I cannot write stories. I can write essays even, but not stories. At least not stories that would make for a decent read. I haven't attempted to write a story many times but when I have, I usually get stuck somewhere and then that's that. Several people have told me that when you write stories, you need to write about things from your life and experiences. Stories that have happened to you. And then add little fictional elements to make for a good read. 'How would the reader relate to your story if even you can't relate to it?' Sounds fine. But what about fantasy? And crime fiction? Incredible stories set at far off places with things that you can never imagine the author to have gone through, happening in them? I'm pretty sure Kafka never turned into a “monstrous vermin” during his lifetime. I understand adding things, incidents and little elements from your life to your stories. I'm sure that happens inevitably anyway. But I don't agree that that is the only way to write fiction. I'm still trying to figure out what the other way to write fiction is though. But when I do write a decent story, I hope it won't just be a piece from my life.



On personal news, well, there is none.
Except, my 22nd birthday is coming up in a few days. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm never one to complain about getting older, but 21 just has a better ring to it than 22, doesn't it? Also, I don't want any more 'non-materialistic' friends alright!

I want temporary, fake friends who give me nice gifts wrapped in pretty wrapping paper for no goddamn reason! 

What! At least around the birthdays. Hyuk hyuk hyuk :)

Sometimes you are at some place, terribly inspired and under the impression that if you write something just then you're going to whip up the best shit you've ever written. The sun, the sand, one of the your most favourite people sitting across the table, a constantly breaking heart, the best apple shake you ever had...the setting's perfect. And then you start to write a poem. But it doesn't turn out quite the way you would've liked. In face, it doesn't turn out at all. This happens to me all the time. Sitting at my favourite shack in Gokarna at the most peaceful time to be there (2 days before season started) with my closest friend, all I could write was the shbby outline of a poem. It never came to anything. The moment was gone. So I'm posting it as it is.

Waves crashing against rock reminds me of the fond sound of pails of water being thrown onto cement porches.Weed crackling in the mouths of foreign men. The smell clings to my skin. I touch my face, ear lobe, hands. I feel it all - the sand, grit, residues of sweat beads, salt and already re-surfacing hair roots. A dog with an infected eye sits nuzzled at my foot. He looks at me with one gruesome, bloody, pus-filled eye, the sadness in the other more gruesome. I turn away. Sadness is not on the agenda this time. I sip on my apple shake, exchange awkward smiles with the bearded artist always drawing at the next table. We are two estranged lovers. Behind him, at a distance, a boat sailing is a blemish I could rub away.

Life, the Universe and Unemployment

Uma Joshi ye ye ye
my mother, she told me a 60 years ago

there came an old man knocking at the door

with an ooh, aah, i want some pa

the pa is sweet, i want some meat

the meat is rough (?), i want to go by bus

the bus is full, i want to go by bull

the bull is fat, i want my money back

the money is green, i want some jelly beans
the jelly beans are red, i want to go to bed,

the bed is white, i want to say good night.

Believe it or not, this post has a point. But first,
Last night, I was thinking about the 80s. And then I thought my hair kind of looked like my dad's hair in the 80s for a while. I contemplated wearing shiny bell-bottoms and giant glasses-that-cover-half-my-face while I ride a bike indoors with my head banging in strange ways. But then, I had to discard the idea because I don't have shiny bell-bottoms (must add to birthday wishlist), giant glasses-that-cover-half-my-face, a bike, the knowledge of how to ride a bike, indoors that can accommodate bike-riding, the ability to shake my head in more than 3 ways and thankfully, the hair. I swear, my dad looked like a farmer going to the disco back then. Psychotic!

 
But, back to 'Uma Joshi. It's one of the most popular rhymes/games you play as a child brought up in India during the 80s. Uma Joshi's mother here reminded me of something. Or wait. Is Uma Joshi the mother? So misleading. Anyway, presuming that Uma Joshi is the mother, she and the old man who came knocking at her door 60 years ago reminded me of something. Lately, I've been unemployed. It was great at first, but then it became a drag, and then it became painful and now it's just unemployment. There is just one thing to be said about unemployment. It is EVIL. It makes you stop doing nice things like believing in yourself and start doing unnecessary things like whining all the time. And soon enough, among all the nothingness and frustration and fury and low self-respect and a gigantic zit, you spit out the one decent poem you've written in 2.5 months before you go crying to your blog about all of it. I've lost count of how many stupid minutes a day I spend complaining about my boredom and futility. I'm like the old man who came knocking at Uma Joshi's door 60 years ago. Every day of my life I keep asking for this and that and that and that and something better than that. And then one day, I will say goodnight and go to sleep unhappily after complaining about the colour of my bedspread. We all are. But, your life be yours. The Universe has requested me to shut up now, and I plan to oblige.


Random question: If I write Do-Do would you read it as 'dodo'?   .

The bench

I was playing once. Not winning, but playing. Playing soothed the sores left by the bench and gave me candy every night. I played the paper, highlighted by sun rays and happy members of the alphabet dancing to the sound of every scratch. But now, the books leak bad things. Words of faith and pep talks sound like dry leaves being crushed under angry feet. My pride has gone shopping, for some ink and some new balls may be. I suppose half-time isn't over yet.

I love the spunky new do for my blog! Because blue sky, green grass and dandelions are all beautiful.

Ants don't get me

Today, I bit into an ant. It bit my tongue first because I bit into a toffee that I had left lying on my table some 574849 days ago and it, the ant, was on it. When you find candy/toffee you left lying somewhere 574835 days ago (I swear I tried to randomly type the same number again), check for ants? So anyway, I bit into an ant. And it was crisp.
And then after I was done biting into some yummythings so the yucky feeling on my tongue would go away, I saw one ant. On my pillow! Then I dusted like a maniac for twenty minutes at least, so the one ant or its other crawly companions will not form a rather disciplined line and march into my ear and eat off my brain or something.

Anyway, I've been writing and writing some more and then dying to write when I'm not writing, in the past few days. Love has been ebbing and flowing and overflowing in every direction, so I OD-ied happily, wrote a lot and spread a lot of yellow cheer. Now, the seas are calm once again and I'm back to my happy little hole.
I was DYING to write something this afternoon, but powercuttedoff! And I, shamefully, cannot write too well on pen and paper anymore. Backspace is vital. So then the inspiration evaporated along with my sweat and I sat down with my giant book and coffee to get me through the rest of the day. Butbut my walls are all empty and sad, except for this beautiful thing. Love!

So, will you paint me a funkyfunky poster, pliss?  =)

I'm actually enjoying unemployment this time.
*Blink blink* 
Must get restless soon, before I get too comfortable 
*Blink blink*

Another one

The stereo is vomiting our every song one by one.
But there is a silence, thick as custard
that tells a story of
two lovers and twenty thousand loves.
You are here with me, listening too.
Climbing on to my collar bone,
licking my earlobe and teasing my every sense,
before you settle, lodged between my ribs.

I think always, of how it would be
if we stayed close enough to touch
but not kiss,
to discover what we loved
and hated before we separated.
I wished that in the whiteness of your room,
I found a space next to you,
just by your side -
to see the world
the way you saw it.
Staring at the ceiling didn't
feel the same without you.

Still, I have no regrets.
I am more fragrant now that
I recognise myself as an entity separate from you.
I reek of my own mistakes,
and bloom alone on dewkissed magenta mornings.
But one day, we will bloom together once again,
shaming sunflowers and shutting up glottis.

You are yours and I am mine.

One day, very soon,
I will have words to put out here,
words of promises and pencil tips
and rubber soles and leaky houses.
Words of love -
to say to nobody in particular,
but say nevertheless.
And I hope you will be there,
and you will listen.
You will tell me the things I want to hear
and draw a smile on my teary face
with your finger tips dipped in love.
Just like you always did.

Reboot love! X)

Written on: June 5th, 2010.

Many things

Did you know Blogger does not let you use Italics in the title of a post?

That's stupid. Italics are awesome. So are indentations. And punctuation! [See strange old poem stemming from my love for punctuation here]

But what will I do without

indentations,

punctuation

and italics!

I'm such a paragraph-slut! ^_^

--

 

This too, a love story

She works as a waitress in

that sketchy roof-top restaurant we always thought to be a dance bar.

She visits her grandma and works out crosswords every Friday.

She always wears her hair tied down,

been saving since she was fourteen to go to Paris.

One day, she would say with smiling eyes.

Wants three kids, the oldest being a boy;

she jots down names for them in her little notebook.

He lives in her building, grunts when she looks away.

He chops flesh at a butcher shop every day –

and hangs around outside a different bar every night.

He tucks his unkempt hair behind his collar and

chops it off with a knife every Summer.

The scar on his nape would then be visible.

A while back, he went to jail for stabbing a friend

and today, he says he'd do it again.

--

It's been a while since I shared anything I've written, barring the previous post and the poem above. There is no lack of inspiration (not with all the drama in my life!), no lack of time, no writer's block. It's just been a busy few months and all I really want to do now is keep it this way. May be get busier. I've felt no need for a break through all this though. I've wanted to be at a lot of places and change a lot of things to have them go my way almost everyday, but there have been no 'I need to get out of here's or 'I need a vacation's. Not till I get somewhere with something that pleases me. I'm also feeling slightly anti-social these days. I don't know whether it is the lack of...er...well, society. Or may be it's just a slump. Apparently, I've found new ways to mope around. When at least one aspect of my life starts going the way I would like it to, I will be social again. I will feel like it then.

But I always want a plan, something to look forward to. If there is nothing, I make something up and be falsely excited about it anyway. Like trying to blog more often for the 4 readers I have because I think they like what I write, for instance. I made a lot of plans today, most of which will fail. But it made me happy. 

But, I deviate. I was doing this explainingtoselfandthosewhocare thing: I've been writing. But I've been on an intentional hiatus from sharing what I write with anyone. It all started with laziness and a moody internet connection. But eventually, I found smarter-sounding reasons to give people. Firstly, why must I write itself? Why can't I just feel and not put it down on paper? Why must I string together a bunch of words in an attempt to find meaning in my thoughts and feelings? And secondly, why must I share what I write with people who will probably only just read it and not feel what I felt? Seemed solid and adamant enough for people (including the self) to stop questioning me / bothering with me.

And then, weeks later, it struck me during one of my many rickshaw-journeys. 

I write because I love to. I love writing things, stowing them away, tearing them up, re-reading them, editing them, twaeking them and doing all sorts of abusive things to them! 

I share because I have 4 readers. 

And my 4 readers read what I share and react, because they want to. 

No other reasons; none required.

EDIT >> Oh and nobody ever says "er"! Atleast not in the context it's usually written. 

Oh well.