in-between-sound-and-silence

Of words and spices

Tripta — 2009-02-15T12:24:42Z

Anyone who cares for cooking and writing will know that both these art forms have a lot in common. The most important thing to know – if one wants to cook or write well – is not the plot, the narrative sequencing, the character details, etc. but when to stop, to say it aloud, that should do ; however alluring is the temptation to add an extra word or spice just for tad bit of an impact. A misplaced word or an ingredient – even the slightest one – can disrupt the ‘fundamental accuracy’ of the story or the dish.

Cooking comes far more naturally to me than writing though I would like to do both with the same flair. The ease with which I explore new dishes, ingredients as compared to narrative styles, characters, plots, etc. is because somewhere food – that specific dish – is more temporal whereas writing has a sense of permanence to it. Or so I used to think. In the last two weeks I have followed something which I have not in the last many, many years – a routine. There is a time and place for everything – reading, running, cooking, writing. Whilst following the routine pedantically, I realized the shallowness of my approach towards cooking. Fixing dinner for myself on a regular basis I realized that it was only my delusion to think that I was a better cook than a writer or at least less inhibited. My cooking – interesting, nevertheless – was very limiting. I found myself to be as apprehensive a cook as a writer – if I qualify as that. The scope I set out for my dinners was very narrow. The spices, arrangement of ingredient, consistency was repetitive to death. So, whilst every night I was having something different – in terms of ingredients – it all tasted the same for the spices, arrangement, and the consistency were just the same. To my horror, the realization dawned upon my frail self that my writing would also be suffering from similar predicament. Since then I decided to take matters in own hands to sort out my cooking and writing. I may never turn out to a cook or an author people turn to for recipes or stories but, for myself, I will know that I tried my best even if it was not good enough.

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Crisis red hot: a rather public sort of a statement

Tripta — 2008-11-10T19:07:59Z

Every once so often I have a crisis. I am weaning out of a crisis as such at the moment. The crisis have no bearings or grounding in anything ‘real’: getting fired, running out of next month’s rent, being dumped, falling in love miserably or waking up with a limb missing. During these times, or when speaking of these times, fragile friends, promising acquaintances or fake lovers ask, ‘what happened? What went wrong? What precipitated it? You were just fine until the night before’, I have no answers. My logic and rationality is tested. Until now – lacking a ‘real, rational’ reason for my crisis – I had convinced myself it is a matter of hormones, lunar cycles or genetically transmitted madness. After one of these numbing crises, I had decided, sworn myself into a solemn vow, that I shall not seek the aid of pills, pink plastic blades or noose around my neck when lacking in emotions, rationality and logic. It is too messy to wake up in your own filth.

I have kept that promise to myself.

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The long and short of it: Published and still running

Tripta — 2008-09-02T06:11:09Z

I am a published writer now.

Here here here ....

What if it's only 350 of the initially 1200 words written? What if the world is not heralding me as the writer of the millennium? What if the governments of different countries have not come forth to support my skills, talent, and intuitive intelligence? What if I am writing this blog early in the day when I should be finishing my thesis, writing the novel of the century, or the definitive collection of short stories?

I derive pleasure out of small things in life; in this case, a 350 word article in a weekly magazine. Courtesy good friends, Aa. and P., I got to celebrate the moment as if I had been nominated for the Nobel. I might never get a Nobel but I definitely know how it would feel if I got one.

After waking up with hangover, clinging on to a vodka soiled copy of Tehelka, and wondering where the fans (read: young boys and girls who would willingly sit at my feet desperately awaiting words of wisdom) are, I decided to evaluate my position as a 'writer' critically.

While re-reading the 350 words I had written for the 600th time, I struck me that there was something disturbing about it after all. To state the obvious, my piece is about running which I have taken up a few months back, I enjoy running so much that I have given up smoking, a habit of 13 years, to be able to run better, and I can have long conversations about different techniques of running. Not writing, mind you. All this makes me very healthy. My lungs are swelling, not lacking breath, but the new found vigour they have.

All this also makes me share a lot in common with Haruki Murakami. That is slightly disturbing.

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Clowning Around: My B'day wish list, LOV, etc. and all

Tripta — 2008-08-27T07:31:56Z

Not very far into the future, I shall be setting out to live out the 32nd year of my life. My other age-conscious friends, who employ intellectual acrobatics to fight their age, would insist that they are turning 31. Not me. I am not so easily seduced by the fiction/romance of mathematics. In its stead, I think growing old has it merits of which I shall speak of at some other opportune, ripe-enough, moment.

In that future, of being 32, I have decided I want the following:

Boxing gear (Sandbag + Gloves) / 4 GB RAM for my PowerBook G4

Latest 3G iPhone / Champagne with Starwberries

Not necessarily in that order.

I have been getting a lot of flak for being vocal about my desire for an iPhone. I have been called fake and pretensions. Someone even asked me whether somewhere in my family tree there is a yuppie-puppy punjabi from Karol Bagh. I do not blame them, at least, out rightly. I shall just not let them touch my iPhone. As of now, I carry a Noika, the cheapest of their models. Expensive phones do not amuse me. But, heck, people, it's an iPhone. Apple. Mac... those who don't understand that sentiment, I am sorry, but even 'beauty will not be able to your souls'.

Such specific detailed listing of my desires/wishes, I do not recall being able to accomplish earlier. My refrain in those moments of deep questioning was 'I don't know. I really don't know'.

But I know now. And what still, I can justify every of the wishes listed.

Is it, I wonder, a severe case of Nicotine deficiency? Is the lack of it clearing my system towards higher austere destinations or is it (the lack) surreptitiously taking over my system making me into an iPhone carrying, Kidrock listening, The Secret reading (and worse still believing in it, is the universe at large conspiring for me to have that iphone) person.

Or. Or. Or …

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Bottom biting: Irresistible as Chocolate

Tripta — 2008-08-25T07:12:40Z

Anyone - with half an ounce of grey cells and a sense of humour - who has seen the ‘Dark Temptation: Irresistible as Chocolate’ Axe advert will call it anything but ‘indecent, repulsive, and obscene’. This is how MIB has categorized it and urges the advertisers “to refrain from airing the said advertisement”.

The narrative sequence of the advert, bordering between surrealistic and science fiction, is not too complicated. A man, getting dressed, spray himself, generously, with the Axe deodrant, Dark Temptation, and on his way out he transforms into a ‘Chocolate boy’. And, well, women want to, hmm…, eat him up because he’s made of chocolate. While walking the road, he sweetly offers a bit of his ‘chocolate’ nose to women eating ice-cream as flavouring (was this the repulsive bit?). Visiting another sick woman-friend, he wiggles his ‘chocolate’ hand to amuse her. It does bring out a darn’ good smile on her face. My favourite bit of the advert is when traveling in a bus, a woman, nonchalantly bites into his bottom for a piece of his, well, ‘chocolate’ bottom. Sweet! (On second thoughts, was this the vulgar and indecent bit?)

I am not too keen on chocolate. I do not think I would flutter, if man smelling of chocolate is passing by. I like sweat and grime. I do. I watched the advert, over and over again, to figure what the ‘indecent, repulsive, and vulgar’ bits. On the third viewing, the advert was outright hilarious and anything but sexual.

The ‘chocolate’ man seems like as if he is high on LSD. The smirk is permanent and suggests some serious damage to important parts of the brain. The smile, the eyes, the walk, the look do not drive the women; they just want the chocolate. The man seems to incidental to the whole situation.

I would admit, it is a slightly over-the-top advert but it catches one’s attention and, I reckon, does what it is supposed to do, convince men that if they use this deodorant strange women would want to bite into their bottoms. Is that the message? It did not work on me. I do not fancy either chocolate or ‘chocolate’ men. I will not want my man to smell of chocolate. It’s like having a deodorant which smells like Pepperoni Pizza. I know, I know … for the chocolate lovers, this is a deeming comparison but I do not know any better. What chocolate does to you, Pepperoni does for me.

Ah, well ….

And, is biting into the bottom really that ‘vulgar or obscene’? I think not.

There could be very serious, sexual implications of biting into bottoms but that is not what this advert projects.

The kind of bottom-biting this advert professes is that of the Sunday-afternoon-lazing-around nursing-hangover-semi-naked-but-not-sexed-out-loving-in-between-zodiac-reading-munching-into-the-lover’s-bottom.

It is actually kinda’ quite cute. Maybe I will take to chocolates, finally.

Manufacturing Crisis: On still being a non-smoker

Tripta — 2008-08-23T22:00:00Z

Rr. reckons that most of my crisis are manufactured. He pays no attention to my long, ramblings when I call him to update about the latest crisis I am going through. Not surprisingly, I got the same cold shoulder when I called him in between his preoccupied with early-afternoon-Sunday-things hour (read: reading columns, grinning, and saying it to himself or me, when I am on the other side of the phone, I would have done it 500 times better). He hummed. I have a feeling when I was venting out, he actually clipped his nails, maybe even painted them pink, who knows?

The crisis – to get the obvious out of the way – it is not difficult, actually it has been quite easy, for me to be a non-smoker.

I know, at the most superficial level, it does not seem like one, but, hear me out.

Well, as is well known, I gave up smoking. It has been five days. I celebrated my last cigarette. I was ready with dignified resilience to welcome the pains of quitting smoking; the irritability, the sweaty palms, the urge to eat three kgs of chocolate, the need to dismember someone’s body parts, and the stomach crams. With arms wide open, I was ready for the temptations to throng. In this suffering, I was convinced lay my redemption. I would become a better person. I was actually hoping for a halo around the head.

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On quitting: Being a Non-Smoker

Tripta — 2008-08-20T18:35:37Z

I had my last, celebratory, cigarette an hour back.

In preparation, I made exotic Rose tea sprinkled with Jasmine leaves, I worked on the lighting in the room, I spent precious minutes contemplating the music to play at the significant moment, I fluffed the cushion I intended to rest my back on, and kept the book I am reading at the moment, a Philip Roth, at a hand’s distance. Also, the ashtray. I wanted the moment to be perfect. The celebrations divine.

As I sat on a wide, circular chair, a prized possession of mine, and lit the last of the cigarettes I would ever smoke, or so I hope, I reached out neither to the books, teas, or the music I had carefully laid. In its stead, each puff of that cigarette took me on a rollercoaster ride through the last 13 years, the time I have been a smoker.

I started smoking when I was 19 not to look cool but to stay awake at night, believe it or not, to read. It was only a year later when I joined JNU that I started smoking publicly in canteens with sweetened cups of tea and later, Beer, and then Rum, mostly. In the last 13 years, I have had lovers but never a non-smoker. Now when I reflect, I think, was it destiny or there is an unsaid law of attraction between smokers. Did I, during this time, repel non-smokers? Will non-smokers now feel irresistible pull towards me? Was my Prince Charming, I wonder now, a non-smoker who trotted away when he spotted the smoke or was it the stale smell?

I am confident about my decision not to be a smoker. I have my reasons, health being the least of the concerns. However, I have not metamorphosed into a berating, you-are-killing-yourself-and-everyone-else-around-you, you-smell-stale, non-smoker. So rest in peace all the smokers out there, do not fret; I am still on your side, conceptually.

For me, the world was - and maybe still is though the boundaries have got a bit blurred - divided into people who read and those who do not, and people who smoke and those who do not. The closest of my friends are voracious readers and heavy smokers. It is not my fault that I made the obvious connection between cerebral activity and dense smoke. As mentioned earlier, I have never had a single non-smoker lover.

Will I now take a smoker as a lover?

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Desperate writers and patient friends

Tripta — 2008-08-20T09:03:32Z

Roberto Bolano in ‘The Savage Detectives’ profiles the desperate writer and reader. This literature, the desperate one, is “… of resentment, full of sharp instruments and lynched messiahs’.

A desperate writer is one who is impressed by his/her cleverness. So enamored, not always arrogantly or confidently, is the writer with his/her own emotions and devices that these form crucial elements of the plot, narrative, and climax in all their narratives. The writing is clever, indeed. However, the sole purpose of writing as such is to express an emotion (usually the same one) to evoke reactions. It is excessively self-indulgent. It does not challenge to take either the form or the idea to its limits. It pleases itself with what it can do exclusively for the writer. The world of writing as a technique, as meditations, as mediations does not exist as possibilities for writers as such. They live (and write) in insulated worlds.

I know enough about desperate writers because until not very long time back, I was one of them. It is still very easy, out of habit, to let the desperation reveal itself. However, in the last few years, I have cemented friendships with those who are writers but not of the desperate kinds. They have read my long, unyielding, passages patiently only to tell I am affecting everything a bit too much. It took time but I have started to see their point of view. Thanks.

Rr., you are not a pompous ass just a bloody fine critic. If you reviewed all the books after reading them, let me tell you, you wouldn’t have many friends!

I re-wrote the desperate piece of last night. The comments were helpful.

Nehru Place: Re-written

Tripta — 2008-08-20T08:57:01Z

I often spend time staring at the ceiling. It is a meditative indulgence for me, a ritual that legitimizes my procrastinations.

I spent the last weekend ceiling-staring. However, it was neither voluntary nor meditative and calming. At loss of finding myself incapable of doing anything else, I sought resort in staring at the ceiling. This was not part of an articulated action plan either. It happened. The ceiling was there and I had nowhere to go. I found myself, during those 48 hours, incapable of conducting basic, everyday activities. The prospect of fetching water, even when the tongue felt heavy and sub-Saharan sun parched, felt like a Herculean task. This is after I spent almost an hour understanding the demands of my body; namely, dehydration. I lost all control over my body-mind coordination. The signals sent from the mind to the body, and vice versa, were lost or dropped in the labyrinth of my being somewhere in between. My brain felt like jelly. It swayed, at will, from one end of my skull to other refusing to respond to any of the commands I weakly tried to formulate. There was a desperate disconnect between my body, soul, and mind.

In that listless state I realized (or maybe it is a retrospective insight), my lack of belief, sense of purpose, and ambition vis-à-vis life. Worse still was the awareness that I did not expect or aspire for belief, purpose, or ambition even for myself. My life, until then, felt like a series of coincides, more often than not, working in my favour. However hard I tried, I could not think of one moment, an instance, or a decision which I had undertaken proactively. Neither could I think of a time when I had assumed responsibility for my actions. Then, I think I understood what they mean by the numbness which pervades the minds of the young compelling them to take up arms and shoot random people. It is not boredom. I did not feel bored. It was, for me, a state where my mind stood isolated incapable of initiating symbiotic relationship with systems outside of itself. The mind (brain) seemed intent on exhausting its own possibility at its own cost.

Early next morning, instinctively, coincidentally, or proactively – I still do not know, I was at Nehru Place.

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Nehru Place: Rain soiled, ant infested books

Tripta — 2008-08-19T15:43:37Z

The last weekend I spent staring at the ceiling. It usually is a very satisfying experience, intellectually, emotionally, and otherwise, offering perspectives into matters not easily discernable. In short, it is a sort of a meditative experience for me. Also, a very valid excuse to continue procrastinating, not to read or write, not to call up people, not to answer phone calls, and have long conversations with imaginary friends and lovers. I don't smoke enough anymore. Otherwise, the ceiling staring ritual was always performed through a cloud of dense, stale, tobacco smoke.

Last weekend it was not so. I did not gain any significant perspective. I was not procrastinating. Rather I had arrived at that transcendal stage where I was not even aware of procrastination and the Christian guilt. Or the piles of work I had to get through. I was staring at the ceiling because that was the only thing I could possibly do. I had suddenly lost powers (or is that abilities? am I confusing powers with abilities? are all abilities powers ... I am rambling and you will know why shortly) to frame one articulate sentence. My brain felt like a jelly. It swayed at will from one end of my skull to other refusing to respond to any of the commands I was trying to desperately send out. There was a desperate disconnect between my body, soul, and mind.

I had negotiate through labyrinthine of images and sensations, a tortoise with its back rolled in the afternoon in a sub-Saharan desert, vivid images of different shapes and sizes of parched, water starved tongues, to articulate that what I desperately needed was a glass of chilled water. Even then, I could not shift myself from the couch I was seemingly stuck to or yell out to loving friends or family to fetch me a glass of water. I felt a helplessness of the kinds I haven't experienced before. Suddenly it began to become evident to me that circulation to the areas of my brain which responded to basic fundamental needs, intellectual inquisitions, romantic endeavours and listless imaginations was curtailed. While I was at it, I also realized lack of any sense of purpose, ambition or intent in my life which seemingly drives other people to do things, undertake actions. I do not aspire to own a house, have savings, or children. I desire to be rich and famous but my imagination fails when I have to pursue the line of thought as to what exactly shall make me rich and famous. I do want to win a Nobel for literature but strongly habour the hope that they would give it to me before a single word written by me is published so that I can pursue wanting to write.

In that moment, I understood the listlessness which has often been cited as the reason for young Americans to pick up arms and shoot random people. I knew if I did not shake myself off this limbo, I would, if not procure arms and ammunitions, be addicted to the extended-incestuous family soaps dominating the afternoon Indian television. The thought of that was nothing less than horrific.

When in a state as such, I don't visit a shrink, call faithful friends, ex-lovers, get drunk or pay homage to one of the many temples in Delhi. In its stead, I go to Nehru Place. Early in the morning.

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