the party simmers down.

sleep softened voices
cart across the terrace
faint bitter whiffs
of whisky; lemon-peel
laughter parachutes
into the night. above,

slow-moving clouds,
shapeless maps
of despair plotting
the longitudes of distance,
moor under the full moon. now,

his languid arm tugs
at the complying convexity
of her waist; soon,
they will be shadows
kissing
behind the water tank. there,

bombay skylines right
into the sea: a school
of anonymous windows
plunge earthward, drowning,
one square-lit pane
at a time. somewhere,

you are finding your way
back to yourself.

sometimes
the only way back
to the beginning
is from the end
forward

***

how are we to see
each other
if we are both
invisible?

***

he eats
the newspaper
and reads breakfast

***

the staircase
is silent
upstairs or
downstairs

***

why does it
still rain
if all of us
carry umbrellas?

The problem of looking for love, today, is a problem of handling multiple selves.

What we look for when we look for love is for someone: who will allow, and not just tolerate, these selves; who will have the curiosity -- and consequently the patience -- to want to understand us, and continue to understand, and not force us into spiritual cul-de-sacs and hold us hostage; who will nourish -- and not mutilate -- our various selves. Someone for whom we will be more than willing to spawn more selves, on our own terms, as we reciprocate.

Do we have many selves? I think it's safe to say that. But we need a little clarity here as to what we mean about a self. Is it the same as a mood? Because then that would mean what we are looking for is someone who will just tolerate our mood swings. And if a self is different from a mood, how?

The difference between a mood and a self is, in my opinion, one of longevity and democracy. Where a mood comes and goes as it pleases, a self seems to be ... umm ... self-sustainable. While there seems to be a default mood that all moods are supposed to defer to once their fifteen minutes under the spotlight is are over, our selves, on the other hand, seem to co-exist peacefully, having agreed among themselves as to who will take over when, depending on the utility of a particular self under the given circumstances. Where a mood is puerile, a self is mature. To make it more fascinating, perhaps a self is just a grown-up mood that refused to go away.

So then, do people have multiple selves? I'm going to be slightly presumptuous and say that the majority doesn't, based on anecdotal evidence (very suspect, yes). And even among the minority which does, most of them -- that is the majority of the minority -- are not aware of all their selves, in the first place, or what drives these selves. These people, then, either struggle to accomodate these selves in a world that is, it has to be said, more kinder to such schizophrenia than it was before because it offers more opportunities for peaceful reconciliation of our multiple selves without self-destructive rebellion, or, are confused about these selves because more often than not a greater degree of ... ummm ... self-control is required to attain a reconciliation of selves than it is to shun parts of themselves to retain the illusion of control; it's easier to give in to order and method than it is to push oneself to the precipice overhanging the abyss of madness that such schizophrenia naturally is. Because, all said and done, the precipice induces a vertigo that is tempting to succumb to, a tempting vertigo at that*. "Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push."**

So, this then is the challenge of love: How well do we know ourselves? How well do we know each other? How selfless can we be as we strive to realize the essence of our selfishness? How patient can we be in our efforts at self-realization in the face of hormonal impatience? How willing are we to allow, understand and nourish? How willing are we to give in to the madness of our selves and yet not go mad ourselves?

* - Now why is it tempting?
**- Line from the movie The Dark Knight.

Emptied

where love arrived
on the prairie that summer,

gallopping down the hills
on fourteen hundred hooves,

a lone wind-whipped willow
now stands quietly,

rooted in tallgrass,
silhouette dissolving

rapidly into the welts
of a scarlet-scarred sky,

broken branch fingers
pointing
towards the sunset

she left chasing.

FM

needle sweeps
the bandwidth bare,

seeking to flood
the radio's circuits
with a station's soul.

needle -- lissome, steely,

lonesome --

glides down the glass dial,

aches across the numbers
of these deserted frequencies,

tuning through the wilderness
of dry raspy static,

yearning,

feebly feeling

for a crackle of life
from the atmosphere:

a probe

night-hopping between

planets plumbed in
linear megahertz space,
scanning the heavens

for signs of love.

Rerecording

"Mmmm ... It is nice."
"Hai naa? See, I told you ... you like it?" :)
"Absolutely." :-)

A little after noon. Rain-washed campus frocked in green. Pitter patter of footwear on wet sidewalks.

"Do you wanna sit here?" Points. "Or do you wanna sit under the tree?" Points again. :-?
"Under the tree."

Two glasses of steaming tea.
Two pairs of hands.
Warmth.

"We used to come here just for the tea. Walk over from college, sit somewhere and just while away time over cups of tea."
"Mmm hmm ... I can see why." :-)

A deliberate initiation into rituals. A careful parting of veils. Peeks into the past. Hope for the future.

"What are you looking at me like that for?"
"Nothing." :D

The beginning of an understanding. A coming to terms with the reality of a dream come true.

"I know that man ..." Points.
"Who?"
"That man ... the one wearing the white t-shirt ..." Nods.
"With the beard?"
"Yup. Beard and the black jeans."
"He doesn't seem to have a butt ... you seem to know some strange men." :-D
:D
"He was my lecturaar at M------"
"Lecturaar? Is that what you call them?"
"Why? What do you call them?"
"Oh we call them lecturers, you know, just like how the English intended."
"Hmmm ... we call them lecturaars."
"Whatever."

Birdsong after the rains. Carefully testing the breeze, asking if there's more in store.

"Oooh ... look, there's an earthworm!"
"Where?" Looks.
"There, near the tree ... "
"Oh yes ... but is that an earthworm?"
"Yes, it is, must have come out because of the rains."
"Earthworms are like lizards, aren't they? As in, if you cut them into two, a new one grows out of each piece ... No?"
"You want to cut this one up and see?" :-o
"No, no, I didn't mean that ..."
"You're the one who likes beheading children" ;)
"No, no, I didn't mean that either." Exasperated.
"Really?" :)
"Oh, you're having me on."
:)
:-)

"I think he's going to the canteen."
"Your lecturaar? If he teaches at your college, what's he doing here? Your lecturers bunk class too?" :-o
"Maybe he likes the tea here too." :)
"Or maybe he's here for a smoke." Points.
"Oh ... I didn't know he smoked." :/
"Well ... seems like you know a lot else about him." :-)
"Oh I do know that he married this Scottish woman ..."
"... Scottish?" :-o
"...yes, Scottish ..."
"Really? That guy? With the beard and no butt?" Shakes head.
Giggles.
"Yes ... this place is full of these intellectual types, you know ... cigarettes and Sartre, wine and women ..."
"Hmmm ... Scottish women" :-/
"He used to teach us Horace, I remember ... had this sweet, melodious voice ..."

Eyelids narrow. Eyes start to twinkle. Thumb and forefinger of the left hand curl up into an 'O'. The other fingers stand slightly apart. A gesture from memory. An expression of fondness for the intangible.

"... barely carried past the first few benches ... you had to strain to make out what he was saying ..."
Looks.
Looks right back and smiles.
"... but it was worth it ..."
"Mmm hmm?"
"Mmm hmm." Nods and bites lower lip with a goofy grin. "And I would go 'aaaaa....'"

Laughs.
Gently rests head on shoulder. Dishevelled hair falls hesitatingly onto t-shirt.

"I should go and say hi to him, shouldn't I?"
"Yup, you should. He'd be happy to see you. My teachers from school are always happy to see me."
"But it's been a few years. I'm sure he won't recognize me ..."
"How does that matter? How do you know he won't? All you have to do is go say 'Hi' and take things from there ..."
"I don't know." Mewls.
"You're so useless ... I mean, it's barely 20 yards from here to there ..."
"I don't know." Mewls.
"Go ... go ... go now ... look, he doesn't have company and it won't be long before his cigarette runs out."
"I don't know."
"You're so useless."
"You know what ...?"
"What?" Raises an eyebrow.
"You should go talk with him." ;)
"Me??" :-o
"Yes. You." Bites lower lip and grins goofily again.
"Me go talk with him? Yeah right! And what would I talk with him?"
"Anything. You know ... you could talk to him about Schopenhauer ... I'm sure he'll be happy to chat with you."
"Yeah yeah yeah."
"Go naa ... you should go meet new people ... that's how you make your life interesting."
"Look who's talking!" Raises both eyebrows. "Forget new people, you don't even wanna go say hi to someone you know and here you are asking me ..."
"See, it's easier to talk to strangers ..."
Pauses. Looks up and smiles.
"Is it now?"
Looks down and smiles right back.
"Especially ghosts." :D
"Especially ghosts." :-) "I know what I'm going to do. I'm gonna walk up and tell him 'Hello, there's a friend of mine who wants to talk with you but is a little shy, so would you mind joining us for a cup of tea?'"
"You would?" :-o
"You know I will." :-)
"No, no ... don't do that. Let's just sit here and watch him."
"I can't believe how useless you are."
"I can't believe you don't wanna meet new people, especially interesting people."
"Look, he's your 'lecturaar'." Mimics.
"Oh, hush ... let's just sit here."
"Lazy bum." :-D
"Yes, that it is." :D
"I mean, God knows when you're gonna see him again."
"I know." Mewls. Sighs.
"Gah! Useless."
"'Gah! Useless.'" Mimics.
"Stop imitating me!"
"'Stop imitating me!'" :D
"Look, your lecturaar is leaving!"
"Oh dear ..." Sighs again.
"You're gonna regret not talking to him all your life. Go now. It's now or never." Exaggerates.
"I'm just gonna sit here like this." Rests head a little more firmly on shoulder.
"Useless."
"'Useless.'" Mimics again.
"Stop imitating me!"
"'Stop imitating me!'" :D
"Gah!" :-)
"'Gah!'" :))
...

Stretch

Note: Reader discretion advised.

Nobody told you this.

That the desert will feel this cold at night. A cold that permeates through to the marrow of your consciousness. Till you can't feel anything else but a dense blue haze freezing the behind of your eyes. Till your thoughts start chattering about inside your head, like icicles inside a matchbox.

That you won't know how far you've come until you're too far out to go back. That then it is but natural for you to feel vulnerable. That having experienced your vulnerability, it is a logical progression to pretend otherwise. That pretty quickly you grow into a routine of pretend and feign. That then, one day, tired and weak-kneed, you will give in to feeling whatever it is that you've not been permitting yourself to feel. That whatever it is, it will leave you crying, heaving, retching, will make you want the night to open its arms and take you in.

Nobody taught you anything.

To walk that emotional highrope between overconfidence and depression. To play shadow chess with pieces of yourself. To weave light from drops of darkness. To plunge a knife straight into your heart, watch the blood drip, then pull it right out and bring yourself back to life.

I'm teaching you this.

Fuck around with your mind. Turn it inside out. Try it on now and if it doesn't fit, keep fucking till it does. Feed yourself bits of your heart. See how they taste. Let your feelings simmer on a hotplate till they suit your palate. If something doesn't, spit it right out and pick the next one. In case you thought otherwise, you don't need a soul. Souls are for suckers.

I'm telling you this.

There is no desert.

There is no cold.

There is no you.

Everything's changed.

Nothing's the same.

Go now.

Idyll talk

Boundaries are crafty things. You breach them, break free, push them out as far as you can, pretend they don't exist, fool yourself into thinking you've escaped them, but they will always pull you back.

I see you sprawled on the bed like this and I have a feeling I know how angels look when they are sleeping.

Five more minutes. The alarm will go. But until then the peaceful rhythm of your breathing pervades the room. Every morning this room feels full of your soul, exhaled in tiny puffs throughout the night, for me to breathe in and fill my lungs when I wake up. I'm grateful for that.

It's good to wake up before you. This way I can see how ungainly you can become if only you would let yourself; how your limbs lie askew, lacking in their natural gracefulness; how your otherwise well-mannered mouth lies open, blissfully unaware of my surreptitious gaze; how your carefully disheveled hair is now a clumsy mop covering most of your face.

Yesterday, somebody asked me a question. An important question.

It was only after I finished answering that I realized I had used your words, your lines, your answers. A grin and a shake of the head later, I was back at work.

I bend down to your ears and tell you about this rather curious incident. You mumble something about keeping it quiet.

You look beautiful. I tell you this too. When you are sleeping. You mumble some more. Yes, precious, I know I'm a little mean. But then I like talking to you when you're sleeping. In the silly hope that I may figure in your dreams. Also because, sometimes, there's not enough space between two people to accommodate two sets of feelings; especially feelings of the magnitude you and I possess for each other. So yes, I talk to you when you're sleeping. I'm perfectly fine with that. Maybe you're not but then how would you know huh? Wait. Do you talk to me when I'm sleeping? Hmmm ... now that would be very naughty.

Sometimes, seeing you asleep, I wonder where you wander off to behind those closed eyelids, think about what those fluttering eyeballs might be seeing. There have been times when I've wanted to ask you about your nightmares. But then I was -- and am -- content holding you close till you fell asleep again. Some day, maybe, you'll tell me; you'll tell me about those magical lands you go visiting every night, free from the pressures of circumstance and the demands of protocol; you'll tell me what makes you wake up on some mornings with a twinkle in those soft lovely eyes; you'll tell me what scares you too. And as you tell me, I'll hold you closer. And listen intently to every word that you will say.

There is so much that I don't know about you. But then there's so much that I don't reveal too. Yes, I know it worries you a little that my eyes don't tell you a lot. I also know how courageous you are to believe in me despite that. Especially when you're so fluent in the language of the eyes. But then how do I tell you that I hide myself in between your worlds? That the only way for you to truly know me is to sleep and yet not sleep?

Perhaps, the resulting distance because of this lack of knowledge really doesn't matter. Yet, with every hectic day, when the world forces our lives apart, when uncertainty pulls us asunder, this distance only grows. Only for us to furiously converse through the evenings and the nights, in a desperate bid to come closer again, till you fall asleep out of exhaustion from too many thoughts thought and too many words spoken.

Running to stay at the same place.

Yet we try. Not because we have to, but because we want to.

And then there are times, like today, when I get tired of the purposefulness of our words, when I feel like tying my share onto a balloon and setting them afloat in your general direction without worrying about whether they will reach you or not.

At times like this, I talk to you when you're sleeping.

And my lips are slowly getting used to the intimacy of whispering your name between them.

One more minute. The alarm will intrude rudely. You will wake up, like a diver coming up for air. And in the ensuing sloppiness of your movements, when your arms flail out, when you reach for me in that endearing half-asleep-half-awake way, when your love lacks the sophistication that you insist on imposing upon it, I will steal a kiss, or two, so that I may feel the trembling hope of heaven on your lips ... for one more day.

Confession

This is what they call "inspiration". Talk about about role models.

More Murakami.

PS: One is still on a break ...

brb

Soon. See you in July.

PS: Yes, I've hardly been here the last few months but still ...

Loyola

[Rewritten to eschew obfuscation]

Where does time go?

Ancient walls whitewashed to hurt the eyes. Smell of fresh paint moistens the imagination. The mind is visited by visions of time serving detention between layers of fossilized alabaster, by the feeble shapes of stairway conversations snatched during recess.

The weight of a century bears down on the cross-beams. The heaviness of routine, like a stubborn odour, hangs everywhere: of 45-minute periods and weekly time-tables; of monthly tests and quarterly exams; of annual fests and summer vacations ... generations of rebellion disciplined around a time-regimented education.

Cool hard benches, languid yet orderly; ebony and varnish. The familiar comforts of butt on academic wood and desktop graffiti. 'Suneetha'. 'Crazy bitch'. A mean bolt of lightning in fashionable Powerpuff pink -- someone with a sense of humour.

***

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

-- Lines from 'But I can't', A villanelle by W. H. Auden

***

Tension ticks in the air. Twenty minutes left.

Tall Jesuit windows paired with ventilators above; three spare pairs to a wall.

Wind hustles the broad corridors outside. Neem trees sway religiously in the morning sun. The 9.17 rolls into the station in the distance, slows downs, breathes itself to a stop.

A small steel stool stands outside the doorway, shining in the sun; a green plastic pot sits on top, filled neck deep with water; uncouth aluminium tumbler lolls from a blue nylon cord tied around the mouth of the pot.

The train booms, leaves.

Pitted blackboard sprawls across the wall up front; poster of the Virgin Mother overhead. Chalk-white-dust nostalgia. 'Class Strength: 40'. 'Boys: 23'. Boys ... 'Girls: 17'. Girls ... 'Present: 37'. 'Absent: 3'. The luxury of redundant information.

The 9.27 rumbles in punctually. Pencil points are poked against trembling fingertips. Three minutes left. Prayers push past pursed lips.

***

Time doesn't go anywhere.

Time comes here to file her nails sitting in the library, to dry her long white hair while she waits reading a book in the cafeteria, to lie under the trees in the campus and balance her soulsheets.

Time comes here when she's tired of herself.

Time comes here when she wants to grow old.

Kleenex

ANNABEL: What is that?

KATHLEEN: A handkerchief. Oh my, do children not even know what handkerchiefs are? A handkerchief is a Kleenex you don't throw away.

-- You've Got Mail, 1998

I have this little ritual I go through whenever I leave home. I feel myself up in the following order: right back pocket: wallet - check; left front pocket: mobile phone - check; right front pocket: handkerchief - check. The last part of the ritual's been the same for the last 12-13 years, ever since I started wearing "full pants", before I started carrying a wallet and before a mobile phone became a "necessity". And prior to "full pants" I didn't bother about sweat or snoot. A sleeve was always handy.

Now imagine me walking around with a box of Kleenex in my pocket. I might as well carry a wad of toilet paper around too. Just in case.

I don't understand this Kleenex fascination at various levels.

It's not economically viable. A kerchief is a one-time investment. Kleenex is just recurring cost.

The logistics are horrible. You can flirt with Kleenex but you can never bring it home. But a handkerchief's like that boyfriend who's always around. And when you want to dump the Kleenex, you need to find a dust-bin because oh-the-horror of being seen with a used Kleenex! A self-effacing handkerchief, on the other hand, can be neatly folded and tucked back into your pocket or a hand-bag, as the case may be.

I used to think it had something to do with sophistication but what could be more sophisticated than the elegant tip of a double-folded silk handkerchief sticking out of the top of a breast pocket?

Besides, I haven't heard of people gifting Kleenex at weddings.

Point is: One handkerchief is worth a thousand kleenex.

Period.

Every evening, the sunset fills up my room.

No, make that: Every evening, I let the sunset fill my room up. It's a very deliberate act, delusive, egocentric and narcissistic.

Tchaikovsky starts to play on my Nokia at 3 'o' clock. I switch off the fan, reach for my mobile phone -- a little amused at the thought of the eternal inside a box, switch it off, reset the alarm from 1500 to 0700. I walk over to the windows on the western wall, pull aside the curtains thereby diluting the darkness, unlatch the panes, swing them open and stand back.

I watch how sunlight instantly floods the room, how its fingers seem to intimately know every nook and corner of my room. Like the caresses of an old lover. Well, almost.

I then plod back to mulling over information asymmetry and the marriage market; or plunge right back into a conversation about Chitrangda Singh on GTalk; or come back to a high-pitched argument with Mr. Schopenhauer about women ... sometimes I just listen to Atif Aslam and sit in my chair, doing nothing.

Self-improvement is masturbation.

Sometimes I talk with a certain Tyler Durden.

Self-destruction is the answer.

Presently, the superstar in the sky dips below the sunshade, swinging down his chosen longitude for the day.

Sometimes I wonder how it must feel to stand somewhere on that precise geographical minute, in the full glare of the setting sun, at that confabulation of space and time.

Sometimes I think about a ball of sunlight, bursting out of the sun's core, unravelling untrammelled through millions and millions of miles of nothing, the photons then tumbling through the atmosphere and a convenient hole in the ozone, thrashing through all that smog, past the grill on my window, all that distance, only to be stopped flat by a puny plank of wardrobe wood. Sometimes I think about how it's happening all the time and I'm depressed. Sometimes I think it must be lousy being a sun. Who'd want to be a sun? Not me. A meteor shower -- now that would be cool.

Dad comes in to ask me something and starts clamouring about how hot it is in here. I tell him I'm meditating and silence his protests. Sometimes I think parental salvation lies in being outsmarted by one's kids.

The room is turning a shade of ripe summer yellow. The marble flooring starts to heat up. My skin feels like a flame has been drawn across its surface. Naturally enough, I'm sweating now. Trickles start to crawl down my forehead and my temples.

Sometimes, I think of sweat and the travesty of its colourlessness. Would sweat be any precious if it was the colour of blood? Or would blood be any trivial if it looked and smelt like sweat? Sometimes I remember asking my sister if sweat evaporated and became rain. Sometimes I can recall the look of disgust she shot me across the dining table.

The window panes gradually blush a flaming orange, and I think of the rasna kid. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. Sometimes I wonder if executives at Coke and Pepsi are involved in efforts to accelerate global warming. Sometimes I think of frisbees on the beach, of budding biceps and capri calves. Sometimes I think of our dog, Tiger. Sometimes I think of coming back home after kindergarten and tumbling with him in the yard. Sometimes I think of how he died in a pool of his own blood. Sometimes I don't think at all.

A twilight purple on the walls announces the arrival of a violet dusk. I'm drenched now. Hair roots, arm-pits, t-shirt, shorts ... I get up, shut the windows, flick on the compact fluorescent lamp, grab a towel and head for a shower, gently closing the door behind me, a little satisfied at having boxed the eternal. For today.

Ghost

it’s almost eight.
they will be here soon.

doing push-ups on the floor,

turning your questions
inside out,

28, 29, 30 ...

trying to undo the answers
you knot me with.

the house

feels heavy,

like a thousand nights
spent sweating
inside a packing crate.

these alabaster walls,

still wet high
with your misty sighs.

my ears,

still blood-warm
where your whispers bit.

oh, this sweet distance ...

this ether between heartbeats
where darkness sows
chloroform seeds ...

and time? time is just
a crafty old river --

promises destiny
down its course,
but drowns our boats
before we even get close.


the door’s flung open;

they are here.

an inspecting wind also arrives
in swirling coat-tails;

they are here.

swiftly, like ants
without existential angst,
they set to work.

curtains curled aside,

the ribbed-iron shutters

spit you out,
off the flower-pot lined balcony,
down into the lily garden,
onto the streets.

slanting sunbeams

puncture the eastern windows,
releasing
the pressure of your presence.

this refrigerated togetherness
finally starts to perish.

the bed --

beachhead

where spiders crawled
on the sands,

where habits teethed
into salty syndromes --

stands straightened,
bedspread conforming,
the mattress blank and shapeless --
a stretch of windswept coast.

where we lay watching movies,

the carpet

is now swept
free of consequence and memory,
out into the cold February morning,

where you stand
framed in the doorway,

dissolving,
disintegrating

into dust distilled sunlight.


and so,

after the kitchen
has had its teeth picked,

after the rooms have come clean
and the corners have confessed
their claustrophobia,

after our conversations
have gurgled down the drain,

they leave

the house

an antiseptic tomb,
a skeleton ship,

and i sit hunched on the footsteps,

mourning,

turning your questions
outside in,

hoping to find you hiding
somewhere in the folds
of your words,

trying to exorcize
the answers you haunt me with.

Untitled

along the sun-drenched roadside*
memories bathe in shimmering gold;

i pick one, turn it around:
a coin between my fingers

you - taunting the stars one dark night,
screaming how they will never know the gleaming road,
baiting them to walk down;
cardsharp gaming the heavens.

you - who became the game
of roaring rolling stars along this road;
us - a pair of roaming dice, rolling
under reluctant stars, watchful skies.

the coin of memory flashes gold,
light spilling from my fingers -
you of yore

your rebellion on the road, imprinting itself
like the warm smell of summer on skin
three years ago -

that night along this sun-drenched road
the stars you rebelled against
rebelled against you.

---

* - This line from here

Deconstructing

Absurdity. Aquarius. Australia. ABBA. Ayn Rand. Arsenal. Alaipayudhey. Amol Palekar. Auden.

Besant Nagar. Beach. Beer. Beatles. Bhagyaraj. Badminton.

Cats. Cunning Linguist. Cruciverbalist. Cricket. Chess. Cooking. C & H. Coldplay. Cotton. Crazy Mohan. Conflicts. Contradictions. Compromises. Conversations.

Dad. Deep blue. Dumas. Dylan. Doom. Dravid. Dreamer. Deserts.

Engines. Economics. Eagles. Evanescence. Emma Thomson. Evasive. Elusive. Experiments. Escape artist.

Finding Forrester. Fall. Freedom. Ferrari. Football. Frost. Friends. Family.

God. Goli. Golmaal. Grass. Gremlins.

Happiness. Hope. Humility. Hunger. Help.

INTJ.

Jhumpa Lahiri. Jack Higgins. Jeffrey Archer. Jam.

Kerala. Kundera. Kishore Kumar. Kindness. Kites.

Lazy. Little women. Ludo. Lucid dreaming. Lucky. Linkin Park. Louis L'amour. Loyalty.

Murakami. Mourinho. Modesty Blaise. Meryl Streep. Marriage. Markets. Mentors. Maggi. Musafir.

Neruda. Norwegian Wood. North Sea.

OCD.

Paris. Purpose. Poetry. Programming. Philosophy. Photography. PGW. Pirsig. Peter O Toole. PhD. Pirate.

Quixotic. Questions. Quizzing. Queues. 0-0-0.

Roti. Rhaita. Rubik's cube. Realist. Redemption. Retreat. Renege.

SRM. SCL. Snob. Snoot. Seinfeld. Steve Waugh. Steffi Graf. Smita Patil. S & G. Sangarankoil. Sacrifices. Solitude. Sinner.

Tamil. Thirukkural. Tracy Chapman. Terry Hatcher. Top Cat. Tennis. Trees. Theories. Trial and error.

UCAL. Unforgiving. Understatements.

VVV. Vitriolic.

Writing. Wolfenstein. Winter. Warmth. Wisdom. Whimsical. Wistful.

X

Yellow. Yoghurt. Yojimbo.

Zero maintenance.

PS: I was bored.

A particularly perceptive line of dialogue from the movie The Village goes thus:

Sometimes we don't do things we want to do so that others
will not know we want to do them

Yesterday, at dinner with friends from college, when we talked about a whole lot of people from back then, it was instructive to note the names that weren't taken up; names that should have popped up without any effort on anybody's part; names that eventually had to be content with hanging around the dinner table like shadows.

More importantly, it was interesting to see people walk gingerly around their memories. Which is when that dialogue came to mind.

Seven eight lay them straight

So after years of not believing in resolutions, I'm putting myself on the line here. Will review this once a month to see where I'm heading. Will expand/trim list based on progress.

Things to do -

Reading:

1. Lord of the rings
2. The wealth of nations
3. Intelligent investor
4. Genius
5. Get RSS aggregator organized

Writing:

1. Two blog posts per week
2. Review each book to increase take-away
3. One essay per month
4. One poem per month
5. One fiction piece per quarter

Thinking:

1. Work through Critical Thinking

Speaking:

Travelling:

1. See the Himalayas. Properly. (7 days?)

Sport & Fitness:

1. Continue playing Cricket during weekends
2. Continue working out

Music:

Movies:

1. Chip away at list. Least: 50. Most: All.
2. Review each movie on blog

Food:

Finance:

1. Get papers in order and file returns on time
2. Pick an index fund to invest in
3. Pick an infrastructure fund to invest in
4. Open that bloody demat account
5. Bring liquidity down to ___

Altruism:

1. Continue working with the RTI act
2. Teaching (?)

Kaizen:

1. Do what you say and say what you'll do. Commit and finish.
2. Give up coffee
3. Sleep less (6 hours?)
4. Learn to shave with a safety razor
5. Give up TV
6. Read for 2 hours everyday
7. Write a 100 words everyday
8. Work on that wordlist

Career:

1. Here, here or here.

And oh, happy new year everyone :-)