Books...

“We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today.” -Cory Doctorow

The Short Version...

Bible, Kuran, Bhagvad Gita, Guru Granth Sahib.

Books are our Gods.

A Cheap & Easy Affair...

If tomorrow my kids ask me why I didn't marry that very rich and good-looking guy, I hope they'll understand when I tell them that he did not read. I hope they'll forgive.

Wicked Bookmarks...

Oooh I love this! So want!

A bookmark with the Wicked Witch of the East's legs and the ruby slippers...

Totally delish!

From Oops, I craft my pants. Lovely blog. Do check it out. 

Would You Like Some Fries With That?

I normally analyse(like every other small and big thing in my life) my dreams, atleast the ones I remember vividly. And I wondered why I dreamt about dinosaurs coming back to life. I am sure it has something to do with the fact that I am reading Germs, Guns & Steel these days.

And that made me wonder about evolution.

Evolution is a slow process, but still, one does wonder, if we humans ourselves, have stopped evolving.


Here's a wonderful documentary by BBC: Are We Still Evolving?[Part1][Part2][Part3][Part4]. If you don't want to spend 60 mins, here's the gist of it.


So yes, we are evolving. We are becoming fatter and shorter and who knows, maybe one day we'll sprout extra brains and extra hands to handle the information load and multitasking, but I don't know if this is good, I don't know if we are going in the right direction. The test-tube baby and the technology to "design" your baby seems scary.

P.S: And I'd like to see some study that charts the evolution of dogs over the past few 100 years or so. The most domesticated animal, dogs, sure understand human emotions, they can navigate through the human maze of cities fearlessly, but why have they not picked up our language skills? Why is there no dog who can speak human language? Or walk on only two feet like its masters?

Under The Bell Jar...

"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences."

Reading a wonderful book is like falling in love. The heady rush you feel when you know this book is what you were waiting for, all along, and you can't wait to turn page after page, and devour all of its loveliness like a hungry wolf, make it your own, live inside it and get lost in his mysterious folds. You know you're in love with a book when you want to tell everyone about it.

Thank You...

The wonderful thing about writing is that someone, somewhere, at one point in their life felt the same as you do, and had the better sense to put it in words. And did it better than you ever could. And you read those words and suddenly you don't feel lonely anymore. It's like they suddenly appear next to you, sit by your side, and gently press your hand and smile at you, a smile that says, it's alright, and all that through words. Such power. Really, such life saving power. Thank you Sylvia Plath. Thank you so very much.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

*****

"Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn."

*****

"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy."

*****

"I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time..."

*****

"God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering."

*****

"Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night..."

*****

"I want to be important. By being different. And these girls are all the same."

*****

"But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get."

Like A Drug...

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

This lovely article reminded me of my younger "library" days :)

I had just finished my 12th grade exams and had plenty of time to read. And I read. I had a membership at a local library, which was conveniently at a 5-min walking distance. The owner of the library was an old man, who sat there in the evening, surrounded by oldies, they'd all sit outside on the veranda and chat and laugh about things. He knew me ofcourse, I came there every day of those summer holidays. Three girls worked there. I doubt they ever read the books in the library, but at times I envied their jobs and wondered if I should instead become a librarian. I remember mom once had a huge fight with me in those summer vacations. I had not got out of my room for two days except to eat and go to the loo, so she came storming into my room, snatched the book and threw, literally flung my copy of The Fountainhead on the floor, like it was a porcelain vase. I cried. Its pages torn. I didn't speak to her for days.


Both Dad and Mom read. Mom's a voracious reader even today. Dad gets no time now, but he tells me he had read all literature tomes of his time at quite an early age. So clearly love for books runs in the family. Though sister has never read more than one book. I once made her read a book and she couldn't get past the 3rd page. Nothing's happening she told me, it's all so boring. Well, you can't expect action right from the first page. You can't love a book unless you have read the first 200 pages atleast and only then you get hooked. You need patience to read and love a book. She gave up.


I continued reading even after I started with my engineering. So I was supposed to be studying, but I read instead. Dad furious, threatened at first. I never paid any heed to his threats. So one day he stopped my pocket money. No money, no library membership. I was ofcourse devastated. How could he, who loved reading himself, do this to me? I cried and pleaded, nothing happened.


So I had my own pot of money which I used up for the library membership. I didn't shop. I saved. And now instead of hiding the books in my bag, or under my clothes when walking from the door to my room, I openly flaunted them. Which angered Dad ofcourse. Instead of covering the gap under the door with three dark-coloured dupattas to fool dad, who would wake up at 2am to check if I was still reading, I now let him know I read at 3 am even. I would make coffee or tea and read in the living room. So he then went to the library and told the owner not to allow me within the premises. I was barred from entering the little library. I obviously didn't know my Dad had done this. So I went the next day, and what do you know, the girls, looking sheepishly at me, told me my account had be closed by my Dad.


I was angry. I was furious. I went to the gym with my then best friend SB, a book lover herself and cursed him. For days I didn't have money to open another account. Taking pity on me, SB offered me some books from her own collection. I saved enough to open another account that month. And now I had a new account, under my own name, no one could close it without my permission, no. 537. This I think got Dad extremely mad. How dare I? Well, I was his daughter after all. So I said, in your face Dad, and happily went on reading. So next what he did was this: He stole my book and hid it. Yessir. He STOLE it. Unless I returned the loaned book, I couldn't take out another. I could say that I had lost it, pay 150/- and borrow another. But ofcourse I didn't have 150 rupees, remember no pocket money? So I scoured the entire house and on the 3rd day, I found the book. It was like a match, each gloating after a victory. That evening when Dad came home he found the otherwise glum looking me humming merrily. He asked mom, who scared, told him I had found the book. He gave up after that :)

No one stopped me after that but I started hiding my books under my pillow or under the mattress after that(Sometimes even locking them). As soon as I started working, I started buying books. He never complained after that, except occasionally warn me that if I continue sleeping so late, my skin was going to be fucked up. I am those types who needs her full 8-hour beauty sleep, otherwise bad things happen to my skin and he never failed to point it out to me.

In retrospect, I realise I was wrong. He was right in wanting me to concentrate on studies. Guess he knew I was getting lost in the world of books and being a reader himself, he knew how difficult it is to get out of that world and live in the real world. Which for me, still, takes some effort. I guess he was just doing what a good father should have. I did, what I always do.


And I still have an open account with the same library :)

A Hideout...

There are some similarities between a novel and a city. A novel, of course, is not merely a book, a physical object of pages and covers, but a particular kind of mental space, a place of exploration, of investigation into human nature. Likewise, a city is not only an agglomeration of buildings and streets. It is also a mental space, a field of dreams and contention. Within both entities, people, individuals, imaginary or real, struggle for their "right to self-realisation". Let me repeat – the novel as a literary form was born out of curiosity about and respect for the individual. Its traditions impel it towards pluralism, openness, a sympathetic desire to inhabit the minds of others. There is no man, woman or child, Israeli or Palestinian, or from any other background, whose mind the novel cannot lovingly reconstruct. The novel is instinctively democratic.

Ian McEwan on winning the Jerusalem prize

Jungle Book...

So the nephew's coming over to India for a vacation and I can't wait to buy all those colourful children's books and read stories to him :)

A Lifetime Of Compromises...

The second thing that came to my mind, maybe "put into my mind" would be more appropriate, when I thought about arranged marriages was: Compromise.


And the more number of people I speak to, the more it appears that people have a really dim view of marriage, cause no matter who, everyone gives you only one suggestion: Compromise. And on a whole, it seems like a very depressing situation.


Compromises have to be made, I understand that. Which relationship does not include compromises? But why do you never hear your parents telling you, "beta, now that you will be going to college and making new friends, remember to compromise". You never hear that, do you? Why do friends never advice you to "compromise" in a relationship? For smallest of shortcomings, your gf's will tell you to leave the guy, but never compromise. Maybe cause in all other relationships, you have an exit. Not so in marriage. You're supposed to make it work, no matter what, compromise and stick around. Marriages are meant to be forever.



What I found really funny was that people enter marriage with a whole lot of pessimism. I can understand why everyone should be so scared. (It's funny we still go ahead and get married, humans I tell you!). There are so many bad examples around, that one can't help but think the worst. I know I am guilty of the same. So I can understand that, but what baffles me is that, even while thinking of a partner you choose to compromise with your wants and dreams.


I told M that I would really like to spend the rest of my life with someone who loves travelling (So we could both travel all the time). He looked at me as if I had gone mad, then laughed, then told me I was being silly. It's a stupid thing to look for in a marriage, said H. A didn't mock outright, she knew I was serious, but she looked at me, her hands gesturing her incredulity,  and calmly asked me, "do you think once you get busy in your married life, have kids and all, do you think you'll find time to travel at all? You'll be happy to even find a spare relaxing Sunday to chill at home, but travel?" And I actually wondered if I should look for aspects like a love for travelling and reading, something I feel are essential in my life partner. Were they really a "must-have"? Or was I being really short-sighted?


And then I remembered the times I was happy in 2010. The time when I actually touched clouds in Bhutan, not fog, clouds. When I climbed Tiger's Nest. It was a tiring journey, but one look at the view from the top was enough to melt away all tiredness like snow on a sunny afternoon...the view was just beyond words. And I was so happy to be there. I felt so lucky to be there. And at peace. Like anything was possible. Then how proud I was when I went all the way, alone, to Mysore, made new friends, walked my way to museums and palaces and Udipi Restaurants. How excited I was, travelling through Hyderabad in an auto rickshaw, to be discovering a new city. And how adventurous when I roamed the markets of Amritsar in a cycle auto rickshaw, so much fun eating parathans and lassis and haggling over phulkari dupattas, like generations of Punjabi women must have done -you see, a got to live a slice of someone else's life(and that too the good bits), a life I had only read and heard about -what could be more precious? And how lucky I felt to be sitting on the steps of the sacred pool and watching the Golden Temple transform into a mesmerizing beauty at 5am in the morning, with a gorgeous orange in the background, golden shimmery water everywhere and the sound of early morning bird song...I felt I was in heaven. And I realised, the only time I was happy in 2010 was when I was travelling...discovering new places, new people, new food, new language...a new world.


I remember growing up wanting to travel places. I remember telling myself as a child that if one day I come across a Genie and if I get to make one wish, I should first ask for 100 wishes, but if I am not allowed to, then I should ask for a chance to travel the world.


Do I still think it's a frivolous thing? I turned to books, cause I couldn't travel to Spain myself, and Egypt and England, but I could atleast read about them. I know what they wear and eat and sing in Italy and France and Scotland and Australia, not because I travelled there, but because I read about them, and in my head, atleast, I have seen all those places. Should I then compromise on something that makes me truly happy?


"Agreed", M said. "But then let's say, you get married to a travel writer and you're happy for the first couple of years and one day while rock climbing he falls down and breaks his leg. He's paralyzed forever. What would you do then?" I was just stumped for a moment. It's like saying, don't venture out on the streets cause people are dying! Why should you compromise even before you actually need to compromise?

I don't understand. Shouldn't we be compromising in short term relationships, cuase they anyway won't last a long time and you can always just walk away. And shouldn't we, when looking for a long term relationship, try to seek one where compromises, atleast not a plenty many, will not be needed?


And what will really happen if you compromise? You give up on things you want and settle for something else, something easily obtainable. But then what? Do dreams just die like that? I don't know, I think they might just hide, pull themselves back and hide in some corner and sulk and sulk and sulk. And the day you find a way to fulfil those wants and dreams, they're going to wake up and shake things up and your pretty little house is going to fall apart.


When I go to my local library, there's a whole section for romance novels, and at first I thought many teenage girls would be taking those books home. What I instead observed over the years, was that not teenagers, but married women read romance novels the most. Women, who have immersed themselves in the mundaneness of their lives, settled into domesticity,  they seek to live the dreams they gave up through these novels. That aunty who is now married with kids, who settled for a finance guy, she lives the life she wanted, through someone's else story, through someone else's life. Is she truly happy? I think she'll say yes. But deep down, she has squashed her dreams and prepared herself for the kind of life she has. She has learnt to live with compromises, with someone more suitable. But deep down, she wants something else, perhaps someone else, she knows she can never get. Some people don't see anything wrong with it. I do.


It's natural, that when you don't find what you're looking for in one place, you'll try to seek it somewhere else.  If you don't find everything that makes you happy in your spouse, it's very probable that you'll seek it in someone else. Unknowingly. Sometimes knowingly. Extra marital affairs anyone?


I have compromised too. And what I have realized is that compromises are tricky. You are happy compromising as long as things are going according to the plan. The minute they go awry, you start complaining how and how much you compromised. The bitterness creeps in, the dislike shows. The name-calling starts. And like help, compromises mean zilch, once you mention it. The minute you point out how many compromises you've made, that sandcastle you so painstakingly erected, gets washed away with the waves your words create.


So yea, maybe an ordinary girl like me can't expect to meet Mr.Perfect, but surely, I can hope to find Mr.Perfect-For-Me? And I promise, I'll compromise if I find him, but only if he promises to take me to ***Egypt first.



***I remember we were watching some travel show featuring Egypt and I sighed and oohed, and fascinated with it all, I said to my sister, "If I ever get to go back in time, I'll want to go back to the time of these Egyptian kings and queens." And my dearest sister said, "Do you think you'd go back to the era as a "queen" huh? You'd probably be one of those common Egyptian citizens, probably even a manual labourer and look, life for them was so hard, building all those pyramids and what not. I wouldn't want to be them!" Sigh, yes, she was always the more practical one. And I was always living in my head! :|

Beautiful Thing...

I don't remember the last time I stayed up all night, all day in bed to read. After what must have been ages, Sonia Faliero's "Beautiful Thing" managed to do that. Unputdownable.

Beautiful Thing gives you a glimpse of Bombay's Dance Bar world. I had ordered the book like a month back but somehow the online bookstore kept on delaying. And when a friend told me he had actually visited one of the "Orchestra bars", I knew I wanted to read Beautiful Thing. I remember asking one of my close guy friend to take me to the "red light" area of the city to see what happens there. I just was so curious. I wanted to know what happened. You'll think me naive, and stupid. But I read Beautiful Thing and I knew my curiosity wasn't unwarranted. And no, he did not take me and no, I don't want to go there anymore. I am terrified and I am heartbroken.


And though my life is so removed from the reality that is their life, their existence so alien, there is something that managed to still connect our lives. Dreams, aspirations, emotions, an unfulfilled wish perhaps, that managed to bridge the two sides of the same city. And while I still have hope that someday my those dreams will come true, I wonder what will happen to theirs.


Reading Beautiful Thing was like touching the hot coals everyone told you to stay away from.


Enlightening, shocking, heartbreaking. Highly recommend it.

Funny, This Life...

The life of a girl who looks out from a South Bombay flat, sea-facing on Marine Drive, and who pays 300/- for "White tea" and the life of one who resides in Mira road, in an one window flat, who drinks cheap whiskey cheap desi daaru and who dances for money; I live one and I read one.

But both girls want the same things.

A Warm Lazy Kitten...

How nice it is to read a book on a wintery afternoon. When you've just had a nice long warm bath and then generously applied fragrant almond oil all over and now you're skin doesn't stretch and itch due to the dryness anymore and you feel warm lying in your chair under the warm golden sun; your silky hair spread out, whispering in the breeze, chirping birds, a mynah somewhere saying hello and a good book telling you wonderful stories. How beautiful winters are.

Don't Try...

Loved this. "Don't try"

Too many writers write for the wrong reasons. They want to get famous or they want to get rich or they want to get laid by the girls with bluebells in their hair. (Maybe that last ain't a bad idea).

When everything works best it's not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it, it's when it's stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It's when there's no hope but that.

Soft Pink Kisses...

Most women in arranged marriages don't love their husbands when they get married; and later, they don't have a choice.


*****

You know what is the first thing I am going to do when I go to Bombay? Make friends with this lady here and do what she does. SHOP. Swasta and Masta indeed! 

Oh, the joy of finding something good! And the greater joy of finding it cheap! Nothing can beat that! Not even a good foot massage!

*****

I just arranged the Shelf above my study table today and how come I never realised it? I love my books-cum-other-things shelf. It's awesome. I am awesome. 

I have all these awesome books neatly arranged by size and thickness and colour. And I have my copy of Bhagvad Geeta (I like having it there nestled amongst the likes of Cervantes and Oscar Wilde). And then I have my hand-painted gods** and then these little things(curios/souvenirs) gifted by friends. Like this candle which has a metal elephant or the little metal tower of Paris Apeksha brought from Paris. Or then the earthenware with Warli painting made by Garima. Or then those little colourful aboriginal tequila glasses by Praveen. Then there's the Orange blossom tea tin gifted by Praveen again. I love that tea. Like my favouritest ever. What can be better than Orange flavoured tea? My two favourite things together! Then the Capricorn cup with a little fairy on it by Munira. I do have awesome friends :) Then my sister's soft toys she left back. Then my bachpan ka mickeymouse walla pen stand. My paint brushes and pens and pencils in my favourite blue coffee mug. My favourite Dior jewellery box. And other little boxes. I love boxes. Like little treasure boxes. How exciting they are! Then Vitamins bottle, sea cod pills. Almonds and walnuts ka jar. Pink nail paint bottle. My diaries. My cds and my perfumes box gifted by Jiju. And a photoframe with my kiddie pic. 

I like the idea of shelf. You know, if want to really understand someone, go see how they live. I think a person's private space says so much about him or her. I think it's fascinating how much you can glean about the person from just his shelf. 

**I had made this Ganesh idol from clay in 7th grade. And I guess I must be watching too many Bollywod movies back then cause I remember telling myself that if that Ganesh idol ever breaks, I'll die. Ha! Well, now you know how to kill me. 

*****

I really do hate the fact that most of my guy friends can cook and cook well. Like really! They compete with me! :( You know, I can not sing. Or dance. Or be funny. I can't even be all intelligent or sexy. Like really. Can you leave one thing that I can do well? Please men? 

I remember as kids while sister could get away with being beautiful, I had nothing to show off in front of the guests (Yes, insecurity breeds since childhood. I am still looking for that yellow dress just in case). So while parents would place my sister in front of the guests and they, guests, would gush over how cute and pretty she was, my parents would say, "A, go get that plate of biscuits from the kitchen."

Or then bad still, "A stood 3rd in her class." And no one would bother. 

And you can not, just can not imagine my trauma, and what a trauma it is at 10 years of age, when the guests break your happy little I-am-worthy-of-some-praise bubble, when they beg your parents to take you away before you start entertaining them by telling them funny (atleast in my mind they were!) jokes. My jokes! No one wanted to hear my jokes :( And such nice jokes they were too!

And now these men! Who can make better mustard chicken than I can! *sniff sniff*

I think my sister's hex is finally working. As a teenager when I used to laugh at my sister's attempts at cooking, she used to give me that look that only older, arrogant sisters are capable of and say, "A, I hope you get married into a house where no one loves food! And so you can cook and cook and no one will appreciate you!" 

Yes. She did say that. Can't believe it right? Me neither :( What can I say? I do have an evil sister. And when I used to go crying about it to mom, she used to just ignore me :( Or if I was lucky, shoo me with a, "go cut an onion or something". 

Sigh. Maybe I am adopted after all. I should go cry now.

And Yet The Books...

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
--Czesław Miłosz

The Book...

"The Book"

I want to be the book you take out from the shelf every time you feel lonely, 

The one, whose pages you so lovingly turn. 

I want to be the book in whose arms you willingly surrender, 

Whose musty smell is more precious to you than the scent of a woman. 

I want to be the book you hold close to your heart when you fall asleep,

the book that touches your soul.

I want to be the book that lives inside you

&

The one that makes you fall in love.

*****