Well, whether you get over your ex or not, you definitely never get over your lost hair And how can you when you start getting absolute, frivolous, untamed curls that refuse to get combed. Probably it is a little too early to judge the texture and the shape of my new hair since the length is just too less and I still have to dorn(a) a wig and will have to continue wearing for another scorching summer (trust me – wig and summer combo is an explosive one !!). Ah, I had to order another wig (the third one)  after having lost almost half a lac rupees on the necessary evil but ofcourse I am waiting for it to arrive and waiting to see myself in a new look once again !! As of now, it is bangs and flicks which I have never had in the 30 years of my life (this again is a tactic so that your forehead and doesn’t look too empty and the sides can feel some curls).
And yes, I am yearning for the day when wind will again play with my hair and I will feel the pinch of inflation thereafter to get it unentangled, sigh !!

PS: Martin Luther commented: “Hair is the richest ornament of women.” Indeed true, it is extremely expensive….

But moreso, the  article made me think about most unrealisitc Bollywood  movies in a different sort of a way, rather than of  a typical erudite critic, who talks of pragmatism and the plausibility of the hero’s (Shahrukh’s) reaction to life’s circumstances (he marries a divorcee with a child, he is an autistic and goes to US to protest, so on and so forth).

What it made me aware of – was the basic fact that one can be “different” (a minority in the so-called society), be simple (think simple unlike hi-fi I-bankers, unlike nobel scholars ) and be happy, all, at the same time. It forces me to agree that I prefer reading “2 States” to any other contemporary, difficult to digest books these days; I prefer watching the romantic ‘Twilight’ to very slow, intellectual ‘Elegy’, but yes I admit, I will not prefer reading ‘Mills and Boons’ to Josephine Cox’s novels too. It also makes me think on another different line that sometimes creating fiction makes you so very happy than manipulating those beautiful pie charts, than talking about the big budget, cos fiction touches ‘human emotions’ at the most basal, instinctive level and foremost it is just not a number-game. It is a means to live the way you want, to fantasize, to imagine the unimagined, and be lost in it.

PS: After writing this, while I was re-reading and trying to make sense of my haywire thoughts, of what I had written-I wondered if I was trying to prove a point that I am happy for no reason, a minority when it came to my circumstances, an opposite of erudite when it came to my education,  and an incarnation of simplicity only these days !! OK, my mom would laugh at this last phrase, he he …and yes she will ask me about this literary crush and I will have to tell her about my idea of crushes (literary, practical, physical, so on ….she will probably go mad listening to all this or she probably knows her daughter too well)

PS: The last few moments I had enjoyed with a few friends in Spore, while eating at the airport’s TCC, waiting for the historic journey, discussing Bruce Willis’s remarks, “I don’t understand how a species which can pour hot wax on its skin, pull the hair out can be afraid of cockroaches. A good memory indeed !!

My reading has reached a new pinnacle. After escaping the Japanese authors for so long, I finally succumb to the temptation and feel that I was indeed missing a great deal of literary content. My latest endeavour/quest has been the ‘Vintage Murakami’ – a collection of short stories and extracts from the great author’s classic novels. And by the time, I had finished the second last story, I felt an emptiness within me; a space which I was awaiting from a long time. It had been months I had not written on my blog; my thoughts were in a spikey mood; rise and fall but ultimately I had to write one day. I feel, I understand situations better when I pen down my feelings; it gives me more clarity. I recall, I comprehend later even better than in the moment itself; sometimes I feel the pain of realisation, sometimes a delusion of attachment and at times I feel detached. But as long as my books and my writings stay with me, I will always rebounce back unlike Lt. Mamiya who feels a constant darkness after coming out of the deep well, scarred and wounded and after all those trials and tribulations as the premonition had been made for him. Something was already dead in him. That is why Murakami brilliantly puts it “Future is to be known only in the future; it is not something to be known in advance”

PS: I do not know why I had compared myself to Lt. Mamiya, and why had I said about rebouncing back – it might have been the intuition (not the premonition) at that time of what I was to face.

Posted in 1 ]]> http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/old-writing-new-read/feed/ 0 h0bs0nsch0ice http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/frostnixon/ http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/frostnixon/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:58:36 +0000 h0bs0nsch0ice http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/?p=295 ]]> I had started with ‘Love Aaj Kal’, supposedly a colorful movie with a right blend of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. However, I really could not complete watching the commercial flick and instead shifted to another long pending movie Frost/Nixon. Surprisingly, my dad (who is  so good at talking and has an amazing general knowledge), a few days back, was eulogising about corruption in the West referring to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s (“when I was not even born” – in his words).

The movie is based on a series of 1977 post-Watergate interviews between television personality David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) and former American President Richard Nixon (played by Frank Langella). Nixon had resigned on 8th August 1974 and personally after reading his resignation speech, I found it to be extremely wordy, prevaricative and manipulative.
Though the movie could have covered more significant aspects, but was equally engaging with magnificent Langella simultaneously playing the most powerful, magnetic and the most dimunitive role.   Frost(a cultural entertainer and not an investigative political interviewer) thinks the interviews would lead to something significant since Nixon had never admitted any guilt of or offered any apology for the Watergate scandal. Also supported by other roles, like investigative experts on Nixon’s areas of work (Bob Zelnick and James Reston), who are rarely shown working with Frost, the movie in the back-drop, wherein the show producer John Birt and Frost find it ifficult to arrange the 600,000$ to be handed to Nixon, still mingles seamlessly with the front end picturing of the interviews. Nixon is depicted as an expert orator through the series of the interviews while Frost is just an under-performer throughtout; however a telephonic call from the former President to Frost (in a fit of drinks) turns the tide in Frost’s side just before the last interview when Watergate is to be discussed. Frost prepares well for this last interview and stuns himself and all. Crucial moments arise when an emotional disclosure is made by Nixon and he offers apology to all. His face does not go blank; it is stoic and yet so sad.
I loved the close-up of his face when Langella (embodying Nixon) says, “I let down American people and I’m gonna have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life”.

PS: Just read this huge “PS” and you’ll love it (By James Reston Jr at the end of the movie):

“You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, trenches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot. At first I couldn’t understand why Bob Zelnick was quite as euphoric as he was after the interviews, or why John Birt felt moved to strip naked and rush into the ocean to celebrate. But that was before I really understood the reductive power of the close-up, because David had succeeded on that final day, in getting for a fleeting moment what no investigative journalist, no state prosecutor, no judiciary committee or political enemy had managed to get; Richard Nixon’s face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing and defeat. The rest of the project and its failings would not only be forgotten, they would totally cease to exist.”

I was rummaging through my computer in the hope to scout a covetable pic to be used as a desktop theme. And I found this; not for my theme as my mind spoke out aloud: liminal. Mountains at the far and near backdrop of the pic, depicting both the verdure and the faraway fogginess, land (or sand) defining an ephemeral boundary, sea water (seemingly the algae green) with its own brutal force and calm nature and the vivid, sandy water culminating into the land or is it vice-versa. Everything is peripheral, stranded yet limitless in this pic. And I am feeling exactly like all the objects in the above pic or like ‘Tom Hanks’ in ‘The Terminal’ who neither can go back to his home nor set his foot in the US. I ve just had a bag full of Ruffles Lays’ and a pack of chocolate biscuits without worrying about the result of the Liver Function Test due for this week. I am relaxed that my chemo cycles are over and yet it brings me to a point where I am a li’l stressed about my Bone Marrow Biopsy/Aspiration/FISH tests (not the result but the pain I have to undergo) and more anxious about my hairless, eyebrow/lashless life, pick ‘n’ choose life, self-restrained life, finicky life where I’d care more about washing my hands after hand-shaking than anything else, where I’d rather eat fried foods and never salads, fruits or yogurt when I am out (oh, how I wish to roam around freely and yet how I don’t wish to). Guess, emotional anxiety was the reason of over-indulging today.

After more than 5 months of staying in the Isolation Room of the hospital, I tried to saunter in the front-verandah inside my house yesterday post-dinner and strangely was stared at by certain ladies’ and a young, smart girl. I was appalled to see their reactions;I felt like shouting “yes I am alive and healthy too; I am listening to songs like you do and just that I am in a cap and you are not; so what the heck ?” My Mom said,”That’s India” and it brought me back to the same point of being “liminal” – how I wish to have the frothy Starbucks Latte and yet how I wish to have the branded Mom’s coffee; how I wish to feel free and yet how I wish to keep myself within limits; how I wish to visit the NLB-Spore again and yet how I wish never to look back (I ve crossed these 5 mths with utmost difficulty).

Living on the edge is always complex yet enjoyable; I used to love the transitory phase of waiting at the airports, of flying or commuting to reach my destination but this time it is this phase, which is becoming extremely difficult, of getting in the routine, of mingling with the normal.

PS: Life is pleasant, death is peaceful – it is the transition that is troublesome both from life to death and vice-versa. Still not to forget to thank the almighty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People employed in public or private sector jobs in Tokyo, were questioned, if they understood the term, “Work-Life Balance”.  Astonishing, but only 5% comprehended the term well and majority of the people thought it to be some buzzword of the West. A place which is distinguished for its state-of-the-art technology, its rich culture and not to forget the Sushi and the Sake does not even consider such a substantive issue of professional-personal balance even worth mentioning or just digs it deep under those beautiful woven, laid carpets in the plush offices. I am not appalled as I understand from my sister their routine.

A typical day in the life of a Japanese investment banker starts from rising at 6 AM, catching up with the latest headlines (lest they might have missed the earth shattering news late last night), walking upto those metros with tuna filled sandwiches and then shutting themselves from the outside world of noise, chaos once they enter the damn trains concentrating either on keeping their eyes closed till their stations’ letter appear magically or ofcourse reading their favorite news once again. They are not allowed to talk. The concept is simply appalling though I can literally keep silent for hours and hours together. They eat at their desks, do not converse too much (6-7 screens with CNN/Bloomberg is quite enough to satisfy your hunger/thirst), do not spend time in the cafeteria and once it is late night (mid-night) head off to the famous Rupongi for a drink and a quckie sometimes if energy levels allow !! They do sleep sometimes, (yes !!) for 3-4 hours. I now understand the reason why my sister talks of  so many cosmetics for puffy eyes.

I hate to hear aboout such a life; my sister is yearning to join back her college(also has become quite talkative which I have now seen after 26 years of her life) while my brother calls this fantabulous (Caveat: Only for a few years of his life though).

We all are different, with my sister doing all the front office stuff which my brother would love to, my sister dying to meet us all which I am doing all the time and I in my own rut ensembling as much privacy as I can; yet it converges somewhere – at the core we all are looking for happiness, a contentment. Financial brings some, health brings much more but being together with your near and dear ones, laughing with them tops it all.

PS: I used to unquote a quote around a few years back and had forgotten to use it; I do it again:  If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable – each segment distinct.

While I am ruminating on the great places to see, I am also hooked onto all the food serials these days, be it vivacious “Highway on My plate” which guides me about the amazing, mouth-watering Dhaba food or be it the super-sophisticated series on ‘The Taj Living”. I am digesting and devouring them all with equal fun, valour, pride  even when it comes to knowing about Japanese food on “Planet Food” (a lot of Yucks when they show live Eels being cooked) or “Indian Food Made Easy” on BBC and “Nigella Feasts” on Discovery-Travel and Living. I am sure I will be able to churn out some quick dishes in 2 months or so once I am allowed.

Now I understand the importance of being a foodie; you can bake the cake and eat it too !!!

Though the above may sound some new passions but the love of books and music still stays afloat. I am talking about the rhythmless song ‘Ranjhana’ in Dev D’ where sarangi walls out as does dynamic Shilpa Rao’s voice. It is unconventional yet delightful. And in books, NDTV Profit’s ‘Just Books’ suggests Aatish Taseer’s “Stranger To History’. He is indeed a smart guy.

PS: My these days read is ‘Earning the Laundry Stripes’.

I have completed my third chemotherapy cycle (worse than the second one). It almost took me a month in the hospital once again.  Though the IV line is still in my body (this time in left jugular vein), yet it feels awesome, almost ethereal to be at home.  All the thoughts of the future (next cycle, my general health, my skin, my hair, my teeth etc) seem to be vanquished by the pernicious influence of staying in the hospital. And I will write about my unabridged experience in a new blog once my cycles are through. For yesterday it was lots of sleeping, eating, watching TV and some reading too and for today it is blogging along with the other activities (including the Blood Test).

Leaving everything else at the sub-conscious level, and channelising all my energy on catching up with the new soap operas, I find a significant divarication, a spread this time. If the columnists are celebrating by writing about the deluge of reality shows that has hit the media industry, the latest one “Sach Ka Saamna”(an imitation of The Moment of Truth) gaining the highest TRP ratings, followed by our very “Indian” “Rakhi Ka Swayamar” (still need to find the “aboriginal” name as yet); there are others who are cogitating over shows like “Agle JanamMohe Bitiya….” which is again highly viewed and liked by our Indian junta.  People watching these shows are not mutually exclusive. The same person enjoys not only the so-called, tabooed truths like “extra marital affairs and sleeping of with a younger person” getting revealed and the same loves the concept of a woman getting sold and harrassed.

I wonder how our minds maintain such integrity that we resent to mere words like ‘sleeping’ and call for a censor but do not feel the concept of child marriage and human trading as even a little malefic to the society. Nonetheless, I am enjoying the TV husbands, and wannabe wives, and equally the malapropism in the words of columnists and politicians too. Well, that’s India in its true essence !!!

PS: Who knows Rakhi Sawant (now our Next Door Girl) might opt for the Gujju NRI…

Posted in Random ]]> http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/the-return/feed/ 1 h0bs0nsch0ice http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/lifes-greatest-lesson/ http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/lifes-greatest-lesson/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 10:59:08 +0000 h0bs0nsch0ice http://h0bs0nsch0ice.wordpress.com/?p=275 ]]> Power is so characteritically calm that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength.. “Edward Lytton”

I probably had never understood the meaning of being peaceful, or being in bliss when I had all the pleasures of life and in the humdrum corporate routine wherein I cribbed, ranted about small problems and called them emergencies. I am proved wrong, today when I do not have 10 strands of hair on my scalp, when my vision is blurred, when my arms are completely swelled and scarred due to the immense number of peripheral canulas, cava fixes(imagine all problems together – I got thromobosis on one arm, so it was put on the other and I have extremely thin veins) and even my upper body due to the Centre Line(which is generally the last resort) and what not, when I am so dark; I feel a distinct and a unique calmness.I am on a high calorie diet and am gaining weight without worry that I need energy later. There is a will power which seems to give me a re-birth, not only of body but my mind too.

20th March-Certain problems in my body start and I keep ignoring.

1stApril – I fly back from Singapore thinking there’s something wrong (my return ticket booked for 12th) and the same day after my blood reports, am rushed to the emergency as my platlet count had fallento only 10,000. The normal range is > 1.5 lakh. Half a day more delay and I would not have been writing this as my platlet count falls everyday.

The doctors were not sure if I would be alive seeing the condition in which I was admitted to the hospital. I came to know about this today from my Mom. I was detected with AML, Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a type of cancer (mine is blood and bone marrow) and I was not told this till 25th April, though the first cycle of chemotherapy started on 9th April and could not be completed due to extreme side effects(chest effusion, lungs, almost every part of my body got affected). But I cannot forget the day of 8th April when I was crying about the physical pain as I used to get blood, platlets, plasma everyday through the IV. My doctor said, “You have a reason to smile becauase you are alive and have wonderful parents”.

More than a month , From 1st April till 9th May has gone in extreme pain – I even experienced pancreatis which is the worst pain for which local duralgesic patches need to be applied to the body. But mentally, after some time (when I started becoming more aware-I am not allowed internet and today is the first day I am opening my laptop as I have been given a break from the injections for 5 days or so though the blood sample pricks happen everyday) I have become stronger; there is a positivity I have developed in thanking for the amazing things of life , my wonderful family, all those 50s of donors who donated blood or its kind, those nurses who clean me every daywithout feeling dirty and who smile and laugh with me.

My doctor whom I completely trust told me yesterday, “Yours was a very complicated case due to your own ignorance, but now you are out of danger, the treatment and recovery will take a long time, so be patient” and I asked while smiling, “Can I use the laptop for sometime”. I was allowed to do so today for a few minutes and I feel rejuvenated today even with persistent fever (from 1st now..)

My parents are now considering Tata-Mumbai or RajivGandhi-Delhi but when my doctor was able to bring me to this stage, I feel confident that there is this power above and ofcourse my doctor, nurses, my family with whose support I wil be fine here only.

It has been a journey throughout and I know it will be still long but I am not scared.

PS: I am indebted to so many people now whom I don’t even know and some whom I know. I am motivated but I still do not read motivational books:-) Think about it – corporate life is too superficial !!