Lyla by Oasis is quite a remarkable song - because of the wonderfully poetic quality of its lyrics. And the verse of the week is the first stanza of the song -
"Callin' all the stars to fall
And catch the silver sunlight in your hands
Come for me and set me free
Lift me up and take me where I stand"
Dear Reader,
I’ve been feeling this irresistible longing to write a letter for weeks now. But well, I don’t really have anyone I could write to now that I’m home. I mean, when I used to feel the irresistible longing to write when I was at college – I’d just write to my mother. Those letters invariably always left her feeling worrisome because according to her, I sounded like a whiney little baby.
I tried writing to friends back home for a while too. But no one actually understood why I did that. One of them said that they all wrote it off to the fact that I’d always been ‘quaint’ and that, therefore such oddities as letters were to be expected. (Humph!) Instead of writing back, everyone called and texted asking me why I’d written instead of calling or texting. And thenceforth, I decided I’d spare everyone the bother of having to wade through reams and reams of my writing. And so, I stopped writing to friends.
And now, it’s probably because I’m very wowed by Virginia Woolf’s collection of letters – that I wish very longingly that I had friends I could write to without being thought ‘quaint’. Woolf’s letters are such fun – she tells a friend that all he would have to do is lift the little finger of his left hand very slightly and she would send him her latest work. When I get a book published, I wish I could write to friends telling them that all they have to do is blink their eyes and say ‘Jabberwocky’ thrice for me to send them a copy. If I texted someone all that, my cleverness in plagiarising and tweaking Woolf’s words would be completely lost when they decided to delete their messages.
Anyway, this seems to be turning into a meta-letter. So I’ll start off saying something else. I once read this article in a Reader’s Digest published way before I was born where the author suggested that a very nice way of beginning a letter is by telling whoever you are writing to about where you are while you are writing the letter. Well, I am in my study. The windows are open and there is the loveliest breeze ever. It’s rather cool but it’s not raining. I wish it would rain though. It’s just the most exquisite thing ever when it does – I sit outside on the verandah and watch the rain and dream up impossible plots for the epic novel I will write one day.
My cousin just came over. He wants me to assure him that I shall be his assistant when he decides to go snake-catching when we go to my native place next week. He has been unwell over the past week and he has been watching entirely too many shows about snakes on Animal Planet. He says that all one has to do is catch a snake by its head – the element of surprise renders the snake defenceless or something. I strongly suspect that by assistant, he means that I will have to do be the one who grabs a snake by its head – but he has been so gloomy about being unwell that I have politely accepted.
I can hardly wait to go to my native place – not because I am looking forward to death by snakebite – but because I’ve this fancy notion that my mother believes is all in my head that I am only completely alive and completely myself when I am there. I know it sounds silly – but I do think that though I’m not sure why. Perhaps, it’s because my cousins and I grew up there and spent all our summer vacations there while we were in school. Maybe it’s the fact that I have countless happy memories associated with that old house and those endless stretches of land around it that my heart brims over with happiness and this wonderful feeling of being utterly free the moment I set foot there.
I am going to turn twenty next month. And that somehow fills me with dread. I think I’m terrified of growing old – not about getting wrinkles or greying hair or anything – but about being one of those people whose imaginations have dried up – people who think that wishes made on falling stars don’t come true (I have empirical proof that they do) or people who never want to pretend they are ballerinas and break out into sudden pirouettes when they listen to Tchaikovsky. That reminds me – Swan Lake always makes me wish I’d learned ballet – though I’m pretty sure I would have been a terribly graceless ballerina.
My mother is about to leave for work and wants me to help her find her keys. She is always losing her keys – almost always because she is entirely too careful with them. So I should probably go.
And this was great fun. And I think I surprised myself with the sort of things I had to say. I’ve always found it rather funny and astounding that one can surprise oneself. Doesn’t that mean that we have places in us that we don’t understand or know? I’m certain that you haven’t enjoyed reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. But I think I’ll do this again someday.
This was written for the Totally Optional Prompt - Fireworks
In a cannon,
The walls are dark -
And the blackness makes everything incomprehensible;
Until -
I no longer know,
Your soul from my own.
Once,
We were on a ship,
Every evening,
The skies were scarlet,
And the wind roared.
You prayed for an endless sea,
I pleaded for the shore.
In a cannon,
Everyday,
We wait.
Minutes crawl -
Endless soporific slugs.
Hours die -
Slow painful deaths.
Everything is in slow motion,
When you wait to be shot.
In the sea,
Everything was sad.
Every day seemed false,
And tasted of salt.
In a cannon,
We waited -
Silently, blindly,
Till an unwary cinder,
Set us afloat.
I think you were silver,
I hope I was gold.
Yet even in that glow,
Everything was black,
As dark and incomprehensible -
As the unhappiness in our soul.
He won, he won, he won, he won, he won, HE WON!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so happy.
That match was the most nerve-wracking thing I ever saw.
When they went on and on and on in that last set, my BP would have been something like 900. (As is evident, I know nothing about the normal or abnormal values of BP but 900 seems high enough.)
Anyway, I am just really REALLY happy he won.
He just seemed to deserve it so much.
And he looked so happy when he did win.
Nevertheless, I must say, Roddick played his heart out and deserves to be applauded too.
But I'll do that MUCH later when I can stop telling every single person I meet how awesome it is that Federer won the Wimbledon.
Sometimes,
Zero is greater than two.
I don't understand it,
Neither could you.
I don't think you'd even believe me,
If I told you.
And I could recite
Every member of the Fibonacci
I could even count the stars,
And disprove their infinity.
But the mathematics of your memory -
Would deem every step a fallacy,
If I ever set out to prove,
That zero is greater than two.
Please - new templates - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.
Or at least let us use custom templates from other sites without losing all our widgets.
Please.
And smileys on blog posts - I want.
Please.
I've been faithful to thee for more than two years now - despite the allure of Wordpress with all their flashy themes and smileys on posts and all.
That has to count for SOMETHING.
And Google is treating you like a neglected middle-child.
I mean, they are always doing superawesome things with Gmail labs and stuff.
How come you don't merit the same treatment?
Go rebel a little and fight for your rights and all.
P.S. - Pretty please. :)
P.P.S - See what I mean about the smileys. A :) on a blog post looks so lame. An actual smiley would be infinitely cooler. Please please please PLEASE.
Is it a sign of maturity when some things that you associated a lot of significance to do not matter anymore? For example, some people did or said some things recently that would normally hurt me terribly. I mean, usually, under similar circumstances, I would take up old class photos and photos of class trips and all and wonder where all that magic has gone and then berate myself over not listening to my mother when she told me I was being a silly-billy about the whole leaving school thing and that no one else was going to go around being similarly distraught. When I called my class teacher before leaving for college, she also warned me about this. She said I had to stop being so attached to things and people because ultimately, things can't care about people being attached to them and people don't care about stuff like that. But of course, I was just a tiny baby then (emotionally) – given to believing in promises about being best friends forever and all. Therefore, I felt entirely certain that all these people were very wrong – that there was simply no way that any of us would ever even get over leaving school – if you remember, I even wrote some blog posts where I said how I would never belong anywhere as much as I had belonged in school. But I suppose I was wrong. At first, I refused to acknowledge it or even believe it. And now, after two years, looking back on everything, I think I can honestly say that though I wish I could have had all that longer, though I still want to go back to school and be the person I was when I was in school– I can accept the fact that I may be the only person who still holds on to all that – and I can accept that fact without bitterness or anger towards those who have moved on with their new lives and new friends. I am okay with the fact that I will perhaps never find a niche that I can effortlessly move into wherever I go. I am glad that so many of my friends can. And if they consider me maudlin when I say that I still wish that I could go back to school, I can hear that without indignation. I have even learned to not say that I want the past back – even though it was only because it hurt a lot when a friend pragmatically declared that she doesn't see the point in wishing for things that cannot happen. I think that in several ways, I am even beginning to learn to not want to go back. That there is a part of me that lets me believe (at times) that I am ready to grow up about some things. Of course, there will always be another part of me that does not want to grow up – a part that is secretly scared of the dark, a part that can never get enough of Cartoon Network, a part that will hug Chockligugu and cry when the world is not as rosy as I imagine it to be. But I'm beginning to understand that I cannot let that part of me govern me entirely – that I can let someone see that part of me only if I am entirely entirely sure that they won't think I'm off my rockers because I'm still that person underneath whatever cloak of maturity I may don. And I think that's okay – I finally understand that it isn't always entirely necessary to be completely who I am wherever I go – not everyone deserves to be wowed by the magnificence of my true self. :D :P
I started watching Samantha Who?
It airs on Star World at 4.30 PM and they show two episodes back to back and I love it love it LOVE it – so much so that I actually spent an hour this morning explaining the story so far to my mother and telling her she MUST watch it with me.
Anyway, in case it isn’t obvious, I shall declare that the show has muchos awesomeness.
Well, I’ve only seen 6 episodes. But those 6 episodes have been muchos awesome.
I think I like it so much that it’s come a close second to Will and Grace which will, by the way, always be my favouritest TV show in the wholest world.
Which reminds me, I heard THE stupidest stupidest STUPIDEST thing on earth on TV recently -
“Women are more productive when they look attractive and hence, it is the responsibility of every woman to look good in order to be efficient members of the society.”
I’m SURE that Mother Teresa did NOT spend hours before a mirror applying makeup before she went out and did more socially efficient things than most of us (including the incredibly unintelligent person who read out something as senseless as that on national television) will EVER do.
And if I see one more ad in which women are reduced to blubbering idiots because some shirtless guy wears a particular brand of perfume or uses a particular brand of gel, I half-suspect that I’ll take a bazooka to the ad creator’s head. In case no one told the people who made these ads (and whose collective IQ seems to be a single digit number), women do not belong to class Hexapoda and are not influenced in our decisions by pheromones or bizarre plumage.
Yes, I am watching entirely too much TV.
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