House To-let

Proceedings from the letting of this extraordinary house go towards sanitation in developing countries. To read more see here.

I wonder if the people who rent the place will be called looters.

Eleven things to do...

Somethings to do when you're feeling down. Not just low because of a bad day-- low on self esteem, low on energy, plain low on life. Its happened to all of us, to me enough times for me to statistically analyze it. Somethings I've found to work for me...

Disclaimer: some of the following may be hazardous to your/near-ones/dear-ones health.

Follow as is advisable.

They're not in any specific order because different things work in different cases for different people. (and its surprising how often we forget that!)

1. Music is the soul of life:

Music, music, music. Very simple. Listen to it, play it if you're so inclined (insert disclaimer). This really helps take the blues away like nothing else can. To those masochists out there who love prolonging that feeling of agony and wallowing in it, there's absolutely nothing better than (1). Mood elevators, mood thickeners, mood diluents, mood suppressants... your playlists should supply it all.

1) APC+ Chains+ Opeth+ Tool+ Katatonia+ Ayreon+ Symphony X

or

2) Death Cab for Cutie+ Belle & Sebastian+ The Beatles+ Hootie & The Blowfish+ INXS + Aimee Mann+ Tori Amos+ Bob Dylan+ Orange Juice

usually works for me depending on my kind of low.

2. Retail Therapy!

Several people argue over the efficacy of this method and yet more others about the moral and spiritual ruin it will eventually lead us to but I am of the humble opinion that they can take their faces and bury it in our shopping bags. Retail therapy works like a CHARM for me and for several of my friends and acquaintances.

Here again, are two schools of thought--

1) buy expensive. Fewer items, but go for the high-end price tags. Clothes, perfume, shoes, bags, whatever makes you happy. I have a friend who buys a shirt for each really depressing day he has and he actually remembers the occasion whenever he wears that shirt.

2) quantity over quality! (this is my favourite personally.)

colorful, inexpensive, almost entirely useless products. These are a few of my favourite things :-)

a. pencils

b. pillows

c. scrunchies

d. lip balm

e. slippers

f. soap (I have this inexplicable fetish for different kinds of soap.)

Just binge. Buy whatever you want to. The cheaper, the uglier, the more useless and the more colorful it is the better. Show the world and yourself money is nothing.

3. Eat/Drink:

Treat yourself to food. Lots of it. Either have a four-course meal at your favourite restaurant or go roadside-kadai hopping. Pani puri here, (a very dubious) grilled sandwich there, steamed corn near there, watermelon juice still further down.

Other options include beer/hard liquor which I feel are downers so you shouldn't be resorting to those. Whatever works for you, of course.

4. Sleep.

No more need be said. Doing 7 hours daily? Make it 10. 8 hours is your usual? Go on to 12. Sleep it all away. There's no problem that's gonna be as insurmountable as it was after twelve lovely hours of shut-eye.

5. Cook.

This is obviously only when you’ve had some experience in this field. You might land up giving a lot of grief to your kitchen and mom/roommate if you persist without rudimentary culinary skills. Try something elaborate, with seasoning, dressing, icing, you get it. It’s very tiring (in a good way) and takes your mind off your woes!! Plus you can do (3) after cooking. :D

6. Bathe.

A lot of your personal problems (with your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your friends, your colleagues) could be caused due to B.O. Even if you're not quite Smelly Billy it never hurts to clean up a bit. You feel immensely cleaner both mentally and physically and hence refreshed after your sojourn in ze salle du bain. A few ingredients for the perfect bath-

1) shampoo. Like a Mallu would say (in a considerably different accent) you haven't had a bath till you've washed your hair.

2) nice-smelling soap. (ref 2(2)f)

3) aromatherapy candles (if you don't think that's gay. or even if you do. *snicker*)

4) warm water. (this is a MUST)

7. A walk on the shore.

For those privileged enough to reside close to the sea, a walk on the shore at sunset/sunrise can calm most moods. However it must be mentioned that this is not an elevator, this is a diluent. In some cases it has resulted rather adversely in an urge to jump into the sea. In these cases restraint is advised. Death by drowning is not pleasant and your bloated body that washed up on a shore somewhere leaves much to be desired aesthetically. Try pills for a suitably good-looking death.

8. Chocolate.

A popular favourite over generations, chocolate (as distinguished from 'candy', 'sweets' and other such trifling and inadequate substitutes) is a sure-fire mood elevator. The more it melts in the mouth the more you can feel your problems dissolving away. Mmmm. Don't freeze it, but don't lick it off the wrapper either. It has to achieve an optimal consistency.

But let's face it, boys and girls. It isn't chocolate without cocoa. It ISN'T. Don't try deceiving yourself or the multitudes.

9. Doodle.

Doodle, draw graffiti, draw dirty pictures, voodoo dolls indicative of your professor being nailed to a painful death, whatever works for you. If you have crayons or sketchpens, Get creative! Maybe you can tack it up on your wall and call it avant-garde post-structuralist surrealistic art.

you can also try making a list of all the naughty words you know. In different languages. Categorize them alphabetically and cross-index with respect to frequency and context.

10. Cry (incl. of scream, shout, wail, bawl, etc.)

A good long cry never hurt anyone. Let the vocal chords and the ocular water dispensers have a party. You'll feel better when it's done.

11. Standard Lies That Should Make You Feel Better:

a. The race is not always to the swift.

b. You can only join the dots looking backwards.

c. Everything happens for a Reason.

d. There is a God and life is fair.

e. You are a fool to still be reading this.

Cars and Babies

I wrote this awhile ago. And wanted to post after an age. It's been so long.

I think one of the most depressing things in the world is the dust dripping off a car in the rain. It forms layers and streaks across the car, forming strange patterns in the coat of dust, revealing patches of white that haven’t been seen in ages.

If it’s not enough that the owner didn’t care to clean his car, it worse that he chose to let the rain do its inefficient job for him. He should have atleast had the consideration to not take the car out in the rain.

It’s heart-breaking, really. To see half the layers gone. To see the dust all collected at the bottom of the fender or door. To see patches that were less fortunate than their neighbors. And to see people sitting inside their car listening to music when there’s dirt dripping off their side. I mean, how more icky can that get?

I love when a plump kid trips and falls. Not that I want it to get hurt or bruised or anything. I just love the way the fall sounds. And the way the stout little kid will sit up, completely bewildered. It’s even better when a concerned mother is around (preferably stout too). She’ll come running from wherever she was, and exclaim at the child. As far as I have observed, that exclamation frightens the child into tears more than the physical abrasions. Oh my god, she’s screaming at me for something, I must be hurt. Let’s scream before she starts yelling again, if only to shut her up. Scene ends in stout feller and stouter mother outdoing each other at screaming.

You Should Rule Mars

Mars is a planet that shines brightly and loops wildly around the solar system. You are perfect to rule Mars, because you are both energetic and independent. Like Mars, you seems attractive and bright to others - but you're difficult to pin down. You are a great thinker, but you only think in the present and ignore the future. Full of enthusiasm and inspiration, you are into your own thing... and rather insensitive to others.

What Planet Should You Rule?

Oh Crap! So i'm not actually from Venus! Boo hoo.

'Portnoy's Complaint', Philip Roth

I don't particularly believe in writing reviews- A lot depends on the writer's personal taste and his capacity to appreciate or scorn literature and it could be very misleading to a reader of entirely different views. However, this is a book that made me want to write about it. Ladies and Gentlemen(or the Very Few Fellas That Read This Blog), I give you Portnoy's Complaint.



This book is funny as it is wild. It's popularly touted as the most outrageously funny book about sex ever written, and while I strongly suspect there might be several others, this book is outrageous in the amount of introspection it generates. I thus boldly propose that there is a bit of Portnoy in all of us, and whether you choose to acknowledge it or not is upto you. I hasten to clarify that this is not a book about Mike Portnoy, bless him.

It is a monologous narrative, from Alexander Portnoy, Male with Penis, Jew (because those are the only entities he chooses to acknowledge) to his psychiatrist Dr. Spielvogel. Acknowledged by many to be semi-autobiographical of the author, Philip Roth, this book is a dark, funny one.

The book begins with a definition of the symptom, lending the reader his first taste of what's to come:
portnoy's complaint: A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic implulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.

This book could be described as Mind versus Penis, but there are so many more overtones and undercurrents to this that to do so would be grossly innacurate at best. This book is a struggle of a widely read, scholarly man in the highest circles of responsibility, between attachment to his strongly Jewish roots and his desire to be of the more refined class, of his natural parental gratitude and love and his supreme hate of his surroundings and upbrinding, of his intellectual bent of mind and its forever grappling with incurable sexual longing (He hates being with The Monkey because of her lack of intellectual assets, but cannot tear himself away either)

It is tragic and funny simultaneously- tragic because of the events that occur and funny because of Portnoy's reaction or the lack of it. The protagonist lives in a Jewish home with a severely Jewish mother, who cuddles and cossets young (and old) Portnoy, leading to some of his earliest and most embarrassing memories, along with a perpetually constipated father whose stories of attempted bowel movement are hilarious and yet most touching, and a rather unattractive sister only made bearable by marriage. His Jewishness and his relationship to his parents has inexorably influenced the way he has grown up, with them tempering almost every action he takes, much to his disgust.

His outlook is described clearly in

'..how much longer do I go on conducting these experiments with women? How much longer do i go sticking this thing into the holes that come available to it-- first this hole, then when I tire of this hole, that hole over there... and so on. When will it end? Only why should it end! To please a father and mother? To conform to the norm? Why on earth should I be so defensive about being what was honorably called some years ago, a bachelor? So what's the crime? Sexual freedom? In this day and age? Why should I bend to the bourgeosie? Do I ask them to bend to me?..."

and

'Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!'

This book moves seamlessly from the present to the past and back, loses track in the middle, reaches conclusions to parts started earlier in the book in later sections, etc. The narrative disintegrates in parts of the book, but it is a monologue, and a highly confused, intelligent and irritated man's monologue at that, and it's bound to jump like crazy.
Personally, I found it relaxing. :)


I would recommend this as a read to anyone who's not of a very conservative bent of mind. The masturbation scenes in themselves are likely to give you a stitch in the side.

I'm currently reading American Pastoral, also by Roth, and am looking forward to reading more of his Zuckerman novels.

Two Thumbs up!!

Keys

I don't get it when locks aren't numbered in order. People like to number their locks according to their keys, with little itty bits of paper stuck underneath the keyhole to indicate the number of the key. All this is very well, when you're taking the pain to stick paper at the keyhole you might as well stick paper on the key to give them uniform numbers.

I mean, ten locks in a row of cupboards(which are, by the way, built specifically with 3-feet tall people in mind and to give anyone over five feet acute lumbar spondylosis). It would be nice if you had one, two, three... ten. Drawer one, key one, lock one. Drawer two, key two, lock two. Nice and orderly and symmetrical. Common sense. But no, drawer one has key AB9980, and lock 437. Drawer two has key UN8894, and lock 789. No method in the madness whatsoever.

So when you're searching for a key, you're kneeling by the drawer, squinting at the miniscule numbers printed in bad handwriting on the lock.

Damn, I think this is 843. Does anyone have key number 843?

Random moron in the vicinity: That's the lock number. What's the key number? Look up the corresponding key number on the chart.

(I struggle up, find chart, match 843 to key number.)

Does someone have key number AB6682?

Random moron 2: Nope, I have GR9983.

Moron 3: GH1121 here.

Gah.

(I kneel again, to squint at the number correctly)

Crap. It's 834, not 843. Fuck this shit, man.

Absolutely random moron that should be burnt and killed: I think AB6682 is for the next drawer, check the lock number???

(I lean all the way to the next drawer to see the lock there, getting dangerously off-balance and fall midway)

(after brushing dirt off) Lock number 325.

Same dipshit: No, I don't think it's right. You'll have to check with the chart.


SOME common sense, you silly dipshits. I mean, what's the idea? 325, 834, 879, 526, 429? And don't even get me started on the key numbers. I mean, you do want people to find the keys and use the damn shelves right? or have you got potfuls of gold inside?

*yawn*

<thoughts floating around a random cross-section of people in little bitty bubbles over their little heads>
A: I wish I could earn a little more tomorrow than I did today.

B: I wish I could look a little more beautiful tomorrow than I looked today.

C: I wish he'd smile at me a little more tomorrow than he did today.

D: Is she going to eat that last fry?

E: (blank)

Me: I wish I could sleep a little more tomorrow than I did today.

The only thing i really want to do in my life is sleep. As long, as comfortably, as soundlessly, as undisturbed, as cozily, as warmly as possible.

I'm not lazy, I say. Sleeping is my one true passion in life.

Like right now. There is nothing I will not do to be able to curl up with a cover and a pillow. My eyes are barely open because it's too much of an effort to keep the lids fully open. I prefer to let a bare minimum of light come in and disturb the sanguine sleep-suspended nerves in my eyes. Besides, keeping them thus positioned lends a blurry image wherever you look, thus not taxing your brain or your eyes too much, letting them stew in intoxicating indolence.

My brain is one-track, it feels like tapioca someone put in a bowl out in the sun to cook. there are dull echoes all around of "sleep". Like someone came and bellowed about a month ago in the Silent Valley and it's still doing rounds. It's not "sleep!" or "sleep?" or "sleep." It's just "sleep". Distant, but persistent, dull. Like an incantation right at the back of my head to induce it, as if it needed any urging. Sleep comes, at all times, at all places, in all situations. It needs no external influence, and meets with no internal resistance.

Frost was an ass when he wrote "the woods are.... miles to go before I sleep." Needless torture, IMHO. Why postpone pure eternal undisturbed sleep for walking miles when you can have it here and now? I mean, bliss and paradise and utopia are all of what man's looking for in life, right? Why fight so much, catch so many flights and run around all over the place sweating and breathless and altogether so BUSY when you can quite comfortably turn off the lights, pull the covers over your head, a hand over that extra pillow and pull it under your chin and go to sleep NOW?

People, they are stupid. They have sex, do business, drive cars, play guitars, drink beer, smoke weed, play chess, poke hypodermics into their ugly arms, watch television, reflect light off their heads, do whatever the shit it is they do to keep themselves happy. I'm not blaming them, hey, they do what they know, the chess players, they're as stupid as the fornicating machines, to me.

The problem is, this, good man, is a fucked up world. There is starvation and exploitation and torture and madness and evil and fundamentalism and capitalism and conservatism and pollution and the big hole and every where you look there's another problem right around the corner, waiting to screw you over just when you thought you managed to get away from it for a little while.

But come, friend. Rest your head and go to sleep.
Herein lies the truth. Look no further, paradise is possible here and now.
Because once you're asleep, you're in BLISS. You've got sunshine in a bag. You're away from all the shit, and it feels SO good. You've got a small cozy world of your own once your eyelids close and it becomes dark outside. This string quartet starts playing inside and you can do whatever you want.



Stop searching forever, happiness is a nap away.

today is the trippiest day of my life.

Current Mood: intimidated
Current Music: robert miles- children

its strange how one never knows what life ever has in store for them.
its strange, how much you come to want something which you just cannot have.
its strange how you ignore palpably the most obvious things in life.
its strange how you refuse the best things in life, thinking they aren't.
its strange how you regret after it's too late.
its strange how you know you'll regret, people tell you you'll regret, you predict you'll regret, and then you finally regret. whoever talked of warnings?

yeah. life's strange.
========================================

======================= Death is not everything. It's more cruel not to be able to die.

written on September 02, 2002, at 10:02.

seven phases of bitter butter.

If thou must buy butter, and find that it is bitter, thou shalt take the bitter butter and add some better butter to make the bitter butter better.

--- I talk Shit ----

And everything started with that damn guard who went off to get that damn fag.

waiting woman.

This tearing loneliness inside…

This strange inconsistency between belonging and not belonging…

This mindless yet continual awareness of knowing you’re not doing what you want to do… but also consistently reminded that you do not know what you want to do…

Having to deal with people asking you every time about how you’re doing. Having to deal with people not asking you ever about how you’re doing.

Pushing a strand of hair behind your ear and resting your chin in your hand…. Staring vacantly into the sky or at someone… Wanting to rest that gaze on a face that understands.. feel the touch of a hand that knows what it’s like…

Waiting forever for the truth… waiting, for anything… for something different, something the same, anything…

A thousand years of this moment…