28th October 2004
Basic questions
So often in life in spite of the aimless pointless wanderings one comes back to certain basic things.
The ever evasive happiness seems to be one such thing. Sometimes I get to wondering if happiness does really exist or it is just wishful thinking has made folks come up with the concept. I don’t know, but memory takes me back to times which now seem to me to have been happy, fascinating, wonderful and extraordinary (though when they occurred did not seem extraordinary or even happy as such and on the whole were rather prosaic).
Does nostalgia blur memory? But I do remember horrible times too, times which seem totally terrible even now-where’s nostalgia there?
6th November 2004
Do all these equal opportunities things in some way break the natur4al order or the way of life? Free compulsory education pushes down such typical stuff down throats of zillions of children-most of this totally inutile. Where is the specialised knowledge that can be learnt best when young? What is happening to all that? Is a whole way of life dying out? Is everyone being cast into the same mould in this age of specialisation?
Can we really know so much of everything? What IS a “basic idea”? How basic is it and how necessary? Can we learn skills through all this education? Smithy, pottery, farming, hunting, fishing, trade? Or any one of these at least? Is it fair to kill life styles to kill culture in the name of equal opportunities?
But then who decided who is born to a weaver who to a chemist and who to a prime minister? Shouldn’t all of us have some chance of becoming any of these things? Why are we not allowed to truly explore and decide for ourselves? Why cannot we all be provided with the chance of not worrying about whether it is possible? I think that would be egalitarian. But what about the stuff a father teaches a son or a mother teaches a daughter? Do we not in someway lose respect for our parents and their professions because we have other options.
29th October 2004
Seeking attention
I don’t know why I long so much for attention. I don’t know why I want people to notice me ,like me, ado…re me, love me, have crushes on me, appreciate me, think I’m intelligent, think I’m beautiful, think I have a sense of humour, think all nice things about me. I have become a mendicant –begging for attention. Me, who at other times ran away from society to my much treasured privacy, me at other times who decided not to care a damn about them. I shied away from attention and hid in the shadows peeping out slowly. Why this change now?
All through my life I have always had great contempt for people who have actually valued me. But now I want them to. Now I want friends and affection when earlier I fled from every person who was nice to me and distance myself from all my friends to ensure that I got my privacy. Now this is no longer ok for me. There is no other option because once alone I go off into a reverie about me and myself-ALWAYS.
CAN I NOT SILENTLY, GOOD HUMOUREDLY, OBSERVE OTHERS, THEIR ACTIONS –I DO NOT MEAN WITH A HUGE SMILE ON MY FACE WHICH HURTS. I MEAN GENUINELY HAPPY AT OBSERVING THEM. Why am I not interested in anything other than myself or theories so distant from human beings? Why can't I observe and understand others in a quiet way that was innate in me? Why? It pains me but I don’t know. When I watch others being happy, jealousy bites and shreds my heart. Damn me.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Gone with the Wind
19th October 2004
On Veerappan’s Death
Veerappan was killed yesterday .Its really sad especially since Jayalalitha and the chief minister of Karnataka, people from the special task force (who shot him) and news reporters kind of rejoicing at his death. It is really pathetic that they can display the glee so publicly. Did he not have a cause? Yes! He made money, smuggled sandal wood and ivory. But did that make him so evil. I’ve always kind of imagined him to be like Robin Hood –doing good tot eh rural poor-always evading the police. Even in the end he won. Maybe he died but he was never imprisoned. May his soul rest in peace.
25th October 2004
On Scarlett O’Hara
There’s something that I can’t stop thinking of, but I don’t want to tell you. Apart from that the only thing I seem to be able to think of is Scarlett O’Hara fate in Gone with the Wind. I’m in the middle of doing it when I oughtn’t to be and the last thing I can concentrate on is Attention and Division of Attention. I have to make notes for the practical record and also write a letter fro my French home work and all I can think of is Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilks and Melanie. It’s ridiculous. Maybe I’ll do my letter first.
1st November 2004
Just finished reading Gone with the Wind. It leaves with a feeling of emptiness which I do not want to fill. It annoys me that the blurb does little justice to the book. It is certainly not ‘a love story between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler set in the background of the American Civil War’. It is more. It is not Rhett who matters. It’s about Scarlett, her life, change whole worlds shattering, her attempts to harden herself and it could have been anyone at anytime. It is not just a historical novel. It is a novel of a changing way of life and people and their feelings thoughts and emotions. It is not a mere fictitious history. It is a complex of things so real it could be applicable to anyone anywhere anytime.
On Veerappan’s Death
Veerappan was killed yesterday .Its really sad especially since Jayalalitha and the chief minister of Karnataka, people from the special task force (who shot him) and news reporters kind of rejoicing at his death. It is really pathetic that they can display the glee so publicly. Did he not have a cause? Yes! He made money, smuggled sandal wood and ivory. But did that make him so evil. I’ve always kind of imagined him to be like Robin Hood –doing good tot eh rural poor-always evading the police. Even in the end he won. Maybe he died but he was never imprisoned. May his soul rest in peace.
25th October 2004
On Scarlett O’Hara
There’s something that I can’t stop thinking of, but I don’t want to tell you. Apart from that the only thing I seem to be able to think of is Scarlett O’Hara fate in Gone with the Wind. I’m in the middle of doing it when I oughtn’t to be and the last thing I can concentrate on is Attention and Division of Attention. I have to make notes for the practical record and also write a letter fro my French home work and all I can think of is Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilks and Melanie. It’s ridiculous. Maybe I’ll do my letter first.
1st November 2004
Just finished reading Gone with the Wind. It leaves with a feeling of emptiness which I do not want to fill. It annoys me that the blurb does little justice to the book. It is certainly not ‘a love story between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler set in the background of the American Civil War’. It is more. It is not Rhett who matters. It’s about Scarlett, her life, change whole worlds shattering, her attempts to harden herself and it could have been anyone at anytime. It is not just a historical novel. It is a novel of a changing way of life and people and their feelings thoughts and emotions. It is not a mere fictitious history. It is a complex of things so real it could be applicable to anyone anywhere anytime.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Feeling-Free
13th October 2004
Freedom and Family
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to open up to people be genuine with them –whether it’s nice or not-at least be remotely honest. Why am I so gender biased and so guys –shy though I put on this farce of being guy-ish? Why am I keen at warding off remotely possible crushes and hence treating guys with ‘no lower motives’ whatsoever with that aloof pretentious fake manner of mine? Am I in some way SO scared of all this ‘love &crap’? Am I really that shy? And is it all that bad? Is it natural? I don’t know since I’ve never felt it. Do I suppress emotions so much that I’ve become in some way unnatural? I don’t know.
I just hate myself fro being so rigid and narrow minded and unreceptive and unfriendly and warding off so many people by my unwillingness to just be friendly. Is being friends so difficult? Why am I so stuck up with imaginary family norms which don’t really exist? Yesterday Amma was telling me indirectly to use sex appeal when I’ve been striving to make myself seem like a human-being- a gender-less entity since that’s my idea of what I’d like to pretend to believe my family expects of me. Yes! There are certain things they are pretty strict, but very often I worry myself that they might worry and I’ll have to answer uncomfortable questions or I suspect that they will suspect me and I try to make sure there is no blame on me.
Akku who is from the same family has so much more freedom because she lets herself have it. She’s not so driven by family acceptance and she doesn’t need to hide stuff so much. May be I don’t need to hide myself either. May be I should let go. But I’ve always been stiff. I remember how everyone who ever taught me to dance telling me to ‘let go’. And ‘relax’. But I always thought I was pretty normal and I never could ‘let go’. In a trust fall, I never could fall freely trusting others to hold me no matter how much I tried. That’s what I’ve always been –untrusting, tense and unable to let go. So I just dismiss it as my ‘nature’ or can I ‘nurture’ myself to be different?
(I wonder who was the chap she was running away from.)
18th October 2004
True Lies!
Every time I meet this auntie in the colony, I feel this guilty awkward embarrassment because she knows me for the lair that I am. That’s the closest she got to knowing me and what did she find? “A goodly apple rotten at the core”. Pretty sad that that’s the only impression she has of ‘the real me’. She can see through all my half hearted attempts at pseudo-politeness and she can see the stupid girl as dull as to not even tell her tuition teacher her marks in a test in school. Well that’s precisely what happened.
In the 11th standard the hunt for another tuition teacher began. This aunty was discovered and a friend and I went to her house for three classes. She taught us like the first and second chapters. We had attest in school and both of us failed miserably. I went out of town and my friend who came to know our marks told her. Later when I came back I found out my marks. She asked me and I lied saying I didn’t know. I really wanted her to think I was intelligent and bright and stuff. Well she probably thought I was-only in the wrong ways. After that every time I met her I felt embarrassed and guilty and behaved weird. So now she seems to have given up hope.
(I could never understand what went wrong with that tuition arrangement. Now a minor mystery is solved!)
Freedom and Family
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to open up to people be genuine with them –whether it’s nice or not-at least be remotely honest. Why am I so gender biased and so guys –shy though I put on this farce of being guy-ish? Why am I keen at warding off remotely possible crushes and hence treating guys with ‘no lower motives’ whatsoever with that aloof pretentious fake manner of mine? Am I in some way SO scared of all this ‘love &crap’? Am I really that shy? And is it all that bad? Is it natural? I don’t know since I’ve never felt it. Do I suppress emotions so much that I’ve become in some way unnatural? I don’t know.
I just hate myself fro being so rigid and narrow minded and unreceptive and unfriendly and warding off so many people by my unwillingness to just be friendly. Is being friends so difficult? Why am I so stuck up with imaginary family norms which don’t really exist? Yesterday Amma was telling me indirectly to use sex appeal when I’ve been striving to make myself seem like a human-being- a gender-less entity since that’s my idea of what I’d like to pretend to believe my family expects of me. Yes! There are certain things they are pretty strict, but very often I worry myself that they might worry and I’ll have to answer uncomfortable questions or I suspect that they will suspect me and I try to make sure there is no blame on me.
Akku who is from the same family has so much more freedom because she lets herself have it. She’s not so driven by family acceptance and she doesn’t need to hide stuff so much. May be I don’t need to hide myself either. May be I should let go. But I’ve always been stiff. I remember how everyone who ever taught me to dance telling me to ‘let go’. And ‘relax’. But I always thought I was pretty normal and I never could ‘let go’. In a trust fall, I never could fall freely trusting others to hold me no matter how much I tried. That’s what I’ve always been –untrusting, tense and unable to let go. So I just dismiss it as my ‘nature’ or can I ‘nurture’ myself to be different?
(I wonder who was the chap she was running away from.)
18th October 2004
True Lies!
Every time I meet this auntie in the colony, I feel this guilty awkward embarrassment because she knows me for the lair that I am. That’s the closest she got to knowing me and what did she find? “A goodly apple rotten at the core”. Pretty sad that that’s the only impression she has of ‘the real me’. She can see through all my half hearted attempts at pseudo-politeness and she can see the stupid girl as dull as to not even tell her tuition teacher her marks in a test in school. Well that’s precisely what happened.
In the 11th standard the hunt for another tuition teacher began. This aunty was discovered and a friend and I went to her house for three classes. She taught us like the first and second chapters. We had attest in school and both of us failed miserably. I went out of town and my friend who came to know our marks told her. Later when I came back I found out my marks. She asked me and I lied saying I didn’t know. I really wanted her to think I was intelligent and bright and stuff. Well she probably thought I was-only in the wrong ways. After that every time I met her I felt embarrassed and guilty and behaved weird. So now she seems to have given up hope.
(I could never understand what went wrong with that tuition arrangement. Now a minor mystery is solved!)
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Mostly her self !
3rd October 2004
Hypocrisy
Boy! I’ve gotten myself into yet another hypocrisy in the name of friendship.
It’s always been so with this friend but I’ve never been able to mark it down to this. I’m the listener and she is the speaker and it’s my duty (self-imposed of course) to never speak my mind and tell her just what she wants to hear. Of course this is interspersed with small spurts of honesty and maybe even humour. But that’s beside the point I guess. I dunno. I dunno why I put myself into chains why I block myself, why?
4th October 2004
Appeal to a “co-libran”
Gandhiji , you were a great man .Maybe once ,before you became great you were ordinary-like me. May be you can understand me-all my confused emotions and thoughts and joys and sorrows. Maybe if at all that sun sign stuff is true you will understand me being Libran and all. I know you weren’t some agony aunt listening to peoples woes in life. I know you’d rather rest in peace and so I apologise dil aur jaan. Vande mataram!
5th October 2004
Self Improvement Plans
I guess these no harm in at least trying to change myself. It may not work, but who knows, it might just!
So how do I start? I’ll need a definite plan.
Being true to people is not easy especially when its been so long since I’ve been true to myself. In fact maybe I never have. I’ve always prided myself on being a ‘pure’ self uninfluenced by all social evils and which has been penetrated by none but myself- the ‘pure’ one –everyone else being awful and me ‘acting’ awful to get along with them. Is this really true? When put for the first time in such clear terms it makes even me know that it is in someway false. I dunno. I’d like to believe otherwise. Coming back to self imposed morality, why do I bind myself? Why am I so …tight? I dunno. All I know is I should try to be more human and should feel for people and stuff. But what I’ve noticed during my dance and trust fall attempt was that the harder I tried the less relaxed I was. That’s true. You can’t will yourself to relax. May be I CAN. Maybe that’s what makes physical and psychological things different. I don’t know….
No, I shouldn’t let myself escape without a proper plan. Maybe I should become the old me who was a listener. So my verbal contribution becomes minimum. Yes, respect everyone and greet everyone. Get rid of unnecessary prejudices, talk when you need to. Don’t think you know everything and should therefore go on talking. Give everyone a chance to talk and above all LISTEN. You never know where you will learn what. Change yourself before others force you to.
Hypocrisy
Boy! I’ve gotten myself into yet another hypocrisy in the name of friendship.
It’s always been so with this friend but I’ve never been able to mark it down to this. I’m the listener and she is the speaker and it’s my duty (self-imposed of course) to never speak my mind and tell her just what she wants to hear. Of course this is interspersed with small spurts of honesty and maybe even humour. But that’s beside the point I guess. I dunno. I dunno why I put myself into chains why I block myself, why?
4th October 2004
Appeal to a “co-libran”
Gandhiji , you were a great man .Maybe once ,before you became great you were ordinary-like me. May be you can understand me-all my confused emotions and thoughts and joys and sorrows. Maybe if at all that sun sign stuff is true you will understand me being Libran and all. I know you weren’t some agony aunt listening to peoples woes in life. I know you’d rather rest in peace and so I apologise dil aur jaan. Vande mataram!
5th October 2004
Self Improvement Plans
I guess these no harm in at least trying to change myself. It may not work, but who knows, it might just!
So how do I start? I’ll need a definite plan.
Being true to people is not easy especially when its been so long since I’ve been true to myself. In fact maybe I never have. I’ve always prided myself on being a ‘pure’ self uninfluenced by all social evils and which has been penetrated by none but myself- the ‘pure’ one –everyone else being awful and me ‘acting’ awful to get along with them. Is this really true? When put for the first time in such clear terms it makes even me know that it is in someway false. I dunno. I’d like to believe otherwise. Coming back to self imposed morality, why do I bind myself? Why am I so …tight? I dunno. All I know is I should try to be more human and should feel for people and stuff. But what I’ve noticed during my dance and trust fall attempt was that the harder I tried the less relaxed I was. That’s true. You can’t will yourself to relax. May be I CAN. Maybe that’s what makes physical and psychological things different. I don’t know….
No, I shouldn’t let myself escape without a proper plan. Maybe I should become the old me who was a listener. So my verbal contribution becomes minimum. Yes, respect everyone and greet everyone. Get rid of unnecessary prejudices, talk when you need to. Don’t think you know everything and should therefore go on talking. Give everyone a chance to talk and above all LISTEN. You never know where you will learn what. Change yourself before others force you to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)