Of living rooms and work desks!

I love buying toilet paper. The thought of deciding that I need to buy a second batch, gets me all excited.

As odd as that line would sound to most of you, I believe it makes perfect sense. The thing is we are all merely hunters and gatherers (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/05/17/the-human-animal-bbc/). It is in our nature to make every place we spend some amount of time in as homely as possible. Given that most of these places are transitory in nature, it still does not deter us from adding our own little touches, kind of like the drawings on the wall to say “I was here”.

It is not just that woman are into it, men indulge in it as well. Although a woman’s personalisation can be more aesthetically pleasing, than the cigarette stubs and dirty socks lying around belonging to a man…enough said. You get the picture.

So in my own little way, I decided to add a personal touch to my new room by adding little shiny glow in the dark star thingies. They look cute. Kind of make me feel like a kid lying down on the terrace and gazing at the stars. I also added a new calligraphy to the wall, which is proper shiny. (I like shiny).

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Collectively we are Bedouins. Not literally, but by way of how we live our lives, we are not much different. We move from one place to another, for a variety of reasons. That movement involves one in acclimatizing to the new place, familiarising with the changes around ones person. We as people acclimatize, but not in the blink of eye. It takes time to blend in, and in that period one needs something familiar to hold on and have a sense of balance. Kind of like ragged old blanky kids might hold onto, though if they do the same when well past into their 30’s, red flags ought to go up!

I digress. So, we all have our little knick knacks to ease us through the transitory phase. Mine’s my little boofle mug and fetish for buying toilet paper. But I have to say this, nowhere in the world have I seen people so gung-ho about personal artefacts and comfort items as that in India. We Indians love to carry our world with us. Whether it is a jar of mango pickle aboard an international flight, or our multiple god figurines, we love our little India everywhere. In my last work place, I was still getting used to seeing all the gods, all the family pictures, stuffed animals, prayer books, lunch bags and over-night change of clothes-all at one desk for one person! So here comes a new joinee,  I walk past her desk, saying hi, being nice, and I walk back after 20 minutes and already she has made a mini shrine complete will bells and pink fluffy thingies around her computer. It was like the power puff girls attacked! I so wish I had taken a picture of that….hmmm..

As important as it is to hold onto something from the past to move into the present, sometimes it is more important to let go of a tiny bit to accept the new. A perfect balance is a utopian concept, yet we can but try.

So whilst I relish seeing mini living rooms on every desk I pass at work, I shall keep missing my little white and red boofle mug back home..hmm..

The hiatus

As experiences go, I think (to be read as “I know”) that I am great at procrastinating. I mean, not just great but I believe there’s some subtle excellence as to how imaginative I can actually be once I put my mind to it. Now don’t you be judgemental my dears, I know no one reading this can deny their own run in’s with the imminent foreboding of having to actually get something done. Somehow the means always seem long and arduous when compared to the end.

 Hrmph!

So having posted blogs almost on a daily basis and nurturing my new found hobby of a mental sieve, my computer decided to kick the bucket and hence the 2 month hiatus of not posting anything. Then further stretching of the hiatus by invented and innovated excuses to one self. Tragic! Apologies to all who asked me about it (warm glow), I appreciate your support. Much has happened in these odd months, and my thoughts at present are like them pretty shiny streams in the whatchamacallit Dumbledoor picks memories from and shows them to Harry the Potter! 

One that does come forth, or rather solidifies into a tangible experience is how seriously we take ourselves and our paltry situations. If one were to actually write them all down on these little sticky notes and spread it all on the table, I can bet, not only will they not amount to more than 5, but more often than not, can easily be tackled with a different approach.

Misery begets company. There is this romanticism about self-pity and making oneself out as a martyr of circumstances which one feels is above all pain in the world and which is pushing us down, deeper into earth, which by itself is almost like our pain being fossilized!

Pshaw! Tish Tosh!

The fact of the matter is we haven’t seen what real worry and pain really feels like. It is because we haven’t seen what the “real” pain is like, that we sit and wallow in silly self-pity and ascribe words which sound oh so deep and meaningful. To talk of words, there is this one experience I shall never forget in my life. Back in the hostel days, I was having an insomniac night and upset with a few factors, hence I decided to pen down my very “unique” and “deep” problems because I wanted to flatter and exaggerate what I was going through, and feeling that I was the first and the last and lonesome in feeling the way I felt, I headed by the pool side and started writing, and continued to do so, till life started stirring around me. I read it and made myself feel the magnitude of my pain. It seemed so impressive and poignant, I was flattered. 6 years down the line, after serious consideration to spring cleaning, I happened to find the very same “poignant piece of literature” and realized- Man! What a load of hogwash! I can say that now because I have in those 6 years experienced such a varied variety of pain, that it never even occurred for me to write it down. No, I think one life time is enough to have experienced, writing it down would only be reliving it, and that’s a Hell to the NO!

The point here is not that I have experienced pain more or less than others, or that we should not give credence to pain. The point is not to take it so seriously that it ends up becoming all encompassing. I don’t do self-help books, they make no gosh darn sense to me! They are so upbeat and positive; that it almost feels as if the sheer positiveness of those words are strangulating me. But if it works for you, well hey ho!
Its only human to feel lonely in ones misery and to magnify it, but one must, for one’s own sake of sanity and for those who care of us, learn to pull oneself out of this self-loathing, criticism and extreme self-analysis. It’s a cul-de-sac.

We are but children learning to walk. We stumble, and we fall, but we rise again. Its nature,  quite simply. Just that one ought not to be so hard on oneself and take oneself so seriously. In the end, jokes on us!

Fact of the matter is, that apart from the small things we crib about, when the real shit hits the fan, the shock of it is so over whelming, that quite frankly,it would render us speechless, as only silence can carry the magnitude of the pain which it will inflict on one. I guess Rainer Maria Rilke, (Duino Elegies) says its best:

And we, who always think of happiness
rising, would feel the emotion
that almost baffles us
when a happy thing falls.” 

So lets hold on to what we have, and not make too big a deal of what we don’t, because we really, and I mean really, don’t want to know/experience what it feels like to not have anything at all.

Amen to that! 

Take it away Louis….

Lives of others

It has been rather pleasant this eve, hence I decided to switch the air con off and open all the massive windows in my room. It’s rather nice really. Pausing between a second coat of pink nail paint I glanced around at the tall Toblerone like buildings surrounding my building. Gazing outside, directly  into the living room (diagonally opposite my window) with a giant flat screen, I felt like James Stewart in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”. Not actually hoping (or maybe I am, hmmm) for an actual murder, It is so fascinating to glimpse into someone’s life like that. It is almost embarrassing; one cannot help but feel like a voyeur. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCcZCMYw38

In India, more often than not, it is quite common for people to talk about the most intimate details of their lives. It is weird and fascinating at the same time, as once someone feels they have sussed out a sympathetic ear, out comes the linen, stitches and all. Why it is fascinating is the manner it is said. The pouring out of the details is not a two sided conversation, the speaker is using the other as a sounding board, the words bouncing off the other as would a ping pong ball off the passive table. The stories are not about small matters one can shake off, they are heart breaking tales of broken hearts, promises, hardships one cannot even fathom. To be honest, I really wish they didnt unload this human trauma on me, because quite simply I am a sucker for sob stories.  In the end, or mostly in the middle of the narrative I feel such guilt, such pain, possibly more than the other person does the point of a sounding board is lost. Knowing I cannot help, or even ease the pain, and knowing I am merely a sounding board, does not erase the fact, that here is a fellow being, in pain, so much so that they have forgotten how to cry. Tears have dried.

It is daft I admit, not to be conditioned to such misery, as most around me are, but I cannot help it. It feels awful. More so, because the person narrating it so many times, knows the events down pat, and speaks of it in the most casual manner, throwing words at me like a glance and moving on, not knowing that, that glance carries a weight. Is misery really lessened when one speaks of it to everyone who would listen? Selfishly I resent this passing of the buck, no fair I say. Fate turns around and smiles cruelly and says, “You and I are not done, yet.”

These people are lucky I guess. They’ve built their lives like an open house, where new people are allowed to visit every now and then. The issue in itself has now become so banal, that it has possibly lost its strength. They pass their problems in small take away packs, easing their pain in the process. Interesting strategy, I must admit.

Silent tears give me the heebie jeebies.

This Eid we had a few guests, and whilst one party was leaving after a hearty dinner, my mum asked the lady to come over soon with her husband and kid. The said lady burst into silent tears, I couldn’t help but stare. (The lady’s husband had left her and was not even paying child support) What pain must one carry in their little hearts, which is so fragile, so deep.  Given my mum couldn’t do anything to ease her pain, or save her from the misery she would have to face once she went back home, mum did the next best thing by offering her comfort and kind words. 

We each have to bear our own crosses to bear, and the pain of that cross is like the daily pain suffered by Prometheus accursed to having an eagle peck at his heart for all eternity. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus) Not unlike “The Gods”, our own little lives can feel like an eternity, and this life is not long enough to ease our own pains least of all take on the pains of others.  Since we are more or less sailing in the same boat, to listen to someone else’s pain and offering a few words of comfort is really not much, and once I am past my own discomfiture, I realize the honor the other is bestowing upon me by making me privy to their personal grief. THEY are allowing Me to better myself by giving me an opportunity to see the lives of others and appreciate how much better mine is.

So whilst I get ready to draw the curtains on my window, I appreciate how much worse this side of the view can be.

Pick-n-mix

My colleague seated next to me loves playing jigsaw puzzles. Whenever we have any idle time he is on National Geographic trying to find an interesting puzzle. It is amusing to see no matter what our age group is, we envision how a picture ought to be and try to fit random pieces in it to make a complete whole.

Having an idea to write this blog for quite a while, I decided today ought to be the day to actually get it done. This weekend, for the second time I watched “Brother where art thou?” another Coen brothers masterpiece. There is song in it which I felt suited so perfectly with what I wanted to write about. It goes something like:

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
The winds don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind

There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain't no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,

I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Accepted, that it is rather juvenile to think, if only this thing were this way, and that thing were a certain way, the end result would make one happy. Having had to deal with a few changes in my life lately, I got to thinking; it is basically about the idea we have in mind and how much we were actually willing to compromise to make that idea into a reality.

 Urban Dictionary defines “I’m down with that”, as to convey acceptance to a proposition. Fussy colleagues, messy city, an out of control situation, amongst others are a few things we have to be down with, not much of a choice really. We can thrash around all we like, or wish of a pick-n-mix scenario, but either we compromise on choice, or the lack of it forces us to compromise. Then it is a long drawn discussion with oneself, to pacify and calm oneself like one would a little baby.

If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.

This painting is called Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) by Edvard Munch and I simply love it. It’s a silent scream that escapes, I bet from everyone’s soul, when the picture they envisioned is incomplete and they have to settle for a modified, less that perfect, amended, someone else’s interpretation of a picture.

Do we love the idea of a picture or the picture itself? And is it such a bad thing to settle, to compromise? And if we do compromise, we do so to what extent? Ginormous in itself, these questions are ones we ask ourselves day in and day out. I guess its easier to settle into a comfortable, readymade mold than to fight out for ones idea, because at the end of the day what we need to deal with is a reflection of oneself in the mirror, and if the choices we make can help us to have an unflinching gaze at that reflection, I guess it is all worth it.

Acceptance is a very difficult thing to achieve. Once we accept for the way things are, half the battle is won. Once one can sit down and say, “This right here is something I have no control over and I cannot change it, so I will have to compromise to a few things here or there to at least breathe!”  life becomes a tad easier.

“I still have some fight left in me”, said my old grandmother at her death bed. A living inspiration, reduced to being bed ridden, each day was a fight for her. Seeing her cry, remember old times, wish for something better, I felt sorry for her. What folly of youth! She did not need my pity; she had accepted her fate and was calm. Calm! Such a gorgeous little word. Sometimes it almost feels like when the sands of time and ideas are falling from ones hand like fine sand gripped in a tight fist, a certain faith helps to pacify a choking gasp escaping in a silent scream and render one calm. It is an either-or situation to be honest. What can I do? We ask. Either we accept or we fight.  If we can’t fight, we accept.

It is in times like these when one recognizes the power of faith. When everything around is falling apart and one has a sinking feeling, that faith picks one up in its huge arms and into a bear hug and whispers “It is going to be ok”. The falsity or fake optimism or indefinite time line of those words are not of consequence, what is important is to hear it being said, the assurance. We need it. The faith can be in one self, in a rock, in god or a totem, but that faith alone is a life saver.

As convenient as it sounds, we can’t all jump from mountain en masse when things are going pear shaped. If a logic works to get by, why the hell not? So I shall participate in a mini celebration indulged in by my colleague every time he completes a puzzle after all, if one of us wins a fight, no matter how small, it is something worth celebrating.

Now you see me , NOW you dont??

The Invisible  Man is a very interesting book by H.G Wells. For those not well versed with this piece of literature, the closest analogy would be Harry Potters invisible cloak . As fascinating as it might sound in the movie, that invisibility factor is not so far off from our own daily lives.

See now, in a given day we interact with a wide variety of people with volatile moods. Those moods being more unreliable than the English Weather, render some of the people to treat some select few as if they were invisible or cloaked in oblivion.
Ignoring someone is fascinating, the excuses people give never cease to amuse me. People are generally not inconspicuous methinks. Then, if someone chooses to ignore another, they can actually be seen averting their gaze, walking past really fast with eyes down and then having the audacity to say "they didnt see the other person!" With all due respect given to being political correct, saying something as daft as "Oh, I didnt see you" makes one wonder, "Really now? You'd give a bat in daylight some serious competition!". Hmph!

Whats more puzzling is when one day someone is all sugar and honey and the next day they see right past you. Its confusing to say the least! I honestly believe we all suffer from a mild case of schizophrenia; how else would one explain why people are as tight as survivors on a sinking ship one day, and the next day they behave as if they have never seen you before. This unreliability is so mind boggling. I remember this one time I went to this persons house, and she stands almost a foot shorter than me and cannot but avoid looking right at me. She would actually have to go to the neighbors and close the doors in order not to see me standing right before her! Now I enter her house and I say Salam. I say it three times before she even bothered to turn around and reply. When confronted with it later, she complained of me not coming to her house often enough and that she didnt see me. A query miss-If you choose to ignore my very "present" presence, what attack of amnesia ought I to suffer to come knocking at your door again? The idea as Miss Havisham would say.

There is a concept in Islam called "Ehtedal". Literally translated to mean moderation. Skyrocketing affection and plummeting cold shoulder are not conducive to human interaction much less an incentive to affection. Moderation in language, in display of affection, even in animosity make it easy to maintain it over a long period of time. Bursts of either extreme cannot simply be maintained because they consume too much energy and quite simply boring!

Our interaction with one another is complicated enough with millions of extenuating factors, without further complicating it by thinking with regards to each person one meets, "Right, now how ought I to treat so and so today? Lets spice things up and just walk right past. Then tomorrow we can go for coffee".

We have to watch what we say, what we see and do in order to make through one brief social interaction to survive. As much we would want to, we cannot foretell the unpredictable attitude of others. What we can do to maintain our own sanity is to try to bring moderation within oneself. A sort of controlled chaos if you please.

So running away from it all, and going and living on a mountain top with sheep grazing outside my door, would seem an ideal scenario, but alas its not to be. Its not to be, and the more "social pms" I have to deal with in my adult life, the more moderation I try to impose on myself.

And when all that self improvement exercise just doesnt work, my saving grace would be, my IPOD, to stop me from running into wilderness for another day.

Survival Games

My brother, bless him, has some weird fascination of keeping pets, and that too in a cage. Now I am strongly against keeping living beings under cages, actual or otherwise. Living beings are meant to be free, not caged and gawked at. The whole affair is rather depressing really.

That said, the peaceful co-existence of the love birds and this tiny fella and his mates was quite adorable to watch, given the caged surrounding of their habitat. Now, a day ago, the neighboring cat attacked the birds at night and bit off the leg of one of the love birds and injured the little speckled one. It was so sad to see the two of them pathetically shivering in pain. What was fascinating though, was how the injured birds were shunned by the healthy ones. A day ago they were all perched together, now not a single flap around either of them! Worse still, after the passing away of the injured love bird, the speckled fella was actually attacked and pecked at by the one of the love birds, and I had to rescue him. The poor fella had beak injuries all over him and his feathers were all ruffled and pecked at! As corny as it may sound, but I got a very quiet lesson in Survival of the fittest. Guess our feathered friends are not so different from us after all.

When one is in the game, its obvious to see how people clamor around him. The bond, the cohesiveness appears to actually last forever. The first sign of weakness, of not hitting the benchmark, can actually be sensed by people around one. That is when the true character comes forth and one can actually see the eagles honing on the kill. No wonder we try so hard to be in the game, any game, just to prove we can fight, as admitting defeat is a luxury we cannot afford.

Oh the games we play! The games that men ( hereafter used to imply men and women) have been playing since the beginning of time. We compete, we strain, not as a competition with another, but with ourselves to prove we can do it, we can survive, because one has only to turn around to see what fate befalls those who show their weakness. Maritime laws, I am afraid, do not apply to daily life.

Olympics are on and as the entire world watches , it brings to mind this fascinating Indian movie I watched one time, Its called "Shatranj Ke Khiladi". Its about these two wealthy Oudh gentlemen who are avid chess players. The ascension of Oudh ( Lucknow) is in process by the British, but these two men throwing caution to the wind sacrifice all just for that game. The movie is fascinating because the moment the pieces are set, its not about the board anymore, its a game of life. So whether it is about actually admitting ones feelings, personal relationships, or to actually admit one cannot hold the strings of ones life together, the game of ones own survival is a precarious one and has to be played strategically.

So, what if one cant play, or is not well versed with the rules of the game? Hmm, one does not have many choices I'm afraid other than to run for shelter, as eagles can sense their kill from miles away!

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For my part, on a lighter note, sink or survive, I love games. Not the scary kind, but the fun ones. At present , Temple Run on my tab has me flummoxed!  As miserable as my score is on any arcade game, the chase, and the drive is amusing and fun. Given the prize I am playing for is not to "sink or survive" the trials and tribulations of a good score are well simulated.

So, I lost one of the many race games, and the little speckled bird lost its life in silence. The price both paid for the games played to survive...

Woes of Spring Cleaning

Oh the mess! I have literally spent all day today, whilst fasting to clean the abominable mess we have in our house. Seems like my family has a habit of hording the unnecessary, worse than the raccoons. Not that I am comparing the two, but the habit is ridiculous! It is amazing how my father resents throwing anything, thinking it will be needed in the future. My question is, if it hasnt been utilized in the past 5 years, its highly doubtful it would be of any use at all. Give that my argument has fallen on deaf ears, the satisfaction of an achievement of such proportions does make me rather tranquil.

Things, usefull and useless seem like an unavoidable excrescence of our mundane existence. We store and we store some more, till one day things become so cluttered that we are a walking talking flea market! Life is difficult as is without storing the unnecessary either in our homes or in our minds. The mind probably has a larger storage space than any and at times it is just essential to focus on something to clear that clutter away and to be able to function in a normal practical manner.

"Shuaq" as the urdu word goes literally means interest. A person without any "Shauq" comes across as incomplete. I refuse to believe that people are without talent and interests and dont have time to indulge in them. As Mark Twain said " A chore is only when makes its so. It becomes an interest when one enjoys it". So no matter extraordinary or ordinary an interest might be, to indulge in it doesnt only make a person more appealing, but acts as a mental hoover to clear away the everyday debris of life and to simply "keep it light".

My mental hoover amongst many things recently has been traying my hand at Calligraphy, in specific Islamic Calligraphy. Not being trained in it, my way is a bit longer, a bit unorthodox, but I am getting there. It fascinates me to no end to have an empty canvass before me and to create something on it. For that period, my brain ignores the deadlines, unpleasant matters, and helps me to focus on creating something beautiful. The sense of accomplishment is immense. I have even tried my hand at Sanskrit Calligraphy for a friend, it has been a pleasure to give such a personalized gift.

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Here is a view of my lil handiwork.

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So yes there will be clutter, but thats part and parcel of this life I'm afraid, so long as I dont run out of pen and paper, I beleive it will be alright.

Mind your Language Sir/Madam

Image Digitized & Drawn by Erik Marinovich 

“Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!"

― Gerard Nolst Trenité, Drop your Foreign Accent
 Having heard the above speech in an adaptation of Shaw's play, I found it exceedingly droll. English as a language is very peculiar and more often than not humorous.
Languages per-se are not merely forms of communication but carry in their essence an innate sense of history, meaning and importance. I simply cannot stand when people take the liberty of "personalizing" a language and not having the guts to own up to the fact that they do not know the right pronunciation, they then have the audacity to hide under the defense of " It is a proper noun, hence can be pronounced any which way" . Really now I say! My name is a proper noun mister, mis-pronounce it and I will make you say it till you get it right. Hmph!

It really is a pleasure reading Wodehouse. Given that it is about foppish English aristocracy, a single page has such gorgeous jewels of English words, that one can easily expand ones vocabulary by merely reading the first two pages. At university we were taught Legal English words in Latin. Sadly now, the English universities themselves have not only done away with Latin, but also proper English words and have dumbed down the books to an obscure street language. From Hieroglyphics, to Smoke Signals, from Frost to Ghalib to Rumi, from English to Persian or  to any other language in the world,  what is said might be beautiful, but its more about how it is said that is captivating. Words of a Language have the power to move, to be as sublime as a soft silk scarf or to scorch as the brightest flame. Why then wont we respect ourselves by respecting what we say and how we say it?
It is not about being pretentious, in my view its more about respect and honor. A well said phrase lingers in ones mind. Which explains why the great poets of our time are still remembered after ages and why the likes of pidgin babble of a language will oft be forgotten.

The scrimped words of text messages are so difficult to decipher now that it is almost a task in encryption to even fathom what is being said.  AH started writing an assignment and after failing to secure a decent mark on it, re- read it and admitted that it made no sense. How can it, when it is written in a manner of conversing as one would in a back alley with a below GCSE level student? We cannot write, the way we would speak, unless the way we speak makes literary sense.

Following is a short list of the abominable pronunciations I have recently come across:
Versace- Verrrssace
Determine- Determiinnee
Pizza- Peeza
Les Miserables'- Less Miserables ( as in one who is miserable)
and so on..

Its not to say one ought to know how a word is to be pronounced in the million languages across the world, all ought to do is atleast be mature enough to learn. Being cocky-self righteous in ones mistake without willing to admit there might be another way a thing ought to be done, is not only an impediment to growth but is plain stupid.
So while I listen to qualified people saying Determiiiinnnee and shiver as if one would have walked over my grave, my only hope is maybe one day, the privacy of their homes, they would have the sense to get a crash course in phonetics!
The whimsy.
PS- Some shows I enjoy where the sanctity of English Language is still preserved:
Frasier and Sheldon's dialogue in The Big Bang Theory.

The action- Pleasure

Related post: http://ub-untu.blogspot.in/2012/07/forthe-past-few-weeks-excruciating-pain.html

Traditionally its always action followed by reaction. I chose to blog the other way around writing about pain and then pleasure in order to better appreciate how there is just one factor -pleasure. All others stem from how we approach this lone factor.

Freud describes the pleasure principle as the concept of people seeking pleasure and avoiding pain  in order to satisfy their biological and psychological needs. At the bottom of it all that's all there is to it, but as to everything related to us Human beings, we don't quite fancy a straight forward explanation, we rather prefer a long drawn one.

This month of Ramadan is about restraint. It's about curbing all urges, involving food, body, speech amongst other things in order to restrict ones attendance to meditation and prayers. It's almost like a month of retreat to purify ones soul and conduct. Deprivation of such "pleasures" helps me realize that I am really not missing that much. Hard as it might be to avoid watching a new released movie, or the urge to cuss at some particular annoyance, there is a sense of accomplishment I feel in mastering my nerve.

As in pain, pleasure is neither good or bad. Tip toeing around the more complicated factors of the ID, EGO and SUPER EGO, its sufficient to say we continually seek pleasure and try our darnedest to gratify it. Pleasure instinct unfortunately exists in all of us whether we admit to it or not. Fetishes of all forms, acceptable or not occur in the realms of pleasure, what makes them "wrong or right" is how society has conditioned us to perceive it.
At heart, us hunter and gatherers will run around like headless chicken not knowing how to balance our own pleasure gratification and the delicate tandem of society we live in, which is why rules and laws were made to curb the instinct to make us more "civilized and lesser brutes". Amusingly the more forbidden a certain pleasure is, the more appealing it becomes. Not our fault, I say, Adam started it!

See the full gallery on Posterous

My forbidden fruit a fortnigh t ago happened to be Haagen-Dazs. Now this incident brought about a delicious enlightening of my own character forth. First, I hate Ice Cream. I ac tually loathe it. Second, the moment I was half delirious at the beauty of the ice-creams presentation, KK and I were skint. She being of sound reason dissuaded me, before I completely embarrassed myself drooling over the magazine sized menu. The fact that I was not even going to taste it but merely wanted to take pictures because it was so purty, did not seem at all odd to my mind. After all I bought a really expensive camera and I ought to be able to take pictures of things oh-so-pretty. ( One cannot but marvel at the explanations and justifications one would put forth just to satisfy ones pleasure instinct). The image stayed in my mind, mingled with resentment of the denial by KK. Next day MG, being on an impulsive streak became my partner is crime and we went to Haagen-Dazs over lunch from work. We felt like a pair of naughty school children, me being the worst of the two as I chipped in my ridiculous share to partake in a spoon of whipped cream and a chocolat e biscuit. Bless MG's cotton pickin heart, she finished the entire platter.

The point here is not the cost of the ice cream or my lack of interest in it. The point is the  pull of my pleasure instinct burgeoning need of its gratification. And as the good lord is my witness, I admit, It felt good.

As I said before, us Humans are but children at heart seeking new pleasures at every breath. It is who we are. We can deny or curb it, but the fact is, it exists.
Mirza Asadullah Ghalib's words hold true, if not for everyone, at least for me:

hazaaro.n Khvaahishe.n aisii ki har Khvaaish pe dam nikale
bahut nikale mere armaa.N lekin phir bhii kam nikale(There are thousands of ambitions that each such wish could consume my life

My desires , and I experience them all intensely, aren’t enough for this one lifetime.)

So wafting from the pleasure of an uneaten ice cream to my new Galaxy tab, from the anticipation of a hearty Iftar at sundown, to chuckling over Mark Twain's words, my simple pleasures, alas I admit are to me a limitless horizon. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

My justification, if not for any other, to me is- What can I do?  but accept, my biology and partake in all this wonderful life of ours has to offer.

Just DO IT!

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Every single day for as long as I can remember I get up, and the first thing that pops into my head is my to-do list. Even on a Sunday! Its the bane of my life, as Prof. Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes, a necessary evil.

I am a big believer in post-its. I think they are best things ever invented after an Ipod. See before I had a smart phone, I'd gone through everything-from a diary to a digital diary, to notes in my bag to a word sheet on the computer, still think post-its just make more sense and look so efficient and yellow.

Its not only for the benefit of getting things done that making a to-do list makes sense, its more about the sense of achievement of taking the first steps to organising, to having a game plan. Whether it be a grocery shopping list or life's big decisions, I've come to realise that since my mother is not around to harangue me to get things done, my lil to-do list is to be given credit for anything that I manage to do in my life.

This friend that I had at university, would take at-least a full day to sit down and sort out her to-do list before starting to study for the exam. She will have all her lil markers, post-its strewn about, sort out her plan of action and then go for it. Makes a lot of sense to be honest. Any action has an equal and opposite reaction, said a really smart guy. Hence anything that we plan to do in our life, has a whole lot of mitigating circumstances, that will affect not only what we do, but what will the outcome be. Thus when there are so many factors affecting our every action, it is only prudent to sort out how we would go about getting it done. Some take planning too far and plan to such an extent that they never find the favourable circumstance to getting anything done. Others “go with the flow” and disappear at the ebb of a tide.

Whichever extreme one looks at, it will not be amiss to say that the best laid plains can fail. No matter how many post-its one makes, and no matter how extreme the risk analysis can be, the unexpected that happens can at times take ones breath away. At times I sit down and think that a year ago in-spite of all my plans, what is happening now is something I had never fathomed. The good or bad of it is besides the point, when one didn't even expect the thing to exist. And at that very juncture, very point, the realisation that hits one is “Man Proposes, God disposes”.

The thing is once we realise how insignificant we are in-spite of all our resources and intelligence of making plans, we are but puppets in the hands of a higher power. Call it Chi, Ubuntu, God, or the Energy of the universe, we have to admit that there is a higher power. Its amusing at times. Makes one feel that there is a boundary made by an adult, and we as children have just so much space to play about, which we think is a lot. Its not.

Its a humbling experience to know that we do not have as much power as we think we do. We cannot plan each and every eventuality. We can try, but then the trial stops at the point where hope, faith and belief start. I am petrified of losing hope. It is what makes us special amongst all living beings. We have hope for something better. Science and Maths can just do so much. All theories of creationism and mathematical theorems, when all the boxes are ticked and everything 'should' ideally pan like clock work, the smallest matter can have a domino effect.

Hope gives us the ability to live, survive and be strong and plan anew, and it should be guarded as a jealous lover, never to have anyone take it away from us.

So as per last weeks discussion with TA, PP, SW and IG, planning an outing on Monday just makes the first day of the week feel like Friday and the rest of the week just flies by. Hence my tomorrow's to-do list includes planning a bowling out with some interesting people and having the HOPE that I will not be bogged down with some impossible deadline at work! ♥♥♥♥

The Music-Butterfly Effect

So there I am in this sweltering heat in the auto, thinking about Madagascar 3 that I had just watched ( which by the by was wicked!!) and I hear Celine Dion's Titanic OST in my ears. My first reaction is, hmmmm that song wasn't in the movie so why is it my head? Lo and behold it is playing in the car stopped next to my auto at the intersection. Without any second thought my brain rushes to when the same song was playing in Titanic and poor, painfully blonde cute Leonardo is trying to save Rose by drowning his own purty self and how upset that made me! I mean seriously! Aren't actors that cute meant to be alive till the end credits roll?

Another funny thing is how in the new Madagascar movie the 

'circus tune' () 

was playing throughout, leading my train of thought to the fact how I always have that tune in my head, when I do infact tune out! All Homer Simpsons fault to be honest, though the darling circus trick that plays in his head when he “tunes out” on this tune is adorable.

It is no coincidence that we are capable of associating certain tunes to events. Two approaches can be taken to this. Lets start with my favourite- Psychology. The different shades of grey matter up there in our noggin has the entire Freudian concept of conscious and the subconscious whereby certain memories are stored and at times tunes act as a trigger, bringing back those events, helping us remember the aforementioned events in our vast mental repository, to the present and for one split second there I am as a teenager, gawking at the screen, Celine Dion screeching at the back, watching Leonardo's very blonde bangs, drowning. What a pity! 

 The second approach is the more physical science one. Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote in his book-Musicophilia that earworms are a clear sign of "the overwhelming, and at times, helpless, sensitivity of our brains to music". Which is why recent studies show that playing classical music to a foetus would help incline the child towards being more creative and cultured as he would grow up to remember and associate that music to creativity.

Methinks that we never stop playing the word association game all through our transition from childhood to adulthood. There will always be some scent, or some clip of a song which will remind us of that someone who dedicated that adorably cheesy song to us that one time or some event that we have tagged as a good or an unfortunate one in the vast recesses of our psyche. I was shocked to see my muscles twitch to the Soca tune my Caribbean instructor played when I was going for Soca Aerobics class. It is not just a mental reaction, but the whole being reacts. Involuntary smile I believe is the most personal, a certain warmth of finding an old friend, partially tangible.How many of us actually (and I bet they do) remember all group Abba singing sessions. I remember most of them, and I think they are still many more to come.

Interesting how these tune-association unique ability we have, that allows for interesting conversation starters like-'this one time.......'

This discussion I believe would naturally lead to aroma associations....

Any thoughts?Corresponding read:http://ub-untu.blogspot.in/2012/07/the-door-to-human-psyche-scent.html

The door to the Human Psyche-Scent

http://ub-untu.blogspot.in/2012/07/the-butterfly-effect.html

Waking up this lazy morning with the earthy scent of everything cleansed by the fresh rains is a perfect start to a laid back Sunday. The anticipation of the aroma of a freshly made cup of coffee is already making me smile. This makes me think that if I do keep my eyes closed and just smell everything around for those few minutes, how many can I relate to?

What would obviously top my list would me my flatmates passion of cooking everything in coconut oil, every Sunday morning! Now that is a hard one to miss!

Any given instance, one's sense's are armed for action to see which one will be given preference. The obvious one is sight of course, but the other senses of smell, taste, touch and hearing are more often that not given a back seat, but are more sensitive and acute and need to be tuned to appreciate the finer things in life. A wine tasting is never ideally about the colour, Its about the taste and the aroma. The sound of a powerful opera conjures up far greater images in mind than that which can ever be conveyed on stage.

When we close our eyes, I do believe we 'see' the world around us in a far more beautiful and gorgeous light.

In continuation of the last blog about music and association, the association of events with scent is not merely a happy coincidence but something we are biologically programmed to experience.

A woman's head always rest for support on a mans shoulder for a sense of feeling and comfort. The evolutionary fact of hunter and gatherer aside, the pheromones released from a woman's hair appeals to a mans brain, not only for sexual reasons but as an evolving ape, he associates that smell to someone who is his responsibility to protect and care for. Likewise, Androstenone emanating from a mans shoulder curve triggers a woman's sense of belonging and associates it as someone of her own, lulling her into a sense of comfort and protection. An infant does not up to 8 months recognise any faces, not because it cannot see, but because its senses have not been developed yet. What does take preference in that period, is its sense of smell, most importantly its mothers, which is the most overpowering and associative scent it will retain for the rest of its life.

From all the aromas in the world , I will never forget what my mother's scent or what my grandmother ( may Allah rest her soul) scent was like that sunny afternoon in my childhood when she was cooking for me. My nephew being all of 4 years told me the other day that he was smelling my photograph. As amusing as that may be, its understandable that as I am physically hardly ever in front of him and also that he is in his growing years processing many images daily, the best way for him to retain mine, is my scent, which he will associate not only as his relative but also to all those times I punished and told him off for being naughty. I do hope that is not all he remembers as he grows up!

How do people without sight manage? Understandable that they have the disability, coupled with an acceptance of the unknown, but if we were to do it for a while, I do not think it would really be successful. We have our comfort zone of people who can cushion the first non visual experience, but it would be rather frightening after a while because of all the unknown scent of strange things. A rather interesting experiment to be conducted..hmm

Few scents encountered over time make me feel all gooey and happy any time I think of them, which I will always remember and preserve. In no special order, they are:

1. The waft of freshly baked ginormous cookies at Bens Cookies, Covent Garden, London.
2. How the fresh virgin school book pages smell.
3. Davidoff Cool Blue perfume, because its one of my mums favourite fragrance.
4. 
5. Johnson & Johnson baby products. Smell of perpetual innocence.
6. My favourite store is the whole wide world, Lush in Covent Garden, London. They make handmade body care products, and it is a olfactory mind explosion down there!
7. Smell of petrol.
8. Manly musk , very Alpha Male.
9. Freshly mown grass on a warm English summer day. Ooooooh the possibilities.
10. 
    
    The way strong, black, freshly ground coffee smelled in that small Italian town. The way coffee is supposed to be.
    
11. Love the smell of Henna. So feminine, festive and pretty.

And last but not the least I will never, ever, ever forget the smell of fried fish and cooking oil on some people's clothing ( cannot name the sect for fear of being politically incorrect) , boarding the No.25 bus in East London.The desire to walk all the way to Oxford Circus in order to avoid that smell is to say the least!