My Loose Rubber Band...

The Rubber Band Method A way to rid yourself of negative thoughts (hopefully by now you have figured out that this is very important!). Place a rubber band around your wrist and snap it against your skin anytime a negative thought finds its way into your head. This classical conditioning technique associates a slight pain with negative thoughts like Pavlov associated food/salivation with the sound of a bell. Sounds a bit cruel at first but it only stings for a second, I promise. Plus the outcome, having only positive thoughts, far outweighs a little slap on the wrist here and there.Mine is near snapping! 

Dying dream

It is absolutely saddening to have a third person's view on your own life. You are in strife and sometimes the best thing to do is to remove yourself from that position and ask yourself, "if you were a friend and the friend needs help, how will you help her get out of it?" I have my answer and that answer is leading to the slow and harshly painful death of my dream.

I had made plans, plans for a life of togetherness, oneness, of laughter and joy. I had planned castles and the air was not enough place for them. I had plans to drive through the world in a Maserati but suddenly find myself on a Bajaj scooter. I realize it is also not so much about the dream cause we can build new ones, but it is the people in the dream that are hard to replace. The people die with the dream!

You who never arrived

I am depressed. I read the below poem. It spoke to me, the person inside of me. The person who has all these feelings stuffed inside and a blatantly unrealizable wish that these words below were mine! I wish I could write like him. The poet - Rainer Maria Rilke



You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Blue Frog

I picked the Perfect day to move my lazy arse and travel in the rain till Lower Parel from New Bombay!

What an amazing, soul-filled, mind blowing show. I felt like I was in heaven. The minute Raul Midón walked on the stage for a second I think I underestimated the voice that was going to float out of his mouth. Grossly underestimated! The guitar, the strumming, the lyrics, the trumpet improv, the voice, the voice, the voice and the guy! He was a great entertainer.

After a point I did not remember the yummy French fries I had eaten two minutes ago or the silky smooth mojito in front of me, the whistling girl or the pony tail whiskey drinker. My eyes and ears were glued to him. It is a pity he couldn’t see the brilliant smiles that were flashing across the room but like he said in his lyrics – he could hear the smile on our face!

My favorites of the night, which I am still replaying in the morning on You Tube are:
- Sunshine
- Don't take it that way
- Everyone deserves a second chance
- State of Mind

Chakare, Chellam!

Still.

The feet mildly tap the ground.

Carpeted floors and off-loaded shoes maintain the silence.

I am trying to focus on the words that my fingers are being instructed to write. But the high-pitched voice of the female tamil singer and somber, sultry voice of the male singer distract me. The headphones are vibrant with the rhythm and I am annoyed by the continuous distraction this is posing.

This is why perhaps, somewhere during the last decade, I stopped listening to tamil music. I can get through many English songs without missing a beat, while working, but tamil songs have something else and I know what it is.

For some reason, these tamil songs to me seem like they have more depth. In the love songs, in the sad numbers, in the dapankuthu. Some of the Hindi and English songs do have them but I can’t recall many with this kind of intensity.

May be it is also that when I see the Western civilization as a whole, largely their concept of love is very fluid. They get over emotions quickly, they change partners often. If it doesn’t work with one girl/guy there is always another. But I know down in South India, amidst that conservative society, to fall in love is quite a feat! In the movies, the hero has a tragic flaw and it is not always about status and money as it is mostly in the Hindi movies.

May be I am biased. The lyrics, to me, seem much more powerful in tamil than in English or Hindi. Each emotion has a parallel word and sweet nothings sound much sweeter in tamil.

Revisits

I walked in to the same place I have been before. The unforgotten aroma of coffee beans, the slice of chocolate pastry, the same semi-burnt sandwich reminds me of the days of burgeoning friendship. Will she remember me? Will the conversion from cheap talc to expensive perfume deceive her real memories of me? Will the pointed noise from my stilettos drown out the earthly banter of my old sneakers? Will the spa-treated hands slip away from ours, tampered by the harsh sun?


I will walk skeptically

But I will not let go.

I need an answer

And I need it now.

I will show you forever

And I will show you how

Precious few

I lost his five. The few things that I had of him are vanishing slowly. Death does not come quicker but separation came at sonic speeds... 

I love you in the midnight

I love you in the sky

I love you everywhere

I love you till I die... 

The five is among the Commons now. The precious few lost in the peripheral ...