Airport updates

When you've immense time to strangle, because what else can you do stuck at a layover, between flights..especially during a long flight. 

Updating myself on recommendations from the most valuable, reliable sources..because how can I not? 

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On anime watching: change track to Japanese, turn on subtitles and wallow ( if you're not already doing that..that is)  

eyes for change

Do you know the story of clockwork eyes
mounted on a head
affixed with a neck
fastened to a torso
coupled with a couple pair of limbs

they lived in a calendar
an existence of everyday itinerary
erasing carefully each day gone by
after diligently replicating it
word for word on a clean sheet

each night they'd staple to obscurity
every morning they'd spring open with familiar certainty
that this would be the day, they'd strive to drastically change
and then glue their gaze
to a comfortable horizon, they saw every day
staring serenely, content..complacent
drawing strength from the protection of the habitual
seeking solace in unchanging scenery

..with a feigned start they'd realize
their promise to diversify
to make modifications to this day
and blink profusely―twice, thrice,
and then at night
a satisfied smile
stapled eyes
content with the thought
today was the day
they made some change.

new zombie movie

There's no logical reason why I want to watch Pride & Prejudice & Zombies..nope absolutely none! and yet here I am, salivating at these trailers—obviously Hollywood is running out of ideas, but how do I care? the movie looks pretty good, and even though it's likely to disappoint like Abraham Lincoln vampire killer (yes I watched it), you never know, it might just turn out to be pretty good. Fingers crossed.

links and vids

They exist and live amongst us..on alien conspiracy theories and facts here
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Berserk anime download link here

Berserk OST is just one of the awesome reasons to watch this anime..the manga is fabulous too..but the anime has music..

Err

a bright room

walled white gloom

castle/tomb

empty bed

fill up soon 

sighs like lead

hopes undead

wishes well fed

secrets and dread

hunt for calm

calming balm

or self harm

cause for alarm

store a storm

in pages torn

words forlorn

cryptic scorn

and at night

ignite a light

black and white

sly delight

Inked

Murphy's law had a field day today.

My wonderful Japanese ink found itself smothering my study table, and it was a sad sight..sadder still because there was no salvaging it. It was mopped away and my heart bled. 

This ink had a dark intensity to it, darker than any fine liners. It dried to a glossy black depth, and now there are but a few drops left in its bottle, which I intend to put to good use. Perhaps another drawing. 

Slammer hell junkie funk!

It's like the bed absorbs me each night and coughs me out every morning..and weirdly, the bed isn't half as alluring at night as it is in mornings. 

It's the mornings when I find myself flaming in each little indentation of my comforting cocoon, cursing mornings and wondering what to cook for breakfast. 

Breakfast or for that matter any meal of the day is just one of those things I need to decide about at night. You need a meal plan, and be prepared when you've to deal with a new day. 

For example tomorrow for breakfast is avocado toast and ham, and lunch is vegetable rice and roasted peppers, dinner stays undecided. What a bother. 

There are some days when I actually chop the vegetable for the next day, a day in advance, only because my precog faculties make me aware of days when I want to be lazy..and chopping is just one lesser activity. 

Yes, I can be driven to be that lazy, and as weak as that sounds my precog faculties almost always fail to mention that it's mostly the pre-decided lazy days that end up bursting with activities. 

I've already remembered two pending chores that need to be taken care of tomorrow, and putting them off is most disadvantageous to me..so much for deciding my food menu. :( 

Night on light out

Here we are, in the cold sarcophagus of midnight's arms again. Its stalagmite breath dribbling down your veins..painfully. 

Liquid nerves frozen to ashen roots, each cell a floating iceberg..and the night stretches mercilessly blurring any horizon. 

Dreams suspended in bulbous spheres, ready to spill and ooze into the darkness—threatening to coalesce with obscurity, mired with dregs of murky night; they'll recoil in action dressed in abstraction and  you'll keep wondering why? 

Mirror

The mirror in my room stands abruptly, awkwardly on a small table of vintage rose pink—it has no place being there, unadorned, nonplussed, unattached..leaning against a wall; unhooked, detached. It found no place to stick, nor a nail to hug onto, latching itself into a room, morose, artless, homely, commonplace..tall and skinny, bored and grumpy, useful most uselessly—standing, leaning, waiting..silly, simple, unimbellished, insipid, unharmonious,  stupid.

power through winters amidst lifelessness

I feel pity for all the foodstuffs who're destined to lead the remainder of their bottled lives in refrigerators, because I can somehow understand how that feels, considering I'm living in one too..days are cold as cold can be, and afternoons are a shade darker than dystopian gloom.

Layers of warm clothing and freezing nose tips, hands that feel skeletal cold, and binging on TV series.
Sigh, it feels awful when you binge watch a tv series to the point that you've to wait for its next episode and that is pretty annoying. So now I'm waiting for the next episode for expanse, since I watched it one two days flat and now what? wait..
Started with another anime series in the meanwhile called 'Ergo Proxy' and its one of those philosophy meets sci-fi meets mind fuck, and it's going pretty good till now, but I've sworn to dedicate my eyes to doing some productive stuff today.

Starting with another drawing and a new audiobook called 'The lies of locke lamora', and hopefully I'd be able to finish this drawing in the next day or so, or else it'll end up with another long gap of unfinished business―almost 3 weeks.

Also put these frozen finger tips to better uses―strumming and writing/typing a bit more.

But what am I to do with the apocalyptic filter of dim despair that encroaches on the well lit lighting system of this house. It's bright yet dark, and no amount of lamp light could take away the sunless cheerlessness of my room..perfect setting for gothic luncheons.

dew drops

There is no pattern to the dew drops frozen solid on the outside of my window, and that might be a pattern I'm unaware of. Perhaps some inter dimensional object conformity of efficient aligning..or maybe they're mimicking some star coordinates I know not of, for this isn't the right window to send hidden codes―here I am safely huddled in the safehouse warmth of my home, thawing with each breath, staring at frozen dew drops, wondering if they resemble tears.
Wondering what have they ever seen? Did they form overnight on this window, did they birth right here, or are these raindrops from a cloud passing by, formed of lakes and rivers and angry steel factory fumes?
Frozen to an opaque white stubborn drip in suspended animation, destined to melt and gather imperceptible specks of helpless dust..these dew drops are a momentary object of all my love, while I dissolve and they defrost.

youtopia

There are vast virtual spaces in this invisible monstrosity
yet I see you everyday
in the twilight of my memory
where no shadows are cast, no footprints in the sand
the woods are thickets of green leaves and barks
fruits and flowers
no stream of electricity
nor a sizzling mesh of charging wires
a sun and a moon
an eclipse when I want, to set the mood
the skies and streams of the same blue hue
interchangeable..whenever I want to make love to you

Reflection

Pulling at the cobweb thin flimsy drapes
that eclipse a wall of window
unessential diaphanous curtains
studded with shadows of sewn petals, in primrose and pink

and suddenly with a start
see an image much like yours
dangling with a curtain in a dark window far away
a kitchen window to be precise in someone else's home
they're unaware, about a shadow that lurks in the window
a reflection from a distant block
separated by a space of air and leap of faith

a bit bent in the strange curve of the slanted glass
raising a hand to establish recognition
with my own reflection in someone else's house

movie musings

There are days I wholeheartedly dedicate to watching movies..though there are certain genres I draw a line― or probably only watch them at gunpoint. Sappy romantic movies, and sport movies. Nope, no can do. Can't watch those sorts at all. They could have Ryan gosling or an entire flock of geese I still wouldn't watch them.

I have a somewhat romantic liaison with watching movies in a movie hall. I love it, absolutely love it, and more so here because in my little Chinese town there aren't many english movie watchers, so there've been plenty movies that I've actually watched sitting alone in a movie hall. So, star wars released just last week here, and of course I was there to watch it. First day, first show which started rather gingerly at 12:00pm..the day before that I'd watched Sherlock Holmes in the theatre, and there've been days when I've caved in to watching some B grade crappy Hollywood action movie, only because it was playing in a movie hall―albeit, that's a mistake I don't make too often.

Weekend nights are almost always a full throttle movie marathon in our house. There's no television these days, thankfully, since we haven't subscribed to any IPtv as yet, so movies and series is all that ever play. So three nights = 12 movies almost. I've watched 'em all..the good ones, the bad ones and sometimes even the ugly ones. A lot of sci fi, some action, lotta thriller, some gangster, a bit of drama and absolutely no romance..some light hearted Judd Apatow comedies are passable, and that forms our weekend.

The last movie that I absolutely loved was Bone Tomahawk― such a badass gritty movie. It's difficult to not like anything wild west and this one was amped up with a well made plot, and slow burning pace that ignited into a a dynamite times psycho crazy horror awesome. What a fantastic movie!!
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tea: it's been a while since I had tea, and I hate that tea is one of those things I've to avoid for a while due to my condition.for I love tea. Absolutely! tea is the goddess of all beverages and I love that it's just three alphabets that describe the simplicity yet complexities of flavours that are tea.
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Ah, I've binge watched the first season of bates motel, and by tomorrow I will be through with the second as well..and, sigh am I wallowing in lifelessness or what? I've to follow up with a new anime series, which one though? more on it later!
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the next movie Imma watch is the hateful eight..and why not? I mean it's Quentin tarantino for heavens sake..and what am I if not a doe eyed tarantino fangirl power infinite. Nuff said!! 

Sunny day

It's a rare sunny day on a Monday, and it's not just a generic sunny day, but a full blown sunshine soaked bright afternoon..and as cold as it might get next week (the temperatures are dropping below freezing point in double digits) today is a vibrant golden tinted day.

I'd once read a poem as a child written by Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, and nothing has come even remotely close to describing a cold winter sunny day ever so beautifully.

Zzzzzzz

Grudgingly enter the raven hollow of momentary comatose
launching a crusade against each yawn
suffocating it before it turns into a sleepy exhale
a pair of stream thin waterfalls
trickling down a dewy net of lashes
half absorbed by cheeks
oft involuntary wiped away by a passing thumb

fabricating arrangements with the night tide
whether float like a feather
lilting with each dark wave
or immerse like bad habits
wedded to an anchor, drilling into sea bed

enrolled into a nightly parade of endless expeditions
aligning the pillow with anonymous constellations
setting the duvet ablaze with nothing save pent up exhales

light to night sheathed in a dark passage tailored by dewy lashes
midnight celluloid featuring secrets in phosphorescent disarray
sporadic photomontage, spliced in with conversation
muddled by images monochromatic
enter voice so vivid, sigh so livid
editing into wishful plot
spiraling berserk into slumberland gray

Secrets

"Here's your morning tea my precious",  he placed the tea cup on a side table, and before she'd even opened her eyes, she could smell the warm fragrance of ginger and cloves emanate from her tea. She had declared the importance of morning tea to him during their courtship days "It should be strong, with at least a teaspoon of grated ginger and two cloves, and boiled long enough to let the tea flavour make itself heard; just a dash of milk, only for the colour and not too strong that it's bitter.
He'd gotten it right in his second attempt, and now all she ever had to do was loll around lazily in her bed, waiting for her morning cup of joy, which her husband brought her unfailingly every day.

Clouds had smothered the sky that morning, and winter had begun to lethargically creep in. She squinted at her favourite blue cup, and snuggled in her warm sheets for a few more minutes, until the piping hot tea was sip ready.

She felt his warm lips reach her temples, followed by gentle fingers caressing her cheeks, drawing stray hair away from her face.
His voice was a soothing rumble of dulcet copper. Her neck hugged back the tips of his fingers, and with each feathery stroke on her face, she felt her heart well up with happiness.
   "I've made you your favourite breakfast, and it's enough to keep you well fed till afternoon my sweet. We can go out for dinner in the evening, if you want. How about that wonderful Italian restaurant your friend was telling you about, would you like to go there my love"?
 She nodded her head with a vague air of carelessness, and felt as though everything he was uttering came through some distant tunnel, like a far flung echo which she couldn't bother with listening to right now. "uhmmm" she uttered through sheets that half muffled her mouth.

"Alright darling, I'll be off now, I've a meeting in an hour and there's much to prepare"
"yes, yes" she thought to herself, as she rolled her eyes (while shut). Being pampered in bed was one thing, but making small talks in the morning was quite another.
She felt another soft kiss, this time on her lips and a moment later heard the door closing behind receding footsteps.

A few short sips later, she found herself strolling into the kitchen and beaming with glee when she spotted a small flask with some more tea. "How thoughtful, he always knows what I want. Did I strike gold or what"? she mused half smiling half yawning, as she strode back to her bed, and sat herself back in still warm sheets.
The sky was straddled with voluptuous clouds burgeoning with moisture, and it was still dark as the time slowly crept past nine. Every five minutes she resolved to cast aside her warm blankets and traipse into a new day, and kept deciding to do so until it was almost ten, and someone rang the doorbell.
"What now"? Covering her night shift with a warm cardigan she opened the door.
"garbage this morning"?
"(ugh, you're garbage that's what you are)..errm no, none as yet, come in evening"
with a quick swing the door was shut, and she walked into the bathroom for a quick shower.

It was well into noon, when she broke fast, and rolled her eyes (open this time) at the rain splattering against the window. It was a percussion of fat droplets smattering against the buildings and forming little pools on terrace tops. Impassively she scanned her horizon while chewing on her third egg salad sandwich."too much mayo, must ask him to stop with this mayo love. We bought a big vat of whipped cream cheese, why can't he use that to make a sensible dip"? she opened the fridge to quickly confirm, "yup" and sloppily banged the door hard enough to almost rattle the fridge, got back to gazing at the rain, this time with her head leaned against the window glass, and with a bored long sigh she made way to her living room.

It was a day no different than others, only except that it was raining today and breakfast was egg salad sandwich. "what was it yesterday?" she couldn't remember.
habitually she turned on the television, flicked through a hundred assorted channels and finally settled on one that had a movie playing..not that she cared to watch it, but it wasn't boring, and it wouldn't distract her if she didn't pay much attention to it.

The phone rang, it was her husband she knew.
"hello darling"
"hello sweetness, how are you? had your breakfast? what are you doing? I love you my little darling"
yawning "yes, yes (so many questions), had my breakfast, just watching tv, you know"
"well, the meeting went fine.."
"why do you use so much mayo? we've cream cheese, use that next time"
"ok, sweetness"
"ok go now, I've things to do. what time will you come home?, send me a message I'll be ready to go out for dinner. ok bye. kiss kiss"
'click'
"Ho hum, rubbish movie"

It was around seven when she was refreshing her lipstick with annoyance at her husbands tardiness. The bell rang, she quickly wore her shoes and grabbed her purse.
"garbage"
"arrghh, come tomorrow"
Just as she was about to rid the still waiting garbage collector, her husband walked up from behind him, clad in an affectionate smile, he courteously asked the garbage guy to wait and handed over the garbage bags he'd already segregated into recyclable and non recyclable in the morning.
"Sweety, you could've given it in the morning" he said as he silently shut the door behind the garbage collector.
"Ugh, I didn't know, and don't always keep telling me what I should do. You're late. We must go"

Back into her side of the bed almost twelve hours after she'd left it "the food was good, they could've gone easy on the garlic though" she was going through her nightly routine of degreasing her face and applying fresh coats of moisturizer.
"The only thing good was you", she felt a kiss on her shoulders, a finger on her neck, a gentle embrace from behind, and the obscure rainy night was showered in shameless confessions of unchaste moans. The panoramic highlight to her everyday, when he tenaciously absorbed her very core from a drizzle of frenzied squirms. Feasting on her swollen lust, his every movement gratefully complying to her each writhing motion absolving her of everyday drear, until all she could do was gasp at the ceiling open mouthed in broken screams, feeling in rhythm hot breath upon her face, guilty of rhyming in unison and an eager tongue that fed her mouth, until the wanton storms subsided into placid waves.

She loved the part that came after this,  after he'd rolled off her quivering, quiet, satisfied and sore self.
Her nightly hot chocolate, that he claimed was a secret recipe. She always had it before bed, and in the two years that they'd married, there'd never been a day that he'd missed making it or she'd missed drinking it. It was a dark pool of rich chocolate, with just a whisper of cinnamon thickened with cream sweetened with honey and fragrant with a splosh of rum, Oh how she loved it, and in long lip smacking gulps she finished it, kissed her husband and woke up with sun streaming in her face to the words "here's your morning tea my precious"

The days passed on, long and insipid, nights each tinted with lascivious luxury, until it was a weekend marred by rain and unfalteringly increasing chill
"let's go drinking today"
"alright my darling, but let's not make it too late"
It was well past midnight when they stumbled into their house.
"you had too much to drink darling. Don't pass out, or fall sick. Let me make you some hot chocolate"
 He left for the kitchen still in his party clothes, hurriedly making his wife her favourite night cap, but it was too late. He found her asleep on the living room couch, passed out

She woke up with a parched throat, sometime around three, fumbled around for her sipper, and drank until it was almost empty. Snuggling back to leech on his warmth, she realized his side of the bed was empty.
"Where is he?" the bathroom lights were turned off. She thought of giving it some more thought, but sleep felt too sweet
The next day was a mingle of grey skies and hangover. "where were you last night?", she asked him between sips of tea, rubbing her temple, toying with a tylenol. "You weren't there when I woke up to drink water"
"you were too drunk last night"
she could see him arming himself with a cautious smile, as he bent forward to stroke her face and massage her head.
"are you feeling better my sweet. Let me make you some lemonade after you've had something to eat"
"you didn't answer my question, where were you last night?"
"nowhere honey, I was sleeping right next to you. You were so drunk, you don't remember if you dreamt it up"
smiling his wonderful thin lipped smile again, he stroked her head and went off to prepare breakfast.

"Something's up. Well, let's see if he disappears again tonight".
She was resolved to stay past her bed time and decided on different strategies to do between mouthfuls of her hot chocolate routine.

"here's your tea my precious", she woke up with a start, and stared at her husband who looked at her with his usual kind eyes, and a loving smile, which seemed like a triumphant snigger to her.
"are you mocking me?"
he looked bewildered and hurt, wordless he kept her tea cup at her usual place and left the room
"this....isn't.... working" she thought I've to stop making him suspicious, or maybe I'm being silly. "No, that's not possible. He wasn't there, and I've to confirm if he disappears again. Tonight!!" she thought

Night as usual. She'd downloaded a game to play on her phone at night, under the covers, so he wouldn't know she's awake.

The doorbell rang.."uh huh" she muttered and opened the door
"garbage"
"Come in the evening (get lost and never ring this doorbell again)"
"what time is it, why didn't I wake up for tea?"
The tea was a cold pool in blue cup. "what's wrong with me? why can't I stay up? I just had that hot chocolate and then I was playing that game and then..." It was with a spasmodic flash that she suddenly realized "it's the hot chocolate, isn't it. I sleep because of the hot chocolate." Her face was a jigsaw of anger and confusion. "Only one way to confirm this"

That night she only pretended to drink the hot chocolate and she couldn't sleep, but she knew how to impersonate sleeping wives. Mummified under her blankets she laid silent, breathing steady, when sometime around two she felt her husband stir. Silent as a shadow, he slowly pulled back his covers, slipped on a sweater and tip toed out of the room. She heard the main door open and shut with a sound no louder than a silent sigh.
She immediately got up, her heart pounding in her chest, her throat suddenly felt dry. She couldn't understand what to make of it. Her husband had secretly walked out of the house in the middle of the night.. but really what drove her mad was that was for two years he'd been fooling her with hot chocolate and clandestine night movements.
Still unsure she walked out of the room to check if he'd really left that night, and had he really been leaving her asleep each night in her bed while he went out..went out for what? to meet someone?
She crept out noiselessly, switched on the lights, and there was no one. He was gone.

"How do I confront him? should I just let him know that I know of his mysterious night excursions? or better, I should just stay awake and surprise him with a fist when he comes back" she was shaking like a leaf with anger and irritation. She couldn't understand what really made her angry? ― the fact that her husband was possibly having an affair, or that he fooled her into sleeping each night, supplying her liberally with his secret hot chocolate that knocked her out cold.
"that filthy lying bastard. How could he? I'm his wife. how dare he? he's conned me if anything. Soothing me with his words and.." and what? he gave her no reason to ever be unhappy. This was the happiest she'd ever been in her life. Nothing was asked out of her, she was pampered, taken care of, satisfied, pleased, indulged, loved and each night she was loved hard, more than she ever thought or knew..but still―how dare he.

"I will not wait up for him and confront him. I will follow him tomorrow and catch him in the act. He'll repent all his life, beg me to stay with him. I will torture him till he's all tears and reduced to nothing. I will ruin it for him and her. Whoever this woman is. Two years....two ...years!!"

She was sobbing now, thinking if she really loved him, questioning his love for her. "How could he be with someone else and love me still? he loves me true, I know it."
she remembered all those times his fingers traced around her face while she slept in the morning (or pretended to sleep), when he played with her hair, and sniffed her neck and smacked his lips..she smiled thinking of those times.
"I have to find out about this woman"

She spent the next day hiding behind a nonchalant face, each second imploding with palpitations. She knew her heart would cave in before the night was through. Her smiles were few and dry, and conversations monosyllabic. Instead of melting under his wanton touch, she feigned a headache, and asked for her nightcap, lest he be suspicious.
As yesterday, she feigned drinking it, lapping at it with exaggerated loud smacks, followed by a careful drainage in the bathroom sink, and laying inert on her side of the bed.
Soon a stir, followed by her husband donning on his sweater and walking out, a replica of last nights movements, except this time she was a shadow following him.
She had followed him down the stairs, keeping a distance of almost two floors between them, he'd often looked back, but she kept to the darkness and snuck down slowly, keeping her back to the walls. She'd followed him as he walked out on the road, creeping stealthily from behind parked cars, hiding, crouching, walking swiftly, sometimes walking while hunched, keeping her head lowered and out of his range.
She followed him as he walked into the local park, keeping herself hidden behind trees, shrubs..creeping from behind artificial waterfalls, staying huddled in green shadows. She followed him from a distance until he halted near a small tool shed.
It was eerily silent and he stood there, just stood there.
"probably waiting for her"
It was then she noticed how this park looked so different from each morning. It was a busy landscape full of people, small children and dogs in the morning, but at night.. it was a forest. Trees, ponds, little bridges, fountains, everything had assumed a nightly hue, and seemed to come alive with a chimerical enigma. The bright green of the day, was a cheerless green sin. The leaves seemed to have absorbed the night ink and turn into a godless grim.
It was silent, but loud with insects ―nighttime animals, small cats, rats. She heard small fish come up to feast on worms in a small pond behind her..she heard the rustling of leaves, swift murmurs of scents that were windblown in her direction, from flowers no doubt, and she felt cold..so cold.
She didn't for a single moment take her eyes off her husband. Awash with moonlight, he looked as beautiful as ever. Kind eyes, broad shoulders, strong arms, and a voice that could make strong women weep.
He was staring at nothing, boring holes in a distant void only he could see, and slowly, with steady movements he took off his sweater.
She followed his gaze, but there was nothing. "She ought to come, anytime now" and she stared and saw him unbutton his shirt, peel off his socks, take off his pajamas, and stand naked, as naked as one could be in the green darkness of the lush park
"what on earth is he doing? is he preparing for her. awaiting her arrival all naked?" she was seething again.
"Now, should I just sneak up on him now, and make him feel miserable?. No I will wait for her, catch him red handed in the act and.."
her thoughts stayed in a tangle of wordless emotions when she saw her beautiful husband smile and laugh and slowly turn into a small green toad and leap off into the green grim darkness.

so small yet so big, in the invisible realm of reality.

Looking around we're swamped with everything that was once a fantastical invention. Inventions are as a rule fantastical, so everything we bear witness to was once upon a time, a groundbreaking, serious out of the box thinking..and all science.

The funny part about science is, well we can't see it, and that's what leaves one stupefied in wonderment.

I mean there you are, sitting in a room, jotting down numbers..come on..numbers? ever see one hanging on a tree? It never existed, it came out of thin air, from someone's mind, and what a ridiculously superb ancient mind it must have been to come up with numbers. Never seen, never heard but it's there. I mean maths, for crying out loud, is just a bunch of hokey pokey metaphysical awesomeness. You can't see it, but it rules everything..right from the running of this universe to accurate dimensions of your study table so it doesn't wobble.
So you can't see math, it's not exactly like one can dig it up from the soil while planting trees, you've to think of it? I don't even know or understand how it worked, but there it was for the brilliant taking. Some people understood it, cracked the code of this universe, figured out existence and we're thriving thanks to these geniuses.

How unrealistically intelligent does one really have to be to come up with and understand something that never existed. How much out of the box thinking are you even doing? How did you have the brains to see something that's clearly not visible? 
Ok, for just a second try and come up with something that's never existed, a shape, a design, a feeling? It's nearly impossible, simply because everything you think of will be what you've seen, learnt, experienced. 

An apple fell on someone's head, and 9.8 m/s2 came into existence, I mean come on. The entire universe is a jumble of math and science, and thankfully there's been a steady stream of unbelievably intelligent existence who were able to decipher reality through a thin slit in the cosmos that showed them what it really was all about.
And all these great minds have had predecessors, hundreds and thousand years of studies, papers, observations and calculations. 

The more you think of it, the more perplexing it gets, and I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Delving into the unknown, unseen, only because you're convinced that this is how it's to be to make any sense at all. 
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Thoughts like these get so overwhelming sometimes that you're at a loss for words, and it definitely needs to be written more on. 
Perhaps I should start jotting down points.

Droll digital quandaries

 A bit about digital evolution, and how it's not always absolutely perfect; in fact it's not even too great..few things I've cared to notice in the past few month/days and they've awed me, confused, perplexed and annoyed at times.
This isn't about one of those godforsaken social media inflicted nostalgia for a 90's life, and how things were better then..it's none of that. (heck, I don't even remember the 90's)

_______________________

Incident 1:
It happened early November last year, when I was trying to fix a Dj for the cocktail, mehndi and sangeet events that were to take place a couple days before my brothers wedding.
I'd found a 16 year old kid, too young for a Dj, but he came recommended so why not.
He sat in our living room as I generally asked him the basic stuff about speakers, bass, treble, mhz, sound quality, lighting, electronic plugs, how many sockets, how many extension chords..sort of a pre wedding Dj rider, just to ensure everything went smoothly and no one was running around because some items were amiss.
He knew the drill, and had supplied me with all the wants and needs, and the requirements were few.

Then we came to the songs, and I made it clear that all the songs he played were up to him, since I knew nothing about the marriage music scene, and what the kids generally preferred, because really, it's all about the kid cousins and what they want to listen to, considering they're the ones preparing dances and what not for months. So, well, I let him take the wheel, and he briefed me with all the fantastical songs that were all the rage, and ones that must religiously be played at weddings.

"Alright" I'd said, and then he sweetly asked me to let him have some songs in particular that I liked. That was rather nice I thought, I laughed and joked that the only songs I like are probably in cassettes and hardly the marriage types
  He looked at me puzzled and didn't understand what I meant by "cassettes"?
"Cassettes, you know, cassettes" I said.
"No idea", he said, and asked me if I actually meant a CD.
I looked at him gobsmacked, showed him a cassette and he fumbled at it like he was in a museum.

I let it go, gave him an advance for his Dj services and booked him for marriage events.

I mean, he saw a cassette for the first time.
_________________________________

Incident 2:
This happened a few days after my brothers wedding, last week of November. As a custom to all weddings, we had hired a professional wedding photographer/videographer to record and click all the pre wedding and wedding events. It was a four day job. Three days of assorted events that unchangingly take place before the wedding and the of course the D-Day, that is the wedding.

True to their form, the photographers and videographers would come home each day during breakfast hours and leave much after dinner time, and they ensured to click every trivial happening, and record any facial expression that had even a smidgen of smile. That's their job and they did it well.
They'd amassed thousands of photographs and almost over a hundred hours of video footage.

This whole song and dance affair, sees itself end rather sweetly in glossy pages of a wedding album, one that weighs more than the groom itself. But before the collection of photographs is put into an album, the photographers usually expect you to pick out the ones you like best, so they can use just the approved one.

In light of this, we were summoned to the photography studio and handed over a DVD, with thousands of wedding pictures, that we were expected to sift through and select. Fine, that's not so difficult, and the few remaining guests in the house were eager to see those pictures.
The only problem that ever happened, was well, no one's laptop had a DVD player. In fact there wasn't a single slot to shove a DVD in. Only usb ports, and well, the DVD went unseen.

We asked the photographer to select his favourite ones to put in an album.
________________________________

Incident 3:
This incident was narrated to me by my brother, and he was as puzzled as one might expect to be.
This happened sometime last month (December) , when he'd met my littlest cousin, all of 12 years at his home. A supposedly boy genius, and rather high in the IQ department, he was gifted a rather elaborate desktop by his father (my uncle).
We've all worked on desktops at some point in our lives, much before we let our laptops turn into desktops that is, and the one thing we all ever did was fiddle with it before working on it. A way to sort of acclimatize oneself with the whole keyboard, monitor, CPU gear.

This is exactly what my brother was doing, when he pushed a button to eject the CD tray, and that's when it happened.
Our little cousin saw it for the first time ever, and couldn't understand what it was? "what did you do to my computer" he asked my brother. "what has come out"
Now it was my brother's turn to look at him gobsmacked, and he quizzed him why he didn't know his computer had a CD player as well.
"What's a CD player",  and well, that was the end of their conversation.
"We started talking about cartoons and stuff" my brother told me.

My littlest genius cousin had only ever seen and worked with a USB.
_____________________________________

None of these incidents are remarkably different from what one would expect to see in normal daily life, specially when encountered with someone who was born on a different winding staircase of digital evolution.
These things happen, and you only ever notice them when you notice them, and there's nothing wrong with these evolutions except that they can sometimes leave you in frustration deadlocks.
-------

This incident took place yesterday.
I had earlier commented on how touch screen has rapidly replaced buttons, and levers and how their shining blue black interfaces no matter how sleek are pretty unreliable.

Case in point my kitchen chimney:-
I'd finished with preparing lunch, and I had to switch off the kitchen chimney, because no matter how sleek and shiny they are, they tend to make horrible end of the world noise, that pretty much drowns your sobs.
As I gently touched the glowing 'switch off' sign, well, surprise surprise, it didn't turn off, and continued with its careless raucous din of expelling smoke and sanity.
I touched a little harder, the cacophony continued. I pressed my finger on it to stop the electronic braying, but to no avail. It persevered with the unharmonious noise, and kept expelling air, and roared right into my face.
Visibly upset, I pushed at it harder, harder and begged it in binary to stop..except it didn't. Fine, I decided to pull the plug and shut it the hell up..but whaddya know..these new fangled kitchen chimneys were not plugged into an outside source. They were built in through the walls, and well the plug could have been anywhere. The chimney literally looks like it grew out of my kitchen wall.
After fifteen minutes of tinkering around the house and following non existent wires, I was pretty much stonewalled, and the turbulent blast of disquieting chimney roar continued.
It frustrated me so much that I thought giving it the silent treatment would work, and soon resigned myself in a quiet corner of the house with my lunch. After an hour, I decided to tinker around with its touch screen again, and as fate would have it..it didn't work. I pushed, and pressed and touched hard..but nope! arghh!! It had annoyed me so, this chimney pestilence, I punched at with the full force of an impatient heart and frustrated soul, and voilà, it stopped. Oh the silence that followed.
_______________

I know for a fact, that this wouldn't have happened, if it had a button or a lever. Things that have buttons, well, you can get around to working on them. You can open those panels, unscrew it from places, check the internal wiring and more or less figure it out yourself. Even if you can't, you at least know whats wrong, and how this system works.
With touch screen, you're pretty much lost. The entire thing looks boxed. If there's ever a problem, then you know you've to call a specialist, or take it to the store, there's no other way.

During the cassette era, anytime that a cassette didn't play too clear in the vcr, all we ever did was eject it, pull open the panel that protected the reel and simply blow on it, and that was that. Cleaner picture. If ever a reel got loose in a music or video cassette, tightening it was the work of mere moments with just a handy pencil. You can't work that around things that've reached such digital sophistication that even a drop of water renders them useless.
I mean come on. It took just one drop of stray tea to ruin my iPhone. I had to take it to the center to get it repaired..seriously?

One might counter that this is a strictly iPhone grievance..fine. Then how about using some other touch screen phone/tab of average existence, and trying to scroll or slide to view images. It almost feels like the frame freezes for a fraction of a second before sliding, in fact sometimes it just freezes, and you've to develop special skills in sliding, tilting your fingers at a certain angle, or just repeating strokes until you've scrolled or slid. Just give a button for heavens sake.
------------------------------

I have touched on this point earlier, and forgive me if I'm repeating it again, but these digital evolutions aren't really evolutions but mere tinkering around with existing technology.
How is plugging an iPhone/iPod into next level expensive speakers better than Dolby digital surround? It doesn't even sound that great, it's more like specialized development for mediocre sound. Come on, it's just an iPod, that tiny gadget meant for recreational listening, that's been amplified through speakers so everyone can listen. What's the fun in that? It doesn't have that same thrum, hum, bass, whoosh and spectacular stereophonics that were developed specifically to make sounds sound better.
It's just about sound for self now, sounds you can conveniently listen to anytime, anywhere, alone.. oh and also added to that is the somehow harsh crispness that has come to replace the warm mellow timbre that earlier existed.
It's like you can almost hear the bacterial purr of a singer's esophagus. Who wants that?
___________

These could by all means be ravings of a frustrated self, discontent and annoyed with how nothing ground breaking or spectacular seems to happen anymore..how everything is spruced and dusted over and over again to make everything pretty, glitzy.
I don't know why I feel like Steve jobs is responsible for this.
Sleek things are my new enemy..gimme the bulky, coarse efficience over the polished, suave ineffectual.

punchin' keyboard

There are times when I feel the need to devote more time to my online activities, and then there are times when I realize the futility of it all.
If you were to look at it more coarsely under a subjective lens, you'd realize the futility of it all and all, and soon surmise a vegetative life as one most fruitful; effortless, thoughtless and easily sustainable, for who knows what our purpose really is in life?

Had we been ant like, we'd know our purpose for existence is stay disciplined. Collect food, transport queen, walk in single file and occasionally die―likewise for bees, collect honey, build a comb, be a drone, take care of queen.
If we were to broadly generalize ourselves into the animal kingdom, and live by their rules, then we'd know it's really 'mate. feed. kill. repeat' as very wisely summarized by Slipknot, and well, roughly speaking this is all what we're about..and yet this isn't really just all that we are capable of.
 Scattered in this whirlpool of insipid motto of existence lies our ability to learn and create.
I do not know how many of us carry this ability and to what varying degrees we reserve them, and that's really the point. Some are born with it, some hone it and some are desperate to learn. It's in fact this desperation that should and does keep us from slipping into a vegetative meditative state.

 If something unknown annoys you, scratches you on the inside to be known, then you're pretty much sorted―that is to say, you owe no one to be Einstein, but yourself, and why even be that, when you can be just you.
So yes, there might be futility in everything, but everything needn't be futile. You don't have to be that same person from ten years ago, You can be if you want, but if you want to chose not to be, then you don't.
we've this cognizant factory, inside of us, well hidden from the mortal eye, thats churns new thoughts, reasons, doubts, insight, enlightenment..and we've only to dip in this endless pool of our very own resources to be something new, learn something more from that last moment we blinked our eyes.
It could be as little or as large, depending on your need and greed― as long as you know there's something new inside of you,  you can use it your advantage in extraordinary new whichever ways.

____----_____

of course my online shenanigans have nothing to do with this post but then I have such limited online presence these days.
I could discount it all and say who cares, but it's not just about caring, as much as it's about following a simple routine, and not leaving blank spaces in virtual sphere out of laziness and busy facades; not that anyone would care, but it still bothers sometimes that there you were following a trail religiously, or so you'd promised, and now you let it stray dust covered.  

Le dragon

As beguiling as the name of this post might be, it has absolutely nothing to do with dragons, yet that's all what it's about. 

It's about the dragon fruit. Technically a cactus consumed by bright red flames, but really just a dragon fruit that looks incredibly exotic and tastes even better.

As unreal red as it might be, it tastes so mellow and sweet, almost like a salve to your intestines. It's a great fruit and I just needed to talk a bit about it today, cuz I've eaten about three of these. 

So if tomorrow I start breathing fire, know this, it wasn't me..though as sweet and rounded as they taste I might start wording out sentences in a rather flute like voice. 

 

Colourin' drawing in life

An inverted lamp to aid a drawing

that walks at a pace slower than a dead snail

perhaps today is the fateful day

when it will see the light of sun

or feel the cold gaze of a starless sky

the more I fill into it, the lesser i love it

It's a miasma of flaws, wrecked with wrong turns

things I shouldn't do

things I should've done 

How I began to love 

and then it grew dejected 

when you keep scratching

in repeated strokes

without the slightest pulsating vein

in dreary dull repeated strokes

it gets jaded, satiated

draw it still, finish what you started

drag it on bit by bit

I made a bed

but I don't have to sleep in it 

Book fair sads :(

The only thing good about delhi is the book fair, and arghh I'm missing it. Some of my oldest memories are of visiting the book fair with my father and buying tons of Mir publication books, and Chinese folk stories. We'd have bags full of books and the first thing we did was write our names and dates on respective books. 

One day isn't never nearly enough to absorb its joy de vivre. There are so many bajillion stalls and each stacked full of books. Some local, some glocal some global. 

Some stalls have such many fantastical comics too.  Oh I miss it. 

It's always that slightly chilly, slightly warm weather that makes it so much more fun..shuffling from stall to stall, morning to evening, and lugging back books for an entire year.

I miss book fair. The last I remember visiting it was some 8 years back. Sigh :( 

On scifi and tv series

Oh man, am I a sucker for anything sci fi, be it tv series, movies or anime. 

If expanse series is really that good, then I must download it.

The last really good sci fi series I saw was firefly. Sadly it had a short run, with just one season, but it was seriously good, Wild West meets space opera..dirty politics in the background, skies infested with space pirates and all the shenanigans of a futuristic renegade bunch of highly skilled and extremely loyal crew, headed by captain Malcolm Reynolds who's practical, wise and all too easy to fall in love with. 

This series was followed by not another season but a movie called serenity and boy did it blow my brains off..absolutely one of my favourite sci fi movies.

Somethings about firefly had a bit of cowboy bebop feel or vice versa. How awesome was bebop btw? 

Oh and a fabulous fabulous fantastic sci fi anime absolutely out of the world was 'psycho pass'

More on psycho pass soon..ill put it up on a favourite anime list. 

Side note: this series Luther, as masala as it may be, is pretty good. Gripping even. Cops solving crimes..detective stuff, gruesome crimes, plenty deaths. Fun fun fun. 

thought morgue

My brain has taken to bleeding a whole lot of blank. I've stared at this screen for the good part of an hour and come up with nothing-blank. So yes, dear brain has been behaving odd, it asks me to look long, stare at one single spot, like I'm meditating, and comes up still with absolutely nothing.

Could be one of those witless days
when you're at your dumbest best
when you sharpen your knife
and chop with a spoon
when you think of a sun
but draw a moon

when nothing goes right
your senses take flight
words are a mangle of vowels
brain dead
thoughts wrapped in a soaking wet towel

when your screen stays white shining immaculate
and after each sentence you hit delete, wipe each word
clean the slate

one of those idiotically witless days
when you stare about at the room
waiting for intelligence to turn up
perhaps it'll sneak behind from that lonely broom

ugh to this dumb day
perhaps I could give cpr
to this drowsy brain
or maybe reconstitute it
in a filthy drain

oh, woe is this moronic day
can you believe
I thought it best
to rhyme hens
with nonsense

uhh

Life gets in the way of existing, or is it the other way around?

I can hear the washing machine screaming, and it sounds like a plane's about to take off, except it's just spinning clothes.
Something about my throat feels like I've swallowed a strip of velcro, and it's lodged itself as an apparition, coming and going as it pleases.. it makes me want to douse it in flames of boiling water, and I do.

Nights come dressed in designer kafkaesque ensemble and it's hard for me to tell when I really slept and when was I awake. I remember the toss and turns and some dreams that stay clinging to my eyelashes when I wake and steadily disintegrate with each blink, but other than that each sleep passes away like a screensaver in night mode; a small shrug, and it's a blazing nothing.
____

Slow!

Slow!! Progress is slow! 

Domestic drudgeries 'n' musing notes

Looks like a sort of sunny day today,  albeit the sun rays have a glacial quality to them..but it's still a bit of sun. Mornings aren't aping evenings, and my spotless floors have an immaculate gleam to them, almost like they're smiling. The house isn't exactly flooded with light, however the dull dreariness of Siberian calm has defrosted a bit. Days like these usually pose a problem for the night and the next week, because the skies clear and temperatures drop even further. It gets cold and clammy, and stays that way until another sunny day shows up and makes matters worse. So really, this vicious cycle will not stop anytime before March..after which it's oddly cold till June, and then warm in July, hot in August, warm in September, cool in October, cold from November..sigh.

Washing Dishes:
is probably numero uno of my least favourite things to do, especially in this weather. I almost feel like my hands see very few dry moments, because I've this aversion to leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Then there's this gnawing OCD to clean the sink so that water droplets don't stay in it too long. The thing is, if the sink stays grimy, water droplets tend to stick to it, and your sink always looks wet..now, every kitchen sink's destiny is to stay wet, but wet sinks look a bit..umm..unsanitary.
A cluttered, full kitchen sink is probably the stuff of nightmares, and washing dishes immediately after you've cooked or baked is really the right way to go, in order to avoid nightmares.
To get rid of grimy, oily, clingy stuff- wash with baking soda. Baking soda is probably a kitchen best friend. Right from cleaning kitchen platforms, to dishes, to sinkdrains..it does it all.

Too often, I've overheard lamentations on how a messier house feels more cozy, and that this obsessive cleaning and shining renders it too sanitary and impersonal..and this is something I really do not believe in. A very clean house, is much more fun to live in..sure it's a bitch to clean, but if you do it every day, it doesn't take too long. Whites should look whiter, and any place you carelessly run a finger should render your finger cleaner than it was before.

- Maybe one of these days, I should write an entire write up on house sprucing, because really, I am that lifeless.
-------
Some people are grade A hoarders, I've seen people who wouldn't even throw away a gift wrapping paper..they tear at their presents with such calculated ponderous caution, so as not to violate the pretty wrapping papers. They'll slowly peel away at the tapes, and cleanly fold the wrapper to use it another day (????!!!???) I mean they care more about the wrapping paper than the gift itself. This is so absurd, and for some reason I can never be friends with such people..not because of their inability to throw away a gift wrapping material but because this habit of hoarding, preserving and frugal savings on useless things kind of seeps into their real life as well. I mean, you're saving this paper so you don't have to spend on a gift wrapping paper..but you won't carpool? oh, fuck off!

Throw away, give away or recycle..stop amassing useless things in your house to turn it into some kind of urban life museum..having said that, the one thing I can't throw away are glass jars, bottles etc.
There are really useful especially when you're pickling or preserving, or storing things..and they make such nifty vases, and even funky receptacles for drinks (with a straw).
Once I'm through with a jar of jam, or pickle or olives, and it's a nice glass jar with a good lid, I wash it within an inch of it's life, scrape away at the sticker and reuse it a million different ways.
My personal favourite is using them as vases, followed closely by using them for small sized incense candles and tea lights. Ditto for clear glass wine bottles or any pretty shaped liquor bottle. I've reused most of them for storing flavoured oils. I've this jagermeister bottle that's now the proud repository of my ferociously hot homemade chilli oil. So yeah recycling things are better than hoarding.
____

other updates:
My drawing is finally on its course, and probably I will finish it in a couple of days. Sounds like a long time, but the drawing is crowded with minute details, and I've to really peer at it through a magnifying glass to get it right..and of course that old chestnut-my neck. Can't keep at it too long, or else my neck might detach itself and euthanize.

I've a couple new recipes for food blogs enqued, ready to be uploaded, I'll probably do that next week.

There was a poem I'd thought of in the morning, and it warmed the cockles of my cold heart so, but I forgot it while taking a shower, so that's a shame. I mean I can't even remember what it was about. Like one of those awesome tweets you think of, and then forget a minute later.hah!

Thinking of doing a spot of baking this weekend..let's see. maybe a pizza, or a nice bread, or some cupcakes or cookies. I'd probably make a gluten free orange torte and use the remainder few oranges, but definitely making something else too. Like a bread perhaps. A nice focaccia?!?

 ---------------------------

I've a mind to bitch some more about certain kind of people and human traits that should be avoided with a ten foot pole, perhaps in a new blog..soon.

gossamer gauze of glittering nights and dream vigilante

Night again, to rupture the calm of my sleeplessness..gesturing with every glinting star to sew shut my eyes and call it a day.
Night, with its usual tattered ink tenting, drowsily draping the vitality of a spirited day into a silent hum- massacring in its wake, the very last of any light.
Night, promising me arabesques of florid dreams, only to deliver rorschach blotches of dull nightmares.
Night, a silhouette of all that's gone by and all that's yet to come.
Night, my beloved time that I love to hate and hate to love.


Nights are a trap to have you introspect
unlike mornings when you look forward to a new day

nights have you foraging in the crevices of your bed
in the cracks of your pillow
in the furrows of your sheets
an apology, for your lamentable life

avenging each wasted darkness
through a series of toss and turns
parched throat at ungodly hours, cold spots to freeze your bones

nights let you freely fish
in a frozen pond of forgotten memory
each regret, bad memory you'd tried to forget
highlighted with red
surfaced in a broken heartbeat that caves your chest
crimson faced, ashamed sigh

in dead air tranquility
of decaying silence
every word rings with a gong
ones that you never wanted to mutter

nefarious night, robed in viperous spikes
razor sharp, waiting to burn
lest you let your mind wander and take a wrong turn
it'll demonize you with malicious spite
and salve your wounds with toxic bite.

Things that go bump at night

Lifeless enough to have a robot keep me company and clean the house too. That's an ideal life mate. 

Not that I'm complaining. Now if I only had a real robot to cleanse real life mess too. 

Morning meh

There's a phantom ache in my throat, dryness in eyes, icicles in my ribs and numbness in fingertips.

Here's to waking up on empty beds, cold pillows and untouched strands of stray hair.

Sometimes you feel a strong desire to swallow an entire rose, thorns and all, and cough up petals the entire day. 

On days like these, you rush headlong into every each distraction on hand. Give in wholeheartedly to glorious mundane, and hope for a bit of bedazzle in boredome. Maybe strings it with stars and hopes, sew a few glittering bands of self satisfactory smiles, bejeweled with a facade of contentment. Heave a sigh of relief, call it beautiful, click a picture and Instagram it.

Fly a white dove each day..let it flutter out from the cramped cage you've stuffed them in. Resuscitate a couple if need be and Peace it is! 

Clouds

They are heretics, these clouds
shrouding the sky in mystery, a thin wisp of frayed sheets
so you could never see, through the white veil
if the sky today is blue or gray

long drawn breaths to fatten lungs, if it's an undefiled blue
revolting short gasps for a polluted fool
hidden behind a blanket of frozen dew
the sky is wearing clouds to an enigmatic hue

raise a finger to touch this meagre cotton
to hold in your hands, store in a jar
invisible threads of ghostly water droplets
sticky with grime and soft as sand
they scamper away into nothing
a gaunt film of presumed pearls, reduced to a vaporous zero

ethereal skin for sky, enveloping absolute truths
liars, con artists
exaggerated evaporations, sometimes transpirations
floating thoughtlessly, perspiring acid
threats of turbulence
non existent wraiths of shadowy reality
shipwrecked in the realm of nowhere and here.

Songs of morning note

Another Mondayne, and boy do I love it so..not that there's anything logical about loving any day of the week, but then logic is made of thin air and almost invisible and almost certainly one of the least fun things we've come up with. 

So another Monday, and I usually begin this day by staring at an immaculate white wall from the warmth of my bed. Stuck in smouldering recesses of my morning duvet, I stare and stare at this white wall that stays unmoved, expressionless, dead faced, resolute..stuck fastidiously to my ceiling (another favorite thing to stare at, usually at nighttimes)..it's callous, cold and calming. 

Some mornings you wake and hate, while some, you wake and ache. I like them both..the hating ones and the aching ones.

Weekdays, specifically Monday's feel like a thin white rivulet, you're free to do with it as you please, you could muddy your toes with a kaleidoscope of colours and smudge the white waters into a vibgyor sludge, or dip a finger soiled with coal black soot, and watch the white assume a monochromatic hue..or just enjoy the view of the white rivulet flow into the vast ocean of everyday empty while you get on with routinely flinging stones into its abysmal waters. 

But this is just another weekday, in the long line of remaining weekdays you're yet to see, and some say you should unwrap each day like a present, which kind of feels a bit underwhelming because for some reason presents have always been something I've never loved unwrapping—simply because they're usually disappointing, more so because I've never really known what I've actually seriously wanted for a present.

So unwrapping presents is no fun, but opening little notes..now that's a treasure. More fun, exciting even breathtaking, heart palpitating than any present I've ever known to exist. Shrouded in mist, cloaked in allegory and allusion, dressed in symbol and euphemism—little notes with a picture or a line, little notes with a thousand rambling words or poetic smile, little notes with an emoji wink or whispering voice. Each perfumed note redolent of a sigh, intensity that sings in chorus, passion simpatico and blahs of life.