just a ride...

i'm goin to dash off a post while i still can...in between the cleaning of the room (which is just a giant excuse to listen to music really loudly, dance around and sing at the top of my lungs) and univ starting tomorrow...so therefore i'm going to cheat. slightly readymade post, like one of those instant mix cakes or cookies...i'm not starting from scratch - i'm goin to quote a song which seems appropriate for how i'm feeling right now.

"Life, it's ever so strange
It's so full of change
Think that you've worked it out then BANG
Right out of the blue
Something happens to you
To throw you off course

and then you
Breakdown
Yeah you breakdown
Well don't you breakdown
Listen to me

Because
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
no need to run, no need to hide
It'll take you round and round
Sometimes you're up
sometimes you're down
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
don't be scared
don't hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
but don't forget it's just a ride... "

----

i'm not sure whats going on. this is a place i have never been, or at least something i haven't even come close to in years...

its amazing, horrifying, scary, wonderfully exciting...a roller coaster ride...complete with butterflies in your stomach.

and i really don't know what to think. for the first time in a long time...

in other news, someone sat on top of me on the train. then i sat on a suitcase for hours. it was cold. my ipod died. i slept clutching Happy. fell off the suitcase in my sleep a couple of times. at which point some nice military guys gave me another suitcase. and a shawl. adventure all the way. =)

also, we apparently now are going to a five star resort for our education rather than a national law university...as if amazing single rooms weren't enough, we now have 7 places in/right outside campus catering to our culinary desires...including outdoor tandoori cooking, gazebos, flowers, 2 caterers in the mess (with food that is even better than before - and it was already pretty damn good), and a tuck shop with 10pm-8am food delivery in hostel =) no more hungry running up and down the halls askin for food...

v (yes, one of the "v" people in my life, no points for guessing who) just got in touch...that was very very random. and well..okay. don't know what to think. don't particularily care it appears. there are no hard feelings left because there never were many strong feelings there in the first place...

doll will be here in 10 minutes!!! =)

here's to that! cheers....

--------edit---------

dec.27

i've been thinking. and i know what i think now. its one of those things that are inexplicably amazing - you've just gotta accept whatever it is and let it be. what is, is. be happy...coz i'm happy. =)

the trippy hippy

i'm staring at the title of this post, because thats all that inspiration saw fit to give me. i have absolutely no idea what to write after that...but i guess it'll work its way in if it was meant to be. how bout i start writing and see where this goes...

you know sometimes life seems to be this paradox - a slow rush. you feel each moment, you live each minute, and you know it...but in great dollops you look back and wonder how you rushed through all that existing.

sometimes in those stretches of time that seem to have passed by so quickly, it feels like you haven't done justice to the one task you're supposed to be carrying out decently properly - living. i mean you figure you have a leg up already considering you're alive, breathing, and all that good stuff...but living properly, doing justice to the fact that each moment exists, well thats apparently way harder than it seems. go figure.

so i guess this is a shout out to me...yay, i'm now blogging to myself as myself...well 'trippy hippy' it is...i guess thats me...you'll get the uncombed hair, barefeet, flower power 'hippy' part in a bit...but the 'trippy' needed a little bit of crazy to be chucked into the mix and here it is...a letter to me, from me.

here is what i have to say...

---

meghana,

you and i should get in touch more. i need to tell you all the things we should do. see there's a long list regarding this whole reconnection deal...i know that university and all those crazy hours and classes and work and six day weeks make it hard, but suck it up. this is you. you're almost done being a teenager. there will never be another day in your life where you can say today is december 18, 2007. ever. think about that. so get on with living already.

i miss wearing tons of black eyeliner and and the freedom to have perpetually uncombed hair (i don't own a comb...i lost my last one years ago). i miss walking around in my barefeet on the grass and down the road, through the acad block...i miss kicking at things (usually walls, not people - however tempting the latter may be) with my ratty, dirty, converse sneaks (the ones with holes and scribbles and writing and the shoelaces with stars on them that make me so happy =))...i want us to have multicolored nails again because having to stare at one color on your hand for days is just way too boring...we love the faded jeans, t-shirts, and dangly earrings, remember? don't forget!

i miss being one with rosita (my acoustic guitar) and i especially miss rubbing that sticker that says "mean people suck" (because damn right they do) for good luck...i want to sing all day long and write down the music in my head...that feeling when the words and the notes and the chords just flow out of you - isn't that just something? indescribable, thats what.

you know, i hate that its winter and i can't pluck a flower and stick it in my hair and that the skies are gray with clouds and i can't feel the sunshine on my face...we should go to the roof of the building and smile up at the sky more often...spinning around, dancing and laughing up there is almost like flying. it feels free and beautiful. makes me want to capture the moment and tuck it away in a little glass bottle and pull it out on rainy dreary days.

i want the time to wander around the city with the camera, taking pictures at random; the time to think through angles and framing and lighting and take the perfect shot...the time to sit in a corner next to the heater, wrapped in a blanket, sipping hot chocolate and writing down random thoughts and lines that'll hopefully one day shape themeselves into poetry, lyrics, stories...i wish we had the time to sit cross-legged on bed and cut up magazines and make collages like we made those ones hanging on the wall...wish we had the time to paint and draw and sketch...its so crazy, that its always about the damned time.

you know, i get the feeling we should dust off those books you haven't read in a while and reread them...like plato and hobbes and voltaire and shakespeare...they used to be your favorites, isn't that right? what about your lists and scrapbooks - things to do, places to visit, people to meet...when was the last time you added something to them? when was the last time you played bridge or spades or hearts or capitalism or spit or speed or egyptian ratscrew (and no, i still have no idea why its called that..seriously, god only knows)? hmm?

nope. no whining and telling me there's no time. there's always time. find it. its there...keeps going on and on in fact. for eternity. there's an endless supply of it. you're smart. you're enterprising. get your hands on some.

you know that other day when i locked myself in a room, turned off the lights, turned up the music, lost ourselves in it, and you danced in my barefeet until we dropped? that was just great. we should do that a lot more. you know i hear music in my head all the time. and i know you want to dance to the music. so let's dance. dance dance dance.

don't forget to live that life you seem to love living (judging by all that smiling and laughing you do when you're actually doing what you want to)...a life full of strawberries, chocolate, green apples, friends, smiles, music, dancing, pragmatism, creativity, silver, lace, lanterns, and giant one-legged stuffed teddy bears called Happy. its yours, you lucky twit. fight for it. hold on to it. don't bloody let it go.

yeah yeah, hugs n kisses. xoxo.

---

jam 'n penguins...

JAM.

i really really love jam.

in english, the word itself has three meanings.

all of them make me happy.

one you can eat. noun. (yummy yummy jam)...one that involves singing and playing. verb. (hey bring your guitar and we'll jam)...and one that could involve inflicting violence on those you don't like. also a verb. (ie. i jammed her toe in the door). this is always nice.

PENGUINS.

i also like penguins.

they're fat, innocent, patient, cute and they waddle.

sugar, music, revenge, and a fluffy animal.

sometimes i think...

life can't get any better than jam and penguins.

it means more to me than...

my passion in life has always been music...

one of my earliest memories is that of my grandfather teaching me to sing a nursery rhyme in malayalam; i still have it recorded on cassette - its one of my most treasured possessions, right up there with my acoustic guitar rosita.

as a child i remember singing incesseantly, sitting behind my dad in the car as we drove through down-town Philly on shivery cold winter nights. it was invariably a christmas carol stuck in my head, or one of the many songs i had learned in chorus or music class. my dad was always the most patient listener, and the feeling his encouraging, albeit slightly distracted, praise gave me is still with me today.

listening to music could always enthrall me for hours on end - i'd just revel in the perfect change of key, the movement from major to minor, the sweetest harmony, the heartbreakingly haunting melody - all of these had the power to move me like nothing else. i could pick apart songs and the experience of listening as the pieces came together, blended and fell into this incredible tapestry of notes and rhythms and patterns was, and still is, utterly indescribable. a lot of people like to listen to music, but this was always something deeper for me - when i've tried to tell others, most don't understand. it sounds cliched but its like i'm one with the music, like i'm part of it, not an observer standing and looking, but rather an integral part of that tapestry, woven into it. i'm an agnostic, but maybe thats because i already have my fix of religious experience...

i wrote my first song when i was 7, and it was improv. i sat in the back of the car one day and told my dad there was a new song i had learned in school today...and proceeded to sing for half an hour about sesame street. he was very supportive (though not fooled for a second, i'm sure) and the thrill i felt that my song, my creation, was good enough to be passed of as something learned in a real class, shook me to my bones. i squirmed and giggled in the backseat, having discovered something new to music, something even apart from singing. that i could write songs, put more of myself into it, have a deeper connection with the music.

my first love when it came to instruments was the flute. it was something i had a natural talent for, despite the fact that at 9 my fingers were too small to reach all the keys properly. i just kept playing and playing, and for me practicing never felt like practice...it was just pure joy. by the time i was 12 i was far-advanced for my years - never a prodigy, mind you, but talented neverthless. first chair was mine, so was district and state level orchestra.

and for this reason, playing the flute in band and orchestra, western classical will always have a special place in my heart - beethoven, motzart, bach, chopin, debussey, devienne...they are talent the like of which the world will never see again, genius that can never be reproduced. when you finish playing one of their pieces, you enjoy every bar but you also get the sense of a vision, an overall picture that you could never have imagined until you experienced it the way they wanted you to.

when i was 13, i auditioned for my school's jazz ensemble. jazz is an artform like no other, wilder and more free than everything that preceded it...it requires a feel for music that no one can give you, it just has to be in your soul...when you play something like scott joplin's the entertainer, when you get to the end of a measure, its almost like the improv solo is no work...your mind doesn't work, your fingers just move, and what comes out is what is just right...no explanation or understanding needed.

at the same time, around the age of 9, i discovered pop music, courtesy of an uncle that knew little girls needed britney spears, backstreet boys and nsync...from there i discovered the radio...and slowly my musical tastes evolved and became more diverse...pop to soft rock to rock. i wrote sappy love songs that, when i look back at them now, make me want to vomit =)

the cd that changed my life was "yourself or someone like you" by matchbox twenty. i still maintain that rob thomas is one of the most naturally talented songwriters in the world. capturing raw emotion with lyric and melody is something no one else can do quite like him. i started to write songs about my life (a more than usually horrid home situation and a lot of teenage angst and self-pity helps here) and they meant more to me than anything had in my whole 12 years of existence...i'd finally found a way to deal with my emotions, get them out on paper and into a melody...and i knew then that this was what i wanted to do with my life.

...i started to record myself singing and the first time i played my own voice back i cried. it was truly horrible, no other word for it. so i sang and i sang - through classes, on buses, through sore throats, at night, on the streets, in subways. i'd sing the same song 50 times in a row until it was perfect. i developed my ear and my voice and started to feel the music when i sang...this is the only thing in my whole life i've had a boundless supply of patience for.

my friends (the most amazing in the world, without whom i'd never have got through those years and emerged remotely sane) got me an acoustic guitar for my 13th birthday. i'm pretty sure that was the happiest day of my life. i taught myself to play and it got easier to write songs. before, the only obstacle i'd found it impossible to surmount was that you couldn't sing and play flute at the same time. but now i played for hours, until my fingers blistered and cut and bled.

every free waking hour was spent listening to music or singing or playing guitar/flute or writing. i fronted a band, sang on streets for money, played some gigs, shows and concerts, was a weirdly nerdy, snotty little punk who'd sit backstage in all black, converse, and tons of black eyeliner, waiting to go on stage, and read plato or listen to backstreet boys. 90% of the people there were busy being cool but all i cared about was the music. i've mellowed out of that goth look a whole lot, but the feeling i get when i perform has never changed. i'm pretty shy in person, not very outgoing unless i'm around certain people or in certain moods. i've never had stage fright because when i perform, i lose myself. still, in the earlier days, my voice would shake when i sang in front of others because it was so damn important to me, i couldn't bear the thought of it not being received well.

but now i don't care...i've grown up and grown more confident. my musical tastes have expanded as i've become more openminded...i can listen and appreciate almost any song, the emotion, the skill, and the thought behind it. but rock is still the music of my heart and music itself is still is the most powerful force i've encountered. it can make me dance, it can make me cry, it can make shiver, it can make me lose myself in it like nothing else can. given any situation, any emotion, i could probably express myself best with a song. my love letters can be played on an ipod, and i think if i really fell in love, i'd sing for that person and it would be the most perfect thing in the world.

all i know is...i can't imagine my life without music, and this is what i want to do with my life. i maybe a law student, i may even be a lawyer in a few years...but in my heart, and one day in reality, i will always be an artist- because thats what musicians are, artists of the purest form of art ever created.

makes me wonder...

how can you look at something like this and not be amazed at all the beauty in the world?

taken bangalore 2005

A Translation

here's a little translation really quickly...

i need to explain the title of this blog. its a verse from one of my favorite poems, a poem which is both simple and beautiful. for me thats always been what i like in a poem - not somebody showing off an incredible vocabulary because thats not soul. soul is finding the right words, simple as they may be. not too much. not too little. just enough to say exactly what you want to say and not overdo it.

jose julian marti was born on the 28th of january 1853 in havana cuba. artist, intellectual, leader of men, vanguard of a new age, "yo soy un hombre sincero [i am a sincere man]" is the most famous of his collection of poems "versos sencillos [simple verses]"

here's a quote with translation below each verse. much prettier in spanish.

yo soy un hombre sincero
de donde crece la palma
y antes de morirme quiero
echar mis versos de alma

i am a smiple man
from where the palm tree grows
and before i die, i want
to write down the verses of my soul

...todo es hermoso y constante
todo es musica y razon
y todo, como el diamante,
antes de luz es carbon...

everything is beautiful and constant
everything is music and light
and everything, like the diamond
before light is carbon


this is a blog mostly filled with original poetry and lyrics. if by any chance your eye happens to be irresistibly drawn towards this blog's archives (it's to your right...**sparkle sparkle** and that's the good karma that will come your way if you feed the cute cuddly ego monster), you click on a link and read it - and it evokes any reaction of any sort - please do remember that your comment would be greatly appreciated. judging by the fact that the current readership of this blog all of whom i know personally and could never form a quartet even if they wanted to (yes, i'm trying to say i have less than 4 readers, but also, in the spirit of full discolsure, it should be confessed that they don't play any instruments - so that would be an equally legitimate obstacle), yours will be the definitive word on the subject. which is an almost 100% guarantee that there will be no one to disagree and troll you in the comments section - and there aren't too many places can you get that on the internet, dearest reader. i say "almost 100%" because depending on the nature of your comment there may exist the slim possibility that i will troll you in the comments section. :)

you have been warned! (and enticed? hopefully enticed too.)

versos sencillos

pues, necesito explicar el origen del titulo de esta blog.

es un verso de una de mis poemas favoritas, un poema lindo y sencillo. porque esta es la calidad que a mi, me encanta en un poema. las palabras complicadas no estan necesitas - no necesitas demostrarme que tienes un vocabulario increible - tener esa habilidad no dice nada sobre el alma de la poema. nada demasiado poco, nada mucho - bastante.

Jose julian marti nacio en la habana, cuba el 28 de enero de 1853. artista, intelectual, quia de hombres y vanguardia de una epoca - "yo soy un hombre sincero" es la mas famosa de sus poemas, "versos sencillos"...

yo soy un hombre sincero
de donde crece la palma
y antes de morirme quiero
echar mis versos de alma

yo vengo de todas partes
y hacia de todas partes voy
arte soy entre las artes
en los montes, monte soy

yo se los nombres extranos
de las yerbas y las flores
y mortales eganos
y de sublimes dolores

yo he visto en la noche oscura
llover sobre mi cabeza
los rayos de lumbre pura
de la divina belleza...

todo es hermoso y constante
todo es musica y razon
y todo, como el diamante,
antes de luz es carbon...

hmm...

this is a new blog. it is private. that means only three people should be reading it.

i hate studying. i hate that its hot. i hate dust. and i hate washing clothes.

i hate oily hair. i hate hairy people. i hate hair in my food. i hate the mess food.

i love baby birds. i love baby dogs. i love baby cats. i love baby dolls.

puedo hablar las lenguas que yo uso en mis escritos.

oh yeah, for all those uninvited readers (read one), good to see you've changed the walk. gotta be careful not to drive all those hormone-charged boys wild =)

now let me go see about australia. and my passport. and my visa. and...and...all those IMPORTANT things i have to do. too busy...where's my phone? where's my phone????