That Insane Urge

Am sorry. Really really sorry.

I'd promised myself sometime ago that I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve and thus expose my ordinariness when I wrote about how I screamed or cried or felt hurt and disappointed or how the demons inside my head were too stubborn and comfortable to leave and just let me be. Maybe I was used to their company and I let them be.

I wanted this blog of mine to be free of hurt. But I'm afraid now of writing at idiosyncrazies, because there are people who seem to be coming to that blog and reading. That worries me sometimes. Actually all the time. Inspite of all the anonyomity that I so crave for, the Internet never leaves you alone. Someone somewhere is watching isn't it? Making note, quietly storing all the data, bit by bit by bit, and then someone will piece it together like a beautiful tapestry to form a picture. Of me. I don't think I could stand that. Let me alone bear the burden of how ugly I really am. I'd hate to be unmasked. That too to the whole world. Crikey no!

Guess there are some days when you get up in the morning, and there's a sense of expectation - like a pregnant woman swelled with baby - of something that would be delivered. A good day. And then there are some days when you just roll over, groan and go, 'why'. I didn't get up with that feeling today. The feeling just grew as the day wore on.

I know there's someone out there in the blogworld who has written a post about how every blog he read seemed to be reeking of the hurt, the pain and the sighs! It's quite hilarious and I find his posts quite funny, whenever I do bother reading them. But I do wish he could be more sensitive. Does one have to make fun of everything in the world? One can let some things just be right? Anyway, that is a subjective matter and am sure this particular blogger will continue to write in his peculiarly engaging way and take everyone for a ride and cock a snook at everyone and everything.

But why give someone so much importance? I visit his blog very infrequently because he and his blog are linked to someone I knew in the not too distant past. A past whose sections I'd just like to erase, actually a clean swipe would be good. It's far too painful and ever so often it rears its ugly pianful head and makes me wish that I was just not me. It brings back moments of such intensity, hurt and disappointment that my head starts aching and I have to clench my jaws and dig my nails into my palm to stop myself from just plain good ole bawling. Yes, I have that insane urge and my only solace is to write. So now you know.

Anyway, it's a merry go round. One ache leads to another and another and soon I'm swathed in the warp and weft of the past. Failed relationships everywhere. And a life that is going nowhere. There's no one to look to for comfort save oneself. No one to give me a hug except me. No one to just say those magic words, 'It's going to be ok'. Even family is actually so blithely unaware of the whirlpool of emotions. They're probably the last ones to know about anything really. It's amazing isn't it, when the peope who supposedly love you unconditionally and can supposedly sense the emotional undercurrent are actually the last ones to even ask, let alone know. Sometimes, just sometimes I wish intution, telepathy and the bonds of frendship would ring true and friends would call and say, 'Hey, just wanted to find out how you were doing'. Uh huh! No surprises in my life. Only dull certainties.

I'm sorry banalinanities. For breaking a rule that I swore I'd never. I was just so intent on putting one foot in front of the other that I didn't see any of this coming from the cross roads. I'm sorry.

I'll promise I'll try harder.

But then, rules are meant for breaking aren't they? Oh well, had to ask...:)

How's Life?

Why oh why do all of us ask, 'hey dude, how's life?' Or 'Hiiiii, long time no see. How's life?' Or 'Hello. Surprise surprise...you're looking different',usually taken to mean, you're looking like Dracula's side kick, but you're of course supposed to smile through the implied meaning and pretend to be equally pleasantly surprised at bumping into this acquaintance and come up with a smart and quick witted repartee to the comment, but before you can deliver a crushing blow with, 'you've put on weight', comes the clincher, 'so how's life treating you?'. Guaranteed to elicit a standard and safe response.

But serioulsy, what is one expected to answer to this question when asked? Should one just say, 'Yeah, life sucks' and leave it at that? What of the curious enquirer, waiting to be fed morsels of the non-standard and hopefully exciting reply? You are supposed to substantiate that response with how, why, where, when and other evidences that it does mother fu^&*ing suck! And feel like the Liberator when the beatific smile tugs at the corners of the mouth that dared ask the question in the first place. Bless you for making him/ her feel 'hey, my life's not so bad after all. Cool, thank God I asked him, my day's made'.

Or is one supposed to look down, scuff one's shoes, mull over the question and then answer, 'Yeah, Life is good. It's cool man?' So 'what is cool' or 'good'? Is the fact that your EMI is shooting up like mercury in a thermometer encountering a warm body, or your boss at work is really proving to be anal, or well your girl just upped and left because you didn't tell her she'd lost weight, or if your friend just upped and left with her all supposed to add up to the loaded question?

I mean what is it that one is expected to answer when one is asked, 'how's life'? And how do we sum up such a deep but succinct question into a 2 second response which is supposed to be equally deep and succinct and of course socially acceptable? Oh! I have a doubt. When I'm asked, 'how's life?' am I being asked about life in general or is it my life that they're asking about? This important point of differentiation would colour my responses and they will be customized to deliver the right impact and thus up the acceptability quotient and my standing in the social matrix. Hmm....!

Aww well...life is cool, so chillax. Why worry so much about such a simple question. And questions needn't be answered.

Here's another classic that you needn't answer. So wassup dude?

What are we writing about?

Or more precisely what am I writing about? Am in one of those introspective moods and I know this blog here is meant for banal inanities and this post here may not fit in with the 'positioning' of this blog. But do I care? I might get up at the first blush of dawn and realize my blunder and just go 'Delete'. But I'm in a foul mood.

And this blog affords me a lot of anonyomity more than my alter ego.

So what's bugging me? Tons of inanities and trivia and existential questions which have no answers. Am also left wondering what the hell are we all blogging about? A trillion blogs or more and we're all talking about something. More often than not, it's about 'my life' or 'me and my online diaries'. Or writing about something cheesy or dissing about people or dissing about the people who're dissing (what's this word dissing anyway...sic!). So what is bugging me? What's the harm? It's a free world. Everybody is allowed to express in any language, tone, style, on any topic that pleases him/her. Am I not a party to it? Look at me trying to be some Orwellian pig unleashing tyranny and being corrupted by my own importance (or lack of it). I just want to know if we're all making enough noise about the right things. Things that obviously have a deep impact and can change the course of humanity. Matters of concern at all levels about the world at large. Maybe we are. I guess there are enough groups, tags or 'folksonomy' (wow, the terms that we come up with is ingenious)and enough lists, organizations, and what have you, who're probably seriously doing something to better our world by engaging in dialogues through the blogosphere.

The blogosphere is a very serious platform that has the strength and wherewithal to influence and therefore bring about great change in society. Or so the Internet studies and gurus will have us believe. It's akin to a movement. Only difference is, it seems to be proliferating like water hyacinths, but not going anywhere particularly or doing anything significant. Amid the million voices, the voices that need to be heard get drowned I guess. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just that I am misinformed. Maybe I'm not looking, participating or doing enough. Yes, it's just me.

Now I know why I'm bugged. It's just me. As always.

So the next time someone asks me, 'how are you?', I know what my response will be.

Or will it?

What's with the i?

For those of us who have studied in English medium schools or are just very comfortable with the language, I is always written as I. Just like proper nouns always begin with an upper case. I'm not sure why it is so, but it's like a rule and you normally don't mess around with something that is taken for granted. Pretty much like breathing through your nose. I mean why the hell can't we breathe through our mouths, which technically we can, but we keep out mouths closed and let the air into our lungs and out through our nasal orifice don't we?

Much along the same lines is the fact that I is written as I and not i. But hell, didn't I say, it's a rule that no one questioned? So you know what they say about rules - break them or bend them. That's what's happening here I presume. Perhaps it's to do with irreverence, perhaps it's just someone who's questioning and saying, 'let's see who can question us or what can happen'. Don't know if anything can happen or if people will stop communicating or writing or any such dramatic after-effect as a form of protest.

But Jug Suraiya's comment in the STOI (Sunday Times of India) in the editorial pages is something to do with this new age phenomenon.

If you can make sense of what he's written today, do enlighten me. But ooops...no one reads this blog or any blog of mine. Which is well.

So anyway, I'd still like to question - what's with the i?

Dreams!

"What would you do if you found that all your dreams had come true?"
"Pay off my debts!"

What would you do if your dreams were all realized?

Naah! Dreams are for dreamers and dreams are meant to be in 'dreamland'. If one comes true, it's time to dream up another one don't you think?

But if one kept dreaming without even one of them ever coming true, then would we dream at all?

Well, someone's got to ask, so I do. So what do you think? Should we dream on or...?

P.S. - Dialogue credit to Jersey and her boyfriend in 'Coyote Ugly', a movie about songs, bars, fame and love.

Why kaahn th English spe..English?

I huurd an intuhvue oh the radio oh the baan Blue. Dey whirr aksed abou sum stuff on fashio en wha aah huurd din make no sense, u kno? Aah mean, it went lyke this:
"Aah grew up vid an incredible family en aah kinda lyke sum of da an I thot tha it vos grea (all the syllables are eaten up, as the poor tyke has not eaten as he was coming from a recording and another press interview and he really had no choice but to eat up his syllables and words and whatever he could lay his tongue on) an I luv maah torn jeans an I think tis a grea fashio and yeah, I think tis a grea way to bee and my family was kinda koool an I owe it to dem reeeally for not being able tuh afford propah jeans and this torn jeans kinda umm..yeah..see now, tis so fashio'ble."

And to think people don't understand us when we speak, the proper Queen's English mind you.

But this is what is called evolution isn't it? Start simply, and then make it so complicated in the attempt at retaining the simplicity that eventually only the propagators who fall into the trap of the evolution paradigm really truly probably truly understand it.

Er...what was that again mite? You say somethi abou th languag?