every time I hear James blunt sing, I feel like a sop, but then the song ends and I hit the play button again.

Life is complicated, and so is the human head. And as I discover every now and then that I too am a mortal being. And not only me but the entire human race seems to be in a state of perpetual tizzy and what makes the whole situation worse is that realization only comes in phases.

I am pissed and this rant refused to leave my head and had to be transported here for public torment. (You may read public torment whichever way you like) .

music

String the night, there is much music left

Unheard, unsung

Of all the incomplete thoughts and things

Real people, poetic lives

Dark rooms

Locked cupboards

Sleepful nights

Sleepless dreams

Sunshine smiles

Warm hands

Broken looking glasses

Mouldy shadows

That half folded page

Desperation well concealed

Soliloquies

You have to still sing of these

To me

As we sit stringing the night

There is much music left

Unheard , unsung

what can you freeze in time ...even if you want to

Closet cleaning ...

Sitting at work with nothing great to do ,I decide to write some poetry .I always fall into the trap of expressing through poetry .But not all of it is crap ,I think :



The green of broken glass
Travels deep into lives

Hound dog plays on the radio
I think of the old woman I’ll be

I join the broken lines
On the incomplete map
Try to get all the oceans on my parched country

The bin overflowing with crushed hearts
Old pictures often make me laugh

Some things cease
Some things cease in hearts

aaaaaaaarrrrrggggggggghhhh NOT AGAIN !

'Not again' was exactly what i thought ,when it happened again.And i don't seem to learn do i ?


i generally hate writing about my life on this space but well efforts do fail don't they ...
i have again sucessfully managed to fall for an absolutely inaccessible person ..i mean it has happened in the past but why me ? again ?

btw by inacessible i mean not film stars or what ever other sorts of stars there are .

anyway i hate life at times like these

*prepares to bang head against wall*.

Cheap thrills

I have just realised that most of my posts are in the cheap thrills category ...what am i ?

(this one also deserves to be there but i shall do some face saving and put it down as introspection)

Shocking ...

read this on Aishwariya's blog

Touch and go

Touch and go

The blue of the sky
A first kiss
Loves and losses to come

Worlds that crumble
And live again
Warm hands
Longing
Music

Far away in that frozen moment
Broken touch
Broken looks
Broken words

Touch and go

stranded light

Stranded light
Weeping joy
The pain of things that come together

The box that shuts everything inside
I can’t find
I try to catch the music
It slips between my fingers
Caresses but never stops to see
I need it.

The smell of rains
Those old spectacles
Cloudy glass

I take to never give back.

What If

God seems to be an important guy around my part of the galaxy. By important I mean influential much like that politician who everybody hates but is too scared to let him know.
And I make my long rusted brain-acular muscles race and imagine what if he was a real guy.(ardent devotes are requested to tightly shut their eyes before flight 786 of the blasphem airlines takes off).
For starters real people get pulled up-at work, at home, even in non pullable places like public conveniences! ) so let’s begin by pulling him up for a few mistakes here and there, the world wars, the holocaust, nuclear leaks, not to mention the genocides that keep occurring every now and then.
The devotes who have brought upon themselves blindness ,for reasons best known to themselves at the beginning of this journey, might turn this around and say well you can blame poor joe for what darned Hitler did !

Well as someone who has only had the hair raising privilege of knowing that Hitler existed and terminated himself at some point in human history ,I can only say poor joe is not all that poor is he ,or maybe one can consider the option of a pardon if he either agrees that he was a teeny weeny bit less powerful than the Nazis or better still, a fellow (equally powerful) anti Semitic.

And after being assailed with bouts of fright for the words that have just escaped my agnostic keyboard ,the faustian dilemma of to rebel or seek forgiveness is reaching its peak ,causing flight 786 of the blasphem airlines to swivel out of control ,which reminds me the other count on which the oh so mighty can be charged is treason or creatson ,for all the children being born with three heads and four feet after Chernobyl and Hiroshima ..he better have an explanation or else a lot of trouble can be caused by the unsatisfied consumers of “almighty in a box”

But real people (not to forget ) also get chances of setting right their mistakes ,(some passengers may partially open their eyes) so what does one want joe dearest to do ?
For starters George bush be moved to the residential facility of the department of warped people (they call it hell here) , communal ,casteist ,racist bigots may be shipped after him .the environment may be quickly restored to its pristine and un-global warmed glory, most wars and mass scale destruction of countries shall be taken care of by the first move but for whatever is left over ,do that. People (I thought they were important for joe ) be given the right to live with dignity and equality and as when needs arise they shall be effectively communicated .

Oh wait ! its still what if ….damn you joe !

god is an overrated junky

God made heavens and the earth

*cough*

And the priest tells me this world is of no real worth

He makes sense in a convoluted way

………………………………………………

God is an overrated junky

I think

The promise of the heavens gives him a high

And every thing’s a holy mess beneath the vast blue sky

God is an overrated junky

I think

People die unnoticed in my part of the world

And Bush digs in your name his mines of gold

God is an overrated junky

I think

The apathetic stupor never comes to an end

And free market economics continue to squish and rend

God is an overrated junky

I think

Children are born with three heads

In a world where nuclear weapons are considered sacred

God is an overrated junky

I think

Religion they still think makes sense

When brutal discrimination is the only consequence

God is an overrated junky

I think

Shopping stress is important than a dilapidated country

Hail the new messiah –Oprah Winfrey

God is an overrated junky

I think

blogging kicks

Five days ,four posts
not bad ,eh ? :-)

Soliloquy 1

The *bling bling* of breath takingly shot advertisements, Greek god like models ,glossy pages and imposing hoardings have to a large extent been successful in drugging the non consumer part of me .

It ,however, wakes up sometimes and a rant is born .

So Barbie is selling clothes now, another brand added to the gamut of nauseatingly expensive and snooty labels.

When I see my puny three and a half feet tall cousins refusing to wear non branded jeans, it really makes me think back about roughly when it was that this brand obsession came and took over even these unsuspecting kids and worse still their parents.

The largest brand I remember wearing as a child is action shoes ,wanting to know if my experience was only mine I spoke to a couple of other friends who come from similar backgrounds and they too seemed to agree with me about our complete disregard for brands as children .

It infact took me a long time to realize the difference between the idea of expensive and non expensive .my mother tells me that as a four year old I asked her if we were rich enough to afford two eggs . Nowadays kids know, that Levis is a cool jean to have because it costs a lot more money that your regular denim pants. This precocious awareness of class and status and a disgusting sense of superiority that money breeds in the minds of these children is something that I don’t remember being a part of my childhood.

Koyel and I were recently talking about what it means to have a good childhood ,the conversation happened after a visit to BC Roy library ,an old building, walls full of paintings ,exciting books ,wooden chairs and an annual subscription fees of fifty rupees it stands in stark contrast to fashions shows(with their numerous other problems) for kids organized by elite playschools …

Crass display of wealth always manages to put me off and warped schooling and parenting along with all pervasive consumerism has, I feel, everything to do with it

Here is a poem by Gerald Kelly

Ad Nauseum

They don’t shout at you these days

In crowded squares

They don’t hang their wares from aprons

And fight through the crush ton accost you

There is n cackle of hens

No bleating of goats

No clink clink clink

Of money counted.

These days they rent the sides of buildings

And scream at you from posters

The size of skies they make neon signs

To render the moonlight anaemic

And leave their wares

To swim about

The pools of floodlit showrooms

They hold their tongues

Say nothing:

Yet fill your head

Your life

Your city

With the fevered volume of hawking

Modern day money changers

Hustlers

Dealers

Abusers of silence

In god’s green temple:

But who should we look to

In this after messiah age

To make a whip

And turn the tables on them ?

the joy of life

The moist breeze and washed green
The drunken joy
Of my resurrected spirit

Fleeting moments that
Cease but start
Decades of self realization

You never kept me down
You cant
It was always me

I lick with delight
my precious joy
My eyes now dancing with
My own light

In between the cart wheels and somersaults
The moldiness all gone
Ranks no more any part of me .

एक नयी शुरुआत

‘I want to physically hurt you’ is what my best friend told me when I deleted my not so read previous blog .

(this indeed is a new start and meals are to be gleefully had and I know I don’t have to do it ,but thank you mallika for being the bully that you are and making my virtual and non virtual life go round and round .)

what made me delete my previous blog ,I cannot definitely say .i would like to believe though that it was a combination of sudden aversion to self composed intensely emotional poetry (which had stated making frequent appearances on my blog) and anxieties about revealing the under confident and often incompetent writer in me .

the period of contemplation that followed however has made me realize that maybe hitting the delete button wasn’t such a smart thing to do and that there are people(even if there are just two lol!) who care to read my eccentric rants .This is my space in the cyber world and what I shall write from now on will try to steer clear form unimportant concerns like incompetent writing :-)

so cheers to the woman who brings all the joy to this blog and my life

malli I’ll love you always too

thanks :-)

ps and thank you koyel for being the ,consistent blogging support and encouragement system that a lazy bum like me actually does not deserve

hey puchi,
this is a just a starter for u..the meals just comin in..all for you..love u always..



Feel this stubborn piece of flesh,
Unyielding swelling, a mold growing on her head
Did you see the blueness of her skin?
In places it screams of crude torment
And the yawning marks oozing blood
The frozen smile, the distant look
If only, all this could be understood
Draped in a sari, hidden behind the folds
Immeasurable yarns of stories to be told
A thousand narratives each night
With her bawl and screams
Behind locked doors
And today in the morning
She escaped,
Found her freedom in flames
A thousand cries still inadequate
A thousand stories died today
Unheard and unacknowledged…

mallika