Strange fits of passion have I known...

The above being the first line of the verses I intend on talking about, is what drew me to 'Lucy' in the very first place. Wordsworth has always been a poet after my own heart, seeing how he upheld emotion and nature as two of the most awe-inspiring subjects of life. At 11 when i first read The Solitary Reaper as part of my syllabus, it left a little something with me. I still remember the little sigh in my heart when I read the last few lines of the poem,

"I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;

I listened, motionless and still;

And as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more"

I once spent a lazy afternoon thinking about how experiences are defined by their very memory. The incident itself passes in a haze and never affects you as much as the memory of it does. So in a way, Living is Remembering. This must suck for patients of amnesia, Alzheimer's and all those other little troubles that make your head feel like a blender with bits and pieces of thought floating about. Really makes you grateful, doesn't it?

So yes, back to Willy(can I call him Willy? No I do NOT want to call him Bill! I don't care if you think I'm perverse.) Yes, Willy was a fine chap who understood this years before I had my great epiphany. Willy also loved chiseled, pretty boys but we won't be getting into that. Willy was a magician with descriptors and a hypnotist with the lovesick. He doesn't intimidate with obvious loftiness nor does he serve "fickle fare". His work has a fluidity that plays a little tune in your head, which will disappear when the night light has been put out and the pages laid to rest. But hold them in your hand once again and your eyes will dance to a tune, I don't know if it's the same as before, I won't ever be able to tell. But then, this is not a game of recognition, nor a quest for the thinker. He poses no challenges, assumes no gravity. Willy is content to be what he is.

Back to Lucy. Lucy is what every man would want and every woman would want to be. Lucy is the quintessential young woman. Fragile, lovely. I shall stop here as no description of mine could match that of Wordsworth. In my mind, Lucy is that little girl in our heads, who awaits twilight not for the end of the day's shift, but for the magic of purple mist and sleeping blaze. Who flies with her exquisite tips brushing the sky, who knows she cannot fall, for in her world she decides. Her spirit soaring, flighty but not callous. Passion and dignity. Freedom and grace.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Flashback Part II- Sexy, Sexy, Sexy mujhe log bole

For reasons best known to the God of all things driven(Automatix, is it?) I happen to miss this gorgeous piece of metal so effin' much! The affair, although brief, is one i shall never forget. This baby has seen some good times. New beginnings, nostalgic ends...

This Flashback is not one that goes too far back, just a couple of months actually, but it feels like I've lived lifetimes since I first met Sexy. Now she may have belonged to the spectral figure leaning on her in the picture but I know she loved me more(yes she did!). She was traded in sometime ago for "Sexier"(only a man could do this).

This post is dedicated to my love for Sexy and her irreplaceable status in my life. 

I miss my Sexy. *sigh*

Flashback part I

This was the poster that continually caught my eye while watching Mere Apne the other day. This poster of the movie Anand would appear repeatedly in the background on increasingly dilapidated walls throughout the movie. The only reason that this held any significance was because Anand was the movie that preceded Mere Apne on my watchlist. 

Mere Apne was like a Moral Science lesson cum the travails of every youth in India. Anand, on the other hand, was  a movie I had avoided watching for the longest time because everyone kept asking me to give it a go. I always watch movies alone at home, and the treatment given to Anand was no different. I don't know what made me decide I was ready to watch the movie but I decided it was high time. The movie was perfect. A simple story of a simple emotion, Anand, happiness. Anand's character, played by Rajesh Khanna, was the first optimistic character of mainstream cinema who managed to not grate my nerves to breaking point. In fact I felt not a prick of annoyance. I'm not one who takes too kindly to people asking me to look at the glass as half full, and that's exactly why I fell in love with Anand. He knows he's dying, he's knows there' is no looking back but decides to be find joy in every moment than dread the passing of each one. There must be a whole lot of characters similar to Anand in the history of literature and films, the first of which I can recollect is Pollyanna. But none can hold a candle to Anand for the simple fact that he never comes across as preachy in the slightest bit. In fact, he takes joy in playing around with words and confusing the miserable into believing that they're happy. His chatter, although incessant is never inane. Although quite a ray of sunshine myself, I find constant, uncalled for chirpiness extremely put on and quite unbearable. However, with Anand it never felt that way. He breezed through the movie like the rain bearing winds of our country, bringing limitless unspoken joy to all without expecting any returns. 

Another reason that Anand will always be close to my heart is that the song, "kahin duur jab din dhal jaaye..." always reminds me, for some inexplicable reason, of my paternal grandfather. It reminds me of evenings spent with him and my sister, my senior by 6 years, when I was a little tyke of 3. The swings and slides of Shivaji Park, the vegetable sandwich from the roadside vendor with that spicy green chutney that was always too hot for me, raspberry and vanilla ice cream would follow or maybe a pepsi. The beach with it's thick familiar scent that will always say home to me, how much ever I may detest it sometimes. The sun, a large red fireball, 'going to sleep' in the blankets of the ocean. The feel of sand, dry and wet, as we would dig and dig endlessly, looking for unknown treasures or maybe just a pool. 

It was surprising to note that, the movie, Anand, has been dedicated to the city of Bombay and the people who live here. Everytime the song plays I conjure a mental image of dada, his face unclear, silhouetted against the evening light. These memories that convince me that despite all it's faults, Bombay will always be home. The city, however ravaged, will eternally hold my childhood. 

Lady Gag-me!! *puke*

ok now the title may not be the most imaginative of it's kind, and i may not usually write about celebrity shennanigans but i have decided to make an exception for the atrocity called Lady Gag-me GaGa

wait, no wait, i don't care if she can sing...i don't care if she can sing the frikkin opera...the woman is an eyesore and an attention-seeking plinket who looks up to Madonna blow up dolls and mime artistes...

Weird is not always a bad descriptor but not always a good one either...

Get a real job and a real wardrobe Lady Gangrene!!!

*has now given more attention to erstwhile stripper than required*

*pops the bubbles on the freak*

p.s.- I tried not jumping on the wife-beating bandwagon, but something in those thigh-high boots tapped a hidden rage in me...call it PMS, i think it's good taste ^_^

Marauders II

I personally love this snap...says so much...found again on www.deviantart.com ...
some of the artists are fabulous!!!!!


here are a few quotes by Sirius to go with the mood,


"If you made a better rat than a human, that's not much to boast about."


"You should have died! Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!"


"What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter." 


"Tell them whatever you like. But make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for..."


"Believe me. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them." 


*GO TEAM GRYFFINDOR!*

Marauders I

L-R: Severus, Sirius, Remus, James, Lily

found this on www.deviantart.com ...really cute stuff...go check it out


Here are some quotes by the above that I can never get enough of,


"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid." - Lily to James


"Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate." - Sirius to James about Lily


"D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?" - Sirius to Harry


"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep." - Sirius to Harry


"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor." - The Marauder's Map to Snape


"Okay, who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" - James about Snape


"I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." - Snape


"Well, well, Lupin. Out for a little walk... in the moonlight are we?" - Snape


"Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit." - Remus to Harry


"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him...but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life." - Remus to Harry about Teddy

"You'll stay with me?" [Harry] "Until the very end," said James.

Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden

Since the age of five I've been known to my acquaintances as an avid reader. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to read every book that hits the bestseller list. I haven't yet read anything by Khalid Hosseini(had to google this) or Jhumpa Lahiri, although I do enjoy the occasional Ayn Rand and Paulo Coelho. I'm one of those leisure readers. I feed on stuff like Jeffrey Archer, JKR, Dan Brown, etc. and come on, you do so learn stuff from their books too, like I would never know about the KGB(when I was about 12, I think) if it weren't for Archer or about Jesus' alleged marriage(*sniggers* no comments! All I can say is I never read the Bible, but I've read the DaVinci Code thrice...) if it weren't for Danny boy.

So getting back to my social circle's perception of my reading habits, I invariably got a couple of books on my birthday whether I'd asked for them or not. Don't get me wrong, I'd never complain if someone got me good ol' O.Henry, but there was this time when, not on my bday, just a random day, I got a bunch of books from my family physician(you got it right, even my doctor knew how much I read). She was cleaning out her book collection since both her kids had moved out and there was no one to read them anymore. I jumped at the Mallory Towers(gimme a break, i think i was nine!) but when i came to the P.G. Wodehouse I was stumped! I mean who would land a Wodehouse on an unsuspecting nine yr old!!!! Anyway, I read two pages and shoved it into the back of my book cabinet.

Five (or maybe more) summers later, whilst cleaning, I came across that darned Jeeves once again. Remembering my agony of that long gone summer night, I was close to discarding the book, when I decided to give Bertie a chance. The first story contained a wild child, angry geese, English noblesse of the early 1900s, and, in Wodehouse's own words, the ever-sagacious Jeeves all wrapped in P.G's unique style of the subtlest of humour.
I was smitten.

I remember the rapidity with which I finished that book of short stories (Very Good, Jeeves).
I also remember considering wedlock with Wodehouse (Quite impossible, for one, he's dead+his literary genius might make up for his lack of aesthetic appeal, but still, I didn't know him personally...) but settled for spending the rest of my life with his works. Now I haven't been able to get my hands on a lot of his work considering how much they seem to cost, and with me living on the pocket money of a 19 yr old. I usually adore e-books for their convenience but, in the case of Pelham Grenville, they don't quite work the magic a bunch of yellowed pages can.

Lucky for me, I recently found out that the father of my father's colleague has the collected works of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse!!! My dad, very thrilled, gets me the Golf Omnibus as the first installment of my summer reading very generously shoved into his bag by Mr. Menon (God bless you!). My spirits rose and fell with equal velocity. Golf. And me. Right!

I read the back cover, I read the Foreword by the author and bit by bit my apprehension grew. Of all the damn books ever written, why one on golf. The only exposure I've had to golf is the cheap imitation of a computer game! I then got to the first story, then the second, and the charm of Sir Wodehouse was back, my very own Knight in Shining Armour wielding a pen (well it IS mightier than the sword you know). I am now through half the stories in the book, a mix of the experienced Oldest Member of the club giving the fledglings advice on everything from Golf etiquette to wooing young women from the upper echelons of Olde English Society, delivered warm with a seasoning of Grenville's bits of irony. Now I may still not know the difference between a Mashie and a Niblick (wait I think they're the same thing) but I sure know that Wodehouse is the best companion for a rainy afternoon and a cup of tea, oh and also, NEVER make small talk on a golf course!