Our shadows kiss, passionately.
But we stay away, aloof, fearful and separated; scared to let the other close.
But we stay away, aloof, fearful and separated; scared to let the other close.
April 15, 2011
Snow Clad Mountains...
I find it confusing how men and women take months and years to say those three words to the woman/man they are in a relationship with. Like really, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and still no ata pata of "I love you"!
But you go have an arranged marriage, and lo! Your woman will confess how much she loves you, right on the first day of your honeymoon and your man will tell you he fell in love with you the very first day he saw you when you came through the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits in your hand.
Huh?
*****
A friend recently put up this status on Gtalk: "Sincerity is everything! If you learn to fake it...rest everything is easy".
And another one actually seems to be following the advice.
I wonder if it's really easy...I am sure happiness is not.
*****
Some days back I was travelling with two families, and one of the uncles asked us for names for their new dog. And everyone started with snowy, jenny, julie, tasha etc etc...you know the typical doggie names.
And I was about to suggest something on the similar lines and then I heard everyone and I stopped. Why do we always give Christian names to our pets?
I mean, most of them people treat their pets like their kids, so while we don't name our kids Freddie or George, or Patricia or Elizabeth, why our pets?
I think if I get a dog, I'll name him something Indian. Though I don't know what. Being the Anglophile that I am, I always thought I'd name my dog something like Shakespeare. But let's see, how does Chintu sound?
"Chintu come here!", "Chintu, jao newspaper leke aao!" and, "Chintu! Stop flirting with Betty!" Betty will obviously be the neighbour's dog who'll be eying my handsome dog.
Chintu sounds nice eh? I think till I find a new name, Chintu it is!
You know what, I think this naming business is quite fun! You should all send your dogs and kids to me for names. And I won't even charge you, promise!
But you go have an arranged marriage, and lo! Your woman will confess how much she loves you, right on the first day of your honeymoon and your man will tell you he fell in love with you the very first day he saw you when you came through the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits in your hand.
Huh?
*****
A friend recently put up this status on Gtalk: "Sincerity is everything! If you learn to fake it...rest everything is easy".
And another one actually seems to be following the advice.
I wonder if it's really easy...I am sure happiness is not.
*****
Some days back I was travelling with two families, and one of the uncles asked us for names for their new dog. And everyone started with snowy, jenny, julie, tasha etc etc...you know the typical doggie names.
And I was about to suggest something on the similar lines and then I heard everyone and I stopped. Why do we always give Christian names to our pets?
I mean, most of them people treat their pets like their kids, so while we don't name our kids Freddie or George, or Patricia or Elizabeth, why our pets?
I think if I get a dog, I'll name him something Indian. Though I don't know what. Being the Anglophile that I am, I always thought I'd name my dog something like Shakespeare. But let's see, how does Chintu sound?
"Chintu come here!", "Chintu, jao newspaper leke aao!" and, "Chintu! Stop flirting with Betty!" Betty will obviously be the neighbour's dog who'll be eying my handsome dog.
Chintu sounds nice eh? I think till I find a new name, Chintu it is!
You know what, I think this naming business is quite fun! You should all send your dogs and kids to me for names. And I won't even charge you, promise!
Red Riding Hood...
The road to perfection is a long one, almost never-ending.
And when you reach the end, you die.
And when you reach the end, you die.
April 14, 2011
Love Me...
"One thing we do know for certain is that the body is the place where each of us lives, and the place where each of us will die: our body will always, in the end, betray us."
What are we doing?
Beauty is a $160 billion-a-year global industry. The worldwide pursuit of body improvement has become a new religion.Check out the website: LoveMe.
We live in a society that celebrates and iconises youth, where the old, the aesthetically average and the fat seem to have been erased from the pages of our glossy magazines, advertising posters and television screens.
The promise of bodily improvement is fuelled by advertising campaigns and a commercially-driven Western media, reflecting an increasingly narrow palette of beauty. The modern Caucasian beauty ideal has been packaged and exported globally, and just as surgical operations to 'Westernise' oriental eyes have become increasingly popular, so the beauty standard has become increasingly prescriptive. In Africa the use of skin-lightening and hair-straightening products is widespread. In South America women have operations that bring them eerily close to the Barbie doll ideal, and blonde-haired models grace the covers of most magazines. Anorexia is on the increase in Japan, and in China, beauty pageants, once banned as 'spiritual pollution', are now held across the country.
'Westernising' the human body has become a new form of globalisation, with 'Beauty' becoming a homogenous brand. The more rigorously our vision is trained to appreciate the artificial, the more industries benefit. The current standard of beauty feeds the fashion, cosmetics, diet, medical and entertainment industries, with the homogenisation of appearance becoming part of an increasingly globalised consumer culture.
But who creates this culture? However much we may confidently point the finger at certain industries, we can't deny our own tacit, albeit culturally conditioned, involvement. Like it or not, we are judged, and judge, by appearance. Perhaps we are obsessed with the way our own bodies look because we know how instinctively judgemental we are of the bodies that we look at.
A recent scientific study reported that we make decisions about the attractiveness of people we meet in the space of 150 milliseconds. This superficial appraisal has profound implications. Those we consider most beautiful not only find sexual partners more readily but studies also show they get better jobs and more lenient treatment in court.
We have created a world in which there are enormous social, psychological and economic rewards and penalties attached to the way we look. Can any of us honestly say, 'I don't want to be attractive'? Don't we all want to be loved? But have we been brainwashed into believing that in order to be loved we need smaller noses, bigger breasts, tighter skin, longer legs, flatter stomachs and to appear ever youthful? Where does it end?
The body has, in a sense, become just another consumer purchase. Everyone can, in the spirit of our age, go shopping for bodily transformation. Banks now offer loans for plastic surgery. American families with annual incomes under $25,000 account for 30 per cent of all cosmetic surgery patients. Americans spend more each year on beauty than they do on education.
As our role models become ever younger and more idealised, we are so afraid of aging that the quest for youthful preservation generates an almost pathological obsession with our bodies. As we align our sense of self-worth with self-image, the psychological and emotional consequences are tortuous. The one thing we do know for certain is that our body will always, in the end, betray us.
What are we doing?
A Sly Hand...
Life these days is turning out quite like a game of chess. And though some of my pawns are dead, I must say, I am quite enjoying the game at the moment. I am getting to learn so much.
A Private Message...
Friend: Welcome to the quarter life crisis.
Me: Damn, it's so fucked up.
Friend: This makes me immensely happy that u feel the same way and it totally is. But it is true, perspectives change so much these days...that I sometimes don't really know what do I believe in, again the whole discovery of the self...I'm so tired and exhausted...
Friend: Yea, such is life...I guess...
*****
Me: Damn, it's so fucked up.
Friend: This makes me immensely happy that u feel the same way and it totally is. But it is true, perspectives change so much these days...that I sometimes don't really know what do I believe in, again the whole discovery of the self...I'm so tired and exhausted...
Me: Yep, it's like you handle one thing, one emotion, one thought, you deal with it and you stow it away and there again, pops another one and you're back to staring at a stranger in the mirror.
Friend: Yea, such is life...I guess...
*****
And so these days I spend most of my time acquainting myself with my new thoughts.
Age, again, yes. A recent shocking one I found is this:
I remember there was a time when I would see nothing wrong with a man who "experimented" a lot. While I did not particularly like such a man, I thought, well, so what? His life. I never judged him. His this aspect never interfered with my dealings with such an individual.
These days, however, I find myself repulsed by the very idea of such a man or woman. For whom women/men are nothing but a notch on their respective bedpost. Who see nothing wrong in jumping from one to another. A new attraction every day.
Earlier, I could separate their such private behaviour, seeing it as just one part, unsavoury, but isolable aspect of their whole personality; even making allowances by saying to each its own. But these days, I find it increasingly difficult to like or trust such people, no matter how they are with others. No matter how truthful and loyal they are toward their loved ones. No matter how they conduct themselves in other areas of their life. I am finding it very difficult to talk to such men and women and not feel disgust.
And I am, not liking such prejudice on my part. I am hating it in fact.
Age, again, yes. A recent shocking one I found is this:
I remember there was a time when I would see nothing wrong with a man who "experimented" a lot. While I did not particularly like such a man, I thought, well, so what? His life. I never judged him. His this aspect never interfered with my dealings with such an individual.
These days, however, I find myself repulsed by the very idea of such a man or woman. For whom women/men are nothing but a notch on their respective bedpost. Who see nothing wrong in jumping from one to another. A new attraction every day.
Earlier, I could separate their such private behaviour, seeing it as just one part, unsavoury, but isolable aspect of their whole personality; even making allowances by saying to each its own. But these days, I find it increasingly difficult to like or trust such people, no matter how they are with others. No matter how truthful and loyal they are toward their loved ones. No matter how they conduct themselves in other areas of their life. I am finding it very difficult to talk to such men and women and not feel disgust.
And I am, not liking such prejudice on my part. I am hating it in fact.
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