You are currently browsing jyothsnay's articles.
I am currently reading Akira Kurosawa’s “Something like an Autobiography”,
lingering at his “Boyhood” phase, each paragraph is a rich visual feast, a breathless journey into a magical landscape as captured by a little boy who was a slow learner who loved kendo and painting. I, particularly, terminated myself at this chapter…
“The Fragrance of Meiji, the sounds of Taisho”…the master-crafter took all of us back to the days of his boyhood, a mystical world of sounds that does not exist anymore
{Akira Kurosawa}“….the sounds I used to listen to as a boy are completely different from those of today. …everything was natural sounds. Among those natural sounds were many that are lost forever. Among those natural sounds were many that are lost forever. I will try to recall some of them. The resounding boom of midday. This was the sound of the cannon at the Kudan Ushi-ga-fuchi army barracks, which fired a blank each day precisely at noon.
The fire-alarm bell. The sound of the fire-watchman’s wooden clappers. The sound of his voice and the drumbeats when he informed the neighborhood of the location of a fire. The tofu-seller’s bugle. The whistle of the tobacco-pipe repairman. The sound of the lock on the hard-candy vendor’s chest of drawers. The tinkle of the wind-chime seller’s wares. The drumbeats of the man who repaired the thongs of wooden clogs. The bells of iterant monks chanting sutras. The candy seller’s drum. The fire-truck bell. The big drum for the lion dance. The monkey trainer’s drum. The drum for temple services. The freshwater-clam vendor. The natto fermented-bean seller. The hot-red-pepper vendor. The goldfish vendor. The man who sold bamboo clothesline poles. The seedling vendor. The night-time noodle vendor. The oden (dumplings-and-broth) vendor. The baked-sweet-potato vendor. The scissors grinder. The tinker. The morning-glory seller. The fishmonger. The sardine vendor. The boiled bean seller. The insect vendor. “Magotaro bugs!” The humming of kite strings. The click of kite strings. The click of battledore and shuttlecock. Songs you sing while bouncing a ball. Children’s songs.
These lost sounds are all impossible to separate from my boyhood memories….when I saw the child of the freshwater-clam vendor, who raised a pitiful wail to sell his goods, I felt fortunate in my own lot in life…Children of today probably wont be able to fashion very rich memories from these sounds. Perhaps they are more to be pitied than even that freshwater-clam seller’s child…”
(Jyo….The influence of each word was so intense that I ran down a specific memory lane when I was so scared of fire-alarms (every summer, I was the first one in my family to raise an alarm about the houses struggling under fire, in our neighborhood. Every monsoon, I stood on a dry place, with tears-stained face, feeling helpless and small, observed my parents shifting our belongings to a safer place)
Heavy dark clouds
over a fragile leafless tree
- Morning News scream of Exploitation
{Image Courtesy : The New York Observer}
‘To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter.
He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.’
I truly felt like writing something exclusive, something original, to those few individuals who religiously visit my blog , everyday, at the crack of dawn, strangers who I may not see or talk to them in this life, leading their existence across the seven seas, in some corner of the world, waking up at the moment when I am finishing off the remaining part of a meeting or a presentation or some other note at my work table…but these days, my faculties fail me! However, the sustained momentum of reading in my life allows me to enjoy such aforementioned masterpieces…therefore, my dear readers, this tiny Pause is meant for you!
Pause…the tiniest slot of our lives when we forget our regular existence crammed with hideous levels of mundane-ness and lose ourselves willingly (with a servile admiration) to something that can never be captured in words. One of those Pauses captured by Calibre 
and read the Observation that left me devoid of words for a while. Uploaded the BENCH image, post-taking permission from the blogger-cum-Photographer.
{the capturer said : I have to think this is what an ant sees.}…isnt it ….do fill in the space
{Baka, the doll in the middle…}
The Dolls were an attitude. If nothing else they were a great attitude.
Johnny Thunders
A doll is one of the most pressing needs as well as the most charming instincts of a girl childhood. It is one of those acquisitions with a certain prestige value, which little girls could flaunt to the world around, signals control+”I am better than you” status in the early phase of their childhood. Little girls with their dolls tucked under their arms or walking across the park, holding their dolls upside down are treated with mixed set of feelings : reverence+envy+admiration+excitement. ”I have a doll” indicates that the little girl is all set for an exotic trip to the world of fantasy, where what one loves to do, changes moment by moment, its so deliriously unpredictable! To undress it, give it a bath with warm water filled with tiny pieces of flowers-petals under a shady tree, dress it with the most beautiful dresses, always on the look out for tiny yet beautiful pieces of cloth (one more dress for the doll), comb its long tresses softly and gently, take it out for a stroll, teach it a bit, keep it as a little angel who protects me when the unseen-imaginary yet potent devilish creatures pounce on me from all the corners of that tiny & dark library room, where I search for the books - Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Mark Twain etc., give it food, sing it to sleep, pretend as if she is my daughter who I should take care of, who would grow up as a beautiful woman for who I have to search a nice boy, dreaming – singing – tending – sewing lovely garments (which I always wanted to wear, if I could fit in)….such a blissful self-introduction to the early womanhood. A doll in the little girl’s hand means easier an access & admirable acceptance to the gangs of little girls who play games like “Sweet Home-Pujas at home-Doll festivals at home-Sunday Lunch-Picnic-Marriage Procession” etc {games played by little girls from sleepy towns, then, invariably, used to resemble varied actvities that their mothers do indulge in within the smaller circles of friends/relatives in the neighbourhood}. A little girl without doll is as deprived and quite unnatural as a woman without a child…I never liked plastic dolls, have always preferred Patch dolls, dolls made of soft cottons, who have cherubic & warm smiles plastered on their lovely faces, especially chubby dolls (Barbie is too skinny and too artificial). …we were deprived of dolls when we were children, which is a big reason for us to build up an impressive collection of dolls now
{Mumbai}
When I looked up, the deceptively prominent construct of the shady tree looked down at me! I recalled Nemerov’s poem, especially, the lines “You may succeed in learning many trees….but their comprehensive silence stays the same..”
Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.
But best of all are the words that shape the leaves –
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform –
And their venation – palmate and parallel –
And tips – acute, truncate, auriculate.
Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.
Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”
Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;
Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.
Still, pedetemtim as Lucretious says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world
Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.
Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it.
And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.
As I write this now, it occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.
Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas–abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken–and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.
…….’There are stories within stories, whispered in the quiet of the night, shouted above the roar of the day, and played out between lovers, enemies, strangers and friends. But all, all are fragile things made of just 26 letters arranged and rearranged…’
– Neil Gaiman, introduction to Fragile Things
{It rains on the Sea…outside my window}
You called me and took me out for dinner on a whim.
I’ve never seen you drumming the table with your finger-tips,
with a song playing on your lips. You say your life is great.
You met a man in his forties, who opened his life to you over
many cups of coffee. You are eager to build a script out of it.
The intense kiss you had previous night appeared, somehow,
on the table. I remembered how painfully, foolishly I was in
love with you. I kissed the windowpane thinking of you, on that
night when you walked away, without leaving a message for me.
I walked many streets, past cheap hotels, popular bars filled with
vibrant laughter and music, talking to myself, building episodes of
monologue on the move, to entertain the defeat burning out my
cheeks and lips. I practiced everyday, with a religious fervor,
how to say no to myself, how to walk with unflinching resolve
in my gaze, across the evenings resounding with the gaiety
of romantic expeditions by the hearts, and how to watch
the inner darkness falling over everything. That dream of mine,
for once, to sleep with you, on a summer afternoon, in a forest,
where no one could hear us, tasted the harsh winds of ignorance,
for long, and now stands like an abandoned town. I am seeing
not you talking happily about the vacation you took last month,
but something that lived between us, that died holding me tight.
I do not know how to explain my silence to you now. 
{An old house that I watch everyday on my way to work}
The front of my head is extravagantly happy and cheerful. My hands are cold, could be due to the air that’s between us lying meaningless and cold. The kind of things that go on there, on my head, with a sense of certainity, most times, leaves me silent. 
{My companion, besides books, the Mediterranean doll, a gift from Munny, has a name Baka :)
{A Table Plant at my window}
It so happens I’m tired of just being a man.
I go to a movie, drop in at the tailor’s – it so happens-
Feeling wizened and numbed, like a big, wooly swan,
awash on an ocean of clinkers and causes.
A whiff from a barbershop does it: I yell bloody murder.
All I ask is a little vacation from things: from boulders and
Woolens,
from gardens, institutional projects, merchandise,
eyeglasses, elevators – I’d rather not look at them.
It so happens I’m fed – with my feet and my fingernails
and my hair and my shadow.
Being a man leaves me cold: that’s how it is.
{if you look at this pic closely, you may get the hint of a nest where the little crow who I named “Break free” lived with its mom and dad}
Still-it would be lovely
to wave a cut lily and panic a notary,
or finish a nun with a left to the ear.
It would be nice
just to walk down the street with a green switchblade
handy,
whopping it up till I die of shivers.
I won’t live like this – like a root in a shadow,
wide-open and wondering, teeth chattering sleepily,
going down to the dripping entrails of the universe
absorbing things, taking things in, eating three squares a day.
I’ve had all I’ll take from catastrophe.
I won’t have it this way, muddling through like a root or a
grave,
all alone underground, in a morgue of cadavers,
cold as a stiff, dying of misery.
That’s why Monday flares up like an oil-slick,
when it seems me up close, with the face of a jailbird,
or squeaks like a broken-down wheel as it goes,
stepping hot-blooded into the night.
Something shoves me toward certain damp houses, into
certain dark corners,
into hospitals, with bones flying out of the windows;
into shoe stores and shoemakers smelling of vinegar,
streets frightful as fissures laid open.
There, trussed to the doors of the houses I loathe
are the sulphurous birds, in a horror of tripes,
dental plates lost in a coffeepot,
mirrors
that must surely have wept with the nightmare and shame
of it all;
and everywhere, poisons, umbrellas, and belly buttons.
I stroll unabashed, in my eyes and my shoes
and my rage and oblivion.
I go on, crossing offices, retail orthopedics,
Courtyards with laundry hung out on a wire:
The blouses and towels and the drawers newly washed,
slowly dribbling a slovenly tear.
{a tree near the sea side, will soon get its fresh batch of leaves and branches}
………as usual, I am struggling to construct my thoughts. There’s so much happening around in those strips of local bazaars, where visibly tired men and women (after tiresome and demanding work) with their backs stretched over the baskets filled with fresh vegetables and greens, chatting up with the vegetable vendors, striking a better deal for the evening, the tired truck drivers indulging in light-hearted conversations with the barbers in a dimly lit barber shop, a group of women in their 40s standing frozen in their thoughts while waiting for the bus that takes them to their respective homes safe, a little girl standing next to her mother pouring clean water, collected in a small pot, over the Siva Lingam in the Hanuman temple, adjacent to a tiny shop that sells old junk, a few feet away, is a tiny mosque where men assemble in the afternoon to offer their prayers ….watching people going about their daily tasks, carrying on their faces a commitment to finish the varied tasks by the end of yet another emotionally debilitating day (this is true for many. Those fortunate ones can be counted on fingers), fills me with a sense of energy and optimism about the world and life, which seem to be hurtling towards shocking a level of unpredictability, these days. It’s like withdraw self from the world, bring the knees & limbs closer to the stomach, feel the tightness around the thighs, as if a human body is closing its doors tight against the world outside, crouch in the shadow of a branch that crawls against the bedroom window and draw strength from the little bird who is being fed by its mom. And meditate on decay, on life, silently. Interestingly, it’s the poor, the struggling class / the working class of the society gives me that required bit of energy and courage. The superficial and shallow beauty being flaunted by the rich and successful, the so-termed class disturbs me a lot.
Neruda’s “Walking Around”, a melancholic walk across streets, captures the existentialism of life, a sense of disappointment about the disturbance being caused by the structural progress, the destruction of nature and man himself. All of us, subconsciously (the screams of which, at times, are loud enough to cause tangibly felt discomfort), feel the need to take a “little vacation” from regularity of daily life, formulated in well-defined moves, i.e. get out of a rectangle shaped bed, 10 mins of reluctance with the hand perched on a sleeker rectangular bodied mobile communication device with curvaceous corners, enter the “phase of civilisation”, commute through the roads-based commotion that comes in various forms & sizes, walk into the artificially lit liveable-breathable-cylinder shaped environment, deliver organised talk (presentation) to the benumbed souls around a rectangle shaped wooden table…..one feels numb and staggered after such drone-like encounters!
…All I ask is a little vacation from things: from boulders and
Woolens,
from gardens, institutional projects, merchandise,
eyeglasses, elevators – I’d rather not look at them.
(link :I touched upon Whore of Mensa by Woody Allen here)
Bits of humor make life lighter and a bit easier. Woody Allen on his written work: “If it’s succesful, the laughs don’t come from jokes, they come from characters in emotionally desperate circumstances.” He finds humor in everything and his special brand of humor laced with satire taxes one with some indefinable hyperbolic energy, which eventually explodes into a maelstrom of blizzard like percussion…It’s fun to watch how his humor develops and acquires a solid character. He does entrance me with hypothetical tales around famous philosophers and historical figures. I literally ate this up.
“There’s nothing like the discovery of an unknown work by a great thinker to set the intellectual community atwitter and cause academics to dart about like those things one sees when looking at a drop of water under a microscope. On a recent trip to Heidelberg to procure some rare nineteenth-century duelling scars, I happened upon just such a treasure. Who would have thought that “Friedrich Nietzsche’s Diet Book” existed? While its authenticity might appear to be a soupçon dicey to the niggling, most who have studied the work agree that no other Western thinker has come so close to reconciling Plato with Pritikin. Selections follow.
Fat itself is a substance or essence of a substance or mode of that essence. The big problem sets in when it accumulates on your hips. Among the pre-Socratics, it was Zeno who held that weight was an illusion and that no matter how much a man ate he would always be only half as fat as the man who never does push-ups. The quest for an ideal body obsessed the Athenians, and in a lost play by Aeschylus Clytemnestra breaks her vow never to snack between meals and tears out her eyes when she realizes she no longer fits into her bathing suit. It took the mind of Aristotle to put the weight problem in scientific terms, and in an early fragment of the Ethics he states that the circumference of any man is equal to his girth multiplied by pi. This sufficed until the Middle Ages, when Aquinas translated a number of menus into Latin and the first really good oyster bars opened. Dining out was still frowned upon by the Church, and valet parking was a venal sin.
As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness; many sandwiches were forced to stay closed and only reopened after the Reformation. Fourteenth-century religious paintings first depicted scenes of damnation in which the overweight wandered Hell, condemned to salads and yogurt. The Spaniards were particularly cruel, and during the Inquisition a man could be put to death for stuffing an avocado with crabmeat. No philosopher came close to solving the problem of guilt and weight until Descartes divided mind and body in two, so that the body could gorge itself while the mind thought, Who cares, it’s not me. The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup? It was Leibniz who first said that fat consisted of monads. Leibniz dieted and exercised but never did get rid of his monads—at least, not the ones that adhered to his thighs. Spinoza, on the other hand, dined sparingly because he believed that God existed in everything and it’s intimidating to wolf down a knish if you think you’re ladling mustard onto the First Cause of All Things.
Is there a relationship between a healthy regimen and creative genius? We need only look at the composer Richard Wagner and see what he puts away. French fries, grilled cheese, nachos—Christ, there’s no limit to the man’s appetite, and yet his music is sublime. Cosima, his wife, goes pretty good, too, but at least she runs every day. In a scene cut from the “Ring” cycle, Siegfried decides to dine out with the Rhine maidens and in heroic fashion consumes an ox, two dozen fowl, several wheels of cheese, and fifteen kegs of beer. Then the check comes and he’s short. The point here is that in life one is entitled to a side dish of either coleslaw or potato salad, and the choice must be made in terror, with the knowledge that not only is our time on earth limited but most kitchens close at ten.
The existential catastrophe for Schopenhauer was not so much eating as munching. Schopenhauer railed against the aimless nibbling of peanuts and potato chips while one engaged in other activities. Once munching has begun, Schopenhauer held, the human will cannot resist further munching, and the result is a universe with crumbs over everything. No less misguided was Kant, who proposed that we order lunch in such a manner that if everybody ordered the same thing the world would function in a moral way. The problem Kant didn’t foresee is that if everyone orders the same dish there will be squabbling in the kitchen over who gets the last branzino. “Order like you are ordering for every human being on earth,” Kant advises, but what if the man next to you doesn’t eat guacamole? In the end, of course, there are no moral foods—unless we count soft-boiled eggs.
To sum up: apart from my own Beyond Good and Evil Flapjacks and Will to Power Salad Dressing, of the truly great recipes that have changed Western ideas Hegel’s Chicken Pot Pie was the first to employ leftovers with meaningful political implications. Spinoza’s Stir-Fried Shrimp and Vegetables can be enjoyed by atheists and agnostics alike, while a little-known recipe of Hobbes’s for Barbecued Baby-Back Ribs remains an intellectual conundrum. The great thing about the Nietzsche Diet is that once the pounds are shed they stay off—which is not the case with Kant’s “Tractatus on Starches.”
Breakfast
Orange juice
2 strips of bacon
Profiteroles
Baked clams
Toast, herbal tea
The juice of the orange is the very being of the orange made manifest, and by this I mean its true nature, and that which gives it its “orangeness” and keeps it from tasting like, say, a poached salmon or grits. To the devout, the notion of anything but cereal for breakfast produces anxiety and dread, but with the death of God anything is permitted, and profiteroles and clams may be eaten at will, and even buffalo wings.
Lunch
1 bowl of spaghetti, with tomato and basil
White bread
Mashed potatoes
Sacher Torte
The powerful will always lunch on rich foods, well seasoned with heavy sauces, while the weak peck away at wheat germ and tofu, convinced that their suffering will earn them a reward in an afterlife where grilled lamb chops are all the rage. But if the afterlife is, as I assert, an eternal recurrence of this life, then the meek must dine in perpetuity on low carbs and broiled chicken with the skin removed.
Dinner
Steak or sausages
Hash-brown potatoes
Lobster thermidor
Ice cream with whipped cream or layer cake
This is a meal for the Superman. Let those who are riddled with angst over high triglycerides and trans fats eat to please their pastor or nutritionist, but the Superman knows that marbleized meat and creamy cheeses with rich desserts and, oh, yes, lots of fried stuff is what Dionysus would eat—if it weren’t for his reflux problem.
Aphorisms
Epistemology renders dieting moot. If nothing exists except in my mind, not only can I order anything; the service will be impeccable. Man is the only creature who ever stiffs a waiter.”
:) try to read the most hilarious chronology of the life and struggle of the Earl of Sandwich, “inventor” of the now-ubiquitous snack, “Yes, But Can the Steam Engine Do This?”
1741: Living in the country on a small inheritance, he works day and night, often skimping on meals to save money for food. His first completed work – a slice of bread, a slice of bread on top of that, and a slice of turkey on top of both-fails miserably. Bitterly disappointed, he returns to his studio and begins again.
1745: After four years of frenzied labour, he is convinced he is on the threshold of success. He exhibits before his peers two slices of turkey with a slice of bread in the middle. His work is rejected by all but David Hume, who senses the imminence of something great and encourages him.
& “The Diet” from Side Effects….{source for Thus Ate Zarathustra : The New Yorker}
“The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life, not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong, to measure itself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind, deaf stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head..”
The film is amazing a personal journey that will touch one deeply. This reflection of the protagonist by the sea-side made me cry….
It’s review can be read at Rakesh’s …will insert my reviews later!
In India, every year 1.1 million unborn baby girls die before they are born. A disturbing print ad to raise awareness of female foeticide from Contract Advertising Mumbai.
and do read the messages and notes on the walls of Unchaahi
{AdvertisingAge Article was shown to me by Bhakti Doshi, my colleague}
I have been busy with work, morning walks on the sea-side, at times under the relentless rain assault, amidst some German nonsense (the wicked heads who are aware of this incident do smirk over this bit once again) and deep an introspection about the importance of my existence in this world (which hits me really hard, especially, during my solitary morning walks). And I managed to insert a few new habits, quite effortlessly, into my life : Provided a very cosy corner to all those great thought-provoking works by the grand-moms-n-dads from the literary world, at who, everyday, I cast a glance of ignorance and then bury my head in Celebrity photos as captured by {link:OMG} I know, there’s something terribly wrong with this discrepancy.
Lately I have been Obsessed with Fairy tales, which are Relatable. And this collection, invariably, features SEX AND THE CITY.
Bonnie Fuller on AdvertisingAge writes….”The writers who created the film’s central character did a genius thing: They created a woman who real women could totally identify with — a truly authentic female. Carrie wasn’t trying to be edgy or hip. She was a woman who was cute but not too pretty; funny and smart but not too brainy; great buddies with her close girlfriends but repeatedly a loser in love — so much so that she endured the ultimate humiliation: being left at the altar. After all, every woman has experienced devastating heartbreak even if she hasn’t had her wedding abruptly canceled Plus there was Carrie’s embarrassing habit of tripping over her designer clothes. Public embarrassment is another thing most women can relate to, unfortunately. The film also won women’s allegiance through a factor not usually valued by marketers who are always on the outlook for what’s next. While it took the lives of its heroines forward, it triumphed in its celebration of the familiar. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda were still the same girlfriends the “SATC” audience had come to love. After all, the best thing about a best girlfriend is that you can count on her not to change, even if it has been four years since you last saw her. The “SATC” brand recognizes what many marketers don’t: that women connect with and will follow a woman or a brand that is friendly, relatable and likable vs. someone or something that is perfect and on a pedestal. That is one of the lessons I learned while revamping Us Weekly or transforming Star from a tabloid to a glossy magazine…..
{Link : READ THE FULL ARTICLE}
…..Convinced the planet’s oil supply is dwindling and the world’s economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn’t prepare. The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been gaining momentum in the last few years.
These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves.
Some are doing it quietly, giving few details of their preparations — afraid that revealing such information as the location of their supplies will endanger themselves and their loved ones. They envision a future in which the nation’s cities will be filled with hungry, desperate refugees forced to go looking for food, shelter and water.
“There’s going to be things that happen when people can’t get things that they need for themselves and their families,” said Lynn-Marie, who believes cities could see a rise in violence as early as 2012.
These survivalists believe in “peak oil,” the idea that world oil production is set to hit a high point and then decline. Scientists who support idea say the amount of oil produced in the world each year has already or will soon begin a downward slide, even amid increased demand. But many scientists say such a scenario will be avoided as other sources of energy come in to fill the void.
On the PeakOil.com Web site, where upward of 800 people gathered on recent evenings, believers engage in a debate about what kind of world awaits.
Some members argue there will be no financial crash, but a slow slide into harder times. Some believe the federal government will respond to the loss of energy security with a clampdown on personal freedoms. Others simply don’t trust that the government can maintain basic services in the face of an energy crisis….{Link : Read on}
I am scared yet curious. I am not depressed, but disenchanted. Though, I strongly believe in that fundamental biological survival instinct that drives humans to seek a level of certainty, comfort and security for selves and their loved ones, even in adverse conditions, I feel this specific one is going to be more daunting task than ever before. The current generation of humans, which I belong to, represents a human system embedded in comfort and would certainly feel helpless and rudderless when it is confronted with life-demanding situations. We nibble at the natural calamities happening around and feel truly sorry for the massive human damage they result in, for a few moments, everyday, and go back to our lives, our work loads, daily brand assignments or projects. We could do more than just reacting meekly to the traumatising acts being demonstrated by Mother Nature and her invincible spirit (isn’t she distraughted and shocked by the way humans are disturbing her state of equilibrium? Her pristine tranquillity and gentleness?), we could consciously insert a few tiny alterations in our lives, do not we know that Small things go a long way. Such as request the cabbie to switch off the engine while waiting for the traffic light to turn green {now that we are blessed with longer traffic-jams, traffic-pile ups}, walk within the neighbourhood shopping(lack of parking areas in & around the crammed shopping centres in India, anyway, forces most of us to walk), depend on our legs more than anything else, feel the endurance and energy soaring in the body while walking, just be kind to the green little things called TREES,
touch their aged trunks to feel soothed, try to be kind to animals…..
there are many more little things we could do everyday, every moment. It feels good to realise how humane we could become.
My roomie and I remained silent for a while, after reading this article on Yahoo. And then plunged into a light-hearted (we were serious, somewhere, deep down inside) conversation (I was getting ready for my ritual Oil massage on that Sunday) …..we kept aside, the widely mentioned, piece of old wisdom “Necessity is the mother of invention” and the human’s ability to invent new things or to finetune the existing technology to meet the future needs, we mulled over what we could do at an individual level, how drastically different things would appear, if we were to face such hard times… ”as a vegetarian, I could easily switch to light eating patterns. Carnivorous humans have to brace for harder beats. My system is kinda getting conditioned to the days without huge and elaborated meals, it started relishing basic food, 
courtesy, me being far away from the cocooning kind of comfort that mom’s delicious food offers and that indecipherable taste of our office canteen food. Perhaps, I should take a break from Advertising for some 6 months and learn home remedies, cooking etc from mom, and equip myself with some basic functional skills, which may come in handy later. I truly enjoy Washing clothes {if adequate supply of water, the life-essential, is ensured) and Dishwashing. So this set of home-bound skills, basic skills would certainly help me in applying for a part-time-sophisticated maid slot at affluent castles. I can bicycle across my life, and would invest my hard-earned money in Sunscreens which, anyway, are not of intense usage against the relentless strength of the morning-afternoon-post siesta-early evening-late evening Sun. I have to keep myself fit and healthy by moving my limbs easily and living on basic things, indulgences would soon become a rarity, 
I may have to learn a few combative acts to protect those ever-dwindling life-resources and self from the city-neighbourhood-food violence. My skills lie in Brand Thinking/Advertising, which may not find much enthusiastic response from the society. …I could be an affordable body-poster, like I carry around brand advertisements on my body or my T-shirts or hang those boards around my slender neck…but my advantage would be nullified, if the world decides to move towards Close Community kind of setup, where Advertising/Brands have no space. Everything - a new introduction, a new sale in the nearby orchard etc. is communicated to everyone within the community….Entertainment would go back to the stories around the fire-place, the fire-places under the twinkling stars and dark skies would become the ’social-glue”….beautifying and keeping self attractive to the opposite sex would continue to be the basic need, so learning a few skills in that area is certainly an advantage. It’s time to dump the decision of marrying a man and have him father my cherubic baby…….as long as the body is fed with some basic food, the body is exerted over a defined task or a piece of work that defines one’s identity in the society, nothing else matters. The so-perceived lifestyle essentials vanish somehow into thin air….” well, the conversation trailed off into silence as sweat began to flow across our foreheads from exertion.
But, we are sliding quite slowly and subtly into harder times.
{Pic Courtesy : Him}
Rolling its blues against another blue,
the sea, and against the sky
some yellow flowers.
the sea, and against the sky
some yellow flowers.
October is on its way.
And although
the sea may well be important, with its unfolding
myths, its purpose and its risings,
when the gold of a single
yellow plant
explodes
in the sand
are bound
to the soil.
They flee the wide sea and its heavings.
the sea may well be important, with its unfolding
myths, its purpose and its risings,
when the gold of a single
yellow plant
explodes
in the sand
are bound
to the soil.
They flee the wide sea and its heavings.
We are dust and to dust return.
In the end we’re
neither air, nor fire, nor water,
just
dirt,
neither more nor less, just dirt,
and maybe
some yellow flowers.
In the end we’re
neither air, nor fire, nor water,
just
dirt,
neither more nor less, just dirt,
and maybe
some yellow flowers.
The fields infused with yellow-colored exuberance enfolds a traveler, tired yet ecstatic, who deliberately mapped out some space for that much-awaited meeting with the Yellow Flower fields, in his journey, with a profound non-human conversation. The Yellow fields are known widely for their language, which casts the oldest spells over humans, a language only an artist could understand and speak. Far-off lands, people live in foreign lands are materials for our dreams, which we see with our eyes wide open, and trapped with that allure charm, we whether or not like it, walk around with a displayed distaste for the land we live, the surroundings we breathe in. The great old wisdom says, when we see things from afar, they reach out to us as something very special, mysterious and a body carnival like festivities, so that means, do we have to detach ourselves from the environment that’s within our reach and watch it with renewed eyes. And the queer sense of exoticism of foreign landscapes that live in our dreamy eyes, tend to grab, fiercely, a deep layer of mystique aura, when they are captured and sent by a stranger? am curious to know - which element of this image is reinforcing its captivating beauty? the grounded tree with its head held proudly against the blue skies, providing a constrast-like experience to our eyes so that they could sink into the softness of yellow fields or the heady, bewitching vast stretches of yellow floral beds, who have this wicked plan tucked in their floral hearts to leave our palms benumbed with their gossamerish flower dust when we dip our hands into the picture? :) The Postcard like picture reminds me of “The Wind Will Carry Us” by Abbas Kiarostami.
{Unearthed by Bhakti Doshi…. :) )
I read somewhere…BBC says, All species have a deep survival instinct. They do everything they can to secure their own survival chances. And that’s as true of humans as it is of the Siberian tiger or the lowliest of bacteria. We humans even have a name for our survival instinct: it’s called ’sustainable development’. Which means, quite simply, living on this planet as if we intended to go on living here forever.
Jyo’s Bucket list {who does not like to be a Passive Observer or Consumer, but to engulf in the culture or to experience the adventure}
1. Deep sea diving
2. Unexpected blanket of kisses and hugs on top of the Eiffel Tower
3. A summer, a monsoon, an autumn and a winter with HIM
4. To watch all the French, German and Russian movies made during 1960-1990 with HIM
5. To work as a Waitress-cum-Sunday chef in a side street restaurant
in Arles
6. To own a little Bookshop Around the Corner and to run Weekend Reading Sessions for children
7. To enjoy a luxury cruise with George Clooney
8. To live in New York for a Summer-to-a Winter and attend Poetry Workshops
9. To be a Strategic Planner on Nike and Harley Davidson for a year
10.To power self with the charm of the Pied Piper of Hamelin (female version) and turn all those men who harassed me, who made me cry, who hurt me, into battalions of helpless n clueless mice
11.To wander around the Speyside, the highs and lows of the Celtic land
And the final….
12.To be Calvin’s Girl friend 
or to be Tom Sawyer’s Becky {To go back to my blissful childhood adventures}
femme magnifique - Aneesa’s Bucket list
#to climb the Eiffel tower and renew my energy with a kiss on every floor (make every floor count while #counting every floor),
#to get married on the beach,
#to run a travel show with ‘him’,
#to own a multi regional beer parlor with indoor sports,
#to experience life in an igloo,
#to pet a tiger cub,
#to ride a horse like it was an extension of myself,
#to get stuck on an lonely island with George Clooney,
#to ride the Harley,
#to cage George Bush in the zoo,
#to get a tattoo,
#to travel every lane and by lane in Venice, hand in hand,
#to own a house by the lagoon on the bora bora islands,
#to farm on the Indian terrain,
#to survive in a jungle for a month,
#to work towards animal welfare,
#to script my movie plot and convert it into a film,
#to fly a plane,
#to ride any F1 sports car,
#to learn all the water sports there are,
#to learn Arabic and French,
#to master the piano and compose my own tunes,
#to work six months and travel the rest six months,
#to have a baby and to adopt a baby,
#to send a message in a bottle and leave it in the sea hoping to receive a reply,
#to never forget to live everyday like it was the last,
***Do go for an evening stroll, a long Coffee break or sleep over a book and come back***
And those who want their respective Bucket list to be featured over here, do write. Would love to see your Bucket list….I feel, it’s imperative for one to have a Bucket list which provides more a meaningful direction to varied struggles in life as well as a gentle nudge or reminder for one to move back into some kind of life-like rhythm.
“Life begins when you leave life behind”…That’s all I could mumble!
The seduction of an empty winding road cannot be explained.
The camaraderie of a raw and rude, yet refined Motorcycle cannot be explained.
The spirit of Adventure breathes between Man and his beast cannot be explained.
There are certain things in life need no explanation.
Link : (Ben Kweller’s Make It Up, is the background score for Ray Ban NEVER HIDE campaign)
Most faces, after a while, make time for a new programme - to cultivate serenity.
They often seem to stare blankly at spaces, which are empty of any material to
ponder about – a ceramic mug with a broken handle, spaces between fingers,
a crack breathing life on the wooden table, a tiny branch moving softly in the
breeze, the theatrical highs and lows of a stranger’s talk etc etc.
I, usually, do not under-estimate such faces.
As my face, somehow, aspires to belong to that tribe. Faces,
which traveled across the rugged life-landscape with aplomb,
never flinched from events of discomforting truths, moments of
realization. Faces, which survived bitter winds of humiliation,
and learnt to tuck them under the thick and deep layers of maturity.
You may get an imprint of all roughened up, lined and wrinkled facial landscape.
You are programmed to go wrong, at times. These Faces, perched amidst loud,
talkative and youthfully dressed up crowds, practice withdrawal from conversations
to indulge in Short races of memory-A girl child running through the paddy fields,
a young teenager’s face, out of breath, pressed against the trunk of a tree, a little
far away from a group of boys, a young woman’s search for a man across
those regularly held rituals of Coffee, evening walks, brief hugs, goodbye tears…
Short races of memory rejuvenate one’s being. That’s what these faces do.
Many instances, a face of such kind, raises a frantic search for that familiar face
it fell in love with, which some time ago, prepared to disappear one fine day.
How and when would faces consider the decision to leave, and what are
those various ways to leave? I do not know that. But I certainly know
how it feels like when a face gets up from its fall – quite a disgraceful one,
decisively builds its army again, borrows strength from everything nearby.
Would it ever withdraw from the world? Undauntable may have an answer.
Most faces carry dead chapters, which make them attractive and alive.
You can identify them, even from far, they may not be known to you, but
they look fuller, look a great deal like those darling paintings you study,
intensely, with a wine glass in your hand. They effortlessly introduce you
to that natural human glow. Faces, which traveled across the landscape,
speak volumes. They perform in theatres, hard rock cafes, and urban street
settings. Permission is limited to Experienced and Seasoned with life.
[link:Simone
You're getting older
Your journey's been
Etched on your skin
Simone
Wish I had known that
What seemed so strong
Has been and gone
{link :Ben Kweller’s Make It Up
{My Room at home}
I enjoy reading stories and poems about them, the spaces where ample joyous moments meet silent webs of loneliness or existential emptiness, “The Rooms”, which, usually, are formed by a combined effort of four walls, a floor, a ceiling and a door. One of the walls, in most cases, has a large or moderately large rectangular open space, the doors of which are opened out to the world outside, i.e. windows. A window allows the external world to enjoy a glimpse of one’s private world, the cocoon that offers an opportunity to the interested to study the moods as cultivated by the room.
I thought of inserting one of my favourite poems written about “The Room or The Window”, but ….now that Sunrise girl responded to me with a poem … I am uploading Cavafy’s “The Afternoon Sun” (which influenced my thoughts, to some extent)
The Afternoon Sun
This room, how well I know it.
Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it,
as offices. The whole house has become
an office building for agents, businessmen, companies.
This room, how familiar it is.
The couch was here, near the door,
a Turkish carpet in front of it.
Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases.
On the right -no, opposite- a wardrobe with a mirror.
In the middle the table where he wrote,
and the three big wicker chairs.
Beside the window the bed
where we made love so many times.